#also the gun loading sound effects... like its ridiculous

[soupwife]

guns n roses could have made great music if axl rose didn't sing like he was doing a mid-2000s snl impression of himself

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

13 right back at you! Also 15 if it doesn't get too long.

13 - explain how mesmers work!

I've actually done a lot of thinking about this and it is, of course, heavily entwined with my theory of how magic works in general, but I'll try to keep it simple.

I got this idea of magic from the Aspects of Glint - Wind, Sun, and Lightning - and so to make things simpler I went ahead and named the different types of magic, at least as far as I could see them. Mesmer magic is called the Aspect of Deception, which actually correlates to one of the schools of magic we get from Bloodstones. (That was completely accidental.)

Also, I completely agree with your idea that some mesmers are good at manipulating the physical world and some are good at manipulating your mind - I've mostly thought about the ones that are good at manipulating the physical world, so most of the following only applies to them.

But anyway, the idea is that mesmers and thieves both use the Aspect of Deception. At first I thought the difference between a mesmer and a thief was just power, but I've refined that somewhat: mesmers specialize in convincing you that you can't trust your senses. You know what you're seeing is wrong - but only half the time. You're not sure what's real and what's not. Thieves, on the other hand, specialize in convincing you that everything is perfectly normal when it isn't. The thief isn't here practicing his thievery, for example - he's invisible. Thieves do use mesmer-esque spells on occasion, which is where I got the idea they're linked - one of their elites summons three clones (which is why I thought the difference was power, because that's an everyday mesmer thing).

As for clones and illusions: well, most of this derives from what we see in-game mesmers doing - you can make a clone or illusion of another person than yourself, you can disguise a person as someone else, etc. and of course this doesn't just extend to people.

Illusions can be just visual apparitions if you want them to, with no substance, like ghosts; these of course take less power. I also believe that mesmers can manipulate the other senses, though we don't see this much in-game; a mesmer can make you hear things, smell things, etc. Each one is different, though, so it's sort of like if your field is the Aspect of Deception, there are many subschools and most mesmers specialize is visual and physical effects since those are the most useful.

By 'physical' I mean illusions that you can touch and feel, which are more common among mesmers. The idea is that you concentrate power in the illusion, more and more power until it's so concentrated it's physically there, takes up physical space and you can feel it. Clones and illusions are just highly, highly concentrated magic, given form by your mind. Then when you shatter them, this magic kind of breaks and splinters all over the place, and some of it goes into your enemies and hurts them. That is complicated and I'll leave it for another time.

But here's the thing: illusions of people are ridiculously complex, and either you need to have a very focused mind that is also capable of multitasking, or that's not exactly how it works. I think your idea of how people are shaped is a generally subconscious assumption, so if you tell your magic 'hey look like a person,' it'll know what a person is and form into the shape of a person based on your subconscious pattern. Illusions of yourself are quite clearly easier, because you have a much better idea of what you are physically than someone else, and it does take active concentration to remember that this clone is supposed to look like that guy instead.

But the cool part is that since the clones are based on your subconscious understanding of how people are shaped, these clones are perfectly viable people on their own, except that they're made of magic and have no will but yours. This means that they get sensory input, which really feeds into your brain and it takes a lot of training to separate out these various inputs. But this is how, for example, you could have a clone go spy out a place and convey that information to you; you could also control the illusion through a conversation or really any other task that most people would expect from a person. You can of course also channel magic through a clone, because this is what clones exist for in the mechanics of the game - another source of damage.

I've heard theories that mesmer illusions are more or less programmable; for example, this illusion is pacing back and forth, but it would of course take the same exact steps every time and if someone watched long enough they might notice. I haven't really thought about it, but I feel that if you were distracted enough to have to give a set of commands to an illusion that it then carries out to the best of its ability, or pre-program it - if that's necessary, you're probably not focusing enough to keep the illusion there in the first place, and also it doesn't have a mind of its own to be able to 'follow commands to the best of its ability.'

Now, on to the cool part: teleportation. I've explained clones because those are relevant to how thieves shadowstep, which is basically that they make a clone of themselves at another location, and then take the sensory input and use that to focus their whole mind through to the clone until that's where their mind is - and if you put enough magic into a clone, of course, it's no longer just made of magic but it manifests as flesh and blood (not just the illusion of feeling like flesh and blood), and since your magical core carries that kind of magic that happens naturally when you transfer your consciousness there. Of course, any given thief will have done this countless times before, so most thieves are walking around in these magically-constructed bodies, and when you switch to a new one the magic dissipates or shatters or something. That's how I imagine it, and I haven't actually thought about what happened to their original body. It probably just died from lack of a mind. On the other hand, you could totally headcanon that thieves always have to go back for their 'real' bodies, but that's less fun...

But the really cool part about the shadowstepping system of teleportation is that mesmers can't do it. Or, they can - that's what blinks are - but it's super dangerous. Thieves don't use clones all that much - summoning them is an elite skill (unless they're shadowstepping) - but mesmers use clones all the time, and since the sensory input can be used to transfer your consciousness into a clone, it can actually be very easy for a mesmer to mix up and forget which of the four identical people on the battlefield is their own self. So mesmers need to have a very concrete idea about which one is their own self, and if they make a habit of shadowstepping their minds into other clones, that's nearly impossible. Some mesmers can do it, of course, and that's why you have the blink skill, but the risk vs reward is relatively low.

What's the problem with getting who you are confused? Well, that's because it has to be very intentional when you shadowstep - you have to know where you are and where you're going. If you're just mistakenly looking through the eyes of the wrong person, and haven't actually transferred your magical core there, the real you might be in danger and die, and then you're gone. So most mesmers don't do it at all even if they theoretically have the mental capacity or skill to do it without much danger.

Mesmers just use portals instead, which bend space and time sort of like a Tesseract (if you've read A Wrinkle in Time), which brings two points in space together momentarily. I have thought that I need to think about portals just a little bit more - to figure out what exactly the process of moving from Point A to Point B is - more like an asura gate, where theoretically you could stick an arm through but not your whole self, or is more like elevators in cities that just take your whole self if you enter the field. I don't know yet, but I'm slightly leaning toward the second one.

Also: chronomancy! I have thought about this a little. (Sorry Mirages, I haven't thought about you at all...) You can't actually rewind time, of course - even some of the skill descriptions say that time 'snaps back' when you're done with the spell, causing additional effects. I've seen an ask response on this topic that says it's all in your mind, but I don't think so, at least not for the physical, world-manipulating mesmers.

Chronomancy requires a load of power, because, inside the spell radius, you've said 'turn time back to X state' or else 'rewind time until I say stop' and, like making illusions, the details of this are mostly subconscious. But what it does is it takes all physical entities and moves them backwards in order to simulate time rewinding. Chronomancy does have a mental component, of course, and that is that it makes everyone but the caster forget about the intervening time, creating the illusion (hehe) that no time has passed. Advanced chronomancers, of course, can specify this and prevent their allies from forgetting - or, if they're being particularly confusing, prevent their enemies from forgetting, or prevent one enemy from forgetting so he starts sounding like a lunatic. This can also heal! If you're moving things backwards through time, that includes healing wounds back to their former state.

Also, and I just remembered this, but you can make a non-person illusion convey sensory input. I have one character who shot a bullet (he's a thief) and, upon impact, granted him one second of vision of what was going on over there. You can also silence things like guns, you can block out all noisy distracting. Also, this thief actually set up a recording of some epic soundtrack played at inaudible volume inside his rifle and used the Aspect of Deception to make a sort of sound-proof bubble around himself, and then used magic to magnify the epic soundtrack so he could feel like a hero on the battlefield. (He has a very strong sense of drama XD... his friends roll their eyes at him.)

I also have my main mesmer character use this 'sound proof bubble' concept to have private conversations in busy places, and a sort of variant of it - catching the sound out of a person's mouth and carrying it to her ears, and throwing her own voice into their ears - to silently communicate across greater distances while trying to be sneaky. Sort of like magical ventriloquism, I guess.

So, that's all for mesmerism! I know I focused on thieves a bit, but it was significantly within the scope of the question and I fell like the spirit of the question includes them, given my headcanons.

Thanks for asking! I've been carrying these theories around in my head for quite some time and weaving them into my stories, it was nice to be able to try to express them eloquently all in one place!

Now, you said '15 if it doesn't get too long,' and the prompt mentions quaggan (...and dredge?) but I'll just tag you on a separate post. (It'll be shorter, I promise!)

[juki227]

{||~1080p-HD~ ]] Regarder C'est la vie  film complet [[2020]] en Franacais

29 avril 2020  / 1h 43min / Comédie De Julien Rambaldi Avec Josiane Balasko, Léa Drucker, Alice Pol Nationalités Français, Belge 29 avril 2020  / 1h 43min / Comédie De Julien Rambaldi Avec Josiane Balasko, Léa Drucker, Alice Pol Nationalités Français, Belge

PLAY==> http://ver.yess-movie.com/movie/tt9162090/c-est-la-vie.html

Its somewhat ironic that a movie about time travel can’t be reviewed properly until your future self rewatches the movie. It’s bold of Nolan to make such a thoroughly dense blockbuster. He assumes people will actually want to see C’est la vie more than once so they can understand it properly, which some may not. This movie makes the chronology of Inception look as simplistic as tic-tac-toe. Ergo, it’s hard for me to give an accurate rating, without having seen it twice, as I’m still trying to figure out whether everything does indeed make sense. If it does, this movie is easily a 9 or 10. If it doesn’t, it’s a 6. It’s further not helped by the fact that the dialogue in the first 15 minutes of the movie is painfully hard to understand / hear. Either they were behind masks; they were practically mumbling; the sound effects were too loud; or all of the above. The exposition scenes are also waayyy too brief for something this complex — a problem also shared with Interstellar actually. (Interstellar had this minimalist exposition problem explaining Blight, where if you weren’t careful, you’d miss this one sentence / scene in the entire movie explaining that Blight was a viral bacteria: “Earth’s atmosphere is 80% nitrogen, we don’t even breathe nitrogen. Blight does, and as it thrives, our air gets less and less oxygen”). I guess it’s a Nolan quirk. Hopefully, a revision of the film audio sorts the sound mixing out. I do like the soundtrack, but it’s too loud initially. I liked all the actors. You think John Washington can’t act at first, but he can, and he grows on you as the film progresses. And Pattinson is his usual charming self. Elizabeth is a surprise treat. And so on. Its worth a watch either way. See it with subtitles if you can. And definitely don’t expect to fully understand whats going on the first time around. Its one hell of a complicated film. It will be very hard for an average viewer to gather all the information provided by this movie at the first watch. But the more you watch it, more hidden elements will come to light. And when you are able to put these hidden elements together. You will realize that this movie is just a “masterpiece” which takes the legacy of Christopher Nolan Forward If I talk about acting, Then I have to say that Robert Pattinson has really proved himself as a very good actor in these recent years. And I am sure his acting skills will increase with time. His performance is charming and very smooth. Whenever he is on the camera, he steals the focus John David Washington is also fantastic in this movie. His performance is electrifying, I hope to see more from him in the future. Other characters such as Kenneth Branagh, Elizabeth, Himesh Patel, Dimple Kapadia, Clémence Poésy have also done quite well. And I dont think there is a need to talk about Michael Caine Talking about Music, its awesome. I dont think you will miss Hans Zimmer’s score. Ludwig has done a sufficient job. There is no lack of good score in the movie Gotta love the editing and post production which has been put into this movie. I think its fair to say this Nolan film has focused more in its post production. The main problem in the movie is the sound mixing. Plot is already complex and some dialogues are very soft due to the high music score. It makes it harder to realize what is going on in the movie. Other Nolan movies had loud BGM too. But Audio and dialogues weren’t a problem My humble request to everyone is to please let the movie sink in your thoughts. Let your mind grasp all the elements of this movie. I am sure more people will find it better. Even those who think they got the plot. I can bet they are wrong. C’est la vie is the long awaited new movie from Christopher Nolan. The movie that’s set to reboot the multiplexes post-Covid. It’s a manic, extremely loud, extremely baffling sci-fi cum spy rollercoaster that will please a lot of Nolan fan-boys but which left me with very mixed views. John David Washington (Denzel’s lad) plays “The Protagonist” — a crack-CIA field operative who is an unstoppable one-man army in the style of Hobbs or Shaw. Recruited into an even more shadowy organisation, he’s on the trail of an international arms dealer, Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh in full villain mode). Sator is bullying his estranged wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) over custody of their son (and the film unusually has a BBFC warning about “Domestic Abuse”). Our hero jets the world to try to prevent a very particular kind of Armageddon while also keeping the vulnerable and attractive Kat alive. This is cinema at its biggest and boldest. Nolan has taken a cinema ‘splurge’ gun, filled it with money, set it on rapid fire, removed the safety and let rip at the screen. Given that Nolan is famous for doing all of his ‘effects’ for real and ‘in camera’, some of what you see performed is almost unbelievable. You thought crashing a train through rush-hour traffic in “Inception” was crazy? You ain’t seen nothing yet with the airport scene! And for lovers of Chinooks (I must admit I am one and rush out of the house to see one if I hear it coming!) there is positively Chinook-p*rn on offer in the film’s ridiculously huge finale. The ‘inversion’ aspects of the story also lends itself to some fight scenes — one in particular in an airport ‘freeport’ — which are both bizarre to watch and, I imagine, technically extremely challenging to pull off. In this regard John David Washington is an acrobatic and talented stunt performer in his own right, and must have trained for months for this role. Nolan’s crew also certainly racked up their air miles pre-lockdown, since the locations range far and wide across the world. The locations encompassed Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and United States. Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography is lush in introducing these, especially the beautiful Italian coast scenes. Although I did miss the David Arnold strings that would typically introduce these in a Bond movie: it felt like that was missing. The ‘timey-wimey’ aspects of the plot are also intriguing and very cleverly done. There are numerous points at which you think “Oh, that’s a sloppy continuity error” or “Shame the production design team missed that cracked wing mirror”. Then later in the movie, you get at least a dozen “Aha!” moments. Some of them (no spoilers) are jaw-droppingly spectacular. Perhaps the best twist is hidden in the final line of the movie. I only processed it on the way home. And so to the first of my significant gripes with C’est la vie. The sound mix in the movie is all over the place. I’d go stronger than that… it’s truly awful (expletive deleted)! Nolan often implements Shakespeare’s trick of having characters in the play provide exposition of the plot to aid comprehension. But unfortunately, all of this exposition dialogue was largely incomprehensible. This was due to: the ear-splitting volume of the sound: 2020 movie audiences are going to be suffering from ‘C’est la vieis’! (LOL); the dialogue is poorly mixed with the thumping music by Ludwig Göransson (Wot? No Hans Zimmer?); a large proportion of the dialogue was through masks of varying description (#covid-appropriate). Aaron Taylor-Johnson was particularly unintelligible to my ears. Overall, watching this with subtitles at a special showing might be advisable! OK, so I only have a PhD in Physics… but at times I was completely lost as to the intricacies of the plot. It made “Inception” look like “The Tiger Who Came to Tea”. There was an obvious ‘McGuffin’ in “Inception” — — (“These ‘dream levels’… how exactly are they architected??”…. “Don’t worry… they’ll never notice”. And we didn’t!) In “C’est la vie” there are McGuffins nested in McGuffins. So much of this is casually waved C’est la vie as “future stuff… you’re not qualified” that it feels vaguely condescending to the audience. At one point Sator says to Kat “You don’t know what’s going on, do you?” and she shakes her head blankly. We’re right with you there luv! There are also gaps in the storyline that jar. The word “C’est la vie”? What does it mean. Is it just a password? I’m none the wiser. The manic pace of C’est la vie and the constant din means that the movie gallops along like a series of disconnected (albeit brilliant) action set pieces. For me, it has none of the emotional heart of the Cobb’s marriage problems from “Inception” or the father/daughter separation of “Interstellar”. In fact, you barely care for anyone in the movie, perhaps with the exception of Kat. It’s a talented cast. As mentioned above, John David Washington is muscular and athletic in the role. It’s a big load for the actor to carry in such a tent-pole movie, given his only significant starring role before was in the excellent BlacKkKlansman. But he carries it off well. A worthy successor to Gerard Butler and Jason Statham for action roles in the next 10 years. This is also a great performance by Robert Pattinson, in his most high-profile film in a long time, playing the vaguely alcoholic and Carré-esque support guy. Pattinson’s Potter co-star Clemence Poésy also pops up — rather more un-glam that usual — as the scientist plot-expositor early in the movie. Nolan’s regular Michael Caine also pops up. although the 87-year old legend is starting to show his age: His speech was obviously affected at the time of filming (though nice try Mr Nolan in trying to disguise that with a mouth full of food!). But in my book, any amount of Caine in a movie is a plus. He also gets to deliver the best killer line in the film about snobbery! However, it’s Kenneth Branagh and Elizabeth Debicki that really stand out. They were both fabulous, especially when they were bouncing off each other in their marital battle royale. So, given this was my most anticipated movie of the year, it’s a bit of a curate’s egg for me. A mixture of being awe-struck at times and slightly disappointed at others. It’s a movie which needs a second watch, so I’m heading back today to give my ear drums another bashing! And this is one where I reserve the right to revisit my rating after that second watch… it’s not likely to go down… but it might go up. (For the full graphical review, check out One Mann’s Movies on t’interweb and Facebook. Thanks.) As this will be non-spoiler, I can’t say too much about the story. However, what I can is this: C’est la vie’s story is quite dynamic in the sense that you won’t understand it till it wants you to. So, for the first half, your brain is fighting for hints and pieces to puzzle together the story. It isn’t until halfway through the movie that C’est la vie invites you to the fantastic storytelling by Christopher Nolan. Acting is beyond phenomenal, and I’d be genuinely surprised if neither Robert Pattinson nor John David Washington doesn’t receive an Oscar nomination for best actor. It’s also hard not to mention how good Elizabeth Debicki and Aaron Johnson both are. All around, great acting, and the dialogue amps up the quality of the movie. The idea of this movie is damn fascinating, and while there are films that explore time-travelling, there’s never been anything quite like this. It has such a beautiful charm and for the most part, explains everything thoroughly. It feels so much more complex than any form of time-travelling we’ve seen, and no less could’ve been expected from Nolan. Oh my lord, the score for this film fits so perfectly. Every scene that’s meant to feel intense was amped by a hundred because of how good the score was. Let me just say though, none of them will be found iconic, but they fit the story and scenes so well. In the end, I walked out, feeling very satisfied. Nevertheless, I do have issues with the film that I cannot really express without spoiling bits of the story. There are definitely little inconsistencies that I found myself uncovering as the story progressed. However, I only had one issue that I found impacted my enjoyment. That issue was understanding some of the dialogue. No, not in the sense that the movie is too complicated, but more that it was hard to make out was being said at times. It felt like the movie required subtitles, but that probably was because, at a time in the film, there was far too much exposition. Nevertheless, I loved this film, I’ll be watching it at least two more times, and I think most of you in this group will enjoy it. I definitely suggest watching it in theatres if possible, just so you can get that excitement. (4/5) & (8.5/10) for those that care about number scores. At first, I want to ask Christopher Nolan one question, HOW THE HELL YOU DID THIS? Seriously I want to have an answer, How did he write such as this masterpiece! How did he get this complicated, fabulous and creative idea? What is going on in his mind? The story is written and directed perfectly, the narration style was absolutely unique. I have no idea how can anyone direct such as this story, that was a huge challenge, and as usual Nolan gave us a masterpiece that we’ll put beside (Memento), (Inception) and (Interstellar) The movie is so fast-paced in a good way, there was no boring moment. The chemistry between John David Washington and Robert Pattinson was great and funny and both of their performance was really good. Elizabeth Debicki performance was the best in the movie because she had the chance to show her acting abilities and she cached up that chance and showed us an A level acting. The music wasn’t unique and distinct as the music of Interstellar for example and I think this movie needed the touch of Hans Zimmer, I’m not saying that Ludwig Göransson failed but Hans Zimmer in another level. If there was something I’d say that I didn’t like it in the movie would it be that Nolan discarded any set up or characters backgrounds except Elizabeth Debicki dramatic story but it wasn’t that bad for me, I didn’t care about that, the exciting story didn’t give me the chance to focus on it. But the actual problem was the third act, it was really complicated and I got lost and I convinced myself to discard the questions that were in my head and enjoy the well-made action sequences and Elizabeth Debicki performance. I think this kind of movie that gets better with a second and third watch. I honestly don’t quite know where to begin with C’est la vie. I love Christopher Nolan’s work but I have never seen a more complicated film (and I understood Memento). After nearly three hours, I came C’est la vie from C’est la vie not knowing myself, my mind reduced to nothing more than piles of ash. Was there time travel involved? Hmm, there was definitely something about time inversion. I mean, does Nolan even understand what he wrote? Look, I give credit to the director because he’s one of the few directors left who knows how to create a compelling and intelligent blockbuster. C’est la vie is full of Nolan trademarks — the gratuitous Michael Caine cameo, a loud, really loud score, complete with stunning cinematography and slickly inventive action set-pieces. This time around however, Nolan has finally managed to ‘out-Nolan’ himself: the palindromic plot, whilst creatively ambitious, is simply far too complicated for its own good. C’est la vie is overlong, overstuffed, pretentious and too exhausting to comprehend in its entirety — it makes Inception and Interstellar look like Peppa Pig by comparison. I’m aware of the technical wizardry and creative mastery in this film and lord knows I’ll have to watch this again. For those who want a puzzle, C’est la vie at least provides a unique cinematic experience. But to actually enjoy solving it Nolan wants you to work

