tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14044229581770594642023-11-16T02:39:44.087-05:00Scriptum OblivionisThis is Scriptum Oblivionis, my blog for Warhammer, my own universe I'm building through video games and novels, and anything else creative I do.Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-61434213134865413222017-08-06T10:51:00.001-04:002017-08-06T10:51:30.668-04:00The True Horror of Heroes of the Storm I'd say my life has become a living hell, but I've been to Hell, and this is worse.<br />
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<a name='more'></a> I don't know how long it's been since they took me. Years, at least. Maybe longer. Our memories fade as the battles blur together. We can't die, either. Well, we die, over and over and over again, but every time we're brought back to fight again. There's no escape.<br />
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There I was, minding my own business, when suddenly I was plucked from my world. I found myself in this "Nexus", some sort of interdimensional battleground, ruled over by a pantheon of gods who want us to fight for their amusement, to settle bets, to be used as proxies in wars between each other. I've watched two of them squabble over the exact same piece of land for years uncounted now. I've fought on both sides of their conflict, destroying towers that simply rebuild themselves over and over. We've all fought on both sides, uncaring who ultimately wins, because we all know we'll be back to fight over it again before long. Sometimes the Nexus bleeds into these worlds, and we fight over pieces of them. I've watched an angel and a demon locked into a battle as eternal and pointless as anything we do, but still they fight on as well.<br /><br /> Some of the other "heroes" here, I recognize. Other champions from my own world, some of whom I'm happy to fight alongside, some of whom I'd rather fight against, but none of us have any choice. Others are from other worlds entirely. Somehow our worlds are all linked through the Nexus, and the gods keep pulling more of us from each of these worlds to fight for them. I don't know how many more they'll pull into the Nexus until they're satisfied. Maybe they'll never stop.<br />
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I've lost count of how many times I've died. Thousands, at least. Tens of thousands, maybe. Hundreds of thousands? Wouldn't surprise me. I've been stabbed, shot, burned, frozen, and hacked to death. I've been killed by giant cannonballs from the sky. Beaten to death by a 30-foot demon. Stepped on by a plant monster. I've even been slapped to death with a fish by a baby murloc. I've died by stepping on a biological land mine. Death has even come at the hands of the minions the gods create in never-ending waves to fight each other. Sometimes I envy the minions. They're not sentient, unaware that their purpose is to die for us. They just charge forward, always acting as if they're the first wave ever created, entirely dedicated to their purpose.<br />
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Sometimes, I just can't take it any more, and I let them kill me, hoping it'll end. Every time I die, I think maybe, just maybe, this is the last time. This time, it'll be forever, and I can finally rest. But no, as the blackness takes me, I'm reborn again to keep fighting. The gods don't care if I'm willing or not, if I try or not, I won't be released. So I mount up and get back in the fight to die again.<br /><br /> It's not that they even really punish us, outside of keeping us here for centuries against our will (though supposedly a few of us came here voluntarily for their own reasons, I just can't wrap my head around it). The rewards of victory is a short reprieve from the fighting, until we're chosen to fight again. There are towns, cities, and people that live here, going about their own lives, as if the battles we fight are the most ordinary things in the world. Sometimes they watch and cheer us on, though I wonder how much of that is just for show, like what we do.<br />
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With more of us being pulled in, the reprieves between fighting sometimes gets longer. The favor of the gods waxes and wanes. Some of us are favored more, and get chosen more often, until their time becomes nothing but a blur of battle with no rest between. Then the favor falls from them, and they're allowed some modicum of rest.<br />
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The weird thing is, none of us talk about all this. It's only discussion of the last battle, or the next, or hurling ourselves into whatever distractions we can find between the battles with reckless abandon. We were allowed to have a summer party, and so we all went full tilt into it, as if it would be the last thing we ever did. We grin and smile for the gods, desperate to have the distractions carry on just a little longer, just a little more time without battle.<br /><br /> Uther is the most broken of all of us, I think. Not that you can tell by looking at him. From the outside, he looks like he's fully embraced the madness of this place, he's accepted it more than any of the rest of us. His enthusiasm for what we do is almost infectious at times. Almost. For a long time I didn't understand why he seemed so devoted to these games, but I've learned from others that he knows what fate awaits him once he leaves the Nexus. He's desperate for the battles to never end.<br />
<br /> They say, when they're done, we'll eventually be returned to the same instant we left, with no memories at all of our time here. When will that be? I can't say. I'm pretty sure it's already been centuries for most of us. We die and come back at the exact same age as when we started, so we're as unchanging as the battles we fight. Maybe the promise of returning us is just a lie meant to give us some vague comfort, some sense of motivation to fight as hard as we can. And we all believe it. Like so much else, we have no real choice. Believe the lie, or give in to the madness.<br />
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And so we fight. We murder each other for the amusement of cruel gods. We tear down their fortresses and towers, destroy their cores, only for all of it to be rebuilt and the fight begun anew. We laugh and taunt each other as we do so, we dance and cheer. But as we fight, as we scream and roar with exultant triumph, I see the desperation in the eyes of everyone around me. Desperation for this living hell to end. But it won't. It never will.Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-63004242653084567362017-08-04T10:17:00.000-04:002017-08-04T10:18:35.900-04:00Painting Lords of Oblivion - part 3You'd think after fifteen years in this hobby, I'd learn to be a faster painter. But nope. It's just not going to happen, I guess.<br />
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Anyway, here's part three!<br />
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I'm actually gonna go over bases first, since I worked on some of them for the Golden Rhino tournament. I use a flagstone theme for the Lords of Oblivion.<br />
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These bases are going to come out looking a little different from the existing bases in my army, but unfortunately, there's not much I can do about that, as the colors I used before simply don't exist any more. They were mostly done with the old Citadel Foundation paints. I still kinda miss some of those colors.<br />
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Anyway, here's what I can do with what I've got.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI4F3H1mLrwHUmrflTfZoTXWyeFir1O8VOM1XYjzeQZePaJ_hbcuCm7BhL7NAkt65hU-ZDsmvsAeyqtw52no2CHx0NuZPswSk_4IuYnbmnljefkCLOzySwAqNAXK50XiuiDd-nv4X2UHg/s1600/IMG_20170717_183221.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="834" data-original-width="1600" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI4F3H1mLrwHUmrflTfZoTXWyeFir1O8VOM1XYjzeQZePaJ_hbcuCm7BhL7NAkt65hU-ZDsmvsAeyqtw52no2CHx0NuZPswSk_4IuYnbmnljefkCLOzySwAqNAXK50XiuiDd-nv4X2UHg/s640/IMG_20170717_183221.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
First up for the base colors, I did Khorne Red, Steel Legion Drab, and Macragge Blue. I know it looks more like stained glass right now, but we'll get that taken care of.<br />
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Next I run watered down Rhinox Hide into all the cracks between the stones, plus non-watered along the edges of the bases. On further consideration afterwards, I probably should have just painted the whole bases in the color before I did the base color on the stones, it would have probably gone slightly faster than trying to be careful doing it in just the cracks. Oh well, live and learn.</div>
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After that comes a heavy wash of Agrax Earthshade, everyone's favorite. Of course details start showing up on the bases, but we're just getting started on that.<br />
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Once the wash is dried, I do a heavy drybrush of Baneblade Brown. This of course starts highlighting the raised areas, and begins to really start to wash out the color, making the various tiles more uniform, but still looking like different kinds of stone were used.<br />
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I do a second, very light, wash of Agrax again to balance out the heavy drybrushing, then a light drybrush of Ushabti Bone for the most raised areas. Quite a transformation from the start, huh? Since the older bases have "moss" sculpted into them, and these don't, not sure why, I added a few tufts of grass to further help them match the previous bases.<br />
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OK, NOW we'll actually cover some highlighting. I do a two-stage process for both the green and blue.<br />
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Stage one for the green is done with 75% Warpstone Glow, and 25% Dark Angels Green added so it's better chromatically linked to the existing main color. Pretty standard process, thick lines along any edges on the armor. As it is right now, obviously it's a bit subtle. I had also already done full highlighting on the scaled shoulderpads, mostly through drybrushing.<br />
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Stage two is 75% Moot Green, and 25% Warpstone Glow. Take a tiny brush, and run a thin line of the stuff along just the very edges of the armor. It's a little on the extreme side, I guess, but it really pops on the tabletop with a full army of them. I actually used to go all the way to Scorpion Green, when that paint was still a thing, but I suppose that might have been going a little too far, heh.<br />
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Finally, highlighting for the blue parts of the armor. Thankfully this part is way faster than the green, since there's a lot less armor to highlight. Man, just the legs alone on these guys... frigging GW and their obsession with adding a bajillion little details to everything.<br />
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Anyway, stage one highlighting for blue is 75% Teclis Blue, 25% Altdorf Guard Blue. Same principles as the green, helps create a more subtle blend.<br />
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And lastly we do a highlight of 75% Lothern Blue and 25% Teclis Blue along the very edges of everything. Again, faster than the blue. I think it comes out as a slightly less stark highlight than the green, perhaps because the base color for the blue is lighter than the base green. Either way, these guys are finally starting to look ready for the battlefield.</div>
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Next time we'll go over the final details, and wrap things up!<br />
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Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-2966923399892082122017-07-18T10:00:00.000-04:002017-07-18T10:00:27.619-04:00Painting Lords of Oblivion - Part 2I could have sworn I hit that publish button last week... Oops. Well, anyway, here's part two of painting the Lords of Oblivion!<br />
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So, we'll start off with the gold. I'll focus mainly on the sergeant for this part.<br />
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First up is a base coat of Balthasar Gold. This'll take two thin coats like always. THIN YA PAINTS!<br />
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Next I cover everything in a coat of Vallejo's Old Gold. There's not really a Citadel equivalent color. It's a nice, darker shade of gold that has a slightly more antiquated look to it. I like it, I think it looks slightly more realistic than the bright shiny stuff (Because realism is super-important when painting your giant superhuman soldier dudes).<br />
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Since I'm a genius who always pays attention, I forgot to take a picture of the next step, which is to give it a thin wash of Agrax Earthshade. This, of course, shades the recessed areas. Next I do a very light drybrush on the raised areas with Vallejo's...Polished Gold, I think it was called. I'm not sure, the text has completely faded off the label. It's a nice step between Old Gold and Citadel's Burnished Gold.<br /><br />Finally, I did a very thin coat of Lamenter's Yellow glaze to bring the shine back out and smooth over the color transitions.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyIj2IhS70Ry7FDoOiVgtFkFv8odrTtW4UFz7Z2DB9nphvN4fKd9azam517rxOTKfkiS6VbcgUQp3NFeO3MKHuDSySAwLhTy9UiXppPgPB6VqlEZcLIGB4r_zNyWesbtXobXbmjIzsb2w/s1600/IMG_20170623_231630.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="546" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyIj2IhS70Ry7FDoOiVgtFkFv8odrTtW4UFz7Z2DB9nphvN4fKd9azam517rxOTKfkiS6VbcgUQp3NFeO3MKHuDSySAwLhTy9UiXppPgPB6VqlEZcLIGB4r_zNyWesbtXobXbmjIzsb2w/s640/IMG_20170623_231630.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Next up is that sexy, sexy bare skin. Again, using the sergeant here, as he's the only one with any showing in the squad. Nice and simple to start, just a couple coats of Cadian Fleshtone, get a smooth cover, not worried too much about the eyes right now, I'll get to those later.<br />
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After that I actually do highlighting. Might be a little hard to see, but some Kislev Flesh on the raised areas gets the contrast started.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNJvbTcTthTn1NVet3qn6TbO102fJqHjx5DHs8OjsMDCgw3jFLD1ydZX95jyECaj5VXaPzaWxkA-CrBTvlrs5BEda0V26qmh1Dqby1-vzcH79S66O4ryCjeh9OKiUYoBzu4ZRSh4WEaDw/s1600/IMG_20170623_233124.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="524" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNJvbTcTthTn1NVet3qn6TbO102fJqHjx5DHs8OjsMDCgw3jFLD1ydZX95jyECaj5VXaPzaWxkA-CrBTvlrs5BEda0V26qmh1Dqby1-vzcH79S66O4ryCjeh9OKiUYoBzu4ZRSh4WEaDw/s640/IMG_20170623_233124.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
This is followed up with a wash of the fan-f**king-tastic Reikland Fleshshade. Like, seriously, I love this stuff. It's useful pretty much no matter what skin tone you're going for. And by putting it over the highlights, as you can see, it smooths the transitions considerably. It also brought out a lovely little detail I never noticed previously, the sergeant having a scar through his lip. Very nice touch by GW there.<br /><br />I make sure to use a fine detail brush and run a little extra of the stuff along the edges with his comms gear and hairline, for a clear demarcation between them.<br />
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Back to the squad as a whole, it's time for shading on the armor. So I actually don't like Nuln Oil for this, it comes out a little too shiny I think. Instead, I take Abaddon Black and heavily water it down, plus add a drop of "special sauce". The sauce is an empty eyedropper bottle from Vallejo, filled almost entirely with plain pure water, but with a drop of dish soap added and shaken thoroughly.<br />
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A drop of this stuff added to paint on your pallet will drastically reduce the surface tension of it, thanks to the soap, making it flow more readily into recesses. Perfect for making something work better for shading. I thin the paint until it's not much thicker than water, but it's a tricky balance getting it just right. Too thin and it won't show up very well when it's painted on.<br /><br />Anyway, once it's at the right consistency, I grab a fine detail brush and run the stuff into all the various recesses on each model. All the crevices in the armor, a little on the flexible joint parts to turn them back to black, all the corners, cracks, nooks, crannies, etc. Even just these five guys took a couple hours. I dunno if I'm just really slow at it, but it's a bit of a time-consuming process. Though not nearly as time consuming as highlighting.<br /><br />Speaking of highlighting, that's what I'll be covering in part three!<br />
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Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-69370237446448551332017-06-30T14:48:00.000-04:002017-08-04T10:19:44.411-04:00Painting Lords of Oblivion - Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
So...yeah. Still here. I've been thinking long and hard about what to do about this blog, and eventually I decided to get back to its roots: the Lords of Oblivion. So I'm going to be doing a bunch of stuff related to them, mostly a combination of hobby articles, background lore, and maybe some battle reports. I've also got some opinions/rants about 40K I want to share, so expect those at some point after I spell check the excessive exclamation marks.</div>
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In the meantime, let's do some hobby work!<br />
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Painting Lords of Oblivion - Part 1</h2>
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As I'm sure everyone's aware by now, a new edition of Warhammer 40K has been released. And with it are some new Space Marines, kinda. The Primaris Marines are essentially upgraded Space Marines, even taller and tougher with more advanced wargear. As the Indomitus Crusade sweeps the galaxy, beleaguered Chapters like the Lords of Oblivion receive reinforcements in the form of these new warriors.<br />
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A batch of these new guys seem perfect to go over my process for painting Lords of Oblivion. Here we've got one of the two Intercessor squads the new starter box comes with. I've done some conversion work, of course, to make them more distinctive-looking.</div>
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I added more purity seals and grenades/pouches to the belts, plus some custom shoulder pads I acquired online (after chopping off the existing ones), plus making sure all the bolt rifles have scopes. The chainsword on the sergeant is purely cosmetic at this point, but I'm assuming there'll be wargear options in the inevitable codex coming next month. I might change it out for something else when that happens, we'll see. Anyway, I also gave them Grey Knight helms instead of the new Primaris style, mostly just to be different, but I'm pleased at how well they fit.</div>
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So we begin with the primer, of course, going with Chaos Black spray here. I have easy access to the outside and it's finally not winter, so I can spray stuff outside and not have to hand-prime.</div>
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First step is the green. I use Caliban Green as the base color, done in two thin coats for more even coverage. Apparently some guy named Duncan advocates this method too, but I've been doing it forever.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRDI2UgY0tr_xXM4PSxQZG34Jn5dmqluBcmpYBU55OXA7Rzhv6DzgnDtq0H6dv2kuD2KTOsNKC5uyJd1-pcVZYq6f1fYUDog54emjmGP7bzg29TX_Ty2ODy1kmmWXxFkMZZvK9qwQ129Y/s1600/IMG_20170620_130338.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="787" data-original-width="1600" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRDI2UgY0tr_xXM4PSxQZG34Jn5dmqluBcmpYBU55OXA7Rzhv6DzgnDtq0H6dv2kuD2KTOsNKC5uyJd1-pcVZYq6f1fYUDog54emjmGP7bzg29TX_Ty2ODy1kmmWXxFkMZZvK9qwQ129Y/s640/IMG_20170620_130338.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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With the base color established, it's time for the actual shade of green. I still use Dark Angels Green, of which I managed to snag several pots of from eBay when the revamped line was announced, as I knew I'd need it. Sadly, there's no color in the current Citadel range that matches it exactly. However, Vallejo's Dark Green from their game line is very close approximation.</div>
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Next up is the blue. Macragge Blue is a suitable base coat, once again done in thinner coats for even coverage. Bit flat looking, though.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZnBzFcRT7z6MnI9IUCfgXH_XUxZ1BhnZTa1TO23WmI6c5QJn8g3M2jrrJZxvMZgk3UK27KnBDm_R5OmugU9pyJqEQ-2G9t-4Y0Zqc7VQGm3G2ezjqs1pY5XgGcdolHL6FfUHzaYKZHpQ/s1600/IMG_20170620_234730.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="781" data-original-width="1600" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZnBzFcRT7z6MnI9IUCfgXH_XUxZ1BhnZTa1TO23WmI6c5QJn8g3M2jrrJZxvMZgk3UK27KnBDm_R5OmugU9pyJqEQ-2G9t-4Y0Zqc7VQGm3G2ezjqs1pY5XgGcdolHL6FfUHzaYKZHpQ/s640/IMG_20170620_234730.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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That's better. The final color is done with Altdorf Guard Blue, which is thankfully pretty close to the old Ultramarines Blue I used to use. 'Member when Ultramarines were actually painted with that color and not Imperial Blue?</div>
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With the blue and green ready to go, it's time for the trim. I do a base color of Ulthuan Grey, which is a nice off-white that covers up the black primer well. I follow this up with an actual coat of White Scar, to really make the white shine.</div>
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It's possible to have gotten some outside the "lines" and onto areas already painted. That's easily fixed with the appropriate blue or green re-applied.<br />
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With the white done, it's time for the next color, the metallics. Leadbelcher will do the trick here, getting all the magazines, barrels, vents, etc.</div>
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The final step for today is actually several in one. Most of the other minor details. For the purity seals, Mephiston Red is a nice, vibrant base color. For the parchment part of the seals, I do a base coat of Zandri Dust, which gives a good yellow/brown hybrid color. Finally, for the leather pouches, I use Mournfang Brown for the basic color.</div>
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So that'll wrap it up for today, but in part 2 I'll go over gold, skin, and shading. For now, though, they're at least vaguely presentable for the tabletop.<br />
<br />Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-80902314400127692542016-09-02T11:55:00.000-04:002016-09-02T11:55:05.918-04:00Scrapbook - 9/2Finally, another Templarverse story! The Unto the Breach gang is back as Ali does Ali things.<br />
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<i>Four people just before a bar fight. Escalate a casual fun conversation into a fight.</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I just thought of something,” Ali said.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Alex looked up from his meal. “What?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I haven’t been in a good bar fight in a long time.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“What?” Alex repeated.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I’m bored,” Ali knocked back the last of her drink. “I’m gonna go find some fun.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“You sure? I mean, given what happened last time,” Conrad said. They all remembered that fight, which was, in fact, how Ali met them.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Oh no, no no no no, please don’t,” Lucy begged. “It’s been a long day already, I just want dinner. I’m still famished!” Even though she had eaten a salad, an entire bowl of mashed taters, and three apples, she was still digging into a pile of various veggies and bread chunks.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“You’re a mage! You’re always hungry!” Ali retorted. “Look, after all we’ve been through, do you really think any of these drunks could hold a candle to me?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Before anyone else could say a word, she got up and walked towards the bar. Alex reached out a hand to stop her, but she nimbly side-stepped and kept walking.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Welp,” Conrad said. “Better finish up quick.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Alex sighed and shoveled the last of his meal into his mouth with one hand and used the other to deposit coins on the table. He left a few extra coins, knowing the wenches would need it.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They looked to the bar, where Ali was cozying up to a burly and rough-looking man that had clearly already had a few. She casually flipped her hair while giving a smile, but seemed to be caught entirely off guard when the man’s hand firmly grabbed her butt.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Uh oh,” Alex said.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Practically a blur, Ali twisted around the man’s arm and, less then a second later, not only was his hand no longer touching her, but it was pointing in the completely wrong direction from his wrist. The man screamed and shoved back from the bar, narrowly dodging one of Ali’s daggers. Four other men jumped to their feet from nearby, and Alex, Conrad, and Lucy did the same.<br />
Before the men could take more than a step, Lucy’s eyes blazed with light and she thrust a clawed hand at the men. A bolt of light shot from her hand, hitting the ground at their feet, and thick roots erupted from the floor, wrapping around their legs and immobilizing them. Alex and Conrad leapt over chairs to reach the men. Alex’s shield knocked one off his feet, while Conrad took two down with his spear.<br />
By then, the tavern had erupted into chaos, as no one was quite sure what had happened or who started it. Bottles began to fly, punches were thrown nearly at random, and the murmur of conversation became a constant roar of shouts and screams. Alex looked to where Ali was, and saw her slide between the wide legs of another man, delivering a crippling punch to his groin as she slid past. As she jumped to her feet, Alex grabbed her arm and began to drag her towards the exit. Conrad used his muscular bulk to shove a path through the crowd, while Lucy aimed a few smaller Earth-elemental spells around the tavern to throw many of the patrons off their feet.<br />
Ali tried to worm out of Alex’s grip, but he squeezed harder and countered her twists and squirms to get out, having gotten plenty of practice doing this exact same thing.<br />
They nearly fell into a pile outside. Alex stepped back and blocked Ali from going back inside.<br />
“Oh come on, it was just getting good!” Ali protested.<br />
<br />Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-34645245418358836662016-08-31T11:52:00.000-04:002016-08-31T11:52:02.626-04:00Scrapbook - 8/31Another exercise in dialogue, and an old favorite comes back.<br />
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<i>Two hikers engage in a conversation on a nature trail. Try for natural flow.</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“So how much further?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Uhhh, three miles?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Kay.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“We should get there by night.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Good, I’m famished. …Did Kate bring the dogs?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“No, she left them with her sister.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Aww, man, I was really in the mood to eat one.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“What? Dude, why would you want to eat one of the dogs?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“No, hot dogs! Not the actual dogs!”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“…Oh.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Jeez. Come on, let’s keep going.” A branch snapped nearby.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Hey, do you hear that?” Another branch snapped.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Is there something out there?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“How should I know? I don’t see anything.” Another snap.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I think it’s getting closer. A wolf, maybe?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Suddenly another man emerged from behind a tree. He was clad in a plain brown uniform, what looked like a ranger hat on his head, and tiny round lenses over his eyes. Beneath his broad mustache was a beaming smile.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Good evening, gentlemen. Enjoying nature’s bounty on this wonderful day?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Uh…yes? Who…who are you?” The two travelers unconsciously took a step back. The man took a step forward.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Me? I’m…” he paused, inhaling deeply as if to bellow. “…Just a traveler, also enjoying nature. It’s such a precious resource.” He began to slowly walk past them. “Best get to your campsite before dark. It’s easy to get lost in these woods. I’d say watch out for wolves or…other dangers too, but…well, no worries there.” The man strolled into the trees, whistling happily, and seemed to vanish into thin air a few moments later. The whistling echoed through the woods for a few seconds after.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Why did he look so familiar?”<br />
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Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-23017608271794966922016-08-29T11:46:00.000-04:002016-08-29T11:46:00.237-04:00Scrapbook - 8/29New theme! Now it's "Devilish Dialogues". Also today marks the return of a previous character.<br />
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<i>A secret organization known as PRISM. Conversation between boss and agent.</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“My lady, the missile are loaded and ready for deployment,” the henchman said. Blofeld kept her back to the henchman, staring out the window.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“It shouldn’t have come to this, you know,” she said quietly. “But maybe it was inevitable.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“My lady?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Blofeld turned. “Oh, nevermind, just thinking. Let’s go.” She took two steps when the henchman’s legs suddenly gave out, and he tumbled to the floor. Blofeld started at the motion, and looked for the attacker. From the shadows emerged a woman dressed in an immaculate black dress, her perfectly groomed hair framing a face filled with both anger and mischief. In one hand she carried a silence pistol.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Bond?! You’re alive?!”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Of course, Blofeld. SPECTRE was helpless before me, you think your little successor organization would be any challenge?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Well… I had hoped PRISM would give a little more sport.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“It might help if you don’t give away your location in the organization’s name. I mean, really, People’s Republic of Ireland, South Monmouth?”<br />
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Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-72963999049180766542016-08-27T11:46:00.000-04:002016-08-27T11:46:05.435-04:00Scrapbook - 8/27Playing around with some tropes today!<br />
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<i>“A different kind of evil, or a monster in a non-traditional way”</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“So we’ll find the book we’re looking for in here?” Tharsus asked. His elven companion, Caelebob, shrugged.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Danged if I know. I don’t spend no time with them there fancy books. Don’t got no time for that.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The dwarf chimed in. “Aye, you elves are all illiterate, but at least the humans appreciate our work. You know we harvest only the finest trees for grand libraries like this one.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Tharsus ignored the dwarf and pushed the doors open. Sure enough, the inside of the library was quite spectacular. Bookshelves went up fifty meters, and they could see corridors stretch off into numerous directions. The human whistled slightly.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Well…I guess we better get started.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I dunno what ya’ll expect me to do, I can’t even read,” the elf muttered.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Just…follow us,” Tharsus replied.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Now this is some quality craftsmanship!” the dwarf bellowed. He ran his fingers over the shelves and some of the books.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“If you’re going to visit our library, then keep it down, please,” a deep voice suddenly rumbled behind them. They turned, startled, to find a robed orc towering over them. It stared at them through circular glasses.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Apologies, we’re just looking for a specific book and we’ll be on our way,” Tharsus said. The orc shrugged slightly and turned to leave.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I will never understand why orcs are born with all that muscle when all they do is just sit around and read books all day,” Caelebob said quietly.<br />
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Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-32673616552316692182016-08-25T11:44:00.000-04:002016-08-25T11:44:03.123-04:00Scrapbook - 8/25Two stories today, since both were pretty small.<br />
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<i>In the ocean, with a life preserver, and nothing else as far as the eye can see</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The sun is hot. There’s not a single cloud in the sky. I lean back and try to relax. Can’t stay on my back too long, I’ll start to burn. For now, though, it’s nice to not have to struggle to stay afloat. The life preserver is big enough to accommodate me, and I just float on the endless ocean. The only sound is a slight lapping of the water against my legs. I close my eyes, soaking in the sun’s heat. I feel the tension almost literally melt away.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My closed eyelids twitch as I think I hear something. It’s hard to be sure, it was so faint. A moment later, I hear it again, louder. Was that…No, it couldn’t have been. There’s nothing else on the ocean within sight. But the sound is louder, and I’m certain it’s somebody calling my name. I screw my eyes closed even tighter, trying to ignore it.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The door to my room bangs open, and my eyes open with it. I’m momentarily dazed by the sun lamp shining down on me from above, right into my face. I sit up on my bed, glaring at the intruder.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I told you to take the garbage out an hour ago!” My mom yells at me. The soft ocean ambience playing from my stereo is no match for her shrill tones.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Fine! Jeez! I can’t even get five minutes to try and relax after work?!”<br />
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<i>“They all kept evolving”</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Well folks, lemme tell you, you are gonna love this blender. Just look at it. Isn’t it a beauty? That ergonomic grip, the contoured buttons. And it can be all yours for just $19.99. So call in now, because I’m sure we’re gonna run out of them in no-what? What’s that?<br />
“Sorry folks, the producers tell me the blenders have all…changed? I guess there was an inventory mistake or something, and they’re actually waffle irons. Lemme tell you though, I love me some fresh waffles. You can-wait, I thought this thing was supposed to be a waffle iron. No, this is clearly a salad tosser. Are you guys just messing with me now? Does this look like a waffle iron? No, I’m pretty sure it’s a-what the?! Where’d this crock pot come from?<br />
OK, come on guys, stop messing around and let me do my job. It’s-hey! This thing’s moving! It’s…what is this thing?! It’s turning into…into some kind of robot! Is that a gun? Oh no…no! NO!”<br />
“THE DECEPTICONS SHALL RULE ALL!”<br />
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Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-84533914193947659192016-08-23T11:39:00.000-04:002016-08-23T11:39:02.564-04:00Scrapbook - 8/23A play on words prompt and an actual "D'aww" moment from me. Guess it was bound to happen eventually.<br />
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<i>Teaching a fish to man</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“OK, yes, yes, just like that… One foot in front of the other. Lift, bring forward, set down. Shift your weight. There you go. There-oh no no no!” He winced as his companion crashed to the ground, knocking a small table over. She flailed about on the floor, and it might have been a bit comical looking if she wasn’t also starting to cry.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>He sighed slightly and helped her back to her feet. Even with her footing regained though, she didn’t move. She just stared at the floor.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“What’s the point?” She asked. “I’m never going to get this.” Her voice was thickly accented, not so much as a consequence of upbringing as not being used to forming words in air instead of water. Not being used to the thinner medium of air as well, she often started yelling without even meaning to.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Oh come on, you’re doing great!” He said. “It’s only been a few days. You’ve already made great progress in speaking, and you’ve learned how to use the bathroom perfectly!” He shuddered slightly as he remembered the awkward start of their journey and the messes he had to clean up.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Can’t I just go back?” she asked quietly.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Hey now, you know you can’t. Not after your transformation. You’ll just drown now.” He grinned at her. “Like it or not, you’re stuck with us dirty humans now.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Her mouth twitched to a slight smile, and she nodded. He held her arm, and she slowly moved one leg forward.<br />
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Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-39777074088082849892016-08-21T11:36:00.000-04:002016-08-23T11:24:45.244-04:00Scrapbook - 8/21The speculation continues! This time we take a look at a popular character.<br />