[xtruss]

The Wacky Story of How China's Navy Got Aircraft Carriers

China was proud to launch its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, in 2012. This vessel was a refit of an incomplete Soviet Kuznetsov-class cruiser carrier. However, the story of how China got that ship in the first place may as well be a comedy—because the carrier was actually a rogue acquisition for the Chinese military against the wishes of the government in Beijing.

— by Sebastien Roblin | September 16, 2019 | Nationalinterest.Org

Key Point: So if there’s a moral to the story of the Varyag, it’s not to expect too much gratitude for your good deeds . . . and always keep the receipt.

China was proud to launch its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, in 2012. This vessel was a refit of an incomplete Soviet Kuznetsov-class cruiser carrier. However, the story of how China got that ship in the first place may as well be a comedy—because the carrier was actually a rogue acquisition for the Chinese military against the wishes of the government in Beijing. And it was undertaken by a basketball player who claimed he wanted to build a floating casino.

The People's Liberation Army Navy first became interested in acquiring an aircraft carrier in 1970, when China was still on bad terms with both the Soviet Union and the United States. However few concrete steps were taken, because the cost and complexity of such an endeavor far exceeded the PLAN’s limited capabilities during the Cold War.

The Soviet Navy did deploy its first carriers in the 1970s: Kiev-class vessels that could launch Yak-38 Forger jump jets of limited effectiveness. By the 1980s, the Soviets began construction of two more promising Kuznetsov-class carriers. These had a “ski jump” ramp, allowing more conventional—and much higher-performing—Su-33 Flanker fighters to take off from it. Like the earlier Kiev class, the Kuznetsov was technically an “aircraft-carrying cruiser” due its powerful armament of twelve P-700 Granit antiship missile systems. This technicality was important, as “aircraft carriers” proper weighing more than fifteen thousand tons (which is to say, virtually all aircraft carriers today) were not legally permitted by the Montreux Convention to transit from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean via the Bosporus Straits.

However, the fall of the Soviet Union left the second vessel in its class, the Varyag, only two-thirds complete in Ukraine, lacking its armament and electrical systems. Construction ceased in 1992, and the cash-strapped Ukrainian government did its best to pawn off the fifty-five thousand tons of inoperable metal rusting in its Mykolaiv shipyard. Russia, India and China all passed.

A two-part series in the South China Morning Post in 2015 revealed the machinations behind how the carrier ended up in Chinese service anyway, two decades later. It turns out the PLA Navy did want the Varyag—the team sent to inspect it recommended purchasing it! But the government in Beijing was worried that acquiring a carrier might increase tensions at a time when it was seeking to further open itself to Western investors.

Instead, in 1996 a group of PLA officers including intelligence chief Gen. Ji Shengde approached Xu Zengping, a former PLA basketball star who had become a successful businessman arranging international events. The cabal’s proposal: to have Xu purchase the carrier as a private citizen, ostensibly to serve as a casino so as to avoid undesirable scrutiny. Then the PLAN could collect it for its own use once the political winds were more favorable.

This cover story is not as ridiculous as it sounds. Remember those Kiev-class carriers mentioned earlier? Two of them are now moored in China, serving as amusement parks. The Minsk was actually purchased by a consortium of video-game arcade owners in Shenzhen for $4.4 million, and has since been moved to Nantong, north of Shanghai. And the original Kiev? Now a floating hotel in Tianjin. However, the more modern Kuznetsov-class Varyag was undoubtedly of much greater practical interest for the PLAN than either of those ships.

Xu was down with the scheme and borrowed the equivalent of $30 million in Hong Kong dollars from a friend to help fund the venture—the first expense of which was to create a $6 million shell company in Macau called Agência Turística e Diversões Chong Lot Limitada, in order to maintain the fiction. (Macau was still in its last years as a Portuguese colony at the time.)

In January 1998, Xu arrived in Ukraine and met with the shipyard owners. After four days of negotiations, in which enormous bribes were offered and fifty bottles of 124-proof baijiu liquor were consumed, he reached an agreement to purchase the carrier for $20 million—well below the cost of a single jet fighter today. He wasn’t able to make the payment until a year later, with a $10 million extra late fee tacked on.

Some international observers smelled something fishy in the arrangement—Xu’s company did not actually have a gambling permit in Macau, nor a listed phone number or address. Ironically, however, a Jane’s analyst interviewed by the Washington Post at the time stated it was “farfetched” that the PLA Navy would try to operate the Varyag due to its decrepit and incomplete condition.

By June 2000, everything was ready to go. The carrier’s four engines were packed in grease seals (they had yet to be installed), several tons of blueprints were sent overland to China by truck, and a Dutch towing company was ready to tug the 306-meter-long vessel all the way back to China. What could go wrong?

Ever been stunned by the towing fee after your car breaks down far from home? Imagine that, but around five hundred times worse. Why five hundred? Because that equals the roughly five hundred days the Liaoning was stuck being towed in circles off Istanbul, after the Turkish government denied it passage to the Mediterranean via the Bosporus Straits.

The Turkish maritime minister argued that should there be a mishap towing the 306-meter-long carrier—which could not maneuver or move on its own power—it might spin around and block the Bosporus straits to all shipping, or run into one of the bridges connecting the two halves of Istanbul. The straits are only seven hundred meters wide at their narrowest point and require at least six major course corrections to navigate. Hundreds of ships had suffered accidents there in the past. Curiously, the Chinese appear to have perceived the Turkish refusal to be in retaliation for China’s opposition to the NATO air campaign in Yugoslavia the previous year.

The Liaoning spent sixteen months racking up $8,500 a day in towing fees. Finally, Beijing had a change of heart on the matter, and stepped in on August 2001, promising major concessions on tourism to persuade the Turks to let the Varyag pass.

Finally on November 1, in an operation involving more than two dozens tug and emergency vessels, the Varyag was towed through the Bosporus without incident, and traversed the Dardanelles the next day. The hard part was over.

Except for the sea storm with sixty-mile-per-hour winds that struck the rudderless vessel off the island of Skyros two days later, causing it to snap its tow lines. It took two more days to recover the runaway carrier. Tragically, a Portuguese sailor fell to his death while helping reconnect it to its tugs.

Once under power, a normal vessel could have taken the shortcut through the Suez Canal and straight on back to China via the Indian Ocean. But the canal would not accept powerless vessels such as the Varyag, so it had to cruise all the way around Africa, Vasco de Gama–style, chugging along at a brisk jog of seven miles per hour.

In March 2002, the carrier finally arrived at the port of Dalian in Liaoning province, which would lend the carrier its name in Chinese service. Three years later, it was put into a dry dock to allow for an extensive refit process, including sandblasting away all the rust and restoring and installing the engines in 2011.

The PLAN intended to operate the vessel as a pure carrier, rather than as a cruiser-carrier hybrid, so the shipbuilders didn’t bother with the enormous antiship missile systems. They instead confined its armament to a trio of short-range HQ-10 air-defense missile launchers and a few close-defense guns. The vessel’s primary weapon, of course, would be its complement of twenty-four J-15 Flying Shark fighters. The Flying Sharks are domestic copies of the Russian Su-33 fighter, a prototype of which was also acquired from Ukraine in 2001. The Liaoning also flies six Z-12F antisubmarine helicopters, four airborne early-warning variants and two Z-9 rescue choppers.

The Liaoning was commissioned on September 25, 2012, and the first J-15 landed on it a month later. A home-built carrier based upon the Liaoning will soon put to sea this year; those blueprints must have proved useful.

The Liaoning is hardly equal to a U.S. supercarrier—in addition to its smaller air wing and lack of a nuclear power plant, its steam turbines are prone to breaking down and the ski-jump deck limits the fuel and weapons load its fighters can carry. However, it afforded China a leap forward in its naval construction program—which now includes five more carriers in the coming decade of increasing planned capability. According to Xu Zengping, a naval officer told him that the Varyag saved China fifteen years of research and development.

So was Xu richly rewarded for his initiative? He was rewarded with bills: $120 million in all in Xu’s estimation, forcing him to sell his decadent home in Hong Kong and spend all of the intervening years paying his lenders back. You see, General Ji was jailed in 2001 for his involvement in a massive smuggling ring in the city of Xiamen—so the cabal of officers that set Xu up for the task was no longer around to see that he was compensated.

Beijing did pay for the $20 million value of the carrier—but argued that it couldn’t cover other costs because he lacked receipts. Apparently, invoices—or fapiao in Mandarin—don’t come standard with bribes paid to Ukrainian businessmen. And, as one quickly learns in China, you always need the official fapiao.

So if there’s a moral to the story of the Varyag, it’s not to expect too much gratitude for your good deeds . . . and always keep the receipt.

— Sébastien Roblin holds a master’s degree in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This first appeared several years ago.

[doctorocsid]

THE MAKING OF PHOENIX WRIGHT’S SECOND DAY OFF

Or: The Immense Struggle of Trying to Make Decent Content

A good year and a half. That’s how much time passed between me starting Phoenix Wright’s Second Day Off and me uploading it to YouTube. What a hell of a load off my back that was. If you couldn’t tell, making this video was a bit of an undertaking, to say the least. And by “undertaking” I mean “an exercise in pure agony”. So, I figured I’d do a bit of a writeup here so I can get across to you the absolute hell of an experience making this video was.

PART 1: THE INITIAL PLANNING STAGES

The original “Phoenix Wright’s Day Off” was released in February 2018 to, though not a lot of views, a generally very positive response. Despite its janky animation, people seemed to enjoy it for its complete ridiculousness, comedic timing, and overly-choreographed fighting. Not to mention literally being the only Ace Attorney-themed Garry’s Mod video ever made that actually uses the Ace Attorney characters. (I’m still the only person to ever do that as of the time of writing. Woohoo.)

Given the positive reception and the fact that I literally ended the video with a “To Be Continued”, I was ready as I could ever be to start work on a sequel. The first one only took me a couple weeks to make, so surely a sequel wouldn’t take much longer, right?

Oh, how wrong I was. Still, I started planning out exactly how things would go. Throwing around ideas in my head. I needed it to be bigger and better than the original, of course. How was I gonna do that? Well, my initial plan was, uh, misguided, to say the least. What I wanted to do at first was create the sequel entirely in Source Filmmaker, along with giving it a darker, more serious tone to contrast the ridiculous slapstick of the first. Not a great idea for a sequel to a video that mainly relied on throwing ragdolls around for comedy.

https://streamable.com/taxrn

The original intro for PW2DO, based off the intro for “Fargo”. A lot less cool-looking than the final intro I made. (Even though I intended the video to be made in SFM, I made the intro in Gmod solely because I could just film myself driving the car instead of having to animate it manually.)

The final intro was done in a not too difficult fashion - the characters were animated in Garry’s Mod on top of greenscreens, which I then imported into Premiere and changed to solid colors. Added some extra video effects I found in places. Set it to an instrumental of Propane Nightmares. I’m proud of how it turned out, mostly. I won’t deny after I introduced the characters I didn’t exactly know what else to do with it, so I just filled it with some random actiony shots I thought might look cool. Incidentally, this was the only part of the final video that was made in Premiere - the rest of it was just edited together in Vegas Pro. Which crashed many times during editing. Fun.

PART 2: THE PAINS OF INDECISION (AND ALSO SOURCE FILMMAKER)

Nonetheless, I got to work, despite not actually knowing how to use Source Filmmaker. “I’ll figure it out as I go along,” I figured. And over time, more or less, I managed to figure it out. Sort of. And by “figure it out” I mean “become subject to the true hell that is SFM”.

Let me give you some quick background here. SFM has two main editors for animation: The “motion editor”, and the “graph editor”. The motion editor uses a relatively easy-to-understand method of animating: you select an object you want to animate (a prop, weapon, ragdoll, etc), select the span of time in which you want the thing to move to its new destination, and then you move it to the new destination. Sounds simplistic, but can be used extensively to create good-looking animation. (I myself used this method for the bar fight in PW2DO.) The graph editor on the other hand, is much more involved, depending on the tried-and-true method of using keyframes for animation. Some people prefer this one because it allows you to directly edit and fine-tune each little animation curve to your liking. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUXnpk8xDLg

This unfinished PW2DO prototype was animated entirely with the graph editor in SFM.

Really, you can use either one for animating, whichever suits you best. For me, personally, the graph editor feels like something designed in the seventh circle of hell specifically to torture me. Why does adding a new keyframe screw up all my preexisting animation? Why does adding a new keyframe make the ragdoll’s bones stretch out to infinity? Those are just a couple questions I shouted at my computer screen while trying to figure it out.

Eventually, I just gave up. I came to terms both with the fact that I wasn’t satisfied with what I was making, and with the fact that trying to use SFM’s graph editor to animate was making me want to julienne my keyboard. (I hadn’t figured out, or really even considered the motion editor at the time.) “Screw it,” I said to myself. “I’ll do in Gmod, like the last one.”

PART 3: OH RIGHT, GMOD SUCKS TOO

The first PWDO was relatively simple to make, at least compared to the second one. There were two main tools I used: Stop Motion Helper (a tool for animating stuff within Gmod itself without the need for actual stop motion or whatnot), and the classic technique of “throw stuff around in front of the camera”. I had little to no experience doing 3D animation when making it, but it worked out anyway. It let me practice some camera framing stuff, too. All I was really doing for most of it was animating the characters moving along with the camera. But for the second video, I desperately wanted to up the ante. I wanted it to be cooler. More edgy. More cinematic. Turns out, there’s one main reason that proved difficult for me. And that’s that Garry’s Mod kinda sucks for long-term animation.

Here’s the difference between animating in SFM and animating in GMod. SFM is made for animation. GMod isn’t. So, if you want animating in GMod to be anything less than horrendously tedious, you need some addons to help you. Stop Motion Helper is a neat little addon that lets you animate stuff in Garry’s Mod with the “tweening” type of animation. Simply put, you pose something in point A, make a keyframe, move it to point B, and then make another keyframe. Stop Motion Helper will then automatically animate it moving between the two points. Thus, instead of the stop motion method where you have to pose every individual frame, you technically only have to pose the beginning and end. Not that it looks very good if you only do that. Of course, like any kind of animation, it’s still something that requires a lot of effort if you don’t want it to look cheap and robotic. But it works. Sort of.

Doesn’t work too well with vehicles, though.

There were a multitude of small limitations and annoyances, however, that proved to be annoying to deal with in GMod nonetheless.

FIRST PROBLEM: Because GMod isn’t made specifically for animation, resuming a project within it is kind of a hellish endeavor at times. Unlike Source Filmmaker where you can just open a project file and everything remains the same, Garry’s Mod’s saving tool doesn’t save a lot of the addon-related data when you create a save file of whatever scenario you’ve made. That includes stop motion helper animation. While SMH does have its own support for saving animations, you have to save every single animation as its own separate file. Take the scene in PW2DO, for instance, where Phoenix shoots those cops to get the security footage.

https://streamable.com/2ikd1

There are seven moving parts in this scene - Phoenix, the picture frame, both cops, the gun, the shampoo bottle, and the camera. Note how many of these are moving in each camera shot along with how many shots there are (ignoring after the cop goes out the window, because that’s not done with SMH). That’s ten shots, if you didn’t want to count. If I wanted to save this whole scene for potential later tweaking, I’d have to make a save file for the session along with saving the animation data for all ten shots - that’s ten separate animation files for this one scene - and then I would have to manually reapply the animation to each individual moving element. 