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<i>A female James Bond. How would she be different, if at all?</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Ahh, 007, come in,” M stood from his desk as Bond walked in. She dropped into one of the chairs across from M, who was returning to his chair.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Now, we have a new assignment for you,” M began. Bond nodded slightly. “We have reports that our consulate in Italy may be targeted by SPECTRE for infiltration. I want you to head there at once and prevent that from happening. If possible, capture one of their agents for information. Perhaps we can use it to track down Blofeld.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“You want me to babysit an embassy? Don’t we have some junior agents better suited for this?” Bond shook her head.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Nonsense, 007. I want my best agent on it. Ambassador Sheffield is a good friend of mine, and I don’t want anything happening to him.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At the ambassador’s name, Bond’s head perked up slightly. “Sheffield? Well, if I had known it was him, I’d have been more interested.” She stood, snatched the intel folder off M’s desk, and began to walk out.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“That’s the spirit, Bond. Although, one final request.” Bond stopped and half-turned back.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I know full well she’s an old flame, but do NOT get involved with the ambassador’s wife.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Bond gave a slight smirk. “No promises.”<br />
<br /><i><br />Apparently the answer is "not different at all."</i>Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-65656790234679310562016-08-19T11:35:00.001-04:002016-08-23T11:24:45.249-04:00Scrapbook - 8/19And another eight months of silence. Oops. In my defense though, I've barely gone to writers group, since it was almost an hour away until recently. But I've moved again, and it's at a reasonable distance. So, let's check out some more scrapbook tales. Given how much stuff I have to post, I'm just going to date them instead of number them from now on.<br />
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Also, I'll be splitting the mini-stories across several posts over a week or so. Some have ongoing themes, others are entirely one-offs.<br />
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<b>Theme: unusual speculative scenarios</b><br />
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<i>You are a cyborg. What kind? Describe the experience.</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They say the flesh is weak. That the machine is strong. You never quite realize how stark that difference is until your own fist punches through a brick wall like it’s paper. Certainly in a literal sense it’s a true enough sentiment. Limbs of steel are more constant in their performance, will probably last longer, have great capacities for strength and endurance because they don’t get tired.<br />
The lack of sensation takes getting used to, though. You don’t feel the breeze on your leg hairs, a hug becomes just pressure on your chest. I suppose you could get synth-skin grafts, but those are hard to come by. So you trade the ability to feel in your extremities for unparalleled strength. You know exactly how much you can lift, exactly how fast you can run, exactly how high you can jump. Running the numbers in your head, parkour becomes as easy as walking.<br />
But the environment can destroy the machine far more readily than it could flesh. Simple rain becomes a threat. You have to lubricate parts yourself, your body doesn’t do it automatically any more. The neural interface might glitch and you lose control. Not much strength to be had if your legs randomly seize up.<br />
Flesh. Machine. Both are weak. Both are strong. Both are nothing compared to the strength of the mind.<br />
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Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-89965707565560859662016-01-04T12:08:00.000-05:002016-08-23T11:30:48.660-04:0040K: Iron Hands mini-storyJust a quick flash piece I did for writer's group, but focused on something from 40K. And it actually links to the Lords of Oblivion, but I'll get to that part later. Story below!<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>“A monologue reminiscing about or explaining something the character regrets”</i></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-a14436ca-0d98-fd9a-9239-63c1f7cb289a" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was there the day Ferrus Manus fell in battle. A living demigod, the very embodiment of strength and unbreakable resolve, a slayer of Ork warlords, the Diasporax fleet, and countless other xenos terrors, struck down by the closest and dearest brother he had. A fellow god made flesh that he had fought alongside for centuries, shedding his blood to protect him time and again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We fell upon Isstvan V with the fury of vengeful brothers betrayed by our kin. Tens of thousands of gene-hanced warriors, in black, sliver, and green, filled with little more than rage at the treachery wrought by those we thought were brothers only weeks before. I fell to earth in a screaming drop pod alongside Ferrus Manus, watching as he clutched a gleaming sword that seemed to burn with its own fire, that gleam reflected in his depthless silver eyes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At first, the battle had gone in our favor. The X Legion, my Legion, the Iron Hands, formed the tip of the spear, driving into the heart of the traitors. We stood against the Emperor’s Children, their purple and gold armor already warping into clashing hues as they fell into orgiastic service to a dark god of desire.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The battle raged with a fury never before seen by the galaxy. Hundreds, if not thousands, of warriors across both sides were falling every minute. Enough firepower to annihilate a solar system was brought to bear in a single vast valley. At the forefront, my lord Ferrus stood, wielding his greatest weapon, the hammer </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Forgebreaker</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, destroying Emperor’s Children all around him with every swing. He was the fury of our world Medusa given form, molten and unstoppable, strength and endurance unending. Even my own advanced physiology felt fatigue at the intensity of the battle, but he never once slowed or seemed to even contemplate falling back. With single-minded fury, he closed on his target: Fulgrim. The primarch of the Emperor’s Children, another god made manifest.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where Ferrus was raw strength and fury, Fulgrim was elegant perfection. The two battled and roared their hatred at each other, the noise somehow carrying over the clash of battle around them. I tried to stay near my lord, but the swirl of combat carried me away and I was forced to defend myself through whatever means necessary to stay alive. I felt an itch in the back of my skull, as suppressed power within my mind yearned to be free. But I ignored it, duty overwhelming my instincts, and suppressed the power with my will.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not sure whether it was coincidence or the sheer force of fate that caused me to look up at that moment, but as I did, I saw the head of my lord cleaved from his shoulders, and the body collapse. Like a tidal wave, the psychic backlash ripped out across the battlefield, and all the Iron Hands around me staggered as if physically struck. I was not exempt from this blast of power. Pain and rage scorched my mind, all-consuming in its presence. Some of my brothers turned into screaming berserkers, all sense of self-preservation, and perhaps even coherent thought, lost.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I nearly fell to my knees. The sight of such a magnificent figure, a being whose very existence inspired me and millions others to push ourselves further, to endure any hardship for the sake of a better future for mankind, being struck down was almost overwhelming. Despair threatened to consume me. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t know whether it was some unbreakable core of willpower or the rush of power being unlocked as carefully erected barriers in my mind were shattered, but I rose to my feet and I could feel psychic energy suffuse my being for the first time in many years. With an outstretched hand, lightning bolts erupted from my fingertips and reduced every Emperor’s Children warrior within twenty meters to smoking ash and ruined armor.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rage filled my heart, and despair at the sudden loss of mankind’s best hope, but I was a son of Ferrus. I would not yield. Never.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of my brothers was nearby, on his knees and clutching his head. I strode over to him, and aggressively lifted him to his feet.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Can you fight?!” I screamed over the roar of combat. The battle of Isstvan V was lost. We needed to withdraw before we were overwhelmed, but we would not simply turn and run.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yes...Yes, brother,” the other Iron Hand said. I could see his resolve returning just by my contact, and I knew I could count on him for the rest of this battle.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Then do so,” I said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-83637177714740466242015-12-11T11:38:00.000-05:002016-08-23T11:27:07.753-04:00Scrapbook #9Final one for the week! Bit of a horror kick today, though I may have just been taking the second prompt a little too literally...<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"Creepy words on repeat from an animatronic puppet. What kind of puppet is it?"</i></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-f0949a39-7d4a-cc6c-ea99-bfbf3fde9c72" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"This is the biology lab! Scientists come here to die-!"</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Freddy the Teddy Scientist was supposed to finish it with "-isect animals to learn all about them!" But it had been stuck for weeks, and no one could fix it. It was even worse at night when it randomly started shouting when it was supposed to be off.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"Write a scene with this puppet"</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jim's footsteps echoed down the halls, his flashlight weaving back and forth as he casually made his rounds. The labs were closed, all was silent, another boring night.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Scientists come here to die-!" Something shouted nearby. Jim jumped, then grunted in frustration. That stupid bear would always freak him out at the worst times.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"West wing clear, heading back." He keyed his mic and stuck it back on his belt before turning to head back to the warmer security center full of donuts and skin rags. Dave had the newest Maxim, and Jim wanted to give it a look.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Scientists come here to die-!" The bear shouted again. Its softer cry didn't bother Jim as much, though he sped up slightly to get out of earshot of it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Scientists come here to die-!" That was weird. The shout actually sounded louder this time. And it usually didn't go off this frequently. He'd leave a note for the maintenance team and try to get them to finally fix the frigging thing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Come here to die-!" Jim froze. The shout came from ahead of him this time. What in the world was happening? He took a cautious step forward and glanced around the corner. Nothing but empty halls and dim lights. He started to creep down the hall, his heart racing. The security center wasn't far now.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Come here to die-!" Something knocked him down from behind, and he slammed into the floor. He flipped onto his back, and screamed as he saw that stupid bear coming towards him, a bonesaw in its hand.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!" It lurched towards him on unsteady feet, and Jim kicked with his legs, trying to keep distance between him. He screamed again, hoping Dave would hear.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another shadow reared up behind the bear, and suddenly a fist punched through its chest, spraying electronics, fake fur, and oil all over Dave. The fist lifted the bear, and a second hand emerged through the hole before tearing the bear in half. A large man emerged into the light, his eyes blazing with fury behind an antiquated pince-nez.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"What a terrible disgrace to the name Teddy," the man said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"Write a scene at a farmer's market, and bring the customers, the sellers, and their wares to life"</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-f0949a39-7d4e-9ca5-83c8-8d2e0b62058f" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"How much for a flat?" The woman asked the vendor. The man behind the stall felt his eyebrow twitch.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"As it says right in front of you, $24 for the annuals, $36 for the perennials."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Oh, I see." The woman leaned in to sniff some of the flowers closest to her, and then suddenly screamed before jumping back. The man looked on in horror as he saw blood pouring down her face. He glanced down to his flowers, bewildered at what had happened, and saw they were all suddenly writhing uncontrollably, teeth growing from their petals, and they seemed to be growing rapidly. He took a horrified step back and tripped over the row of sunflowers behind him. Man and plant all tumbled into a pile, and the man began to scream as he was covered by hungry sunflowers that began to bite into his flesh.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All around, people screamed and ran as everything from azaleas to zucchini came to life, began to grow exponentially, and eat everything around them. In some cases, different species of the plants fell upon each other and fought to the death, but most were focused on devouring the humans around them. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Inside the antiquated barn, bamboo shoots formed impenetrable barricades trapping those inside while dandelions drifted down from above and exploded, shredding the humans into a storm of blood shooting out the cracks of the barn. Creeping vines of a dozen different varieties ensnared feet of scattering humans, pulling them apart or holding them in place until they could be consumed. Bushes grew to towering walls, and anyone that tried to push through them simply disappeared in a flurry of crunching bones.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few lucky ones managed to actually escape and began to run down the road, only to hear a rumbling as dozens of gigantic tomatoes began to roll and bounce after them. They tried their best to run, but the red of the tomatoes' skin soon became stained a darker shade.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-41859538865737088952015-12-10T11:30:00.000-05:002016-08-23T11:27:07.729-04:00Scrapbook #8Just one entry this time around, but it's nearly the requisite length. Terranis has plenty of room to get creepy at times...<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"In the desert as the sun sets"</i></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-f0949a39-7d45-c6a5-1bf0-6ee91e65cd22" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Do you think we're almost there?" Marius asked. The three men trudged through the sands of the Starfall Desert, nothing but wind and clouds of dust around them. The sun beat down on them, though it was finally starting to retreat for the evening.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Yes, the map is accurate. We're nearly there," Gustav responded. They began to climb a rocky hill that obscured what lay beyond. "Tons of people have been here over the years, so the route isn't exactly a secret."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"And that's what worries me," Toshiko growled. "This wreck has been here for centuries. How do we know it hasn't been picked clean already?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Come on, you know there'll be something in there. It was a starship, and a big one at that. Given how dangerous it is out here, there's bound to have been stuff left behind. Even just gear left by those that came here before us." Gustav grinned enthusiastically despite his exhaustion.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I hope you're right. I still can't believe you convinced us to come out here," Marius said quietly. The three men drew silent as they crested the hill. They stopped as they caught sight of what lay before them in the heart of the Starfall Mountains.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A massive valley miles across stretched for miles to the east, the rock still barren and fused into glass from the heat of impact. At the western end of the valley, the skeletal remains of what was once the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SAS Bastille</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, crashed on the surface of Terranis nearly a thousand years prior, and the cause of the Starfall Desert as its crash landing, and later the accidental detonation of its engines, turned everything for a hundred miles around into lifeless sand. All around the massive wreck, which was itself a mile long, hundreds of discarded pieces of debris lay half-buried. Many were pieces of the ship itself, too burned and ruined to be recovered for their tritanium, others were the burned-out hulks of smaller vehicles. The remnants of those who had tried to salvage the ship originally and caused it to explode. Elsewhere around the wreckage were the remnants of abandoned camps, tattered tents flapping in the wind.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"See, I told you there'd be something left," Gustav said proudly as they began to descend the valley wall.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An hour later they sat around a fire inside a recovered tent. The cold was coming in, and they were enjoying their first meal in half a day.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"We'll start looking in the morning. Get some sleep for now, we're gonna need it," Gustav said between bites. He paused mid-crunch as something howled within the wreckage of the ship. A faint answering call came on the winds.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"What was that?" Marius asked. He glanced towards the wreckage, and could swear he saw something moving.</span></div>