On top of that, not everything can be saved at all just by sheer concept. The muzzle flash, for instance. While the flash graphic over the gun was added in post, the actual light emanating from it was something I had to do in-game, and it’s not something you can animate with SMH. Therefore, I had to play the animation in GMod, and then specifically time me hitting a button on my keyboard to make the flash happen at just the right point. That’s just one workaround in a program that, when animating in it, is like 80% workarounds.

But nothing about Garry’s Mod frustrated me quite as much as the final fight scene.

PART 4: THE BAR FIGHT

The final fight scene of PW2DO was the one thing that kept me from releasing the video sooner. Seriously, out of that year and a half or so, I’d say only a month or so was spent working on the GMod portions of the video. The rest was just that stupid, godforsaken fight scene. (And mostly procrastinating on making it.) Allow me to try and outline to you what I went through doing this.

Now, the fight scene went through three specific incarnations. They were all based around Maya and Athena tracking down Phoenix and beating the crap out of him, it just differed on two basic things: the location, and the fight music. The first idea I had was them fighting Phoenix in an alleyway while ABBA’s “Waterloo” played in the background. (i know that sounds silly but i swear i couldve made it work) That one didn’t get beyond planning stages - I’d kinda choreographed some of it in my head, I know Phoenix was supposed to get a crowbar at some point, but it didn’t get any farther than that.

The second incarnation was much more well-developed. The way I figured it was as such: Phoenix, after retrieving the security footage from his office, would go on the run and get on a bus. However, when he got on the bus, it’d be revealed that Athena was driving it, and Phoenix would fight Maya as they went down the road. (No comment on how Maya and Athena got a bus.) This was gonna be set to “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince, inspired by the opening car chase scene from Kingsman: The Golden Circle. (Meh movie, neat fight scenes.) Eventually they’d crash the bus, all go flying out the window, and then Phoenix would get arrested by the cops as he did in the final video. Sounds neat, right? So, what stopped me from doing this?

jesus christ so many things

Everything wrong with this concept centered around one particular problem. I absolutely could not, for the life of me, figure out how to animate a fight scene in a bus that was moving down the road. In SFM that might’ve been possible, but in Garry’s Mod? Good luck with that one. I practically tore my hair out trying to come up with a single working solution to this. Allow me to present to you the various ideas I had and why they all failed miserably.

IDEA 1: Animate the bus moving and the characters moving in it at the same time

This was the fastest-thrown-out idea because the complexity of something like this was just too much for Gmod and an animation addon. What’s that? You want to be able to stay with the scene as it animates? No, that’s basically impossible to do. It’s not like SFM where you could just attach yourself and a camera to the moving vehicle and animate from there. It just wasn’t feasible.

IDEA 2: Create moving textures and place them outside the windows to give the illusion of movement

This one went out the window too, unfortunately, as rotating the camera to any degree kinda just seriously killed the illusion. I could’ve done the scene without the cool cinematic fighting camera movements, but… is it really Phoenix Wright’s Day Off without those?

IDEA 3: Create a 3d video of going down the street in GMOD and paste it onto a greenscreen outside the bus, and animate it rotating properly in Premiere

I don’t blame you if you don’t understand what the hell I’m talking about. See, miraculously enough, there is actually an addon for GMod that allows you to record 360 degree videos within it - and after a decent amount of finicking around with it, I actually managed to make one that seemed to work fine. It was from this point I actually set out and started making the scene - I got about ten seconds in, mostly comprised of driving shots, a neat easter egg with Homestar Runner (not something i’d do nowadays tbh) and a single shot of Phoenix beating on Maya. I was all set to get going.

And then Premiere just refused to work with the 360 video. Don’t get me wrong, I was able to animate it rotating and stuff, but it wouldn’t let me do this at the same time as the normal 2D video that was meant to be pasted on top of it. It frankly just. Wouldn’t let me. And after a lot of struggling, I just. Gave up. That ten seconds of video, trashed.

https://streamable.com/4omnep

I did manage to re-piece it together from the old files on my drive, though. With mostly missing sound effects.

So, that was scrapped. I wasn’t doing the bus fight. What, then, would work out better than a fight scene based off the first fight scene of Golden Circle? Apparently, my mind decided that would be the last fight scene of Golden Circle. Cool.

Thankfully, things went a lot smoother there, but it wasn’t without hiccups. Now, if you’ve seen Phoenix Wright’s Second Day Off - I don’t know why you’re reading this if you haven’t - there’s a chance you might’ve found the music choice for the bar fight scene a bit odd. If you’re not aware, it’s a cover of the 1986 Cameo song “Word Up”, by a German country band called The Bosshoss. This is the song they used in the movie so you’re not allowed to question me on this.

Given how western-y the song sounds, though, I had to at least make the context fit. Despite that, I couldn’t really find any GMod maps that had a good enough bar interior for a while - and I really wanted it to be a bar fight. Bar fights are cool. Thankfully, I did eventually manage to find one. This one, in particular: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=806759276&searchtext=

Yes, that’s a My Little Pony based map. I worked with what I had, okay? That was the least of the issues, anyway. By this point I’d had enough of trying to animate with GMod, and as such I’d decided to move back to SFM, but that caused a whole new issue. This map wasn’t made for SFM. And opening it in SFM just. Crashed. I won’t go super into detail of how I fixed this, but essentially I had to download a program called BSPSource so I could decompile the map, re-open it in Hammer, and export it to properly work with SFM.

Still left me with some annoying issues though, as you can see. Not too difficult fixes, though - The first one I just covered up with another corkboard, and the second thing was fixed by typing mat_specular 0 in console. Was a bit annoying that I had to do that every time I reopened SFM, but whatever. It was working, at least. (that’s something you’ll think to yourself a lot if you ever get into using SFM.)

 Anyway, things went pretty okay from this point on. You know, aside from me proceeding to barely ever work on the thing for like a year and a half. I didn’t have many hardships during it other than my own procrastination, so instead take a look at some of the funny tricks I pulled to get this scene to go the way I wanted.

https://gfycat.com/OldfashionedForkedFlatcoatretriever

Engineer telekinetically swooces his shotgun back to himself.

https://gfycat.com/SleepyShadowyLadybird

I had to make Phoenix hover over Engie to let his arms reach him without his legs obscuring the camera.

https://gfycat.com/AptHomelyGoral

The rope was way too short to reach the soldier, so I had to have Phoenix basically throw the rope in order to reach his gun. I also forgot to detach the rope from his hand afterward, so it kinda gets flung around with it off-camera.

https://gfycat.com/AgonizingScrawnyAbalone

Phoenix apparently decided for himself he wanted to go out the window.

Aside from all that, though, things finally went okay. Eventually. I managed to finish up the animation, add some extra ending stuff in GMod, and do a neat credits sequence to David Bowie music. All in all, it went okay.

And that’s it. After all that waiting, I finally managed to put an 8 minute video out from one and a half years of it not being finished. It was quite a load off my mind, for sure, and to this day it stands as my proudest video. It’s silly, has its down moments, but I can at least confidently say it’s the best Ace Attorney gmod video. If only because there is basically no competition.

So, what’s in store next? Not much of anything as far as I feel right now. I could make a third one, one day - I did envision it as a trilogy - but although I do have some ideas for it, I still have zero motivation to actually make it. So who knows. We’ll see how it goes. Maybe Phoenix Wright will escape from prison one day.

So, this was the experience of making Phoenix Wright’s Second Day Off. I hope this gave you something of an idea on how agonizing this video was to make, and totally means you should go and share it everywhere to get me more views because I DESERVE it after the hell I went through.

Seriously, though, thanks for reading, and may this post serve as a warning if you ever decide to do Garry’s Mod or SFM videos. Not a warning against it, mind you, you can make some totally cool stuff. Just be prepared to suffer a bit in the process.

[wahbegan]

Red’s Retro Reviews - Condemned Criminal Origins

Hello and welcome to the tag where I use my otherwise useless and time-consuming habit of taking very old classic games that I’ve wrung all the enjoyment out of like a troubled child with an injured bird and turn it into entertainment! Maybe one day the editor of some chic magazine will hire me to talk about how much I know about Batman: Arkham Asylum and how much I hate myself for it.

Anyway, this week I thought I’d start off with an overlooked little gem that had a bit of cult notoriety and good critical reception, but which otherwise nobody gave an ounce of rat shit about: the Condemned series. More specifically, the original game.

Now, when I ask you who started the extremely lucrative habit of live-streaming themselves hilariously over-reacting to horror games, you might be tempted to say the Game Grumps, or Markiplier if you’re younger, or Pewdiepie if you’re the kind of person who unironically uses the phrase anti-white racism. But you’d all be wrong and stupid. Also possibly nazi sympathizers, but I digress.

NO! The first college-age white boys who decided it would be a good idea to beam them fucking up a video game to thousands and thousands of people online are..........lost to history because archiving of the exact history of internet trends is such an enormous clusterfuck that for years people were convinced, and some still are, that Slenderman was a real urban legend and not something some dickhead made up for a photoshop competition circa 2009

But ONE of the first was the 4 Players Network, or 4 Players Podcast, or 4PP. I know very little about these guys, so if they all turned out to be nonces and serial killers please don’t @ me, but what i DO know, is that they uploaded a video that changed my life forever. This video was “Holy Crap That’s a Bear !” Certainly not a name that would stand out in today’s massively oversaturated Let’s Play market, but this delightful video documented these two dumb assholes losing their shit over a game. The game of course, being Condemned 2: Bloodshot. Specifically, the level in which you are chased through a hunting lodge by a rabid bear. As an aside, I looked it up, having never heard of the phenomenon, and apparently it’s very rare, but yes bears can and do get rabies, usually with just about as fatal results as you would expect. So sweet dreams!

Anyway, watching this couple of dipshits get jumpscared and mauled to death by a poorly rendered bear again and again as they were repeatedly outwitted at every turn by an entity with a few lines of programming instead of a brain was, in y’know the year 2008,  the absolute most fun a 14-year-old boy could have. Clearly it still is, but you always remember your first time, particularly when the only LPs i have watched since were a handful of markiplier videos with a girl in college who liked to get me very stoned and then put them on because she thought that counted as courtship.

A n y w a y, apart from the unfortunate and definitely a mistake innovation of streaming video games, the sequence of being chased through a claustrophobic environment by a bear which can rip down doors, break through walls, run faster than you, shrug off 15 shotgun blasts to the face without so much as sneezing, etc. seemed incredibly tense and original, an amazing concept for a game. Once again, this was circa 2008 before “Run for your fucking life” had become the norm for horror games.

So then why the fuck are you not reviewing that game?? You might be thinking if you’re still reading this which someone clearly is or my narrative voice would have ceased to exist by now in that tree falling in the woods kind of way. Well, dear reader, while Condemned 2 was better than the first game in a LOT of ways, it’s always worth taking a gander at the one that started it all. Also, Condemned 1 is, if only slightly, probably better known. Also, Bloodshot commits the cardinal sin of over-explaining the first game’s mystery and a result making it kind of goofy and ridiculous see also the entire history of the Halloween franchise, and as a result the ending is....well, a bit shit, to be honest. Finally, and most importantly, it’s not on Steam for 3 dollars, so shut up

The thing about Condemned is that while Let’s Plays and seemingly inanimate objects moving only when you’re not looking at them and unstoppable juggernauts of wanton death have now become the norm for video game horror (and thanks a fucking bunch, Doctor fucking Who, for always being what people say started the inanimate object fuckery even though Stephen King did it in The Shining in the FUCKING 70s and let’s be honest it’s just a primal universal fear and i’ll be in the cold fucking ground before that bloody show sees one ounce of credit where it isn’t due), Condemned as a whole has remained remarkably unique. Not wholly unique, the developers have heavily borrowed from genre-straddling crime horror movies like Silence of the Lambs and Se7en and in fact almost beat-for-beat stole the most infamous jump scare from the latter, but if it still ends with shit in my pants, and it does, I can’t really call it a failure.

Most of the creativity the game DOES have is in the gameplay itself, or rather one aspect of the two aspects of the gameplay. It’s the combat I’m talking about the combat, seeing as that’s basically all there is. Let’s just get this out of the way first, the forensic investigation shit is........well, it’s a bit shit. Oh yes, there’s a couple crime scenes you have to “solve” in a cursory almost a cutscene sort of way, where you have helpful premonitions about where you’re supposed to look and, as your lab tech helpfully informs you, “the system will choose which tool you need for you, so don’t worry about that!” Well, Christ kill me, thank God YOU know between the three fucking tools I have, one of which is an everything sensor and one of which is just a fucking camera which I’m supposed to use, God knows I wouldn’t have liked to have solved that mystery myself. It’s a shame because some of the crime scenes are quite intricate and yes, I would have liked to have put together myself that “wait a minute there’s a handprint in the paint here that matches the killer but the UV light shows an old blood spatter on the wall right above where he’d be sitting to make it, THAT MUST MEAN-” but nope. No you just have a premonition of the guy getting clobbered over the back of the head because the game is so terrified you won’t be able to put two and two together that it points out both the twos and hands you a multiplication table and nudges you and looks meaningfully at four every few minutes if you hesitate.

Anyway, that’s all the whingeing about the gameplay out of the way, because the rest of it is just delightful. Condemned is the rare first person game that focuses almost solely on melee combat and the almost unheard of one that does it well. In fact, it is the only example I can think of that’s not shit. Weapons all have individual stats to do with their heft and how far they can reach and how much of a man’s skull you can cave in at once with it and you have to choose between the plank with nails sticking out of it you can swing three times a second but you have to beat a man so badly with it it’s tiring just to watch and the sledgehammer, which demands a two weeks’ notice in writing if you’re planning on hitting someone with it, but will basically render every living thing in its considerable swing arc sent to the fucking Shadow Realm upon impact.

Something about the sound effects and the way the weapons in this game control really gets under my skin, I was killed by a 300-pound Subway-dwelling crazy survivalist wielding the aforementioned sledgehammer, and when I went down, I was sure I was familiar with the sound effect that played when it struck my skull, a sort of distant, muffled ringing of bone hitting metal. Wait a minute, I thought, I know I’ve experienced this in real life, how did they get this sound effect? Did they kill a man with a hammer to get this sound effect? Was I killed with a hammer in a past life? Killing people is equally fucking unpleasant as even the most vicious and inhuman looking ones don’t go down easily, and you can see them spit gobs of broken teeth and blood and god knows what, hear the lovingly researched impact noises, and almost feel the impact as you necessitate years of reconstructive facial surgery with one swing of your mighty chunk of concrete attached to a rebar. Then some of them have the gall to shakily get to their knees, not quite dead, trying to mumble something and you’re required to hit them AGAIN, which is always harrowing. To quote another underappreciated piece of media about the joys of gruesome murder: Why won’t you just die?! This is hard enough for me!!

The guns you do get are absolute balls, generally having about three bullets in them, you can’t reload them even if you find the exact same type of gun later, you can’t hold them in your inventory, and if you want an aiming reticle you have to actively turn it on in the options menu, and you can almost hear the game laughing at you for being such a shameless pussy.

Well, you now might be thinking to yourself, cheers for making the effort, but I’m not an insane person and therefore do not think the idea of a brutally beating people to death simulator sounds very enticing, but that’s the thing, it’s not really supposed to be. It does have a strangely addictive quality after a while, but for the most part it’s panicky and harrowing and grotesque and you really don’t want to do it but you have no choice, which is absolutely the best kind of survival horror. See, the combat in survival horror is always a bit of a sticking point, isn’t it? Because if you give the player too much firepower it just becomes an action game with spooky set pieces, but if you give them none at all, as is chic today, you better have loads of other surprises in store buddy boy, because the sheen on that trend has died and now you’re just likely to get slapped with the dreaded WALKING SIMULATOR sticker.

No, the best kind of combat for a horror feel is exactly the kind Condemned delivers, so of course they never FUCKING did it again. You leave every fight low on supplies, exhausted, badly wounded, and a bit sick at what you just reduced a human being’s skull to. Too often, the combat in games is, even that word “combat” it’s clean, it’s cold, it’s detached, it’s a very unique euphemism for butchering God knows how many people. I play this little game in my head when I go through games sometimes trying to keep track of how many unique, thinking, feeling entities I’ve just reduced to a mess for the janitor to mop up, and I always lose track around the third level. Condemned isn’t like that. Its violence is violence: horrible, awful, terrifying violence, and it doesn’t let you forget it. 

The graphics also add a lot to the horror if you can get past the dated polygonal weird-ass xbox 360 at launch faces and cutscenes, which is actually pretty easy once you get used to it. The level and character design is fantastic, and really adds a lot to the whole feel of the game. Everywhere you look is dark and labyrinthine, crumbling with rebars jutting out and exposed paneling and plumbing beneath holes rotted in the walls and grime and blood and god knows what just staining everything. This game is really nihilistic in tone, and you get the sense just from the graphics that you’re somewhere nobody gives a shit about, in a part of a city that’s just been left to die and rot. One almost gets the feeling moving around the fourth or fifth condemned (ohhhhh I see what they did there) building that the whole city is just a ghost town full of nobody but violent lunatics, and also that if you keep playing for too long you might get hepatitis just from exposure.

Plot-wise, I could fill another twenty paragraphs with petty gripes. It’s a bit Kill List which i’m sure is a reference you all understand in that it starts as a crime thriller about catching a serial murderer and ends in some bizarre insane bullshit halfway between Hereditary and Hellraiser, and leads you into it gently enough that you never really notice a sudden lurch.

You play as Ethan Thomas, a very boring and generic FBI Agent called in to investigate a serial killer case by two cops who are REMARKABLY blithe about murdering people, and it’s a bit jarring in today’s political climate. Though distrust, fear, and hatred of the police isn’t exactly new, and violence amongst police officers is brought up at one point, albeit in a loading screen, so honestly I can’t be arsed to speculate on what level of self-awareness we’re operating on here. Regardless, it’s bothersome.

“Oh yeah, this place is full of addicts, hopped up on something, I think, just shoot ‘em. What? Lost your gun, eh? That’s fine here’s a fire axe go nuts, kid, we’ll deal with the paperwork later”

Anyway, you are ambushed by a man you believe to be the killer for.......no real reason, really. He was spying on you checking out the crime scene, but we just established this place is full of squatters, what if one of the 8 people I murdered on the way into this ambush was the killer??? Case solved! 

Anyway, needless to say, without wishing to spoil, the dude IS the main antagonist the yellow eyes are a helpful giveaway, and he takes your gun and swiftly shoots Generic Beat Cop and Generic Dick with it, then throws you out a window, whereupon some other asshole whose main role in the game is to be enigmatic and plot-convenient, you know, one of THOSE characters, spirits you away from the scene, making it look like you just killed two cops and fled.