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Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-61157175091283342832015-12-09T11:27:00.000-05:002016-08-23T11:27:07.736-04:00Scrapbook #7Well, this doesn't seem so bad! I guess it is a bit easier to crank out stuff if each entry doesn't have to be quite as long. So a couple of really tiny entries here, as well as some more Templarverse material, including a literary version of part of the story to Murder in the Rue Marche (albeit with only having a couple minutes to write each part). Enjoy!<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"Write the best novel title you can in 11 words or less"</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Attack of the Unspeakably Awful Nameless Horror From Beyond The Stars</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cats! Explosions! Whiskey! Boobs! Existentialism! Grecian Tragedy! Sardonic Humor! - A Memoir</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"A flash of lightning. What do you see within it?"</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The bolt struck with the force of an atomic explosion, and the demons around me simply shattered. I was thrown to the ground. Within the bolt I saw a ghostly form, and the roar of its explosion mingled with fury and a single word.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSEEEVEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLTTTT!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"At the scene of a crime"</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Alright, stand back, what's happened here?" Sergeant Daniel shoved his way through the gathering crowd, his voice cutting through the shocked murmurs. As he broke through and saw what they had, one of the citizens spoke up.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"It's a murder! Can't you tell?!" The body of a man lay on the cobblestone streets, blood pooling into the cracks from a head that had been bashed into pulp. His clothing looked worn, rough leather and the accoutrements of a man used to being on the road. Possibly a mercenary or adventurer of some sort.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"20 minutes later"</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"So you're sure it was a murder, eh?" the captain said, barely glancing up from the papers on his desk.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Yes, sir. We need to track them down." Sergeant Daniel replied firmly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"And we will, but this will be a low priority for now. Return to your patrol."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Sir?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"Another 20 minutes later"</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I can't believe he won't let me investigate!" Daniel punched the brick wall near him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"His concerns due to La Tournie coming up are valid, but I think you're right. Not punishing the perpetrator immediately would only encourage more murders," Arnoldt said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I need to borrow your armor, go undercover, and figure this out," Daniel suddenly said after a moment of glaring at the wall.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"fake saw traps"</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ali glanced down, knowing full well as an experienced acrobat she shouldn't while walking something so thin. The beam beneath her feet creaked slightly, unused to the weight of a human upon it, even one as light as her. Below it, a number of water-powered saws churned automatically, though there was no wood being passed through them at the moment. Just as well, the noise would probably make it even worse for her to maintain her balance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Hey, who's that up there?" She heard someone below say. She instinctively twitched heavily, her first reaction to be to run into the shadows, remembering a second later there were no shadows for her to flee to. Instead, she tried to rush along the beam as fast as she could. Inevitably, her balance gave out and her foot slipped, and she tumbled off, screaming, into the saws below.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"A doctor meets a patient on a ship"</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Urgh, my head..." Alex muttered again, clutching at his cranium. The boat rocked beneath them, crashing through the waves of the Inner Sea on their way to Korandus. It had been a week since they'd lost sight of land, the peaceful greens and sloping hills of Orius vanishing beneath murky blues and chopping waves. It was as if nature knew what had been done, the power threatening to consume Alex, body and soul. Conrad held him up as he leaned over the railing and vomited again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Jeez, puking again?" Ali said as she reclined atop several lashed crates.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Even if I wasn't fighting the power of a lich trying to destroy me from the inside out, I'd still be sea-sick," Alex said as he wiped his mouth. He leaned against Conrad for support.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"If you're feeling sick, go take a nap then. Stay off your feet. You won't feel the waves as much," Ali said, taking a sip from her mug of grog.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Every time I close my eyes, I see visions of death and blood. It's horrifying," Alex stated weakly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"That doesn't sound so bad. One time I fell off a beam into what I thought were a bunch of wood-cutting saws. Turns out they were just wood decorations for a haunted mill or something. Scariest five seconds of my life. I still needed to change my underwear after. Or did I just throw them out?" Ali trailed off as she realized Alex wasn't paying attention, puking off the side again. She leaned around the crates and called to a woman standing near the bow of the ship.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Marie! Get over here! Alex needs help again!" The cleric came rushing, concern on her face.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-17032503082388304182015-12-08T11:18:00.000-05:002016-08-23T11:27:07.704-04:00Scrapbook #6So I'm told shorter blogs, say 500-750 words, instead of my usual 1,000-2,000, gets read a lot more. Also posting frequently helps. To that end, let's do a bunch of shorter posts this week. Onwards for more!<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"The eleven words of prophecy"</i></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-f0949a39-7d3b-c29c-48b8-6870f5942157" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eventually, I will actually finish painting one of my 40K armies.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And it shall come to pass that we all will die.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some day, I will make it to second base for real.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the hour of darkness, the blind shall guide us all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh my God, just like the old gypsy woman told me!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>(Take one of these prophecies and write a story about it)</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"Eventually, I will actually finish painting one of my 40K armies."</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-f0949a39-7d3c-29ff-c8ea-32de10c6aad3" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"And with that, you are all done, Brother Val'tar." I set the model down on the desk carefully, and clean my brush off. Giving the squad of models before me a few minutes to dry, I begin to set them in the shallow box so I can take them outside to spray the varnish on. This is the last squad. After uncountable hours of work, I have at last finished an entire army of my Lords of Oblivion for Warhammer 40,000. And, if I do say so myself, they look glorious! The wet-blending, the freehands, the custom bitz, the flawless highlighting and shading. At long last, I have completed an entire army and can be proud of it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I idly scratch my legs that feel sore for some reason, and carry the box and sprayer outside. A pale purple sky greets me, and I can see two of the three moons faintly through the clouds. The breeze is gentle, and the temperature pleasant. Ideal conditions for spray varnish. I give the models quick, fast shots of varnish, letting it go on thinly and smoothly, not clumping up. It dries within seconds, and the task is done. I hold the box back from my face, and admire my work, scratching at my legs again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"There you are, Mr. Hudson," I hear a familiar voice say behind me. I turn to see Jenna, one of the young staffers, coming outside. I smile slightly and hold up the box for her to examine.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"What do you think? The last squad done. The full 3rd Battle-Company is complete. It's my first army I've ever actually finished." I scratch at my legs again. Jenna notices.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Is the interface for your legs acting up again?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"No, no, just old habits and sitting too much."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Maybe we should go inside and have a tech look at your bionics."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Jenna, I am over four hundred years old! I know how my body works, even if most of it is bionics now!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-88313543083068101072015-12-07T11:14:00.000-05:002016-08-23T11:27:07.760-04:00Scrapbook #5Well... oops. Nearly an entire year gone by. Not as much writing done as I had hoped or intended. A fair bit of creative stuff done, but moreso in terms of game development and painting. I should post some pictures.<br />
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For now though, enjoy some more mini-stories! And yes, I'll be doing more prompt stories. Gotta write something to go in the game!<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"When the hammers fell"</i></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-f0949a39-7d36-95e5-0515-d33d8b739beb" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The prisoners were thrown to the ground. They struggled to get up to their knees, their bindings making it difficult. As they looked up, the soldiers around them parted as another horse-mounted warrior entered their midst. The warrior was clad from head to foot in gleaming plate, symbols of the sun and moon emblazoned upon it. From within the helmet, his eyes glowed softly in the darkness with the red of blood. Wordlessly, the warrior dismounted, and handed his shield to one of his soldiers. In his other hand, he held the hammer that was the source of his powers. It too glowed, but with a hint of blue.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Kill us if you must, Hector, but you infidels will all fall in time," the lead prisoner spat. His broken armor bore marks of rank. In the distance a clock began to chime midnight.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Do you hear that?" The warrior's voice carried clear across the night, suffused with power. "The judgment bell tolls for you. You army is defeated, and the templars are victorious once again. You are no threat to us now, so perhaps I may show you mercy."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"You violate the law of the treaty in attacking us! You will bring retribution upon yourselves!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"We are above the law! Our power should show you we are in full control of your destiny. It is far too late to stop now, and we are poised to strike again already. You cannot stop the legacy, and your evil will be stricken from the world." He held his crackling hammer above his head, turning to look at his warriors. "Shall the hammer stay, or shall the hammer fall? Let the hammer..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As one the warriors bellowed, "Fall!" The first prisoner's head vanished in an explosion of blood and bone as the hammer struck it. He raised it again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Let the hammer..."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"FALL!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The hammer fell. Another prisoner died.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Let the hammer..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"FALL!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The hammer fell.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"Running like a chicken with a rocket up its ass"</i></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sky burned. I couldn't believe it was actually happening. But, given all I had experienced since meeting him, I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised. Dark shapes flew through the air, some hurling fireballs to the ground below. People screamed. Buildings exploded. A few weapons tried to return fire, picking off a few of the creatures, but it wasn't nearly enough.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One slammed into the ground near me, and I raised my pistol. It stood nearly twice my height, with massive wings and a tail, all dark skin and fur, liquid fire dripping from its bestial maw. I fired three shots into its face, and the consecrated .45s punched through its skull. It bled fire, and screamed both within and outside my range of hearing. It fell to the ground, thrashing, and I pulled my broadsword out, chopping its head off with Michigan-made steel.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It wasn't nearly enough. Hundreds of the demons were still rampaging around the city. Several more caught wind of my defiance and came to attack. I backed up slowly, knowing I couldn't take all three at once. But before I started to run like a chicken with a rocket up its arse, a blur ripped across the three demons and they exploded. I exhaled loudly with relief and something strode towards me unharmed through the smoke and fire of the demon's blood.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Roosevelt! I was wondering when you were going to join us!" The legendary man gave his customary grin, and his pince-nez glittered in the firelight.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Sorry my boy, had to take care of some personal business. Now, come along, we've got some demons to hunt!" He began to run back towards the heart of battle, and I tried to keep up.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-29850307523778023072015-02-06T21:07:00.001-05:002015-02-06T21:07:07.470-05:00A Minor Update on ThingsHey ya'll, just giving a quick status update on things happening. Read on for excitement!<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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So, first up, ACTA: Star Fleet. If you haven't heard, ADB has basically fired Mongoose and taken over most aspects of its development and running. This includes doing a "version 1.2" update to the core rules which, while fun, needed some tweaking/balancing/clarifications. Currently the revisions are being released to fans for free to playtest and such, and they're up to Revision D so far. It's definitely much better. Another nice thing they've done is actually released some official ship roster cards. I was briefly approached to collaborate with ADB about using mine, but they decided they didn't like the software I used (Adobe InDesign), so they went with another format. The official ones are...functional, though I think they could stand to be a little flashier. Oh well. They work. Anyway, I'm removing my unofficial cards as there's no need for them. Go buy the official ones!<br />
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Next, Templar Games stuff. I'm giving a talk on February 20th at the Rochester Hills Production Facility (which is actually a brewery) about my game development experience for the Tech248 group. If you happen to be nearby, come check it out!<br />
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https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tech248-northeast-district-meetup-registration-15091907301 is the event details!<br />
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And 40K! The new Necron codex just came out next week, so expect a review of it tomorrow! I love me some undead robots. Now if I could just figure out where my buried army is hidden...Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-23833063451814751402015-01-15T14:58:00.000-05:002016-08-23T11:27:07.714-04:00Scrapbook #4I think we're overdue for some more randomness. So here's some more randomness! We've got a couple stories set in Terranis, a legendary monster, a Cards Against Humanity reference, and my attempt to pass the Bechdel Test in 30 seconds.<br />
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<i>“The man with no cheek”</i><br />
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The ruffians took their seats as one around the shadow-wreathed table, eyeing each other warily. They didn’t know each other, and all had been summoned here by an unknown benefactor via letters and copious amounts of zyer. So they came from their disparate corners of Terranis, gathering in the so-called heart of the world, the city Jorandek. Each looked like a veteran of dozens, if not hundreds, of fights and duels.<br />
Not sure when their potential patron would arrive, one of the men spoke to another man across the table. “So, how’d you get those scars?” The man across from him had a face criss-crossed with thin, precise scars, his hair mostly gone beneath a grid of scar tissue.<br />
“Every time I fight an enemy worth remembering, I give myself a scar so I never forget.” Came the reply. “You?”<br />
The first man to speak had a trio of deep gouges across his face, one eye left a messy ruin. “I fought an urorg, and it did this to me.” The others noticed the hide of an urorg hanging from his shoulders, and easily figured out what had happened next.<br />
The next man, wearing a brace of lethal daggers, spoke up. “Lost part of my leg to a rmoth. Turned its talons into my knives.”<br />
Then the next. “My wife decided to try biting one night in bed. She got a little too carried away and took my ear off one time, though. We were both screaming.” He grinned.<br />
The next pulled his vest open, revealing a badly healed wound in his chest. “Took a spear through the chest fighting in the Third Barbarian Wars, and survived. The chieftain that threw the spear didn’t.”<br />
The last man, who had been utterly silent and almost completely motionless, leaned forward, revealing a grotesquely burned face. It seemed as if nearly half of it had simply melted off, and his cheek was gone, showing the tongue sliding about within.<br />
“And you?” The first man asked the one with the missing cheek.<br />
“I tried to guzzle a pan full of bacon grease, hot off the stove. It didn’t end well.”<br />
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<i><br /></i>
<i>Two part-prompt. “It all started with ______” “But it really didn’t, come to think of it. It was more like______”</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>It all started with:</i><br />
forcing kids to eat Fun-Dip until they were having fun.<br />
Charging naked into battle like the Celts.<br />
GUN-KATA!<br />
Drinking alone.<br />
White people.<br />
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<i><br /></i>
<i>But it really didn’t, come to think of it. It was more like: </i><br />
that one thing with the six boxes of fruit Roll-ups.<br />
Using a loudspeaker system to blast the audio of a porno.<br />
BATMAN!<br />
Being so far in the closet you can see Narnia.<br />
Black people.<br />
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<i><br /></i>
<i>“IT CAME FROM THE SWAMP!”</i><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Doctor Professor, what IS that creature?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Well my boy, it’s the remnants of an ancient Nazi program to genetically engineer a creature capable of killing any man. Its natural habitat is the swamp, hence why...it came...from the swamp. It seeks to kill all men it finds, and then mate with any woman it discovers to spread its grotesque seed across the world!”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“How...did the Nazis develop a swamp beast? Are there even any swamps in Europe? And it’s just a mass of ooze and moss! How does it breed with our women?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Shut up and let me do the science! Only by exposing it to the antithesis of swamps and Nazis can we defeat it.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“You don’t mean…”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I do! Kosher salt! Lots of it!”<br />
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<i><br /></i>
<i>“Rainstorm, school is starting, and an unexpected ending”</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“OK, here we are, children!” Mrs. Parnell called enthusiastically as the minivan pulled up to the elementary school. The five children in the back groaned, dreading this moment. Mrs. Parnell got out and pulled the side door open.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Have a great first day of school!” She said, barely able to contain her excitement at finally having some blasted peace and quiet around the house. Johnny, her son, got out first, followed by four of the neighbor’s kids. Since they lived in the middle of everyone, the five kids were always at her house, creating a fierce racket. She had lost track of whether she had spent more on wine or excedrin to cope.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Overhead, thunder boomed, and rain began to fall. She cursed inwardly at her plans to relax in the sun on the porch with a mojito being dashed. Meanwhile, all five children cheered with vague enthusiasm and ran around, trying to catch raindrops in their mouths.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Come on kids, head into the school.” They began to trudge towards the building, joining the trickle of kids heading inside. Mrs. Parnell watched them for a few moments before realizing the thunder was unnaturally rhythmic. Wait a second… that wasn’t thunder. It almost sounded more like...footsteps.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Suddenly an ear-shattering roar pierced the air around the school, annihilating every window of the building. Mrs. Parnell cowered, covering her ears, and looked towards the source of the sound. Just several blocks away, a 300-foot lizard came crashing towards the school. Its massive maw opened, and a blast of blue atomic fire burst forth, incinerating the entire school instantly. Godzilla continued his rampage unabated.<br />
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<i>“Take your favorite hero or protagonist, and make them the villain. Take their villain and make them the hero.”</i><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“You want to know what happened here? Why this universe is so different from the last time interlopers from yours broke through and mucked about?<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“You know Kirk. The legendary captain of Starfleet. Him and several of his officers came to our universe, onto the ISS Enterprise. What they saw horrified them. Instead of a United Federation of Planets, we had a Terran Empire. An Empire that ruled a thousand planets and brought stability and order to a chaotic galaxy. Kirk felt our methods were extreme and brutal, but he didn’t understand their necessity.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“So he used his influence on our Spock, and taught him the ideals of his Federation. Spock took them to heart. He gained control of the Empire, and instituted reforms. He began to show mercy. Weakness. It didn’t take long for our enemies to attack. Within a few decades, the Empire was gone.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Humanity is now a slave race, forced to work in conditions far more brutal than any we placed upon those species who served us. We are not even counted as sapient beings by our oppressors. We are less than objects to them. That is the legacy of your great hero.”<br />
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<i><br /></i>
<i>“The young woman got on the bus and began making her way to the back.”</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The young woman got on the bus and began making her way to the back. She coughed once as the bus lurched forward, and grabbed the pole to steady herself. The people filling the seats ignored her, lost in their own worlds staring either at their phones or out the windows. She fell into the only open seat, behind a faintly sweaty man in a brown suit. Rain pattered against the windows. Her hair was stringy and matted to her face from both rain and sweat, and her eyes were ringed with red.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She coughed again, more fiercely, and again, and again, trying to keep her face covered and failing from the sheer violence of the coughing. The man shifted uncomfortably before getting up and walking forward to the standing area. The coughing stopped a moment later and the woman collapsed against her seat, sighing.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Several minutes of silence passed, and the woman suddenly sat up with a jerk. She stood and began to awkwardly walk forward. The bus came to a sharp stop, and momentum threw the woman forwards, into the man. He gave a small cry of surprise, followed by screaming as the woman ripped his throat out with her teeth. As the blood gushed from his throat, he caught a glimpse of her eyes, and his own went wide as he saw they were a mix of bloodshot red and the yellow of deadly infection.<br />
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<i><br /></i>
<i>“A thief breaks into a house, but the owner is holding a gun. Only four lines of dialogue.”</i><br />
<br />
“What are you doing in my house?!”“Oh, come on, have you ever fired that thing before?”<br />
“No, but it can’t be that hard.”<br />
“I bet you couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist-”<br />
<br />
“You! Freeze or I’ll shoot!”<br />
“Robble robble, I’m so hungry!”<br />
“I warned you, Hamburglar!”<br />
“No, Ronald, noooooooo!”<br />
<br />
“What are you doing in my house?!”<br />
“GHOST OF BILLY MAYS HERE TO TELL YOU ABOUT KABOOM!”<br />
“Oh, God, no!”<br />
*KABOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!*<br />
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<i><br /></i>
<i>“The last will and testament of the dumbest man/woman in the word”</i><br />
<br />
Now that I think about it, I don’t think I gave her a fair chance. Sure, she left me for some other dude and banged him in my own house, but I could have been too hard. I’ll leave her all my stuff. No, don’t try to talk me out of-HURK!<br />
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<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"Romeo and Juliet didn't die. Also it's the 16th birthday of their child."</i><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"OK Pete, what's the story you got for me?"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Romeo and Juliet-"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"I love it! Classic story! Greenlight!"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Wait wait, that's not all."<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"You want to tamper with a classic? This is Hollywood man, show some integrity!"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Just hear me out!"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Fine."<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"It's a sequel."<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"I love it!"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"They didn't actually die."<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Plot twist!"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"They're still alive, happily married, and now their kid is turning 16."<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Ooh, a Renaissance Sweet 16! Swords! Ale! Blood! Courtesans!"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Exactly! Of course, that's when both their families find out they're actually still alive and-"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"I've heard enough! Have $20 million dollars! Now get over here, this cocaine isn't going to snort itself!"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Interwoven prompt. "A robot rises from a heap of scrap. In a medieval village, someone wakes in a shallow grave. In the present day, a corpse in a morgue walks again."</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Look here, there's references in this book to it," Dendrin said excitedly to the others. Alex, Conrad, and Lucy all looked up from the books they were studying with mixed interest and wariness.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"What'd you find?" Alex asked.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"It's a copy of pre-Fall personnel logs, straight from the SAS Bastille. The flagship of Grand Admiral du Saniel!"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"I'm surprised something that old would be here in the middle of nowhere," Lucy said.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Maybe the original settlers of Gronfalt came straight here from Kunskaborg, or one of those mages left it lying around," Alex ventured.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Anyway, it talks about an android being damaged beyond repair and tossed into a recycling chute. Except, it was found a day later, back at its post, having somehow self-repaired from the scrap materials around it. That wasn't part of its original capabilities."<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"So...that doesn't mean it somehow survived a thousand years and wound up in this tiny swamp village," Conrad said.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Well, no, but this establishes the possibility that it could repair itself enough to theoretically survive that long," Dendrin replied, sinking into one of his psuedo-scholarly rambles. "Wasn't there an account we saw earlier from about AF 200 of a man waking up in a shallow grave with no memory of who he was?"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Alex began to shuffle through the books around him. "Oh yeah! The bandits trying to bury him were scared away because they supposedly stabbed him a dozen times before, but his wounds just somehow healed up. He wrote about that experience before disappearing a year later."<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Exactly! And then there's the report the mages brought with them of a corpse apparently coming back to life in the morgue back in Kunskaborg about ten years ago, and the Royal Academy realized it was this android!"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"And what the hell does that have to do with the price of tea in Weijin?" Ali asked derisively from across the room. Dendrin's mouth opened and closed a few times, unsure of what or possibly even how to speak momentarily.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"It means this entire search for an android that has survived over a thousand years isn't a wild imp chase," Alex bit back with venom of his own. "One of the people in this tiny village has centuries of actual memories of Terranis' history, and probably has all kinds of knowledge long-lost to us. If we could just find him and ask what he knows, the course of history would be changed."<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Ali shrugged slightly. "Yeah, OK, I guess that'd be nice."<br />
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<i><br /></i>
<i>"You drive by a hitchhiker and yell out a five-second phrase"</i><br />
<br />
"Suleman! Get a blasted car already!"<br />
<br />
"Dude, run! The zombies are coming!"<br />
<br />
"Excuse me, do you have any Grey Poupon?"<br />
<br />
"And I would walk five hundred miles..."<br />
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<i><br /></i>
<i>"Describe a cookie, make it an experience just by describing it"</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!" The timer goes off. The cookies are done! The sheet is pulled out and set on the stove. Steam rises luxuriantly off of the cookies, scented with vanilla and a hint of cinnamon. The cookies themselves are puffed up, the dough almost slightly undercooked to keep it soft like a newborn's cheek. It glistens with a pale tan/brown color reminiscent of cool summer mornings on a beach. Sprinkled amidst the dough are glistening chunks of confectionary chocolate, melted and lounging over the dough like one of your French girls.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Anticipation builds as the cookies cool off to a temperature that won't burn the mouth like the coffee always does. A large bite. The dough practically melts in the mouth, embracing the tongue like a long-lost friend. The chocolate seeps through the tastebuds, indulging their every desire. As the bite is swallowed, the warmth travels down, comforting the insides like a blanket fresh out of the dryer. Eyes roll back with pleasure and a low moan fills the kitchen.<br />
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<i>"A conversation at the office between two women over lunch"</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Mmm, these eyeballs are delicious!"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"I know, right? I can't get enough of these veins."<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Oh, you should try the brains for desert. I snuck some earlier, and they're amazing."<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"I hope they're not too sugary, I don't want to over-do it. The liver's probably good, isn't it?"<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Oh, you know that's just empty calories. I'm sure they'll have plenty of snacks at the party."<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Yeah, you're right. I can't wait for that. This is going to be an awesome Halloween."<br />
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Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-77066950924184363712014-12-01T16:34:00.000-05:002014-12-01T16:34:59.052-05:00Interstellar: An Amateur Astrophysicist's Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://rack.3.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE0LzA3LzMwL2I0L2ludGVyc3RlbGxhLjc1YTYzLnBuZwpwCXRodW1iCTEyMDB4OTYwMD4/a8bce0de/29d/interstellar.black_.hole_.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://rack.3.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE0LzA3LzMwL2I0L2ludGVyc3RlbGxhLjc1YTYzLnBuZwpwCXRodW1iCTEyMDB4OTYwMD4/a8bce0de/29d/interstellar.black_.hole_.png" height="345" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Yep, I saw Interstellar this weekend. Yep, I loved it, mostly. Yep, I wanna talk about it.<br />
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Spoilers, yo!<br />
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Man, where to begin. I was raised on stuff like Star Trek and 2001. I've always had a love of astronomy. Not very surprising then that sci-fi tends to be my bread and butter, and well-done hard sci-fi has an extra special place. There's something about attempting to tell a story within the confines of science that makes it even more provocative for me, knowing that such a story could actually happen, even with the more speculative elements like aliens or time travel. Sadly, well-done hard sci-fi is very hard to come by these days. Even Star Trek has abandoned any vestige of hardness for quantum plot device projectors.<br />
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So naturally when a movie like Interstellar comes along, I needed to see it. I deliberately tried to avoid as much info online as possible so as not to spoil anything, which largely worked. I knew it was a sci-fi movie, trying to generally be realistic, and by Christopher Nolan, who has yet to put out a movie I've disliked. That was about it.<br />
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When I left, I realized it was the best Star Trek movie in 20 years. Heh. Thematically, it's a much greater fit to the franchise than the last half-dozen movies. Exploration, diving headfirst into the unknown no matter what, working for the betterment of all mankind, giving us a chance as a species to step back and look at ourselves and think about where we're going. If I haven't said it before, I'll say it now. I'm a humanist. I'm very big on my belief in mankind being capable of amazing things, and it depresses me to no end when we forget that. When our dreams get set aside for mundane concerns that will never truly end. When we assume someone else will come along and carry us forward or make things better. When we refuse to reach out for ourselves and seize our own destiny. So I'm glad when this kind of movie comes along and says "No! Stop looking at the dirt and look up! We should believe in ourselves!"<br />
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The message is unabashedly pro-exploration. As a vaguely-described blight is slowly destroying all the crops in the world (in many ways, this is almost symbolic of the Earth's vast but ultimately finite resources), and innovation and progress grinds to a halt in favor of simply focusing on the grind of daily living (which also explains why most technology on Earth still looks modern despite it being mid- to late-21st century). Even the moon landings have been officially retconned as "faked" in schools to discourage children from wanting to be anything other than farmers. Only a few still believe in the ideals of the past, including Cooper, a former NASA pilot-turned-farmer. He's been trying to keep the flames of passion for science alive in his children, though only his daughter Murph shows any aptitude for it. His older son Tom is destined to become a farmer, not quite scoring high enough to make it into college (which is also now a scarce resource).<br />
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Murph reports a "ghost" in her room, knocking objects off her bookshelves. She discerns what appears to be a pattern in the books, and later dust clouds fall on the floor, revealing dashes that turn out to be binary. Coop and Murph figure out the binary is coordinates, which they travel to and stumble across an abandoned NORAD base, the new home of NASA. After being taken inside, they meet Professor Brand, Cooper's old boss in NASA, who reveals a massive project to find a new home for the human race. Earth is done for, it's merely a matter of time. The primary plan is to build a colony ship, stock it with as many people as possible, and fire it off through a recently-discovered wormhole to another world.<br />
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Oh yeah, the wormhole. Setting aside any arguments as to whether they're even possible or not (I lean towards they are, but for different reasons than some might), So about 50 years prior to the movie, a wormhole suddenly gets detected in orbit around Saturn (spotted by Voyager II, maybe?). Some probes are sent through, and eventually even smaller scout ships, in the hopes of finding another world to migrate the human race to. On the other side of the wormhole, they find a system with some twelve planets in it, located in a completely different galaxy (though how they know it's another galaxy and which galaxy is never stated).<br />
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Anyway, a larger scout ship, the Endurance, is sent along to check in on the scouts and determine a final destination for the colony ship. Of the twelve scouts, three are still transmitting a "good to go". signal. Coop is recruited to pilot Endurance alongside Amelia Brand, Professor Brand's granddaughter (and played by Anne Hathaway, who is apparently capable of looking beautiful no matter what her hair color/length/style is), and two other astronauts, Doyle and Romilly.<br />
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I wanna make a quick aside that, although a lot of the dialogue makes the characters sound more like walking concepts or archetypes than actual characters, they're still done well enough that their names actually stick in my head. A lot of movies, before the credits even finish I've forgotten who was who (see: my Godzilla review), but with this one somehow everyone stuck with me, for the most part. Which was nice.<br />