Now, in real life, as we all know, a cop can’t be indicted for murder even if 50 people saw him do it, but in this world, it means you have to go on the run from the FBI (not your lab tech, though, who is somehow assisting you from the lab and sending confidential data to your phone unnoticed??) while trying to solve the murder.

Meanwhile, in the background, in an “I’m sure this isn’t important and will in no way inform the last level of the game going batshit bonkers” kind of way, all of the people, including the cops, in certain dilapidated and neglected areas of the unnamed City City appear to be going what is medically known as balls-to-the-wall kill crazy, and birds are dropping dead from the sky by the thousands. Even you, protagonist, are prone to horrible screaming nightmare visions coming right the blazing blue fuck out of nowhere and that you never feel the need to comment on or go take a lie-down. I’m sure it’s nothing.

The voice acting is what you’d expect from this era of video games i.e. not good and the writing has an absolutely DESPICABLE habit of having characters tell Ethan things he should already god damned well know for the sake of gameplay or exposition, leading to my current theory that Agent Ethan Thomas has some kind of horrible head injury and can’t remember anything from over 2 minutes ago like Guy Pearce in that pretentious movie where he accidentally kills his wife and then runs around for two hours terrorizing random-ass people about it.

The game never full-on plays the AND THE MAN YOU’VE BEEN PLAYING AS WAS CRAZY THE WHOLE TIME card and leaves things a bit ambiguous, but after caving in the 15th vagrant’s head and the 7th vision you’ve had of being murdered by some Cenobite-looking motherfucker while conducting an unsanctioned investigation during a suspension prompted by you presumably murdering the shit out of two guys, you start to think this may not be standard FBI protocol. 

It’s all a bit hard to swallow is me point, a bit hard to sympathize, and a bit muddy if we’re supposed to or not. But you know what? It certainly isn’t boring, and I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t effective. This game is now one of only two to have genuinely given me nightmares, and I think it’s rather telling that after I played the hallucination part I had the nightmare about, I was having genuine trouble remembering if something happened in my nightmare of it or in the actual version.

Condemned is batshit crazy, hilariously easy to write off as “that game about killing hobos”, and very, very dated. But it is genuinely harrowing and unpleasant, and was clearly genuinely made by artists with the intent of saying.....errr i’m not exactly sure what, but SOMETHING! It’s about as far a cry as you can get from the Triple A crawling with microtransactions like your MCM is with crabs milk-you-for-money-until-your-udders-bleed look-at-how-shiny-we-are games, and even a lot of indie horror games who think it’s a measure of a masterpiece being able just to constantly trigger your fight-or-flight response again and again and again so you can make a hilarious Let’s Play out of it not to name any names Five Night’s at Freddy’s. It’s a relic of a different and i think a better time in gaming history, where big-name publishers were still taking chances and hadn’t quite yet worked out the formula for how to distill games into their most skeletal, malnourished, corporate, addictive, glorified gambling form.

Also it’s 3 dollars on Steam and you can finish it in like ffffffffucking...two days? So really why the fuck not. I have no idea how to assign numbers to things i’d probably give ir a 7 or 8 or 4 out of 5 stars but i’m bad at systems like that, just play it if you give a shit. If nothing else, a bunch of people snapping it up out of nowhere will really fuck with marketing, which is always a noble pursuit

[trifoliate-undergrowth]

Episode 6: End of an Era

Strap yourselves in guys, this one’s a long one, but a good one. 

In this session, we were joined by two friends who happen to be married to each other, L and A. L provided snarky comments on the session hijinks and A played sound effects and brought the DM’s speakers over when he wanted to play something specific. 

The DM explains how, after an 8-hour speeder ride across the planet, we’re put down in a field and the speeder disappears. We’re in the middle of open farmland, nothing but rolling green fields dotted with small rounded bumps. These look like old abandoned grain silos, but Grif and Rralwarr know that inside one of these silos is a turbolift down to the safehouse. 

Rralwarr: I wanna do something. Before we go in there, I want to check Taveau for anything Death Watch could be using to track us. 

DM: And you’re... going to do this how? 

Me: Are you going to warn Taveau before you do whatever you’re planning to do to him? 

Rralwarr: Yeah--like “hey Taveau I need to check you for trackers before we head in.” 

Taveau: h

DM: Yeah that was technical language, you only barely understand what he’s saying. 

Taveau: I got like... half of that. Grif? 

Grif: 

Grif: Hmm what? Oh I was trying to remember which of these silos leads to f̸͎̽l̸̤̾u̵͙͆f̸̗͆f̸̣̀y̵̰̎p̶̦͂ḽ̷͊à̶̳c̶͕̄ê̷ͅ... 

Everyone: 

Grif: Yeah he wants to know if there’s any way Death Watch could be tracking you. 

Taveau: *instant paranoia* I?? Don’t?? Think so??? Uh, this armor never belonged to them, I don’t... 

Rralwarr asks if there could be something in the helmet. Taveau explains that it’s a remarkably low-tech helmet, only useful for deflecting plasma bolts from your face and holding caf, but lets Rralwarr examine it. It is, indeed, a very plain helmet with no attachments. Rralwarr is satisfied. We head down. 

Rralwarr and Taveau both have a bad feeling. It seems too easy. I’m kind of expecting Death Watch to already be down there, holding Grif’s family hostage. When the new Roll20 background loads up, showing a bunker, I nearly have a heart attack when I see several character tokens facing the entrance where we’ve just appeared. This changes to relief as I see that they’re Wookiees. 

DM: as the doors open, you see two Wookiees in the room before you. They roar an enthusiastic greeting, and one rushes forward and hugs Rralwarr. From behind them, you hear someone speaking basic. “Excuse me--Medrull, Talwarra?” and poking in between them comes a man who looks a lot like Grif, but older and greyer, in very luxurious robes. 

Baron Welkonna: Son. I’m so glad to see you safe. Rralwarr, thank you for keeping him safe. 

Then there’s sort of a moment of awkward semi-silence as everyone looks suspiciously at Taveau. Everyone except Medrull, of course, who immediately starts talking to Grif about how much taller he’s gotten, and asking whether he’s been eating well. Baron Welkonna pulls Rralwarr aside, but the other two Wookiees stay where they are, politely but firmly barring Grif and Taveau (mostly Taveau) from entering the room. 

Baron Welkonna: I was not anticipating a third person, Grif made no mention... is everything alright? Who is he? 

Rralwarr: Yes, it’s alright. Regarding Taveau--Taveau is his name--he’s helped us on our journey and as far I understand it he is running away from the ah

H: 

Dm: 

H: I Should Probably Think Before I Speak

DM: Yes. 

H: OK I’m starting over. 

DM: You can do that. 

Rralwarr: Taveau is our pilot, he is the one who got us to our destination, and... he is running away from slavers, as I understand it. He hasn’t told us much and I think there’s more to it, but he has helped us, and has fought alongside us in battle. 

Baron Welkonna: Ah, the poor man. You trust him? 

Rralwarr: Enough. 

Welkonna: Does Grif trust him? 

Rralwarr: Yes, I think so. 

Welkonna: Medrull, Talwarra, everything is clear. 

We’re allowed into the room and Baron Welkonna comes over to Taveau. 

Welkonna: I apologize for seeming a bit rude at first. These are trying times, but I have been assured that you are trustworthy. 

And he holds out his hand for a handshake. 

Now let me explain. Taveau feels like he’s entered another dimension, here. Not only is this man ridiculously wealthy (and Taveau is still semi-convinced he’s some kind of royalty), but he’s nice. Taveau isn’t sure how to react to either of those things but especially not the second one. 

Taveau: 

Taveau, struggling to remember how normal human beings behave when they’re not fighting for their survival and having near-death experiences every two seconds: 

Taveau: Thank You Sir *shakes hand, casually has an out-of-body experience* 

Baron Welkonna: I understand you’re been a great help to my son. 

Taveau: h 

Grif: Ohmygoodness he has been amazing!! He’s such a great pilot and he got us off of Ryloth when we were trapped there and I don’t even know what would have happened if we hadn’t met him, we probably would have died! 

Taveau, having another out-of-body experience: I... would have died too, so... thanks for letting me tag along? 

Baron Welkonna walks Grif and Taveau around the complex, showing Taveau the facilities, while Rralwarr hangs out with the other Wookiee bodyguards and chats about his adventures. The furnishings are simple but comfortable. There’s the living area where we came down, which has a couch; other rooms branch off of this in two directions. The one straight ahead from the entrance is a sleeping area with bunk beds, which we’ll get back to later. The other door, on the left (with your back to the entrance), leads into a dining area with doors leading to storage area, master bedroom and bathroom (with real water showers rather than sonic ones!! Taveau takes note. Taveau is still finding Geonosian sand in his hair, months later, and he doesn’t like it.) And in the bathroom there’s a hidden panel that opens to a hidden saferoom with a gun rack. This room provides access to the area which has the power generator and an escape hatch leading up to a small hangar. 

From here we circle back around to the smaller bedroom. 

Welkonna: Grif, I’m sure you remember this, you used to love playing on these beds. 

Grif: Oh yeah! During the safety drills.... I remember those. 

Welkonna: Do you remember the time you hid under the covers and we couldn’t find you? Midkrarr was ready to tear her fur out with worry... you scared your mother, too. She was so happy when we finally found you. 

Grif: ...I remember. 

Welkonna: Anyway, 

He opens another hidden-panel-door into a vault holding an impressive amount of weaponry. 

Grif: Wow dad, I don’t remember all of this! 

Welkonna: Ah yes, I’ve made some additions to the place since you were last here. Actually: here, might want to take this. 

He takes down a suit of concealed body armor that will go under Grif’s clothes. 

Grif:  Wow, this, this is—I don’t even know where you’d get something like this! Thanks, dad!! 

DM: Taveau, Baron Welkonna notices you hanging back at the door, not sure if you should enter. He says “Ah, you look fairly well-armored already, but I have an attachment that might be helpful.” 

*L and A play the Zelda item gain noise from the couch. Party takes a moment to laugh at this* 

Welkonna gives Taveau a wrist attachment with a concealed vibroblade. Taveau is beyond pleased and puts it on his left wrist and starts playing with it. 

H: Please don’t tell me he’s just standing there flicking it in and out

Me: Heheheheh that is exactly what he’s doing. He looks very pleased with it. Finally he retracts it and looks up at Baron Welkonna and says “Thank you, sir.” 

M: Hey can I roll to see if Grif notices any guns he could use that would be better than what he’s got? 

DM: Sure. (he do that) You see a very nice blaster pistol, looks like republic army issue. 

Grif: Heyoo, dad, where’d you get that one? 

Welkonna: Oh, that was a gift from an army supplier I helped with some tricky negotiations. I have no real use for it, would you like it? I certainly can’t object to you having more protection, though I wish it weren’t necessary. 

Grif does indeed take the gun. It is a nice gun. 

DM: meanwhile, Rralwarr has been shooting the breeze with the other Wookiee bodyguards, and has have endured some good-natured teasing from Midkrarr, the oldest, who is Baron Welkonna’s personal bodyguard. Medrull and Talwarra are also glad to have you back. They’re excited about the new gear they have—shock sticks. Would you like one? 

H: You know this is incredibly obviously that room full of gear that you find right before The Boss Room 

DM: I am being nice to you :) 

H: Yes I take the shock stick. 

DM: Excellent. You can sling it on your back.

Rralwarr discusses where the rest of Grif’s family is with the bodyguards--his sister is with her husband’s family, the brother who went into industry was off-world at the time and they’re having trouble contacting him, but they think he’s OK because he was about halfway across the galaxy. We also learn that Grif was the middle child, his brother was older and his sister younger (though one would presume not much younger). 

DM: Medrull pulls Rralwarr aside and softly grunts to him that Midkrarr was the personal bodyguard to Lady Welkonna as well and is taking her loss very personally. She’s been extra vigilant. She considers it a failure on her part.

RR: I understand. But we’ll be safe here—

-PROXIMITY ALARM BLARES-

Everyone: Of Course It Does

DM, to Rralwarr: Midkrarr rushes past you, nearly knocking you over in the process, barking at the other bodyguards to take up defensive positions. 

Rralwarr quickly gives the other bodyguards an idea of what they might be up against, then goes looking for his boy 

(Rralwarr:)

Rralwarr: GRIF WHERE YOU AT

Grif, reacting to the alarm: Oh! That sounds bad! 

Rralwarr: Ah he’s in here. 

DM: You encounter them rushing out of the vault room. Baron Welkonna races into the dining room area, where there’s a display screen on the wall, and you all follow him. About 5 miles out you see a small freighter, flying low to the ground and slowly. You think you may have about 5 minutes, they have to go over a lot of hills and it’s slowing them down. 

Welkonna:  I was afraid of this. It seems we’ve been followed. I expect it was someone in the police force who told them where we were. (sigh) alright. It’ll take them a while to get through... We’re far enough down to be safe from anything but orbital bombardment, I don’t think they brought a capital ship. I think we need to retreat to the safe room. 

Taveau: Then you’ll just be trapped in there! 

Welkonna: I’ve reported it to the police, a force should be here in about an hour. Surely we’ll last for that long. 

DM: ...The ship... is still approaching... what are you gonna do... 

[Party discusses various options. Leaving through the escape hatch won’t work, they only have a small speeder there, they’d be easily chased down and shot.]

DM: Guys... the ship... is getting really close... what are you gonna do... 

[Welkonna heads into the saferoom, still arguing with Grif]

DM: Guys the ship is ALMOST HERE. IT WILL BE HERE IN LIKE. TEN SECONDS. 

Taveau: the bodyguards are going to be at the door, right? I’ll stay with them as long as possible. 

Rralwarr agrees. 

Grif looks at his friends, then his father. 

Grif: Dad, I think I gotta go with em. I can’t leave em alone--

Taveau: No, you don’t gotta. Go in the safe room. 

Welkonna: Son, please, I can’t lose you too. Stay with me. 

At around this point, the other two head to the front, and Taveau, Rralwarr, Midkrarr, Medrull and Talwarra all take cover in places around the living room right outside the turbolift area. They also recall the turbolift so that the invaders can’t use it, but let’s be honest, did anyone really think that would stop these guys? No. But we could say that we tried, at least.

DM, to Grif: At this point, you’re at the hidden door. Baron Welkonna is already inside, Grif is still outside in the bathroom. Baron Welkonna is coming back like he’s going to grab you and pull you inside, Grif; and you notice this at the same time that you notice that you’re standing right next to the emergency seal on the door. 

M: ooh. ... Hm. 

Grif: Alright dad, I’m going. 

And he steps out and presses the release. 

Welkonna, muffled, through the door, which is now sealed for the next thirty minutes: Aaah fierfek! 

Grif: I’ll try to stay safe dad! 

Grif goes and hides around the corner of the other bathroom, the one at the back of the first room, where the others are waiting. Nobody notices that he’s joined the party yet. 

The last we saw of the display showed the ship on the ground and six figures walking towards us. The Wookiees begin to roar--the DM describes it as a rhythmic sound that slowly builds in intensity as they psyche themselves up for battle. It works so well that it gives us all a +5 bonus to attack rolls on the first 3 turns. 

Above us somewhere, there’s a very loud explosion. It sounds like the freighter may have blasted the door open. Then there’s silence, maybe a few footsteps... then suddenly: 

Kote! Kandosii sa ka'rota, Vode An

DM: You hear, of all things, Vode An, but it seems to have changed, because this version is interspersed with bloodcurdling whoops and screams and lyrics that mention restoring the glory of the Mandalorian empire, taking the wives of the Aruetiise, and drinking blood from their skulls. Taveau, this gives you very unpleasant flashbacks. 

Me: Yes It Does

DM: Roll a 1d4. (2) It’s difficult, but you manage to steel yourself and keep composed. That was a PTSD roll, by the way. 

Me: Excellent (I appreciate the devotion to accurate characterization, and also the material for possibly later writing something. I’ll also throw in here that Vode An had come up a couple times in earlier sessions, as the DM and M discussed how great it was and played it for the rest of us. It’s from the game Republic Commando, which I bought during the Steam winter sale but haven’t tried playing yet. Considering how bad the book punched me in the feels, I’m almost afraid...) 

We hear the sound of jets firing in the elevator shaft, followed by 6 thuds. They’ve jetpacked down. Then, we hear one of them shouting at us through the door: “Aruetiise! We are not without mercy. We offer you peace! Return the foreigner, his pet, and our property to us and we will leave you alone. Otherwise, you must die.” 

DM: the Wookies respond immediately, cursing the parentage of the speaker. Taveau, with your shaky grasp of Shyriiwook, you think you hear one of them call the speaker a Hutt sex slave. You’re not sure you want to think about this too much, and question your decision to learn Shyriiwook. 

(Me, internally: are you telling me Taveau hasn’t heard worse in Mando’a) 

Speaker: You have ten seconds to respond! 

At this, Grif pops his head around the corner of the bathroom wall, and yells:  GO TO HELL YOU SONSUVBITCHES! 

At which Taveau whips around and goes GRIF WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE! 

The answer is, Grif is using his Presence skill to give us an advantage. 

Ten seconds pass, and the Speaker calls “Ha! Foolish aruetiise, soon you will taste the blades of Death Watch!” 

Just in case there was any doubt left as to who we’re dealing with, yep, it’s definitely those guys. 

Taveau noted that Death Watch had mentioned three people specifically this time. They’re not just after him. He gives up the idea he’d had of turning himself in and taking whatever punishment they had planned for him. It wouldn’t be enough, would it? He’d been stupid to think there was a chance. But honestly, who would want to kill Grif? He was... Grif. Rralwarr was more likely to be seen as a threat, but he hadn’t personally gone out of his way to anger Death Watch, he’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And he hadn’t been the one to kill the guy. 

Taveau, who was pressed against the wall to the side of the door, leans over to the door and shouts “what do you want with these outsiders?” 

There’s a bit of a, possibly surprised, pause, then the Speaker responds “We want to get to the one who shot one of our own.” 

Taveau: The kid? No he’s useless believe me. He was in another room. I don’t think he even had a gun. And the Wookiee was just trying to protect him, I guarantee he wouldn’t have shot if he’d known who he was dealing with. 

DM: There’s no response. 

Of course there isn’t. 

We hear explosives being packed around the door and we all duck and cover. The door blasts forward into the room, and in the smoke-wreathed gap appears the first of our enemies, a tall man with a rather large blaster carbine slung across his chest. He’s not using this. He is, in fact, brandishing a large beskar-bladed sword. This is the Blademaster. And so it begins. 

(I’ll spare you the frantic rolling and the “oh, he missed... he circles around to try again... that guy... also missed,” and try to make it a bit story-like). 

Another Death Watch grunt runs out behind the Blademaster, and the two team up against Medrull, who’s on the other side of the door from Taveau, whom they don’t seem to have noticed. He’s standing very, very still. 

In the chaos, Grif pops out again and takes a shot at the Blademaster. He hits, though the hit doesn’t do very much damage. This man is a tank. 

H, to M: HEY! THAT IS THE FIRST TIME YA HIT SOMETHING! 

DM: Yeah, and he definitely sees you now. ...But not you, Taveau. 

Me: Can I make a sneak attack with my two vibroblades? 

DM: Yes... (not-a-very-great roll) Ah, well, you try to sneak up on him while his back is turned, but you bang your elbow against the filtration column, and he hears it and dodges your attacks. 

Talwarra nearly kills one of the troopers, but he’s still up and fighting, on a sliver of health. 

All 6 of the Death Watch are in the room now, including a Scout with a very nice & stabby knife and four grunts, fairly ordinary troopers whom the DM refers to by number in the combat initiative list. 

Trooper 3 shoots at Taveau. He hits Taveau. He hits Taveau for a lot of damage. All of it, in fact. He nat 20′d both of his attack rolls. Taveau is insta-downed (not killed) and falls to the floor, limp. 

(the drama of the moment is somewhat lessened by L shouting from the couch “and then one of the troopers starts crying and goes I didn’t want to go to war, I had a liberal arts degree and no one else would hire me!”) 

Rralwarr roars, intimidating the troopers, who all try to stay as far away from him as possible for the rest of the fight. 

The DM mentions, at this point, that these armored bastards have Wookiee pelts braided around their armor. This does not endear them to our allies. 

Grif takes a shot at the nearly-dead guy previously shot by Talwarra and manages to finish him. He’s a bit surprised, and a bit concerned to see what their response will be. 

The DM gets back to Taveau. “Roll a 1d3.” Ah yes, we are now in the world of death saving throws. 

And I’ve just rolled a 1. 

DM: OOOOOH.... 

Me: I HAVE INSPIRATION

DM: Oh good, reroll that. (a 3) Oh! Okay. Good. That was good. You’re stable now. 

Me: But I can’t move? 

DM: No, you’re still unconscious. 

Talwarra, meanwhile, grapples with one of the troopers and manages to restrain him, Medrull is still boxed in by several of them while Rralwarr takes shots at them from around the couch, and while all this is happening, one of the troopers who isn’t currently busy with the others goes over to Taveau’s limp body, grabs him, and starts dragging him away. He disappears through the door and into the turbolift shaft before anyone does anything. 

DM: Medrull... Medrull is going to attempt something a little spicy. (rolls a 24) Ah, yes. She moves in, grabs the guy who was previously holding Taveau, pins his arms, puts him in a chokehold, spins around and uses him as a meatshield. Taveau just sort of slumps to the ground in the turbolift shaft. 

And that was where I remained for the rest of the fight. But the man who tried to abduct me went on to have a very bad time. 

Grif shoots the man fighting Talwarra, but he manages to break out of Talwarra’s grip. The Scout joins him in ganging up on Talwarra. 

DM: Talwarra, enraged-- 

H: OOH IS HE IN WOOKIEE RAGE MODE?? 

DM: ...I am sure Talwarra is in a Wookiee rage, yes. Is this a thing? 

(TO THE RULEBOOK!) 

This is a thing. Wookiees have sort of a berserker mode, and considering they’re being attacked by maniacs wearing the pelts of their dead brethren, it’s pretty safe to assume that our friends are going to be doing that during this battle. Talwarra, buffed by his righteous anger, starts whaling on the nearest member of Death Watch. Meanwhile, another trooper tries to shoot at Medrull, and his shot glances off The Human Shield for 5 damage. To The Shield, not to Medrull. The Shield wriggles around in a desperate attempt to escape, but rolls low enough to bring a deadpan “Yeah, there is no escape” from the DM. 

The Blademaster also fails to land a hit on Medrull. 

M: You know, “The Blademaster” seems like an interesting name for this guy who’s never hit anything with his blade... 

DM: Medrull decides this trooper she’s holding has too many arms... (bad roll) but fails to pull any off. She’s still got him in a firm grip, though. 

It’s here that Grif yells to Rralwarr, “Get Taveau!” because I’m still lying just outside the room. Rralwarr is surprised to see Grif there, but ‘trusts his judgement.’ He doesn’t run for Taveau, though. There are kind of a lot of people duking it out between him and the door, including Medrull, who’s swinging around an entire flailing human. Instead, he takes a shot at the Blademaster, master of the blade which never lands. 

Grif, seeing that he and Talwarra, who’s closest to the back, are getting a lot of attention, yells “let’s fall back!” to Talwarra and ducks into the bathroom, which, might I mention, has no other exit. The trooper Grif had shot at a moment before rushes after him. And then he rolls a crit fail, crashes into the door, injures himself, slips on the slippery bathroom tile floor and falls on his face. He is now prone. Grif steps over him to get out of the room, and then shoots him while he’s still lying down. 

Talwarra grapples with the scout and The Human Shield, who is having a very bad day, continues soaking up damage from his own teammates. Then the Blademaster makes a surprise-dash attack on Rralwarr, which does 34 damage, leaving him nearly dead. Medrull, seeing this, goes into rage mode and decides to body-rush the Blademaster, using The Human Shield as a battering ram to smash him out of the way. She succeeds beautifully, inflicting damage upon both the Blademaster and The Shield, who is really not having a good day. 

The Blademaster, now nearly dead, moves away from us, and... before anyone can finish him off... pulls a syringe from his belt, jams it in his neck, and regains a large chunk of his HP. 

Me: I hate that guy. 

H: I hate that guy too. 

M: I don’t like sand. 

Rralwarr medpacs himself, gets his health back, and then goes into rage mode. Medrull, still holding the least lucky man on this team, uses him as a melee weapon to bludgeon one of his teammates. Rralwarr takes out his new shock stick and slaps the Blademaster with it. The Blademaster goes down. 

Grif takes another shot at the trooper who slipped facefirst into the Welkonna bathroom, who has managed to stand up again but not to do anything else. He rolls a 24 for this. 

H and I simultaneously: OOOOOH, 

Me: You are more competent than Taveau, who has been trained to kill from birth! 

DM: You manage to hit a battery pack on the side of his helmet. It explodes. Half of his face is now gone. 

One more down, but Talwarra goes down a moment later. Rralwarr slams into the guy who downed him, the Scout, with his shock stick and knocks him backwards into the hallway where Grif is standing, shouting “Take the shot!” to Grif. Grif takes the shot and crit fails it. He uses his inspiration to reroll, and still fails to hit anything, but at least he didn’t crit fail and hit Rralwarr. Unlike the other member of our party. (see ep. 1) 

Meanwhile, The Human Shield is still doing frantic and ultimately useless wiggles in Medrull’s arms, and Trooper 2 gets tired of trying to aim around him and just. Shoots his buddy. 

Me, OOC: That poor guy. Seems like the Taveau of this bunch. 

Medrull backs Trooper 2 up against the wall. He’s the last one standing, and Grif comes out and yells at him. 

Grif: Give it up, we have you outnumbered! Go back to your people and tell them we fight with honor! 

This last guy, panicked, yells “I submit!!” and drops his blaster. Medrull takes the opportunity to punch him. He’s now unconscious. 

The room is full of bodies. We’ve won. 

Rralwarr keeps beating on the limp Blademaster for a few moments before coming out of his blind rage enough to treat and stabilize Talwarra. Medrull goes and gets binder cuffs, restrains the two alive-but-unconscious men--Blademaster and the last trooper--and lashes them to two of the bunks in the next room. Then she sits down to take a rest. She’s on very low health. 

Grif: While this is happening I run to Taveau and drag him back into the room and lay him down. 

DM: You know you have a small medical facility here? *points it out on the map* 

Grif: Then never mind, I’m dragging him there. 

Rralwarr and Midkrarr follow with Talwarra. As we all pass the display, we see that another ship has entered their airspace. It’s not Alderaanian police. However, it doesn’t appear to be Death Watch backup, either, as it launches a missile into the other freighter, destroying it, before touching down in front of the bunker. 

After getting Talwarra and Taveau set up in the clinic, Grif rushes to the still-sealed panel to talk to his dad, while Rralwarr returns to guarding the door. 

Grif: Dad!! (he’s breathless, gasping a little, and he sounds high on adrenaline. He’s laughing a little, too. I’m reminded that M is an actor, and a damn good one.) We did it, we got 2 prisoners, the rest are dead and right now Rralwarr’s guarding the door! 

Welkonna: Thank the Force you’re OK. I should have kept you in here with me. 

Grif: DAD!! :D I KILLED TWO OF THEM!! 

Welkonna, who’s been watching the security cam feed: I know. I never wanted you to get into this kind of life, but it seems that choice is beyond me. Now come, let’s treat the Wookiees and your friend.

Baron Welkonna gets himself un-trapped and goes to tend to the wounded. 

DM: Grif, on the display, you see, approaching the door, a Mandalorian--

M, assuming it’s the black-armored mystery man we keep running into: SONUVA-- 

DM: --In sand-colored armor. 

M: ?? WHAT!

DM: And then he looks directly into the camera--which should be completely concealed--and says “Hello! Seems like you’ve done some impressive work here. Could I, maybe... talk to you? I have some information you might find rather valuable.” 

Grif heads back to the door to discuss their options with Rralwarr, who’s starting to crash. Rralwarr’s take is “Well if he shot the other guys, let’s see what he has to say.” He’s still incredibly wary. Grif convinces him to lower his bowcaster as they head up in the turbolift, but he keeps it ready. 

DM: The doors open, and you see the Mandalorian standing in front of you. He’s slightly below average height, wearing scuffed, kind of sand-gold armor. “...Colored kind of like my Camry, actually,” says the DM. “He’s wearing Camry-colored armor. You notice a familiar-looking silvery flute hanging from his belt.” 

M, remembering that the black-armored Mandalorian murdered someone with a sharpened flute in one of their earlier adventures: SONUVA--so it IS the same guy!! 

DM: This isn’t the same guy. He’s shorter. His voice is more easygoing, rather than the clipped, aristocratic tones of the black-armored Mandalorian. He’s standing with his palms out in a gesture of non-confrontationality.

H: Rralwarr stands by the door and lets Grif do the talking.

Camry-armored man: So you’re still alive, then. Kandosii! You must be special indeed, not everyone gets a death watch assassin squad sent after them. Those damn shabuire... Mm. My name’s Mij Galmar. 

DM: He takes off his helmet, there’s a slight hiss of decompression. You see the face of a man in his late 40s-early 50s, dirty blonde hair greying around the edges. He has a face that would have been handsome in his youth but has met with a few fists since then; he’s got a squashed, broken nose.

Rralwarr takes this as a decent sign of trust and lowers his guard.

Grif goes for a handshake. “Grif Welkonna! Nice to meet you, sir.”

Mij: Rather impressive what you did there, son. Or what I’m assuming you did. I don’t know what their current numbers are, but used to be a squad was 8 men. 

Grif and Rralwarr look at each other in sudden paranoia. 

They take Mij back down with them in the turbolift, and when the doors open Rralwarr leaves at a sprint, heading back towards the medbay. 

Mij: What’s his rush?

Grif: you said 8? 6 came after us.

Mij shrugs. “Maybe 2 stayed in the freighter. Or their numbers have gone down. Death Watch has only recently made a resurgence, they’re not up to full strength; 6 was probably all they had.” 

Grif: I hope you’re right. You’ll understand our concern, though. We’ve been having trouble with these guys.

Mij: Have you, now?

Grif, being Grif, decides to roll a Charisma, and nat 20s it.

Grif: Yeah, so, what do you know about these guys? I’d like to know what their deal is.

DM: Mij gives you an appraising look. “I guess you could call me a patriot, though Death Watch would say that they’re the patriots. They’re really nothing more than criminals. I like to think of the days when we had honor, but Death Watch remembers the times when our name struck fear at a mere mention. We thought they were dead at Galadran, but it seems they’re back, and they’ve used the civil war as an opportunity to make some powerful friends. 

Grif: That’s unfortunate. Sounds like a problem for you guys.

Mij: It’s a problem for those of us who know. We Mandos typically keep to ourselves.

Grif: I mean, I guess that makes sense if you’re gonna have the kind of problems you do. Besides, considering the kind of warriors you make, I’d expect that you want to keep your secrets close. 

Mij: Look at you, already thinking like a Mando. So how many of you were there? I’m guessing you and your friend didn’t fight off the Death Watch by yourselves.  

Grif: Yes, we had a couple bodyguards with us as well, and another friend.

Mij: I see. Have they fared well, did any of them die?

Grif: Well, I mean, we had a few problems, some of them are getting patched up for minor injuries. But everyone should be right as rain in a few minutes. (Deception roll: 32)

Mij: You know what, considering what I’ve seen today I believe you. But, if you ever need help, I am a doctor.

Party: OH, THANKS, GRIF!

M: I WAS JUST TRYING TO BE SAFE I DIDN’T WANT HIM TO THINK WE WERE COMPLETELY DEFENSELESS

Grif: ...I mean, we would take some medpacs, if you have some to spare. 

Mij: Oh? Everyone’s OK, but you want medpacs? 

Grif: Yes but we used up a lot of medpacs, and now we’re a bit low. I mean, they came through our “impenetrable” door; that makes me a bit nervous.

Mij: I respect that. 

Meanwhile, Rralwarr finds Baron Welkonna, who grabs him and asks why the display feed shows his son sitting on the couch with a strange Mandalorian. Rralwarr is really starting to struggle against the fatigue now, coming down from berserker mode is worse than an adrenaline crash. 

Rralwarr: There’s... a sandpaper armor Mandalorian, out there... He shot the freighter, he took off his helmet as a gesture of trust, now he’s on our couch. 

Baron Welkonna: Will my son never learn! 

H: Rralwarr is actually a little bit loopy. 

DM: Yeah, I’ll bet. Medrull is going to lie down and take a rest in the bunk room, keeping an eye on the prisoners. And Baron Welkonna is going to go see what Grif’s up to. 

H: Rralwarr goes with him. 

Grif, seeing them come in: Heyyy! Who brought in the army? 

Rralwarr slumps against the wall, exhausted. Mij takes a look at him, then at Grif, and goes “right as rain, huh? Don’t worry about it kid, I respect the effort.” He stands and extends his hand to Baron Welkonna with a slight bow. 

Welkonna: Thank you for the service you did us in taking down that freighter. But if you’ll forgive me a bit of paranoia, considering what we’ve just come through, it is a bit suspicious that you showed up just now. 

Mij: Understandable, and I’ll be honest. I’ve been hunting these guys, I take my targets where I can find them. 

Welkonna: Ah. So you’re a bounty hunter. 

Mij: Sometimes. I prefer to think of myself as a doctor, really. 

(Party: HE SAID IT AGAIN) 

Welkonna: I... see. (sigh) This, the whole series of events the past week has been surreal. First my wife and now the attack on what I thought was a safe house. 

Mij: Wait, your wife? 

He looks between Grif and Baron Welkonna, noting the similarity, and the way that everyone’s gotten rather quiet. He looks back at Grif. 

Mij: ...They killed his mom? 

H: Rralwarr is grumbling in the corner about it. 

Mij: Shab, these... They’re going after kids now. I can’t believe... How did you attract the ire of Death Watch? They’re brutal, but usually not random. 

Grif gives him the short version of our Hypori adventure, concluding with “We’re not sure why they’re this angry, but maybe when one of our friends wakes up he can talk to you.” 

(Me: Hey, good question, am I conscious now? 

DM: You’re semiconscious. You still can’t move.)

Mij: I see. Would you like me to treat him? 

(Me, OOC, wanting Taveau to LIVE: Grif? Grif. Swallow your pride, Grif. 

M: It’s not pride! I’m just not sure we can trust him--)

Rralwarr: Yes. 

Grif: ... Yes. Thank you. 

They glance in on the prisoners and Medrull first. Medrull has stripped the dead and prisoners of their Wookiee pelts, planning to give them a proper burial later. Mij looks at them and comments “Aah, that’s how you did it. They should’ve known better than to wear their blasted Wookiee pelts.” 

Then he checks on Taveau and Talwarra. Talwarra is still unconscious, but should live. 

DM: He feels for broken bones, checks your eyes for concussion, makes sure you don’t have any untreated injuries and injects a stimulus. You come back. 

Mij: Aah, welcome back to the land of the living. Just a word of advice: you may want to lay off the rum, brother. It’ll increase your life expectancy. 

Taveau: ?? Whhhh I just met you huuh how did dyou know ?? 

(M: He’s a doctor, I think he can tell when your blood is 50% rum. 

DM: Yeah, Mij has seen alcoholics before.) 

Rralwarr leans right down to the cot and gives Taveau a massive bear hug. Let me repeat. Whom does this massive furry tank teammate give a hug to? Yes, Taveau, who was near-lethally shot half an hour before, and is still covered in bandages. 

Taveau: AAAGH! Um, hey. 

Grif: Careful! 

Taveau, who appreciated the gesture (though startling and painful), manages to give Rralwarr’s arm-fur a squeeze before he releases him. Grif, opting to not damage him more, ruffles his hair. 

Grif: It’s OK. This guy is a friend. 

Mij: Mij Galmar. You feel awake enough to explain what’s going on? Your friends told me I should talk to you. 

Taveau: Uh... 

Grif: Actually, hey, guys, if you wouldn’t mind giving me and Taveau a moment alone? We have some stuff to talk over. 

And the adults politely leave, except for the unconscious Wookiee on the bed next to Taveau, and Rralwarr, who slumps down on the floor against the supply cabinets. 

Grif: OK, here’s the thing. I think we can trust Mij, I think he can help us.

Taveau: He’s... when did he get here? How long has it been?? 

Grif: Not long, you’ve only been unconscious maybe half an hour. Less, I’d say. 

Taveau: Huh. Ok. 

Grif:  Mij wants to know why Death Watch is interested in you. But if you don’t want to tell him, I understand--

Taveau: Nah. If telling him will help us, I’ll do it. 

Taveau sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed in a sloppy attempt at standing up. Grif catches him and helps him get up without further injuring himself, and supports him as he walks to the door. 

Taveau: We won, though? 

Grif: Yeah! Oh, yeah, we won! *with immense pride* Actually, I killed two of them! 

Taveau: Yeah? Kandosii. 

Grif: Kk?? Kah, um, kendasi to you, too. 