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But yes, our intrepid gang takes to space, heading for the wormhole. Teary good-byes are made, as, even with a successful return being made, relativistic factors mean years will pass on Earth for months on the parts of the crew. This will only be further exacerbated by the crew going into cryogenic stasis to preserve supplies and power for large chunks of the trip. After eight months, they arrive around Saturn. Thankfully, the robot on board hasn't decided to murder them all this time around, and the ship plunges into the wormhole in an amazingly well done scene reminiscent of the wormhole sequence from 2001 (though not quite as trippy and vastly fancier, of course).<br />
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They arrive in the distant system, passing a nebula that I'd swear looks like one in the Milky Way but maybe it's just me, and begin to decide their next course of action. Of the twelve scouts sent out, three are still transmitting their signals to indicate a likely place. They set course for the nearest, dubbed Miller's planet after the woman who went there, discovering it orbiting a black hole dubbed Gargantua (it's definitely a bigg'un, many times the size of the planet, and looks pretty amazing. I'm told it's a fairly accurate depiction of a black hole, too). However, due to the gravitational effects of the black hole, there's a time differential just between the surface and orbit, meaning an hour on the planet will equal seven years in orbit. Romilly stays behind in stasis while the other three head down, and we get to see our first alien planet.<br />
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And thus we get to see our first alien world in the movie. At first, it seems fairly mundane, nothing but rock and knee-deep water with mountains in the distance. But Miller's ship has apparently been torn apart and oh frak those aren't mountains those are tidal waves! Which is a neat concept, we get waves up to a few meters here on Earth from the moon's gravity, but if you've got a planet orbiting a black hole, of course those waves are going to be wayyyyy bigger. Sufficed to say, Miller's planet isn't a suitable place for the humans, and they move on to Mann's planet.<br />
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This one is a cool place too. Heavily rocky surface, with incredibly low air temperatures. The chemical makeup of the atmosphere means the clouds are actually frozen, and it looks like you're standing/flying between two icy mountain ranges. It's quite a breathtaking sight.<br />
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So they land near Dr. Mann's compound and head inside, waking him up from stasis, and it's<br />
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Yeah, that's who's playing one the greatest scientists of mankind. Prooooobably not the best casting choice, but whatever. He's not around very long anyway, and Mann's lack of social skills is pretty evident.<br />
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So with fuel and people still alive running low, Cooper sends Brand on towards the last planet, while he detaches himself to give Endurance a chance to escape from the black hole's gravity. He plunges past the event horizon alongside the robot in the hopes of transmitting "quantum data" back to Earth to help figure out some super-complex equation that'll unlock gravity manipulation or something. Yeah, that part gets a little weird. Sufficed to say, after he plunges into the black hole, it basically turns into the end of 2001, minus the giant Space Fetus. But it's an interesting way to look at time and space in a non-traditional way, and wraps up a bunch of plot threads, while leaving some cool details to explore in our imaginations or an unlikely sequel.<br />
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Cinematically, the movie is fantastic. Good camera work, amazing visuals, an epic soundtrack that does have a few notes of 2001 in it. Honestly, I'd almost call this movie 2001 for the 21st century, although what each movie is trying to do is a bit different. There are certainly many similarities between them, but I think each stands on its own merits.<br />
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Interstellar is a pretty complex movie, but at no point did I feel like I was losing track of everything. Nolan does a great job of keeping you engaged both mentally and emotionally, and, though it feels a little slow at first, by the time they launch into space the rest of the movie flies by. Scientifically, my interest was piqued throughout the movie, since much of it relies on similar theories to my own sci-fi work. You may recall from <a href="http://allerka.blogspot.com/2014/09/tg-giant-freaking-robots.html">my article about giant robots</a> the technological underpinnings of them being largely based on the idea of graviton manipulation. Many concepts present in this movie are similar, and it was amusing to realize I already knew most of what's discussed in it from my own research.<br />
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I think this movie is also a great look at the difficulties we'll face in space travel for the first few decades, if not centuries, as we try to figure out ways to compensate for relativity, actually reaching other systems (and probably without relying on randomly appearing wormholes), survival in space and managing resources, dealing with hostile alien worlds (the habitable zone for humanity is insanely thin given the full range of possible environments out there), even docking procedures (which really does require an awful lot of precision) and compensating for the momentum of objects in space. Sufficed to say, unless the Vulcans give us a leg up, we probably won't reliably have Star Trek level technology for a lot of basic things for a few centuries (something I took into account in my own timeline. If I recall off-hand, the first extra-solar ships don't even take off until the late 24th century). But many of the problems they face on their journeys are realistic and presented dramatically in a good fashion, even if they would be laughably mundane in other sci-fi.<br />
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Not to say this movie wasn't without fault. One of the biggest overall issues I have is Matthew McConaughey. He never. Closes. His mouth. The whole movie his jaw is slightly agape as he stares at things around him when he's not talking. I would think, having spent a few decades dealing with heavy dust storms, he'd have learned to breathe through his nose by now, but I guess not. It was pretty noticeable and vaguely annoying. I also felt like the movie started to go off the rails, at least scientifically, though also plot-wise, towards the end. The future of mankind apparently relies on a predestination paradox, something that, while it's fairly possible, doesn't entirely sit well with me in terms of telling a good story. I think I would have preferred it if it was actually aliens of some sort, playing with the idea of existing in different spatial or temporal dimensions from us. Oh well. Also the robots in the movie strike me as an awkward design, and I can't help but feel like it was more than a coincidence most of their moving around happened off-screen. I kept mentally comparing them to the Haro robots from Gundam, heh.<br />
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To conclude, despite some issues, the movie was very well done, and if you're even remotely interested in astronomy, you need to see it. In fact, see it anyway, because if you're NOT interested in astronomy after this, then I can't help you, you're too dead inside. This is exactly the kind of movie we need in an age of cynicism and depression, something to spark the fires of hope in us and remind us that our destiny is not here, but in the stars above. There's a vast universe out there waiting for us to explore it. We need to get going.<br />
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For a little more reading on the science of the movie, I recommend <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/11/28/parsing-the-science-of-interstellar-with-physicist-kip-thorne/">this interview</a> with Kip Thorne, the physicist who helped design the movie.Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-36738963749089538712014-11-22T12:14:00.004-05:002014-11-22T12:15:04.491-05:0040K - Codex mini-storyAmidst all the craziness of NaNo, I got a spark for a story to include my upcoming Lords of Oblivion supplemental codex. It's basically one of those 1-2 page stories they used to have in every codex that fills out the feel of the faction. It's rather sad most of those kinds of stories have largely vanished from contemporary books. But not with mine!<br />
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Anyway, here's the story. Enjoy!<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No one spoke as the lift descended into the depths of the hive. The four guards nervously flexed their fingers as they gripped their lasguns, which were pointed as best they could manage in the confined interior at the figure which stood in the middle. The figure stood half a meter taller than the rest of them, clad in a dark green robe over a black bodyglove. The robe's edges were worked with small letters in white thread that none of the guards recognized. He was motionless, his face partly hidden beneath a hood, and what could be seen was devoid of expression.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The lift clattered to a halt, and the door ground open on old gears. The two guards in the front stepped out, keeping their guns trained on the giant, who silently padded out. With all four guns trained on him, he walked steadily down the permacrete tunnel towards a larger set of door. Beneath his hood, he glanced from side to side, noting the traces of dried blood, and the crudely painted sigils of the Dark Gods, which matched those engraved into the armor of the soldiers around him. He felt a slight twinge in his mind to see the sigils, but it was a sensation he had long since become used to.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two more guards stood outside the doors. One bore a lasgun, the other carried a gently steaming plasma gun which gave the area around it a pale blue glow. Their armor was worn, but distinctly ex-Guard. All traces of Imperial insignia had been long-since removed. The one with the lasgun keyed a code into a panel next to the door. Although he tried to keep his body between the visitor and the keypad, it wasn't hard for the visitor to tell from his arm movements what the sequence was. The visitor's mouth twitched slightly into a grin for a split second before vanishing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The large doors swung inwards, revealing a modest chamber that may have once been used for industrial purposes. There were the ruined remnants of equipment and pumps, but it had been largely cleared out in favor of tables and hololith projectors full of maps and other tactical information. Many of the maps had been rolled up and the hololiths disabled, but the visitor's enhanced vision picked out a number of minor details anyway, and his knowledge of the deployments of these renegades grew greatly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Within the room stood four more humans, flanked by a pair of Ogryns. The humans bore a mix of aristocratic garb and officer attire, and the Ogryns' faces were hidden beneath crimson hoods. They pointed their blunt ripper guns at the visitor, and one of the humans stepped forward. His uniform appeared to be that of a senior officer, though his carapace armor was now encrusted with spikes and embellishments proclaiming his new allegiance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Welcome, noble Astartes," he said with a hint of disdain in his voice. The visitor came to a halt, and slowly reached up to pull back his hood. His pale face was free of blemishes, though he had a single silver stud above his right eye. His hair was black but short, and his eyes were a piercing green. He glanced around, taking stock of the half-dozen humans and two Ogryns that had their weapons trained on him, before looking back at the general and nodding slightly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"General Krozium, thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I am Brother-Codicier Helcate." He held his hands out to his side to indicate he was unarmed. They had already checked him several times on his way down, but it seemed a prudent choice anyway.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Of the Lords of Oblivion Chapter, I believe it was." Helcate nodded in confirmation, and Krozium continued. "I must admit, I was surprised to receive word of your offer. I know full well how unwilling the Imperium is to negotiate, especially when it has lost."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Helcate gave a nearly impercetable shrug. "You have proven a most intractible foe, and, despite our best efforts, you yourself have been impossible to find until now." He noticed the guards stiffened slightly, as if expecting him to attack them. He didn't budge.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"If that's supposed to be a threat, I doubt you could survive long enough to kill all of us."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Not at all, General. Merely an observation. Let us move on to terms, shall we? The Astra Militarum regiments here have been devastated by both yourselves and your daemonic allies, and only the Lords of Oblivion stand between you and total control of the planet. Defeating you is taking more time and resources than we anticipated, and we are needed elsewhere. The terms are simple. A mutual disengagement for one week, and by the end of that time, we shall be gone. Do you find this agreeable?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"It's obviously some kind of trick," one of the other leaders said. The man was clad in the torn robes of an Archbishop, though lesions covered his skin and rot had half-destroyed the robes. Helcate had no idea if the robes were actually his or merely stolen, but his allegiance to the Plaguefather was obvious. The man gave a quick rasping cough and said, "They simply want to buy time to infiltrate deeper into the hive and make us complacent before they renew their attack."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Helcate raised his hands, palms outward, and smiled, "Come now, I know we are bitter enemies, but I assure you my terms are genuine. What would I have to gain by coming down here alone and unarmored?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"A foolish move, I think," Krozium replied. "I agree to your terms, assuming you honor them, but, until we confirm your complete withdrawal, you will remain as our...guest." The guards tensed again, expecting violence.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If Helcate was bothered by the statement, he didn't show. "That was not part of the terms offered. Return me to my Chapter, and we will withdraw."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Krozium was equally unmoved. "No. You will remain with us for the next week. Perhaps you might even...learn some things to take back to your Chapter."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Helcate chuckled and folded his arms. "You really are stupid, aren't you? Not only do you think you can keep me here against my will for an entire week, but you think you mortals could corrupt me to the service of Chaos? I've likely forgotten more about the Warp than all of you have learned combined."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"This is pointless. We should just kill him, and rid the Astartes of a senior officer," a third leader spoke. She wore baroque armor as well that was a mottled red, likely stained that way more through blood splatters than actual paint. She held a power axe in each hand.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"She's right, you'd be better off just killing me. Or trying to, anyway," Helcate said, his amusement still obvious. His hands dropped to his sides.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"No, I want assurance they will hold up their end of the bargin. A hostage will go much further towards ensuring that than a corpse. Even if the Imperium returns later, we will have had time to consolidate our defenses." Krozium lifted his power saber and pointed it at Helcate. "You will make sure this happens."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now Helcate laughed openly. The rebel leaders shifted uncomfortably. "By Ferrus, you're an idiot! You doomed yourselves the moment I stepped in here, but you're too stupid to realize it! Go ahead! Shoot me!" The guards hesitated, looking to Krozium for guidance. "SHOOT ME!" Helcate bellowed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Do it!" The woman screamed. The guards squeezed their triggers. Nothing happened. Almost as one, they looked at their guns, confusion spreading across their faces as their triggers refused to budge. The Ogryns grunted with exertion as they tried to fire their guns, but the triggers didn't budge. Krozium looked at Helcate, icy dread spreading through his heart. Belatedly, he realized the sensation of cold wasn't just him, but the air in the room was getting cold as well.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"What..." was all he could manage as Helcate drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he exhaled, his breath came out as icy mist. His eyes opened, and they crackled with blue energy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"You really thought loyal servants of the Emperor would genuinely negotiate with scum like you?" Helcate's voice was full of both lethality and amusement, and it echoed not just around the room, but within Krozium's mind. The guards and Ogryns all began to scream as they found their trigger fingers forcibly pulled away from their guns and then forcibly severed from their hands. The screaming only intensified when all of them began to clutch their heads before their eyes exploded, and they all collapsed to the ground.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Kill him!" The priest rasped, and the woman charged at Helcate with a fierce scream. She swung one axe at his head, but the axe merely exploded as it hit an invisible wall of force inches away from her target. The explosion hurled her back. Helcate tilted his head back slightly, and the woman flew into the far wall with such force she simply disappeared into a cloud of blood.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Other than tilting his head, Helcate hadn't budged a muscle since he spoke. He took a step forward, and Krozium tried to take one back, but found his legs utterly frozen. He tried to look behind him to see what the other two were doing, but saw they had both collapsed to the ground as well, blood leaking from their eyes, ears, and noses. The screaming had subsided as all the guards died.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Helcate took another step forward, and came within arms-length of Krozium. He tried to lift his power saber to strike the Space Marine, but the blade flew out of his hand and clattered uselessly in a far corner.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"You have my gratitude, general. You've save us a month of trouble to find you. We would have found you eventually, but not only will your leadership fall today, we will learn everything there is to know about where the rest of you are hiding."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blood began to leak out of Krozium's nose at the sheer force of Helcate's psychic presence. The Astartes raised one hand and put it atop Krozium's head. Despite the frost covering his armor, he screamed as white hot fire lanced through his mind, shattering his sanity as all his military knowledge was forcibly ripped out. In less than two seconds, the interior of his head was reduced to scorched ash, and smoke began to leak out of his ears as he collapsed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The frost covering every surface began to subside, and the glow in Helcate's eyes faded. He walked over to one table full of maps, and quickly glanced over its contents. He turned away from the table after realizing there was nothing on the maps he didn't already know.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He closed his eyes and reached out with his mind, seeking another mind in particular. Once he found it, he spoke to it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Captain Tiburin, the rebel leadership has been destroyed, and I have extracted full knowledge of their deployments. I am returning to the surface and will be back within the hour. Your plan worked perfectly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He had to strain slightly to hear the reply, as the response was not being actively transmitted by a psyker.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Excellent. Well done, Helcate. I await your return.</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-01bc0987-d87d-3c4d-1391-ace35c7c7750"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Helcate closed his psychic senses without a further word, and walked quietly from the now-still room.</span></span>Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-67751060067165472362014-09-16T19:35:00.007-04:002016-08-23T11:31:14.652-04:00TG: Giant Freaking RobotsI just rewatched Pacific Rim last night, a movie which I found just as entertaining as when it first came out last year. If I haven't mentioned it before, I frigging love giant robots. I distinctly recall as a kid being hooked on Technoman/Tekkaman Blade and Battletech, and then later getting into other franchises like Gundam, Macross, Escaflowne, Mechwarrior, Armored Core, Front Mission, and, of course, Warhammer 40,000.<br />