DM: Hey, are you saying this out loud? 

Me, instantly on edge bc that’s a Things Are About to Happen DM Question: ??? yes?? 

DM: Can everyone hear you? 

Me: ...We’re right in the doorway at this point so yeah, everyone should be able to hear me. 

DM: ah :) 

Me: What? What Happens

DM: Mij hears you say this. He looks over at you quickly, then says, in Mando’a, “You speak Mando’a?” 

Taveau: lek

(DM: ??? 

Me: ....ye. * ’lek is a shortened form of elek which is yes so it’s like going ‘ye’ or ‘yeah’ but DM either couldn’t tell the difference between ‘lek’ and ‘I just muffled a burp’ or doesn’t know that*)

DM: Alright, Mij looks intensely at you for a moment, and sort of flares his nostrils as he takes a deep breath. 

Mij: Let me guess. You were just a kid, weren’t you? 

Taveau: 

Taveau, struggling against all odds (and against his earlier resolve) to not have his backstory brought up again even though it’s happening anyway, and doing an extremely bad job of feigning innocence: ....scuse me?

Mij: Death Watch could never get enough people to join their crazy scheme, so to fill up the ranks they’d take the children of loyal members. 

Taveau, still trying to pretend he’s not an open book: How do you know this? 

Mij: If you mean how do I know that’s what happened--you know the language, and you look like you’ve seen some stuff. As to how I know about it, I’ve seen it, I grew up there. It almost happened to me. But I got out. 

Taveau, with a faint touch of both bitterness and respect in his voice: Good on you. 

Mij: How’d you get out? 

Taveau: Faked my death, but obviously I didn’t do a very good job. 

Mij: They saw you with these others on Hypori. 

Taveau: Yeah. 

Mij: That explains it, then. Death Watch doesn’t want to let go once they have something, and they’ll go to a lot of effort to show that they still own you. 

Taveau, remembering how they treated (attempted) deserters in his day, just nods. They don’t want to let someone be a bad example. 

Mij switches back to Basic, addressing everyone in the room. 

Mij:  *sigh* Alright. I’ll give it to you straight. Death Watch is coming back. They have no real concern with Alderaan, or the Republic, or really anywhere outside of Mandalore for now; but they’re desperate to re-establish themselves somewhere. That fight on Hypori made them angry, but they don’t have the manpower to attack the Republic, so they’ve decided to pick on you. You’re an easier target. And once they’ve decided that someone is their enemy, they don’t forget easily. I think, if the three of you that they’re after leave this planet, they won’t bother the rest of your family, but they’re going to keep hunting you. Now, I’m no big fan of the Republic, but we’ll fare no better under the Seps, and especially not with Death Watch in power, so I’ve made it my mission to hunt them. 

Grif: Mij? 

DM: He looks up at you. 

Grif: Could you guys use a courier? 

Mij: I was hoping you’d say something like that. I’m putting together a small operation... 

(me: DOCTOR PUN) 

Mij: and I know... I know that Val would call me soft for this, and I’m probably sounding too much like Skirata, but I can’t stand it when they go after kids. I can’t promise you safety, I can’t promise you much protection, but I can promise you a way to fight back, and to learn to stand on your own feet and fight for yourself. You’ll have to leave this place, and you may never come back. It’s bas'lan shev'la, a strategic disappearance. But unless you want to go your own way, on the run from these guys for who knows how long... 

Baron Welkonna has a grave look on his face. There are tears glistening in his eyes. 

Welkonna: I never wanted this for you, son. I should never have let you leave, but this is the life you’ve started for yourself. I’ll protect you if I can, but I know that you resent having guards around you all the time. And you’ve shown that despite your impulsiveness you take care of yourself. You can stand on your own.

Gears have been turning in Taveau’s head while this is going on.  Mij doesn’t think Death Watch is interested in Grif’s family. Death Watch is only tangentially interested in Grif and Rralwarr, for their accidental association in a battle on Hypori. What Taveau is painfully aware of at the moment is that Death Watch wants him; terrifying enough if he were alone, but now his presence here is endangering this peaceful family. 

He steps forward before anyone else can speak. 

Taveau: For my part, I’ll go with you, at least as long as it takes to get out of this system. 

He turns back towards the Welkonnas and Rralwarr and hesitates. 

Taveau: I wasn’t here long, but... thank you... for accepting me into your home. 

Grif turns to Rralwarr to discuss his own options. 

Grif: right now, I want to go.It’s the best chance for keeping our family safe, and... I don't hate them anymore, but I will do what I can to fight them. If you go with me, then I’ll go, but only if you stay by my side.

H: ...I’m just trying to figure out how Rralwarr would react to this--is there some Wookiee gesture to express that Grif is family and anything else would be unthinkable? 

DM: I think a hug would suffice. 

Rralwarr sweeps Grif up into a hug of affirmation. Grif leaves the floor. Grif, upon being released, turns to Mij with a grin. 

Grif: alright, you’ve got me, and you’ve got my uncle Rralwarr here--

Rralwarr: I TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL ME THAT IN PUBLIC

Grif:--and one of the best pilots in the galaxy.

Taveau steps forward and slaps his hand down solidly on Grif’s shoulder. He’s the closest he’s come yet to outright grinning. 

Taveau: Grif.  ...Don’t lie so much.

Grif: ?? what? No? I was... actually telling the truth...? 

(H, laughing: Charisma check on Taveau to make him believe!!)

The conversation turns to what we’re going to do with the prisoners, and Mij offers to ‘take them off our hands’. Grif asks Mij what he’d do with them. 

“Oh, strip them, interrogate them, and depending on the day, maybe see if we can’t propel them into the nearest sun.” 

Grif tells how he convinced the last man standing to surrender (a not very typically Death Watch thing to do) and Mij just sort of does an ‘I’m not surprised’ grunt. “There’s always a few hut’uune in the ranks.” 

(Fun etymology time, the Mandalorians have such an intense dislike for the Hutts that their word for ‘coward’, aka The Worst serious insult, is derived from their name.) 

Midkrarr asks if the bodyguards may see to the prisoners themselves, or at least get some things straightened out before giving them to Mij. Mij responds without waiting for a translation. 

Mij: Far be it from me to stand in the way of Wookiee justice! Try to leave the heads attached, but I don’t really care about the arms, they just get in the way. 

Rralwarr, still very lethargic, is taken aback that Mij understands Shyriiwook, but after a moment just replies:

Rralwarr: OK. They had pelts. We have... a special procedure... for ones who take pelts. 

Mij: Would you like to borrow my scalpel? Nice bit of Mandalorian iron. 

Rralwarr passes, but Midkrarr snatches it up with a pleased look and goes off towards the bunk room. Mij calls after her 

“Leave them able to talk... please?” 

Finally, Mij takes out his comlink and makes a call to someone. 

“Jang, we’ve got some new friends. Yeah, just two kids. And a Wookiee. Yes I knew you were going to say that. Where is Kal anyway? Nah, they had it taken care of by the time I got down here, they’re not completely helpless. Six, this time. *sigh* Yes, you can have their gloves.” 

Masterpost 

[orlandri-tl]

[Sukamoka Vol. 1] Chapter 3 Part 1: Disposable Weapons

It was the Utica, a tactical airship boasting the greatest energy output and loading capacity of all the ships owned by the Winged Guard.

Before now it had never been in actual combat, in large part due to its invisible costs. Not only did it reputedly have an overly large heavy-cyclical enchanted furnace that, by itself, was insufficiently powerful to feed the ship’s outrageous fuel consumption, it also had no less than four pairs of auxiliary wings built at – of all places – the bottom of its base! The hull was roughly hewn from red steel so that it might not deform from the ship’s monstrous bulk, aided by sixteen rotors that were each four times larger than they would have been on a regular airship. Its main gun, as suited a ship of this magnitude, was of the highest physical power imaginable. Even then, the engineers had at one point tried to install the “Mountain Thrower” urban-defense weapon into the ship.

To sum it up, the Utica was the ultimate airship. A crystallization of arrogance built with the most powerful of the most powerful mechanical gadgets, constructed while ignoring all concerns of fuel consumption, maintenance costs, spell burn injuries, and so on, it could be called the greatest piece of artwork ever created.

“Hey, you,” the Division Chief asked Feodor, “what do you think of that airship?”

Feodor contemplated his question, then replied honestly. “...The people who designed it probably had a lot of fun.”

It was nothing more than a toy that had been designed, manufactured, and somehow made operational. He thought that everyone involved with the project would probably say, “How badly drunk was I when I made this piece of junk?!”

“This thing’s supposed to be our ace in the hole for the next strike. We were handed down the order from the General.”

“Is that right.” Feodor reexamined the airship. By his reckoning, it was capable of destroying everyone equally, whether they were friend or foe. One shot of the main gun could blow away a small city - and would likely cost enough to starve out another small city. It was an utterly ridiculous weapon, even without taking into account the matter of having to transport it to the battlefield.

There was only one thing he could say about such a monstrosity.

“Sounds like it’s gonna be a pain.”

“It is a pain.”

To begin with, it was common knowledge that conventional weaponry that weren’t infused with Venom were weak against the Beasts. It wasn’t that they were completely invulnerable to those weapons, but at the same time they simply didn’t have enough decisive power to deal a finishing blow. In the battles against the Teimerre and the Aurora, records of which the Winged Guard had plenty left over, conventional artillery had only been used to keep them in check and to buy time.

Any normal person would have thought to search for some other method. And perhaps, just perhaps, an abnormal person would have thought along these lines:

“Since it’s not effective, let’s put aside the simple problem of firepower for later. If our artillery only produces so much results, wouldn’t it be better for us to strike with an item that has a hundred times that power?”

Needless to say, the kind of factory floor where such things might have been discussed concerned Feodor a hundredfold.

In many ways, Venom was something akin to fire. One reason for that was that it couldn’t maintain itself. If one desired to use their Venom, it had to be ignited on the spot at a specific time. Furthermore, Venom ignited within the body could only exert its effects on outside forces if they made contact with that body.

In other words, it couldn’t be used for risky stunts such as charging and then releasing it like an arrow or shell. If one wanted to unleash a Venom-infused attack on an Beast in any kind of circumstance, it had to be in direct close-quarter combat.

“...Ah, wait. I see… there is just one other method we can use.”

At present, Feodor too knew about the existence of that method.

If a spirit with the ability to ignite their Venom was used, rather than an artillery, shell, then effective attacks without approaching the Beasts were possible.

I don’t know who thought of it, but it’s a logical method. As far as anti-Beast combat goes, it would be a shining ray of hope through the clouds of unreasonable demands.

“First Officer,” Feodor said abruptly. “I wish to ask you an unrelated question.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s about those First-class equivalent officers, sir. I believe you should’ve received three signatures from ranked officers who are higher than First Officer, correct? May I ask who those three might have been?”

The Division Chief paused momentarily. “First Officer Limeskin of the Second Division. First Officer Baroni Makish of the Military Police Division. Myself of the Fifth Division. What of it?”

At the least, those three should be aware of them. Of the people who, though they might live in this base and be treated as equivalent soldiers, could never become soldiers. The reason for their existence, and their true identities.

“Well then, First Officer, perhaps–”

Feodor snapped his mouth shut. It wasn’t something he could ask about. He hadn’t yet been informed about their identities. I mustn’t ask questions based on knowledge which I shouldn’t know about. “No, it’s nothing. Thank you.”

“Is that so?” The Division Chief tilted his head, his eyes narrowing slightly, but he didn’t pursue the issue. “...All right.”

* * *

Tiat was there atop the abandoned theatre again, sitting with her arms around her knees.

Feodor had thought that she would’ve learned her lesson after two falls. At the very least, she was keeping her distance from the steam ventilation port. She seemed to have recognized him by the sound of the door opening, as she was giving him fleeting sidelong glances as he walked closer.

“Donuts,” he said in greeting. She nodded, beckoning him closer with little gimmie, gimmie gestures. “...Just what do you think I am?”

“Someone who’s somehow always eating delicious food.”

Gah. It stung, but he couldn’t really deny it.

“Oh, I know!” Tiat smiled. “Why don’t you tell me where you get them?”

“What are you going to do if I tell you that?”

“I thought I should buy something good for Collon and the others, but there’s only lots and lots of flavorless food on this island…” she paused. “Wait, is it bad for me to always think about delicious things?”

“That’s why you left the base without permission?” Feodor tsked. “You know by now that’s against regulations, don’t you?”

“Yep,” Tiat replied brightly. “Our superior officers are way too serious to ask about this stuff.”

“Oh?” He raised one eyebrow. “So really, just what do you think I am?”

“My not-so-serious superior officer.”

...Oh, damn it. He wasn’t going to admit it, but he couldn’t beat her in smack talk. Feodor sighed. “Since you’ve gone on walks so much already, why don’t you try using your feet some more and find it yourself?”

“Hmm… oh, but I don’t have enough pocket money to use for tasting and comparing food at random...”

It wasn’t like soldiers in the Winged Guard weren’t paid cheaply. Ranked officers could provide for a large family with a bit left over to indulge themselves. With that kind of money, they could easily walk around the city spending, unlike university students pinching coins.

She only had to be considered a soldier to be granted that much.

“You’re always here, but why’re you so interested in this place?” Feodor eventually asked. “It’s not all that different than other places you could find around town.”

“Hmm, I don’t know if I’m interested, but…” He tilted his head as Tiat started mumbling to herself. “...No, wait, am I really?”

He waited, and eventually she volunteered another sentence. “I think this one probably feels the saddest. The wind’s strong, but quiet, and there’s no one here – except for when a certain someone drops by.”

Her logic made sense. “It’s the best place to be when there’s something on your mind,” Feodor agreed, sitting on a spot of the roof near Tiat. From his vantage point, Lyell City spread out below him as it always did.

“I wonder…” Unbidden, the words left his lips. “Is there any meaning in protecting this world?”

“Huh?” Tiat sidled up to him, her outstretched hands not matching her expression. “What kind of question is that? If you’re a Winged Guard officer, shouldn’t you already know the answer?”

“It’s not about me, but rather you.” He dropped another donut into her hands. “Not you as in the First-class equivalent soldier you claim to be, either. I heard about how you’re a Spirit, tuned to some kind of Dug Weapon thing.”

Tiat popped the donut into her mouth. One bite, two bites, and then three bites came before she answered. “How’d you know about that? It’s supposed to be super classified.”

“Well…” It’s because I secretly investigated you using an information broker! Like hell could he say that. No, wait, it was illegal to begin with, so why did I just tell her I know everything?!

What in the world am I doing?

“It’s because I’m your supervisor, and even if it’s just for now, also your superior officer,” Feodor said, feeding her a fake reason. “I need to know what I can do for you, that’s all.”

Tiat snorted, then burst into laughter.

“Why’re you laughing?”

“Ah, sorry, I just got a bit nostalgic.” Tiat patted her chest, small tears welling up in her eyes. He wondered if perhaps some donut pieces had gotten caught in her throat. “You see, someone told us something like that once before. He was a big show-off, but clumsy at heart. Acting so cool really didn’t suit him.”

A name floated to the forefront of Feodor’s mind. The name Tiat had given him before while making the same face he saw now, belonging to the person Lakish and Collon spoke of, the one who had been their previous caretaker. “Is it…. that Willem guy? The one you mentioned?”

“Yep, that’s right.” Tiat giggled fondly. “Our no-good father.”

He couldn’t tell if she respected him or not, but… at the least, that man seemed to have been both a close friend and someone she loved dearly. I don’t know whether it’s because of our ranks or because we might have been similar in age, but it’s honestly unpleasant to be compared to someone I don’t know a thing about.

“I’d protect it,” Tiat said abruptly. Feodor gave her a questioning glance, and she went on. “What you said before, about if this world is worth protecting? There’s no way I’d know something like that. It’s not like I’ve seen enough to think about it for myself, and I don’t have many people I know either. So I don’t think about complicated stuff like that.”

She took a breath. “But I decided that I’d protect my friends, the world, and a bunch of other stuff. I don’t need to wonder about if it has meaning or not. It’s what I’ve decided to do, so I can’t afford to back down. That’s all there is to it.”

“That...” Feodor searched for the right words. “That sounds almost like you want to be a hero.”

“Hmm, I think it’s a bit different from that, but maybe that’s close enough. It’s cool to fight and throw away your life, right?” Tiat chuckled a little. “Any boy or girl my age would worship people who did that.”

“I–”

“There must be a person more precious than your own life, right?”

“That’s why the one who discovers that person is so very happy, and so very fortunate.”

“...I disagree.” Feodor shook his head. “My own life’s more important than some stranger’s.”

“Whaaaat? Geez, boys like you have no sense of romance…”

“It’s exactly because I think that way and only try to satisfy myself that I’m alive now.” He put down the bag of donuts besides him and looked out across the town again.

It might have been because of his perspective or because of the distribution of districts, but in the part of Lyell he could see, there were almost no visible people living or even just moving around. It was impossible to tell if that was because the number of citizens here had shrunken so much, or because they were already gone. The line between a world that had ended and a world still ending grew vague here.

“That might be true for you,” Tiat said in a quiet voice, the last pieces of her donut swallowed. “But, you know, we aren’t exactly alive.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means what I mean. Um, how much do you know? About us?”

“Not much.” He crossed his arms. “You’re naturally occuring spirits that become assets to us by being tuned with dug weapons, and you’re gonna be disposed of after performing this Fairy Gate thing.”

Tiat scratched her head. “Oh, that’s all? Alright, then I’ll just have to fire up my wonderful memory to tell you the rest! Now let’s see, should I give you the rough explanation first...?”

After counting details off her fingers, she began, “Well, first of all, we’re a natural phenomenon called Leprechauns. We can move, talk, and think, but we’re not technically living beings…”

* * *

Tiat told him everything.

According to her, Leprechauns were a variety of ghosts and, strictly speaking, couldn’t be considered truly living.

Fairies were originally nothing more than whispered self-assertions, psychic phenomena whose existence were fragile at best. Chuckling laughs heard from within the forest; milk that decreased a tiny bit overnight; flying around and teasing cattle, and all of it invisible to the naked eye.

Leprechauns, a subspecies of fairies, couldn’t change their nature. They appeared near Emnetwyte habitats and disappeared without being noticed by anyone. But if they happened to be found prior to vanishing, then they would settle into the existence of a single markless child and begin as a counterfeit living being.

Joy, laughter, pain, sorrow, longing, grief…

Until they died, they would act as if they were truly alive.

* * *

“...Well, to put it another way, it’s like playing the leading role in a ghost story,” Tiat concluded. “We’re like ghosts who don’t know they’re dead, or something like that. Although we don’t have regular physical bodies, our high-density souls organize pseudo-matter into a form that imitates them…. or something like that.”

“You don’t have... physical bodies?” Narrowing his eyes into something like a glare, Feodor scrutinized the girl next to him. Short bright green hair swaying in the breeze. The hem of her skirt fluttering majestically in the wind blowing in from the direction of the town. Donut crumbs clinging to her mouth.

No matter how I look at her, she only seems like an energetic, slightly underdeveloped, teenage girl.

“Don’t stare at me. Pervert.”

Feodor rolled his eyes. “I don’t want a markless kid for a partner. Anyway–”

“Hey, don’t call me a kid! Just so that you know, even these–” Tiat made a few gestures, “–have gotten a bit bigger recently!”

“I don’t care.”

“Huh? That’s no good, you know.”

“Oh, give me a break,” he shook his head. “Anyway, I can’t understand what you mean about having no physical body.”

“Hmph…” Tiat pouted. “Just so that you’re aware, we Leprechauns have an unbelievable amount of energy packed inside of us. That’s one of the reasons we’re so highly classified. If we sever our souls from our physical bodies, we can make a massive explosion!” She opened her clenched fists with a “Kaboom!” sound. “Of course, we can’t do that so easily. If that was possible, it probably wouldn’t be so good if you were right next to us.”

Letting her arms fall back to her lap, Tiat continued, “It’s because we can unleash those big explosions that the Winged Guard calls us their final secret weapon. Since it’s naturally connected to our Venom, our results even against a Beast are exceptional. And because it’s something that they kept using in battles against the Teimerre, its practicality has been fully demonstrated by the great fairies that came before us!”

She gave Feodor a snappy thumbs-up, grinning a radiant smile. “We don’t know for sure if it’ll work on the Croyance, but...”

“The strike operation scheduled three months from now,” Feodor replied flatly. “You know, we have an information-gathering unit that can find out just how much of a threat the Croyance is by attacking it to a certain degree, withdrawing, and revising strategies with our newly obtained information. So even if you’re that kind of superweapon, there’s no reason to go about using that power in a hurry.”

“That’s wrong, isn’t it?” Tiat asked him. “You won’t know for certain until we hit it once just how well us bombs can match up against the Croyance. It would be more helpful to you all if we moved first.”

Feodor could feel frustration boiling up inside of him. “How have you guys protected this world from the Sixth Beast’s attacks up to now? You should be getting praise heaped on you! To accept this disposable-weapon treatment… don’t tell me you actually agree with it?!”

“Oh well, I guess it can’t be helped.”

“Don’t you ever think ‘I don’t want to die’!?”

Tiat smiled.

It was a chilling, unfeeling mask of a honest and cheery smile.

“There’s no way I’d think that. After all, from the beginning, we were never alive.”

“...Are you telling me it’s hard for you to be afraid?”

“Even if I feel scared, the facts about us won’t change.” Tiat grew quiet, mumbling to herself, until her eyes widened as if she’d just come up with something, and she punched her fist into a nearby metal wall.

That wall was part of a large-scale mechanism that formed part of the city itself, and as such had many moving parts and edges just below surface level. Specifically, the area Tiat punched had a narrow slit carved into it for heat exhaust ventilation with an eave hanging on its upper edge. Depending on how one touched it, it could act as a sort of dull knife.

The skin on her knuckles tore, red blood spraying onto the wall and floor.

“Wha–” Feodor froze, not understanding any possible reason for her self-harming action. “What the – what the hell are you doing?!”

“Proving what I said before,” Tiat said calmly, blood still seeping from her fist. “As you can see, I’m not afraid of getting hurt or dying.”

“D-doesn’t it… hurt?”

“Oh, yes, it hurts. I can definitely feel pain. But it’s just that.”

Living beings were afraid of getting hurt because it moved them closer to death, but if a being didn’t fear death, they would be unable to avoid harming themselves. Here that logic was at play.

“I’m not afraid of artillery shells,” Tiat said pleasantly. “As a weapon who’s used for do-or-die fights, doesn’t this ability come in handy?”

Feodor felt cold sweat running down his forehead. According to what she’d said before, she must have felt at least some pain. Yet she still smiled, even while saying so many outrageous things.

I can’t bear to see this any longer. “...Okay, I get it.” Feodor looked away from her as he stood. “I’ve decided that I don’t know anything about this. So you’ll have to do your duty. If you want to save Regul Aire so badly that you’re going to throw away your life, then do as you please. I won’t get in your way anymore.”

He opened the collar of his uniform as if to rip it off, tore out a simple first-aid kit that had been sewn into its inside section, and tossed it towards Tiat. “If you’re going to call yourself a weapon, you should know that it’s bad if you don’t maintain your own performance ‘til you’re on the battlefield. And as your superior, I order you: meaningless acts of self-harm are forbidden from now on. Understood?”

“‘Kaaay!” Tiat replied flippantly, opening the kit and taking out some gauze soaked in liquid medicine.

[itsbenedict]

No Driver’s License: Session 27

No Driver’s License is a Madoka Magica game I’m running for five players, using a homebrew of Yaruki Zero’s Magical Burst system. It follows five magical girls as they deal with an upheaval in the world’s magic system caused by some strange new three-eyed Incubators. They have to figure out what’s going on, who to trust, and how to put a stop to the cycle of despair.

I post session logs and omakes weekly sporadically, both as a reference for the players and for anyone who wants to follow along with the party’s misadventures.

[adventure log- read from the beginning]

[session 26]

Last time on No Driver’s License: the party hashed out an agreement with the Devil, with regard to how the contracting system might be ended and the Devil’s ultimate aims satisfied, in a sort of win-win situation. One useful thing that the Devil told them... well, remember when Sakura and Makoto spent Hope bursts to keep the Hell Engine from crashing into the planet?

They elect to use both bursts to repair the Hell Engine, such that it lands on Earth completely intact- and such that it somehow is improved or fixed in some nonspecific way at my discretion.

And that nonspecific way- which they were until now unaware of- is that the Hell Engine has been converted into a massive, near-bottomless Grief Sink that they can use to dump all their Trauma whenever they want. This is... needless to say, a game-changer. Particularly because it allows them to do very expensive magic-item crafting more or less for free- I had to come up with special rules to determine how all this was going to work. 

And so... this session was entirely devoted to crafting. No mining, though.

someday..............

So, first: the Artificing rules! I’ll paste them directly from the doc:

You now have functionally infinite magic to spend on Sorcery artificing! Congratulations. Of course, now we need to figure out how this is going to work mechanically.

Contrary to what some of you seem to be assuming, you cannot spend ridiculous amounts of Overcharge to perform ultra-sorceries above 3OC. You may have infinite mana, but your underlying stat is still the same- you can only produce so potent an effect at once. That’s a big reason this artificing stuff is necessary- because storing up magical power in artifacts that can be used in tandem with each other lets you get away with more than just a Sorcery can do.

Artificing will involve a few different rolls, on which you can fail/barely succeed/succeed/crit as usual. If you get an unfavorable roll on crafting something, that doesn’t mean you can just try again- the results of these rolls represent the outcomes of a concerted attempt to get what you want, and if you fail, that becomes a retroactive limitation of how your attempt to create something like that can turn out. No do-overs.

You can craft magic items using your Domains. Domains are categories of thing you’re capable of using your power to smith- for instance, Ibara isn’t going to be bringing anything to life, and Makoto isn’t going to be making anything out of candy.

Gomu Sakura:

Candy (substrate): Candycraft allows Sakura to generate material. Physical objects of arbitrary size and complexity are allowed, making it versatile- but they will lack motive force, and dissolve in water. They can’t do stuff unless wielded or powered somehow.

Armor: Sakura can create objects which protect things, shielding them against interference or damage in various ways. Except from water.

Blocking: Related to armor, Sakura can create effects that prevent movement. Like her taffy ties things up, and like her carrier blocks teleportation, her artifacts can impose restrictions on physical movement.

Tsutsui Makoto:

Animals (substrate): Makoto can create living things with intelligences. They’re simple, and incapable of speaking to anyone but her, but are versatile- things she creates can be alive.

Earth (substrate): Makoto can make objects out of stone, dirt, clay, etc. Physical objects of arbitrary size and complexity are allowed, but are rigid and easily broken by magical levels of force.

Attention: Items that apply mental effects that manipulate the attention of their user or their target.

Takamine Seina:

Flowers (substrate): Seina’s items are restricted to plantlike forms. They can be alive and move, but only according to very simple conditional instructions. They are fragile and susceptible to flame.

Empathy: Seina’s items can… non-permanently move feelings around. They can make people feel things that other people are feeling, or maybe do some weird shit with Trauma Tracks and Important emotional mechanics.

Healing: Consumables or passive regen equips- or more complicated stuff, potentially, as long as it involves moving hit points around.

Kazama Ibara:

Friction: Friction is pretty versatile, as an “element” that really defines an abstraction used to deal with molecular integrity. Ibara’s stuff can interact with physics in weird ways, changing the physical properties of their surfaces (or the surfaces of their targets) on a microscopic level.

Visibility: Subtly different from attention magic, Ibara’s items can do stuff with what is seen. Hearing and other senses are generally unaffected.

Overdrive: Sometimes you just need to buff your damage output, and it doesn’t matter what you give up to do it. Ibara can make weapons or tools that increase damage output at some kind of cost or risk.

Kotono Yukari:

Time: Yeah, no, Zero, you can’t just arbitrarily time travel. Slows, stops, haste, predictions, all manner of temporal party tricks are available to Yukari’s items, but I’m gonna be really vigilant for funny business.

Guns (substrate): Yukari can make all sorts of conventional firearms- with whatever complex firing mechanisms she can devise.

Sound (substrate): Yukari’s musical items can manipulate sound, hearing, and vibrations. Items of this sort typically produce music as a side effect of whatever they’re doing. The music also lends itself to bard-style support effects. ...Wait, when has this ever been a thing with Yukari?

Creating/Enchanting/Combining

To craft an item, you’ll describe what you’re intending to make, and then negotiate something fair with the GM. You’ll then make two rolls to determine the outcome. (The GM may apply bonuses or penalties to these rolls depending on how simple or complex what you’re going for is.)

The first step of artificing is using your raw Magic stat to create your item’s form. You want a gun that shoots rainbows? Okay, well, you gotta make the gun first. You’re summoning matter into existence in a particular form, and preparing it to be occupied by an enchantment. Laying the groundwork for what you want it to actually do.

A summoned item must match a Domain with the (substrate) tag. That is, Sakura can make candy, Yukari can make guns and musical instruments, Makoto can make animals and rock, and Seina can make plants. Note that Ibara lacks any Domains with the (substrate) tag, and therefore cannot perform this step. When enchanting a mundane object, you must use a mundane object as the base for an enchanted item, treating the creating roll as an automatic 8-10.

Roll 2d6!+Magic.

On a 7 or less, the form of your item is badly broken or warped somehow, and is incapable of serving the purpose its shape implies- though if the enchantment in step 2 doesn’t rely on the form, this might just mean that the enchantment ends up weak.

On an 8-10, or when using a mundane base, your item comes out pretty much as intended, with some small flaw that keeps it from reaching its full potential. Whatever you intended the magic to do, it’ll do something closely related but in some way lesser.

On an 11-14, your item has no physical flaws, and is ready to accept the magic you’re about to pour into it without causing any problems.

On a 15+, you go a little overboard, and- while the strength of the subsequent enchantment is either unaffected or increased- something goes wrong that’ll mean the enchantment does something more than you meant it to on top of its intended effect.

The second step is enchanting the item, shaping the magic you poured into it to have the effect you described. Depending on whether the effect is intended to support your team or hurt an enemy, roll either Heart or Fury. This roll cannot be Boosted.

Roll 2d6!+Heart or 2d6!+Fury.

On a 7 or less, your effect comes out wrong, and comes with a costly drawback or complication that means it’s almost certainly not practical to use, unless you do some work to make it useful even with the drawback.

On an 8-10, the effect is correct, but not as potent as you’d like, having a limitation that makes it unreliable or just less effective than it could be.

On an 11-14, the effect is exactly as negotiated before rolls were made. Congrats!

On a 15+, the effect is way too much- it causes some kind of collateral damage or endangers those nearby when used. It can be used for its intended purpose, as long as you’re prepared to deal with the fallout.

Normally, this is the point where you’re done. But… what if you want to combine your Domains to make something really useful? Unfortunately, magic isn’t that simple- while it can abstract away a lot of the implementation details when you’re exercising your own magic, it doesn’t play nice with others. There’s no combo magic (unless you’ve developed a power for it, or used a Hope burst).

This doesn’t mean you can’t do it, though- it just means you have to get creative. Maybe Yukari can’t make a gun that shoots entangling vines, but if she makes a gun that accelerates time for its bullets, and Seina makes seeds that grow into entangling vines, you can load one into the other for a similar effect. You need to actually figure out how distinct parts can interact to produce the effect you’re interested in.

All players involved roll 2d6+Real, and pick the preferred result.

On a 7 or less, there’s some irritating incompatibility with the way one of your items functions that scraps the whole plan. Your parts might have some utility on their own, but can’t be combined.

On an 8-10, it’s kind of a kludge, but it works- though there’s something that makes the resulting assembly unstable or difficult to use without ensuring certain conditions are met.

On an 11+, you’re golden. Nice work.

(This roll of course assumes that your combo idea is not incredibly stupid, and actually stands some chance of working, even if magic has to smooth over some of the cracks in the plan.)

So... with that said, here’s what they ended up crafting!

Sakura tries to create a jetpack using the same principle as her moon rocket- mentos-and-diet-coke rocketry. Unfortunately, she gets an 8-10 on both rolls, so the effect is limited- in this case, by fuel requirements. 

Next up: Ibara’s got plans.

So, the idea with her Casey Bats was supposed to be like, high-risk, high-reward- increase the miss chance for bonus damage. But, uh, we couldn’t really balance the numbers on that to be worth it, so what we ended up with was:

Yukari tries to make Synapse Bullets, thingies that give you extra actions when you attack with them, in hopes of producing a combo-hit chain reaction to oneshot her foes. She does not succeed- but what she makes is still pretty sick.

Next up: Sakura and Seina try to work together to create a combo armor that regenerates over time. Unfortunately, Sakura fails her substrate roll, and her armor comes out so brittle that it shatters in a single hit. The end result is a breastplate that can absorb one attack- after which it shatters. However, the regen part from Seina works fine- so the armor will knit itself back together in two turns, unless the wearer takes a second hit before it regenerates. If that happens, the cracked armor is completely destroyed and does not regenerate.

Undaunted, she goes for another combo- this time with Makoto. They’ve got an idea apparently inspired by something from Dungeon Meshi- a suit of autonomous armor, piloted by a bunch of weird flat mollusk creatures that act as musculature. Makoto’s Animals domain makes the pilots, and Sakura’s candy and armor domains make the armor. There’s some complications in the rolls, though:

Makoto then does some stuff of her own- particularly, she wants to create a guard for Yoshe, so the team isn’t forced to rely on their unreliable allies or else leave a member of the team behind all the time. She decides to create a gorilla with stone powers, which can earthbend stone restraints around Yoshe that’ll keep her from killing herself to escape.

So- her other roll is just fine, so it does what she wants, which is nonlethally incapacitate Yoshe- but the limitation is that the gorilla can’t create stone or anything, which means if they use the ability, they need to pull stone out of the ground and crush the cat carrier they’re using to block Kimiko from teleport-rescuing Yoshe. As a failsafe, it’s one-use and pretty risky. Still- big gorilla with earthbending powers, not bad in combat.

Then Seina makes Leech Seed, and it comes out perfect. Just use a support action, and an enemy is tagged with a 1hp/turn health drain. Bam.

Makoto’s turn again- and she wants to make a castle. Like, castles are made of stone, right? And she has earth powers? That counts? It’s... there’s high penalties on the roll, but she manages to nail them both, and the result is a little seed thing that can be deployed to grow an instant mini-castle across two zones, which acts like her old Labyrinth ability- blocks ranged attacks. And also it’s a castle. It’s pretty sick.

Lastly, Yukari decides that it’s Guns Time, and does some combo work with Sakura and Ibara. The combo with Sakura is a gun that can allow anyone to use her taffy ability- though because the rolls go a little overboard, the gun’s got hella recoil and pushes back the user one zone.

With Ibara... oh boy. They decide to just make a Very Big Very Strong Gun, Stronger Than Any Other Gun, Ever. Yukari’s rolls:

Ibara gets an auto 8-10 on the substrate, and:

And they combine just fine, but... oh boy. They deliberately tried to make an Overkill Gun, and then they crit on every single roll, for maximum overkill. 

So, the thing with this sniper rifle, the Dis Astranagant... 

Yeah. You want overkill, you get overkill. You’re welcome.

So, first artificing session, let’s review! (item counts are higher than they were at the end of this session, since they’ve had time to make more since then, and the doc was updated directly.)

Plus the Dis Astranagant. 

Uh- by the way, before doing this, Seina tripped her Overcharge Fallout, and rolled on the random tables to get a change of some kind- which in fiction we had as the result of overusing magic during crafting. And it landed on, uh...

Yyyyyyyeahp. This is a thing that happened!

Anyway, after all this... the plot shows up again! Hatsu-chan- just some random incubator, kinda sleepy-sounding- shows up to deliver a message, much like the nameless one (”Nagato-chan”, nicknamed by Sakura) did to invite them to ride Seelenfaust to the Hell Engine.

So- they follow, more confident this time because of their arsenal and small army of minions. What could go wrong?

Makoto summons a fleet of sea turtles to ride across the bay to the city, and the team follows Hatsu-chan to where Nishi invited them to help out. Makoto’s Amulets of Somebody Else’s Problem (from the original artificing session) make this a little easier.

And there, next to a witch barrier the size of a city block, the exterior of which looks like a giant oven... they find Akagi Anzu. (The little terrified girl, if you recall.)

Anzu- fighting back panic- explains that Nishi also invited her to help with this witch, but that- while Nishi went inside to deal with it- Anzu was too afraid to follow, and has been sticking around outside out of shame and indecisiveness. With some good Heart rolls, the party is able to calm her down, more or less, and she accepts a gift of one of the now-cheap Somebody Else’s Problem amulets, which is kind of a godsend for her.

Except... she doesn’t quite trust the party, and uses Sense Magic on the amulet to make sure it’s not trapped. And... she gets a crit. On a crit with Sense Magic, your magic sense is detected and you draw unwanted attention somehow.