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I guess it's not too surprising I've been thinking about giant robots in my own universe, and I've actually put together quite a few details over the years. You may recall reading about them a little bit in the novel excerpts I posted, and the All-Terrain Suit does feature in that book. I have plans to make at least one video game about them, too.<br />
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So here's the major categories of description. If I've missed anything, let me know, and I'll add it.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><u>Appearance</u></span></b><br />
Mechas have a huge range of size, from the "barely bigger than a human" Marauder suits of Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles to "throwing galaxies around like they're rocks" Super Galactic Gurren Lagaan, and ranging everywhere in between.<br />
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I'll say up front I've done a lot of research on the engineering issues that would prevent giant robots from being viable in the modern era. Thankfully, this is science fiction, and I think I figured out solutions to the majority of the issues.<br />
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Anyway, among the various franchises that range from fairly realistic to "LOL physics", I think Front Mission is among the most realistic. The wanzers aren't crazy-huge, nor crazy-fast (unless they're using their mecha-roller skates), and can't fly.<br />
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The All-Terrain Suit is roughly the same size, averaging 25-35 feet (8-12 meters) in height. It's crewed by a single trained human (details on the interface below). As far as the external appearance goes, I've seen a huge range of mecha designs, from nothing but curves to all sharp angles, with exposed skeletons to full-enclosed, and every imaginable distinctive head design you can think of. To my surprise though, I've never seen ones built to resemble historical suits of armor. Even ones that incorporate SOME elements, like Gundams, only have one or two elements and otherwise still look distinctly sci-fi. Escaflowne was a medieval world with steampunk-ish giant robots, and they still looked fairly sci-fi.<br />
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The All-Terrain Suit does indeed look like a 30-foot suit of armor, but with modern weaponry and signs of in-built electronics. The eyes of the "helmet" can be seen to have cameras and other sensory equipment, there's usually a backpack with extra ammo or other devices, and the joints between the armor plates are protected by advanced flexible polymers to keep cosmic dust and other small objects out of those parts.<br />
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Just as there were a huge variety of plate armor styles, the ATS has undergone countless iterations in the centuries of its service. Some are lighter, meant more for scout roles and speed, others and heavier and bristling with weapons. I haven't devised too many specific variants as yet, given the sheer range of time present, but the basics of the appearance remain constant, although there are undoubtedly some variants that, while they still look like giant suits of plate armor, aren't directly based on any pre-industrial designs.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Propulsion/Power</u></b></span><br />
One of the biggest issues facing the development of giant robots today is getting them to move at a workable pace, maintaining their balance while doing so, making them out of materials that can withstand the weight, and having a solid power source for all this equipment that won't run dry in just an hour or two.<br />
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Obviously, with a few more centuries of work, I think we can take care of all these problems. One of the primary technologies of the Solar Alliance is their graviton manipulation technology. Gravitons are the sub-atomic particles believed to be responsible for gravity. Although the means to manipulate them are beyond our science currently, I think it might be possible to figure them out and manipulate them as easily as we do water today. Artificial gravity is easy to do on spaceships, and forms the basis of propulsion for pretty much all vehicles used by humanity, including the All-Terrain Suit. As part of its all-purpose nature, the ATS is capable of fighting on land, in the sky, and in space, and switch between any of the three without need for additional preparation or modification.<br />
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Through the use a powerful gravitic drive, the ATS is able to maneuver easily through any environment, changing speeds and directions instantly with no adverse effects on the pilot, giving it an incredible amount of agility. It can also bear weights far in excess of material tolerance because the mass of those weights are greatly reduced. Basically gravity means almost nothing to an ATS. Also of note is that all Solar Alliance vehicles, contrary to most sci-fi vessels, don't have giant blazing engines or dozens of thruster rockets all over them. Since they propel themselves by creating localized gravity fields that pull them in whatever direction they want, the need for such visual elements are unnecessary. Indeed, this principle forms the basis of their FTL travel as well, though the warp drives required are too big to fit on anything smaller than a full-blown starship.<br />
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Powering all this is another standard piece of Solar Alliance technology: the thalite core. Another form of tech that's been perfected over centuries of development, the thalite core is a scalable power source that powers everything from fighters to every class of starship. It's actually made of two distinct systems. At its heart is a fairly standard sci-fi anti-matter reactor, providing the raw energy for various systems via controlled matter annihilation. The second major part is a series of collectors designed to absorb various types of exotic particles and energy waves present throughout the universe to augment the energy generation of the reactor. Additional collectors maintain stores of cosmic dust and hydrogen for conversion into the raw matter/anti-matter mix, meaning that a thalite core can theoretically run forever. The matter/energy conversion process also goes the other way, as fighters and ATS' will have micro-replicators built into them for use with their weapon systems, hence why the fighters in my novel seem to have an endless supply of missiles.<br />
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Alternatively, I haven't fully decided, instead of relying on anti-matter reactions, the thalite core uses micro-singularities instead (i.e. tiny black holes), with the collectors still performing the same task and funneling matter into the singularity as it "evaporates". I haven't crunched the numbers on which would generate more power, but the singularity type seems like it'd be more in line with the graviton manipulation technology.<br />
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Either way, power can be routed to systems on the fly, and multiple high-drain functions can be sustained for a while until the power system's capacitors (or equivalent) need time to recharge. If the drain is low enough compared to the core's output, then those functions could be sustained indefinitely. There's one scene in the novel where fighters are launching continual streams of shield-breaking missiles against a Great Enemy vessel, but the barrages are sustained for so long many of them need to shut down after a while and pray they don't get picked off while they drift.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Piloting</u></b></span><br />
Piloting an ATS is vastly more complex than most mechas. I always found it weird a pilot can hop into something so complex and move it about as if it were a perfect extension of their body with just a pair of joysticks and a butt-load of buttons.<br />
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The primary means of controlling one is an extensive neural interface. The pilot is suspended in a complex harness, and essentially hangs there, though to them it doesn't feel like they're hanging, almost more floating, though super-localized gravity fields provide instant and accurate feedback to what the suit feels (i.e. the ground or, to a lesser extent, impacts), as well as protect the pilot from any form of inertial feedback. Numerous wires and muscle sensors attach to both a skin-tight suit and directly into neural jacks on the pilot, creating an accurate response to the pilot's movement. Because a pilot performs the same physical actions their suit does, they actually need to be in peak physical condition, though genetic conditioning and select cybernetic implants will enhance their endurance and reactions far beyond the norms.<br />
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Perhaps the most important part of the interface is the "crown", a partial helmet laced with wires and connection ports, which connects the pilot directly to the suit they pilot. Of course, there are a number of neural implants which help the pilot process the massive stream of data. However, the training and conditioning for this still takes a full year to complete, as too rapid of integration throws the pilot right into shock and/or brain-death. A lesser form of these interface implants, the Adjutant Chip, is commonly used throughout the Solar Alliance to aid in complex tasks, and Grand Admiral du Saniel has one in the novel.<br />
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Not all information is relayed via neural interface, and the pilot can choose to have their cockpit project a variety of information, from simply showing their surroundings to displaying various systems information. Sufficed to say, a pilot is always fully aware of the status of their suit, their surroundings in all directions, and the function of their weapons, leading to a vastly superior means of control than seen in most mecha franchises.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Defenses</u></b></span><br />
Naturally all this fancy technology needs protection from the dangers of the universe and anything the pilots may need to fight. The most rudimentary defense is plain old armor, in the form of sculpted plates protecting the bulk of the internal components. Such means don't necessarily work for the flexible joints, however, and most ATS designs will incorporate thinner/smaller plates and/or the aforementioned flexible material. Obviously the level of protection is lower, but the added flexibility can easily make up for it.<br />
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And, of course, given the ATS being manufactured on dozens of planets across centuries of service, the style of the armor can vary greatly. The majority of designs resemble historical suits of armor, although there are numerous designs that resemble plate armor but take no basis in pre-industrial designs. They may incorporate a variety of aesthetic embellishments, such as spikes or layered plates. A rarer variant is the use of small armor plates layered like the scales of a reptile, essentially replicating the historical "scale-mail" style of armor. The smaller plates can be used in conjunction to afford flexibility and protect the vulnerable joints, and are far easier to replace, although the smaller (and typically thinner) plates cannot absorb the repeated impacts of weapons fire.<br />
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Another contrast to contemporary materials is what the armor of the All-Terrain Suit is made of. The most common material used is tritanium, an advanced alloy capable of withstanding the full range of extreme temperatures of space, as well as being extremely impact resistant. Indeed, this is the same material most starships make their outer hulls out of. Other materials may sometimes be used in varying combinations with tritanium, such as adamantium or impervium. An ATS may also carry a tower shield in one hand which provides additional protection from incoming fire or close-range blows. Smaller shields may be mounted to the shoulders, providing some protection while leaving both hands free.<br />
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Beyond the armor, the ATS typically employs a weaker version of the gravity shields employed by starships. Utilizing an advanced sensor suite to detect incoming projectiles or energy blasts, the shield system projects micro-singularities to intercept would-be attacks, absorbing them into nothingness. While the "shields" can be projected theoretically indefinitely, the system's capacitor coils tend to suffer from overheating (a mix of heat, excess radiation, and absorbed kinetic force), and thus, if employed too rapidly, will overload and require time to "cool down". Therefore, a concentrated attack can overwhelm a shield system and damage the ATS or ship before it has a chance to recover, but, the incoming damage can be mitigated enough, then the craft is functionally invincible.<br />
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Weaponry</span></u></b><br />
Of course, what giant robot isn't complete without an array of deadly weaponry with which to destroy everything around it. Well, I suppose Basara from Macross 7, but you know what I mean!<br />
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Naturally, fulfilling a variety of battlefield roles, the armaments of the ATS varies greatly. Front-line standard models will carry battle rifles, firing either large-caliber shells or energy blasts. The shells range in caliber from 10mm gatling guns to 150mm high-explosive shells (naturally, the larger-caliber ones will require larger barrels). Recoil isn't an issue, as all solid weapons are fired gauss-style. Nor is ammunition, as the thalite reactor provides enough power for energy weapons or powers a micro-replicator system for the solid weapons. And thanks to gravity manipulation, weight isn't a factor either. An ATS can carry as much as it can fit without worrying about being burdened by the weight at all, and requires no modification to switch between weapon systems, simply needing to pick another weapon up and the links are automatically formed. Thus an ATS can switch between close-range "pistol" type weapons to sub-orbital artillery in a matter of moments.<br />
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Secondary systems will often be mounted as well. The shoulders are popular spots for adding heavy weapons, racks of missiles, indirect fire mortars, and various other weapons, or sometimes ECM/ECCM suites. Smaller missile racks are often mounted to the thighs or calves of the suit, as well, providing close-range fire support.<br />
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Another common armament is head-mounted machine guns for anti-infantry purposes. These are typically around .50cal in size, but may vary depending on the desired effect. Although the ATS has little to fear from infantry generally, or may not be able to afford the more indiscriminate destruction of the larger weapons, these guns can be good for deterring a determined anti-vehicle assault by infantry.<br />
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Although rarer, some come equipped with melee weapons. Yes, I know, it seems like a silly idea, and no, there aren't units of all-melee suits flying around trying to take down their gun-wielding opponents. But carrying at least one melee weapon as a backup is fairly standard. Kinetic shields normally don't work against melee attacks. Sometimes the enemy will be too close, or your guns have all been shot off. Or somehow you've run out of ammo. Stop looking at me like that, it happens!<br />
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But yes, the melee weapons utilize tightly projected energy fields to give them lethal edges, and typically come in sword, axe, spear, or halberd form. A few might rely on knives, and some worlds will equip their suits with more esoteric designs.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Savior Suits</u></b></span><br />
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At last, we come to the final section! All the basics of the ATS have been covered, but there's one additional bit I wanted to cover. There's a rarer class of Suit which far exceeds what regular Suits are capable of. These Suits are typically built with the absolutely latest and cutting edge technology, or even often experimental technology. Although their official designations change regularly, colloquially they're generally referred to as Savior Suits. There's a common saying that a single squad of All-Terrain Suits can alter the course of a battle, while a squad a Savior Suits can alter the fate of a planet.</div>
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Essentially the Savior Suits are the Gundams of this universe. As I said, the combat potential of a single Savior Suit can be equal to entire platoons of of regular All-Terrain Suits. They can attain speeds faster than any other human vehicle outside of FTL travel, dodging even near-light-speed attacks, able to engage dozens of targets at once with unerring accuracy, withstand attacks that would annihilate a regular Suit in a single blow, and generally outperform almost anything else on the battlefield.<br />
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Such effectiveness is not without cost, however. The genetic and cybernetic alterations made to pilots of Savior Suits are vastly more extensive than normal pilots, and it's not unusual for Savior pilots to become, in many ways, removed from the humanity they protect. Their original personalities will often fade away or be replaced, and many, once wired into their suits, will not leave it until they die or the suit suffers extreme damage. Basic biological needs are fulfilled while connected, and so they see little reason to exit the suits. Companionship, curiosity, social impulses, and other such considerations become subsumed in a singular desire for war. They often go into a sort of hibernation between battles, only half-concious for days, weeks, or even months at a time, until a signal is sent informing them that war calls once again. Whether you agree with such costs or not, their effectiveness cannot be denied. Whether you agree with such costs or not, their effectiveness cannot be denied. And in a war for the very survival of mankind, it is a price most are willing to pay.<br />
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Conclusion</span></u></b><br />
So, that pretty much wraps up everything about the All-Terrain Suit in my universe. Did I leave anything out? Any further questions? Did I maybe mess up somewhere? Let me know!</div>
Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-91733926751213183612014-08-25T18:00:00.000-04:002016-08-23T11:27:07.765-04:00Scrapbook #3More randomness! We've got a dash of comedy, a vague parable, more comedy, and another story featuring the writer's group in a new situation, and thus is a kinda/sorta sequel to a previous story.<br /><br />And no, I haven't forgotten about the prompt stories. I'm working on several articles right now, including reviews of the Space Wolves and Grey Knights books, a review of The Damnation of Pythos, and an original article for my universe. Once I get those out of the way, I'll hammer out another prompt story.<br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><i>“What do you experience in a sudden situation due to a jerk friend?”</i><br /><br />“And we’re landed! Wherever here is. Let’s go!”<br />“Hang on! Let’s see what’s out there. ...Doctor, it’s nothing but Daleks and Cybermen fighting each other!”<br />“Ooh, exciting! Let’s find out what they’re fighting about!”<br />“Screw that, get us out of here!”<br />“But-”<br />“NOW!”<br />“Awww…”<br /><br /> <br /><i>Four-line one-stanza poem, sci-fi comedy</i><br /><br />Security wears red<br />Obi-wan’s lightsaber is blue<br />Many aliens are green<br />EXTERMINATE!<br /><br /> <br /><br /><i>"Finding a house on the beach"</i><br /><br />“We’ve been walking for hours. There’s gotta be somewhere we can stop.” They continued to trudge through the beach sand, thirst and exhaustion clawing at them.<br /><br /> “Wait, what’s that? Look, a house!” It poked up just behind a small ridge. It seemed to be surrounded by a luscious garden. As they approached it, they saw there was even a moving sidewalk to draw them closer.<br /><br /> “Man, whoever lives here must be loaded!” The door opened automatically at their arrival, and they stepped in. No one was home, but the place was fully furnished. They grabbed glasses of ice water and relaxed on the couch as the TV played CNN. As they clinked glasses, a rumbling reached their ears.<br /><br /> “What was that?” Without warning, rain began to fall. Within minutes, it became a torrential downpour, and wind lashed the house. The walls shook, and the furniture rattled. In less than an hour, the house, its foundations too weak to withstand the storm, began to collapse, and the two of them fled into the storm.<br /><br /> “Let’s get inland, away from the waves!” They fled up the hills as ten-foot waves threatened to carry them both out to sea. The hills were covered in rocks, tangles of vines, and thorny bushes. The climbing was slow, and the rain lashed them like whips.<br /><br />“We’ve been walking for hours. There’s gotta be somewhere we can stop.” They continued to trudge through the beach sand, thirst and exhaustion clawing at them.<br /><br /> “Wait, what’s that? Look, a house!” It poked up just behind a small ridge. It seemed to be surrounded by a luscious garden. As they approached it, they saw there was even a moving sidewalk to draw them closer.<br /><br /> “Man, whoever lives here must be loaded!” The door opened automatically at their arrival, and they stepped in. No one was home, but the place was fully furnished. They grabbed glasses of ice water and relaxed on the couch as the TV played CNN. As they clinked glasses, a rumbling reached their ears.<br /><br /> “What was that?” Without warning, rain began to fall. Within minutes, it became a torrential downpour, and wind lashed the house. The walls shook, and the furniture rattled. In less than an hour, the house, its foundations too weak to withstand the storm, began to collapse, and the two of them fled into the storm.<br /><br /> “Let’s get inland, away from the waves!” They fled up the hills as ten-foot waves threatened to carry them both out to sea. The hills were covered in rocks, tangles of vines, and thorny bushes. The climbing was slow, and the rain lashed them like whips.<br /><br /> Eventually, dragging themselves over the lip of the hill, they saw a light through the trees. Approaching with caution, they saw a rough wood cabin. Inside the floor was dirt, and the light came from a lantern. But up here, far above the waves, and supported on a solid foundation of rock, the cabin was more than sturdy enough to withstand the storm. They each collapsed into a straw bed and slept soundly as the rain pattered on the roof. <br /><br /> <br /><br /><i>“Indecisive person with anger issues” </i><br /><br />“Well, which one do you want?” <br />“I don’t know…”<br /> “Come on, you gotta pick.” <br />“Yeah, but I’m not sure. They each sound good.” <br />“I know, but just pick one so we can get on with it.” <br />“Would you stop trying to pressure me?! You always do this!”<br /> “Look, you just need to pick one or the other. It’s not that hard!” <br />“It is so! God! You’re always forcing me to make choices! I don’t want to! I’m sick of it!” <br />“Hey, stop throwing things! Oww! Jesus, it’s just soup or salad!” <br /><br /> <br /><i><br />“Bad ass, indomitable spirit, OCD” </i><br /><br /> <br /><br />“SPACE MARINES! ADVANCE! FOR THE EMPEROR!” <br /><br />The Space Marines charged the Ork lines, guns blazing. Greenskin bodies fell by the dozen, and their warboss charged forward to meet the enemy. The Space Marines’ Captain ran forward, power sword blazing in the setting sunlight. The two collided into each other with tremendous force, and a shockwave of force ripped chunks of dirt in all directions. <br /><br /> The Captain’s sword clashed against the warboss’ axe, sparks flying and drawing the eyes of all the other combatants. Each of them stood over two meters tall, hundreds of pounds of raw muscle and armor. They stepped back and prepared to swing again. The Captain switched his sword to a one-handed grip and slid beneath the warboss’ next swing, bringing his sword up into the creature’s gut. Before it could react, his other hand lifted his bolt pistol and shoved the barrel into the underside of its jaw. He squeezed the trigger, and the warboss’ head exploded in a shower of blood and bone. <br /><br /> With the warboss’ sudden death, the Orks began to panic and flee. The Space Marines charged after them, gunning the xenos down. The Captain grabbed the edges of his cloak and began to wipe down his armor, ignoring the battle. <br /><br /> “Captain!” One of his sergeants shouted as he approached. “The Orks are retreating! We must advance!” <br /><br /> “Hang on, I need to get my armor clean.” <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><i>“Blind date with the following character: <br /><br />Millicent Brimley. Goat Thief. She likes to kill the cows before leaving with the goats. Loves her own sense of humor that no one gets. Has an anole she keeps in a box in her bag.” </i><br /><br /> <br /> I sit down at the table and look around Sava’s. Might as well have this date somewhere comfortable and familiar. She shows up a few minutes later, thankfully looking just like her profile photos. Dark hair, glasses, overall very cute. She’s wearing a fancy blue dress and coat. I get up, hug her, and pull her seat out before returning to mine. <br /><br /> “Good to finally meet in person, Millicent.” I say. She nods and smiles nervously. “Lovely name, by the way.” The waiter comes by to get our drinks and takes off. I already know what I want to eat, so I set the menu aside. We make a few minutes of random small talk about the weather and traffic. <br /><br /> “Anyway,” I try to segue, “You haven’t actually told me what you do.” <br /><br /> She looks away nervously, leans in slightly, and quietly says, “I steal goats.” I pause for a moment, not sure if she’s being serious or not. I decide to play it casual and reach for my drink. <br /><br /> “Oh?” She nods. “What do you do with them?” <br /><br /> “Specifically, I steal the goats of certain farmers known to engage in unethical treatment of them.” That doesn’t sound as bad. I raise the glass to my mouth and begin to sip my drink slowly while she continues. “After I kill all the cows, I load the goats into a truck and take them to a rescue camp in Jackson. It’s a total goat rodeo there.” I freeze as she laughs. The way she mentions the cow slaughter so nonchalantly sets off some alarms in the first second, as does the pun. In the next second, I ponder that perhaps she does it for the same reason she rescues the goats, save them from whatever barbaric conditions they’re in, but cows take up a lot of space and resources. In the third second, I ponder heading to the bathroom and dashing out, to get away from her likely crazy. In the fourth second, I decide I’ve already dated crazier, and let’s see where this can go. I shrug and set my glass down. <br /><br /> “Jackson’s a bit of a drive,” I say.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><i>"The plastic dog" </i><br /><br />"The Plastic Dog. What a weird name for a bar," Ali said with her usual derision. <br />"Do you even know what plastic is?" Alex asked. <br />"No. Should I?" <br />Dendrin tried to be helpful. "It's a pre-Fall substance used by the Solar Alliance to-" <br />"Shut up, nerd!" Ali interrupted him. "I don't care, I need a drink." She kicked the door open and stomped inside. <br /><br /> <br /><br /><i>"We're all in the same setting. Inmates in Alcatraz." </i><br /><br />"Whoo, I'm number 666! Fear me, chumps!" I hear Snowy shouting excitedly. I chuckle and shake my head as I head for my cell. The others head to their cells, expressing a full range of emotions, sharing their pretend stories for why they're supposedly real inmates and not a tour group. If we were here for real, the women would all be in a different building entirely. <br /><br />"Well, at least we don't have to worry about zombies or raiders," I hear Suleman, err, number 20 make an obvious reference. I plop down on my bed, toss one foot over the other as I lean back against the wall, and start to read my book: <i>The Walking Dead</i> volume ten. I'm so far past the prison in the comics, knowing what's coming, and secretly laughing at those who only watch the show. Mua ha ha. <br /><br />Before long, my cellmate begins playing a harmonica. I set the book down and look up at the bottom of the top bunk. <br /><br />"Really John? Could you possibly be any more cliche?" I say sarcastically. <br /><br />"Just trying to get in the mood for this. I have a great idea for a story. And it's number 16." <br /><br />"Whatever John. Are you just trying to be so cliche you're somehow anti-cliche?" <br /><br />"Why are you being so uptight about this?" <br /><br />"I just want some peace and quiet for a little bit. Don't make me repeat what happened at that old mansion we went to." Suddenly the harmonica stops, and I briefly reminisce about a stormy night and the smell of gun smoke. I hear some of the others already trying to organize a breakout and still more already trying to gamble with their candy cigarettes as if they were real. <br /><br />"Oh, snap!" I suddenly shout as I read a huge plot twist in the comics. <br /><br />"What? What happened?" John leans over to look at me upside down. <br /><br />I look up and grin. "Spoilers." <br /><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1404422958177059464.post-80304356592467230512014-07-16T09:45:00.000-04:002016-08-23T11:27:07.746-04:00Scrapbook #2Here's another batch of writings! Some randomness, and some cohesive narratives, all written in five minutes or less. At some point along here, I decided to challenge myself to try and make as many of these stories set within my game world as I could, so many of them are just that. A few aren't, though, and one or two recurring characters make a return.<br /><br />Anyway, enjoy!<br /><a name='more'></a><br /><i>“Challenging a rival to a duel”</i><br /><br /> I smack my now-empty glass on the table. “I’ve had enough of your trash-talking! Every day, it’s ‘You suck at everything’ and ‘You have no idea what you’re doing.’ Well, I’m sick of it! I know what I’m doing! I’ve been doing this longer than you!”<br /><br /> He sets his glass down as well, the ice clinking. “Bull. You’re an idiot at this. It’s time I taught you a lesson on how to properly fight.”<br /><br /> My eyes narrow. “Fine. Hit me with your best shot.”<br /><br /> His eyes narrow. We both stand. A tense moment of silence.<br /><br /> “2000 points, Purge the Xenos mission, Dawn of War deployment. Do your worst, Space Marines.”<br /><br /> “Agreed. I’m gonna wipe the floor with you, you damn dirty Tau.”<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>“Tell a story devoid of one of the senses”</i><br /><br /> “How much further?” Alex asked as he stumbled along. His customary headband had been pulled down over his eyes, leaving him blind, and Conrad slowly escorted him across Montblanc to wherever their destination was. They had been walking for several minutes from Conrad’s house, so Alex wasn’t sure where they were going. Perhaps his house, or Le Chat Noir, the town’s tavern. The going was slow, though, as Conrad was spending more time teasing Alex and getting him to walk into things than actually help him.<br /><br /> Around them, he heard the sounds of nature, birds chirping in nearby trees and the murmur of conversation from people nearby. They hadn’t passed through the noisy marketplace, so the tavern seemed unlikely. The air smelled as it always did in mid-spring, fresh and flowery, though it somehow seemed more vivid without his eyes.<br /><br /> For the umpteenth time, just as he started feeling confident in his direction of travel, buoyed by Conrad’s encouragement, he began to walk more steadily and promptly smacked into something. This time it felt like a wall; rough, unsanded wood, like most of the houses in Montblanc.<br /><br /> Conrad snorted with laughter and placed a hand on Alex’s shoulder, guiding him back in the direction he hopefully was supposed to be walking.<br /><br /> “Seriously, knock that off,” Alex said, idly rubbing his throbbing forehead.<br /><br /> “We’re just about there,” Conrad replied. Alex heard a door opening, and he was ushered inside a building. Through the cracks of his blindfold, it was dark inside. It smelled familiar, like a house, like his house, but there were new scents from earlier. Something delicious had recently been cooked, some kind of cake. His mother must have made a cake for him.<br /><br /> “Can I take it off now?” Alex asked. Conrad didn’t answer, though Alex heard him take a few steps into the house. Alex took a few tentative steps forward, his hands held out before him. He began to feel disoriented from not touching anything. Suddenly, his hands brushed against something, and he latched on with vigorous relief, both hands squeezing something soft. Then, everything happened at once.<br /><br /> His nose filled with a new scent, a perfume of roses, lilac, and cinnamon. He recognized it instantly. It was Mileena’s perfume, he knew; no one else in Montblanc used it. Her family was wealthy enough for her to acquire the stuff from traveling merchants whenever they brought some to town. His heart began to race at the thought of her, and a growing horror filled his mind.<br /><br /> At the same time, he heard her voice give a wordless exclamation of surprise, directly in front of him. With a clatter of curtains, light flooded the room.<br /><br /> “Happy…” the group cry quickly died away nearly as soon as it began, and Alex, panic rising in his chest, withdrew one hand from whatever it was latched onto to pull his headband up. His stomach clenched as he blinked and looked down to find his other hand firmly groping one of Mileena’s boobs, a look of surprise on her face. He glanced around, to find his family, Conrad’s family, and Mileena’s family all standing around them in his family’s house. It took him a moment for the full situation to sink in. He realized his hand was still on Mileena’s chest, and with an embarrassed gasp, he withdrew it. Heat swarmed his face as he blushed heavily and cleared his throat awkwardly.<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>“Loneliest at the top”</i><br /><br />He floated, as he was wont to do, letting the currents carry him. They were weak this far up in the atmosphere, but the edges pulled him along in a lazy orbit. He had no fear of suffocation, of irradiation, or any of the hundred other ways an unprotected person might die up here. For all intents and purposes, he was invincible.<br /><br />It was strangely serene. Probably due to the silence. He looked down at the world below, and his hearing attuned itself. The silence vanished beneath a cacophony of noise. With superhuman focus, he picked out individual noises, coming from a thousand different places across the globe. People crying out for help, people dying, people in despair. The serenity faded as realization dawned on him that even he could not help all of them.<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>“two-sentence horror story”</i><br /><br />“Hey, what’s the wifi password for this cabin?”<br />“There is no wifi.”<br /><br />He opened the box to find a dusty book within. Flipping to a random page, he read aloud "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."<br /><br />Finally, he thought to himself, the woman of my dreams is all mine for the night, alone in the woods after months of pursuit. Suddenly, he realized the condoms were missing.<br /><br />The morning after their wedding, they awoke with tender cuddling.<br />“Let’s watch my favorite movie,” she said, “Star Wars: Episode One!”<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>“Two sentence paranormal romance”</i><br /><br />“Well, hello there teenage girl a tenth my age, let me just stare at you a bunch with my vampire eyes and be a jerk to you.”<br />“Have my babies!”<br /><br />It seemed to be love at first sight, even if she was confused about the world around her. It wasn’t until the wedding that he realized she was the ghost of his grandmother.<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>“two sentence sci-fi or action”</i><br /><br />They locked and loaded, and fired full-blast at the oncoming horde of screaming aliens. As their lines were still overrun a few minutes later, his last thought was despair at the planet being lost.<br /><br />Misbehaving Alex: supposed to be patrolling the town for trouble. Spends the time reading his crush’s diary and looking for flowers to pick.<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>“two sentence dark comedy”</i><br /><br />“He’s dead, Jim.”<br />“So are you, Deforest.”<br /><br />“The funeral is at 7 AM, can you make it?”<br />“I dunno, that’s pretty early, and I’m not a mourning person.”<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>“two sentence historical fiction”</i><br /><br />“Roosevelt, let’s get out of here!”<br />“Nonsense, my boy, I’ve always wanted to mount a dragon skull on my wall!”<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>“Two friends discuss a hobby they both love. Every other sentence must rhyme.”</i><br /><br />“Did you hear about the new codex for the Imperial Knights?”<br />“Yeah, half the people love it, half the people say it bites.”<br />“I dunno, I think it’s pretty sweet.”<br />“I know, you said that with your last tweet.”<br />“Of course, lots of people are saying it’s totally OP.”<br />“I think they’re just afraid of a unit that’s totally OG.”<br />“It’s not impossible to kill, and it’s much better in assault.”<br />“People don’t like to think and have their mindless dice rolling brought to a halt.”<br />“Dude, are you rhyming everything I say?”<br />“What were you expecting, Michael Bay?”Allerkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07832804544513251369noreply@blogger.com1