Now, I was planning this anyway, but- remember Sokokoko Sokoko? The feral cannibal girl who the team defeated as a witch, and frozen temporarily by Tama-chan, but which would eventually regenerate if they didn’t deal with permanently?

Anzu runs like hell, the team prepares for combat, and that’s where we leave off. Next time: A rematch against TRIGGERED??, and the oven witch barrier.

[storyunrelated]

Roller Mobster

I can never remember if I've posted this here or not and I don't think I have so, well, here it is.

Inspired by a combination of this Carpenter Brut song and also a cliched view of all bloodsports in all dystopian fiction but which only really exists in my head. Also nonsense.

This is also where I came up with Evil President Halifax, a one-note dickhead who amuses me greatly because he's just straight-up called Evil President Halifax. He seems vaguely aware of what sort of story he's in, too.

These things amuse me.

PS: Carpenter Brut is getting kinda big now and this is good.

[Only ridiculous bloodsports can keep the masses in check!]

-

Entrants from all twenty of the Sectors stood in a line, their futuristic gender-neutral tunics resplendent in their bland colours. Surrounding and encircling them was the track, which gleamed.

Last-minute preparations and checks were still underway here and there: the bearings of the roller-skates being quickly tested, the surface of the track re-sheened for the hundredth time, the guns being loaded, the nozzles of the flame-jets cleared, the blood-sluices checked for flow control and things of that nature. The Entrants had to stand perfectly still through all of this, of course, and the audience had to remain perfectly quiet.

The Derby was integral to the fabric of society, for reasons that were ill-explored at best. It was said that it helped to strengthen the citizenry by reminding them of the important part that total submission to the ruling elite played in their continued survival and the survival of society in general.

Of course there were a handful who had the temerity to point out that survival wasn’t actually that hard as there weren’t any external enemies they were aware of and the non-specific conflict that had sundered the world all those years ago hadn’t actually impacted the planet itself that much anyway – no radioactive wastelands, for example.

Those people had preference when it came to their children being entered into the Derby. If they didn’t have children they were politely and forcefully encouraged to have some as soon as possible so the original threat would have more weight. Surprisingly, this often worked. They were probably just being polite.

The hush that suffused the arena deepened as the president of the Grand Unified Peaceful Allied Alliance (GUPAA) entered, accompanied by lackeys, gophers, advisers, hangers on and the various other useless persons that a person in such a lofty position tends to acquire. Like shit acquired flies.

Evil President Halifax (his official title) waved lazily to the gathered crowds as he took his seat in the Presidential box. The camera drones buzzing about made sure to capture his most sinister angles and blew them up all over the Magna-Screens so that none could escape his gaunt, unnerving countenance. The effort he put into looking the way he did was considerable. Image - while not everything - was very important..

His duties at the Derby were largely ceremonial, but he enjoyed them all the same: look disinterested by everything that happened to further drive home the pointless futility of the spectacle and enforce a general sense of helplessness in the population. After all, he had it within his power to stop it, and if he chose not to even when he seemed not to enjoy it what hope could there be for freedom?

It was good fun. Pageantry was Halifax’s favourite part of the job, really. Again, image.

With the president in place it was time to begin. The Entrants were introduced one after another as soaring music blared from enormous speakers dangling from the cavernous arena roof. Often the music was so loud it drowned out what was being said but it was unlikely anyone was missing much. Just the standard spiel about whichever Sector the Entrant was from, when that Sector had won the Derby last, what their blood type was, what their perfect Sunday was and so on. One by one they were locked into their starting blocks.

There followed the anthem of the Grand Unified Peaceful Allied Alliance; a slow, ponderous dirge that infrasonically ground down even the merest trace of anything approaching hope or joy. The words to it were primarily concerned with how without the benevolence of the Corpo-State every single person in the arena would be dead, naked and in a ditch. Or words to that effect, it was sort of hard to make out of the constant, low droning sound of the Terror-Organs (which were rather like normal organs, only far more terrifying).

Once the anthem had finished it was time for Halifax’s commencement speech. Rising from his seat he approached the Presidential Microphone (like a normal microphone, but capitalised and far more sinister and imposing), relishing the sight before him - a sea of terrified face staring up at him. Just like every year. Just like he pictured in his head anytime he felt down.

“Loyal subjects of the Grand Unified Peaceful Allied Alliance, again we come together as an allied alliance to witness the cream of our youth engage in brutal bloodsports to remind all of you that resistance is pointless and your lives mean nothing to those in power. Let us begin.”

In  previous years Halifax had put more effort into his speech. Some years it had gone on for hours, specifically just to see how long he could drag it out. Five hours was his record, at which point he’d got bored and by which point a good number of the audience had collapsed from exhaustion (and been dragged outside to be beaten, as was only to be expected). Today it was mostly just a case of rubbing the faces of those present in how hopeless their situation was and getting it over with.

He sat back down again and waved lazily at someone who was presumably in charge, signalling that it was time to get the ball rolling on another year of murdering children. Nominally for the sake of enforcing order but mostly because by now it was just tradition. Too much effort to stop it now.

His gesture was seen by those managing the event and in a flurry of clipped communication and barked instructions through walkie-talkies the signal was given to begin.

And so the Entrants were off.

At first it was, of course, chaos. It was always chaos at first. The event was intentionally overloaded with Entrants so that the start became a bloodbath of tangled limbs and panicked teens and this year was no exception. Those furthest up the side of the track and most at the mercy of its camber were the first to topple, they in turn taking out those below. Only those closest to the inside managed to escape the landslide of struggling bodies, leaving the others behind.

They had good reason to move quickly. The hazards that the Entrants had to contend with were released in waves and the first wave was always only a small delay behind the Entrant's own start time. Sure enough, with barely anyone managing to wriggle their way out of the body-pile the first wave was set loose.

Heavily armoured and wielding Cruel Cudgels (cudgels designed by science to be as vicious as possible) the Roller-Goons came skating out from their deployment gates, whooping their bloodthirst as they swooped in towards the Entrants - a living tide of proper nouns and violence.

They immediately set about pulping the heads of any Entrants still within reach as those on the furthest side of the pile redoubled their efforts to claw free. Everyone involved was screaming. The Entrants in terror, the Roller-Goons in delight. The audience was deathly silent. All they could do was watch.

Those Entrants that had got away in good time lapped the pile and did not slow down. A few Roller-Goons who hadn’t managed to get prime spots for beating children to death took lazy swipes at those who sped past but their heart wasn’t really in it.

At least one Entrant strayed a little too close and caught a cudgel to the gut, flipping over and cracking their skull open on the track to whoops of approval from the Roller-Goons and a tiny, unseen fist pump from Evil President Halifax. The impact had been tangible, the sound exquisite.

By now the initial carnage had largely run its course. Those killed were dragged off the track by Corpse Handlers and those who had got free were now speeding around with the rest of them. The wounded and the ones too slow to get away properly quickly joined the ones being dragged off and stacked up for incineration.

The second wave of threats was then triggered. Portions of the track gave way to reveal spike-pits, blades swung out from above and jets of flame burst from hidden ports. Traps, basically. The unwary and those simply in the wrong place at the wrong time experienced the traps first hand and results were messy, if spectacular. Even a Roller-Goon caught the wrong end of some fire, crashing into a barrier in a screaming fireball much to everyone’s enjoyment.

Through all of this there was one Entrant in particular who, little by little, started to bring more attention to herself. Her skill on the skates was unlike any that had been seen in years. No trap got close, no Roller-Goon - who by now had all started skating as well - could hope to catch her. She handled herself as though wheels were more comfortable than feet. She was a natural. Born to roll. Halifax narrowed his eyes and steepled his fingers.

“She’s a wizard on the skates!” One of his advisers gasped, earning a frightful glare from Halifax. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand (there were many, but some stood out more than most) it was hushed, awed reactions of the hidden skills of the Entrants in the Derby. That sort of thing never ended well for anyone, and had very nearly brought his predecessor’s administration to its knees.

Halifax wasn’t going to let any nonsense like that happen on his watch. With a subtle tip of the head to one his emotionless, starkly-clad retainers he had the adviser quietly removed and neck-shot. Neck-shooting solved a multitude of problems, Halifax found, and never, ever had any repercussions or negative consequences vis damaging his authority or the loyalty of those around him. Why would it? Who would lose respect for an employer who made a habit of regularly murdering those working for him? It was unheard of.

“That one. Where is she from?” Halifax asked another of his advisers. There were always more of them to hand. They seemed to crawl out of the woodwork whenever he had his back turned. This one in particular seemed especially obsequious and fawning. They’d go far.

“She is from…” The adviser said, scrolling rapidly through the pad they were holding. Halifax held a hand up though, stopping them from continuing.

“Wait. Don’t tell me. She’s from the poorest, most run down, furthest-away-from-the-capital Sector, isn’t she?” He asked. He had a gut feeling, and his gut was rarely wrong. It was a presidential gut of the old school, and had instincts beyond those available to normal guts. It was better than normal guts.

The adviser scanned their pad, unsure if they were supposed an honest answer or not. A stiff look from Halifax jolted them into action and they panicked, telling the truth. They hadn’t been advising long enough to have learnt how to suppress this reflex.

“Uh...yes…” they said. Halifax grunted, another nod of the head seeing this adviser dragged off screaming just like the last one. Another expertly delivered neck-shot followed Halifax revised his earlier opinion - they wouldn’t go far.

“Always the bloody underdogs…” Halifax muttered. “And always a teen girl. Why is it always a teen girl? Why do we even let them in this event anymore? Nothing but trouble.”

Meanwhile, on the track, the Entrant continued to amaze - while also display a dazzling combination of personal strength and emotional depth. She shed tears for her fallen, tragic childhood acquaintance whom she’d only just realised she’d truly loved, but she didn’t stop moving to do it. Weeping tastefully she continued speeding around the track, spinning beneath blades and somersaulting over charging, cudgel wielding Roller-Goons.

“I also love you!” Said some other Entrant, speeding up beside her. This came as something of a shock to her, though not as much as his death seconds later. She’d hardly known him, yet somehow felt as if she’d known him a lifetime. Then she concentrated on continuing not to die.

President Halifax sighed. Someone always fell in love with someone. Kids. It got a bit predictable really. Not that it mattered much. He would bring this inspiring, drama-filled charade to an end. Turning to his seat-mounted request unit he pressed the largest, shiniest button.

“Release the Roller-Hounds!”  He roared. Unnecessarily. He hoped whoever was on the other end had had their ear right up to the speaker at the time.

At his command a siren blared, a light flashed and a heavy metal grille pulled up and out of the way. From behind it came a ravening park of slavering, barking dogs, all equipped with dinky little canine roller-skates. They tore onto the track with a fury, most skidding wildly out of control and ending up in a thrashing heap where the track tilted, but a handful got moving properly and set off to chase the irritating, still-crying, still perfectly turned out girl.

“The Roller-Hounds are always a safe bet,” Halifax said to himself, idly stroking his exquisitely maintained beard of evil as the hounds closed the distance.

While the hounds themselves could sometimes prove hit-or-miss, the sight of a hitherto irritatingly graceful Entrant being torn to screaming bits by a pack of dogs was never something Halifax would willingly pass up. He usually went to sleep listening to playback of it from previous years. He couldn’t really drift off without it nowadays.

Glancing back over her shoulder the girl saw the Roller-Hounds bearing down on her. The tiny little rocket set into the rear of their tiny little roller-skates gave them a speed advantage she simply couldn’t overcome on her own.

“The inevitability of her vicious mauling by dogs is symbolic of the inevitability of failure for all involved!” An adviser exclaimed, drawing a disbelieving look from Halifax.

“Yeah. That’s sort of the whole point. Do you want to get shot in the neck?” He asked. The adviser rapidly shook their head, paling. Halifax returned his attention to the track.

“Then don’t talk again. For at least a month,” he said, fingers steepling once more as his eyes returned to the girl. The first of the dogs leapt through the air and Halifax found that he couldn’t help but grin.

Of course it wasn’t going to be as easy as that.

Almost in slow-motion (though in actual fact it barely took a heartbeat) the girl smoothly spun in place, ducking beneath the dog which tumbled end over end with a yelp. She was still spinning though, her forward momentum carrying her on along one skate as her other leg shot out. Like a flail she knocked aside the dogs as they closed in, sending them all sailing away from her like they were nothing.

“My God, she’s mastered the Minovski technique,” breathed someone nearby, utterly overcome by awe. Halifax spread his hands.

“I will have everyone here executed if so much as one more person expresses even a shred of admiration for the Entrant down there. Okay? No more hushed tones and no more appreciation. In fact everyone just be quiet. Next person who speaks and isn’t me gets to be food for the Roller-Hounds.”

That shut them up, but did little to slow down the girl who had stopped spinning and was now just continuing to skate. Nothing slowed her. Not Roller-Goons, not the handful of remaining Roller-Hands, not the traps - nothing. Even as the other Entrants were whittled down to single digits she remained utterly unscathed. The release of the Roller-Bats (bat with roller skates, natch) didn’t even register with her. It was like she didn’t care.

Already there was a rising sense of expectation from the audience. A barely-suppressed murmuring. Halifax had seen this sort of thing before. It always ended the same way but it was always annoying when it happened.

“There’s always one. Every year there’s always fucking one,” he hissed, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was starting to feel like a bad joke. Every year there always the underdog. Never the kid who practised, almost always the girl, invariably driven to some idealistic pronouncement towards the climax of the event and unavoidably being very irritating up until the point Halifax had them shot.

This year he really wasn’t willing to wait.

Reaching over again to his seat-mounted request unit he flicked open a plastic cover and pressed down on the angry red button marked ‘Purge Track’. The still-skating girl had a second or so to register the blaring alarm and flashing lights before the whole of the track dropped away, depositing anyone and anything still on it into the suffocating, grinding darkness beneath. She did not have time to scream.

There was uproar in the crowd at this breach in protocol - and, you know, murder of someone who had been doing so well - but Halifax couldn’t have given less of a shit and lazily motioned for some guards to open fire randomly into the audience until they stopped whining. He didn’t stick around to watch the results.

“Next year no more teen girls, alright? Just boys from now on. No-one gives a shit about boys and they never make trouble like this,” Halifax said, striding away from the Presidential box with his advisers clustering around him and struggling to keep up. Then he frowned and came up short, remembering something.

“But then there was that maze stuff. That had boys and they made a mess. Fuck. Fucking kids. You know what, fuck it - bombs in the all the skates. And all across the track. And fucking spikes. And guns in the spikes. Just make sure we have a way that I can press a button and kill anyone making a problem. I’m so sick of this ‘figure of the resistance’ shit every fucking year.”

He glared around, daring anyone to contradict him or make suggestions. There was silence, apart from one adviser quietly taking notes on their tablet. This Halifax actually appreciated, but he wasn’t going to tell anyone that. They’d go far. Probably.

With a final, extra-hateful round of glaring Halifax stomped off, shoving aside anyone careless enough to get in his way and even veering off a little just to have people to shove.

“I’m going to my evil Presidential yacht and if anyone calls me anytime in the next week I’m just blowing the country up I don’t give a fuck.”

END

[thefabulousfulcrum]

The Texas school shooting reminds America what vets already know: civilian gun culture is a dysfunctional mess

Compared to the weapons training that military and law enforcement personnel undergo, the training required of civilian gun owners is a joke.

via NBC NEWS

Michael E. Diamond

The U.S. military has a lot of guns, but not a lot of non-combat fatalities. Why is this? Because of common sense military regulations. That’s why, like many other military veterans, I view America’s civilian gun culture as dysfunctional.

Today, Americans mourn yet another tragic mass shooting, this one in a Texas high school. It has been a mere three months since 17 teens lost their lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. Much has been made of U.S. gun control laws — or lack thereof. But instead of listening to politicians battle across the partisan divide, we should be listening to the men and women who work with guns the most. 

Most Americans would be surprised, for example, at how little time military personnel in particular spend with their weapons over the course of a career. Apart from firing on highly structured firing ranges or routine maintenance, access to your weapon on base is rare. Military Police provide security, so soldiers move about the base unarmed. There’s a reason for this: In the military, anything that reduces accidents, homicides or suicides isn’t put up for a vote. It’s a requirement.

The military’s strict rules on weapon and ammunition access can apply to wartime as well, as my own experience demonstrates. In 1991, I was a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. My unit was mobilized and sent to Fort Bragg, N.C. Shortly before boarding a plane to Saudi Arabia I was issued my M16 along with several magazines of live ammunition.

Although I had fired countless live rounds over the years on various military weapons ranges, it’s a different feeling when you’re issued live ammunition before heading to a combat zone. This time it was real.

That’s right. Once we arrived in an operational war zone, one of the first things the U.S. Army did was take our ammunition away.

After a 16-hour trip — most of which I spent sitting on the hood of a truck with my back against the windshield trying to stay warm — we emerged into the intense desert heat. Because of the ear-splitting noise of departing jets we quickly inserted hearing protection, and then surrendered our ammunition.

That’s right. Once we arrived in an operational war zone, one of the first things the U.S. Army did was take our ammunition away.

We were in a location where small-arms engagement with enemy forces was unlikely, so, as far as the Army was concerned, there was no need for a bunch of wound-up soldiers to be walking around with live rounds. Even without any ammunition, before entering a building every soldier had to demonstrate his or her weapon was empty by pointing it down toward a barrel of sand and pulling the trigger, causing it to make the “click” sound of an empty weapon (hopefully). 

Eventually, my unit moved north toward Kuwait, where we were re-issued ammunition just before the start of the ground war. Several weeks later, after successfully completing our mission in Kuwait City, we were re-routed to northern Iraq to address the Kurdish refugee crisis. On arrival, we once again surrendered our ammunition.

These military safety requirements are a stark contrast to civilian U.S. gun laws. Where the military requires background checks before a service member is allowed anywhere near a live weapon, the majority of U.S. states allow private gun sales without a background check. Where military personnel are trained to take a weapon away from a soldier who poses an extreme risk to himself or others, most states do not have laws enabling law enforcement or loved ones to do the same.

Compared to the weapons training that military and law enforcement personnel undergo, the training required of civilian gun owners is a joke — if it exists at all.

Before I was sent out to use it, I had to prove an intimate familiarity with my weapon — how it worked, its maximum effective range in meters, how to load and unload it safely, how to disassemble and reassemble it, how to clean it, clear jams, sight it and fire it accurately. So it’s hard for me to fathom how easy it is for almost any civilian to walk out of a gun retailer carrying a new weapon without a clue about so many of these standards.

And where military and law enforcement undergo extensive training on how to make the right shooting decision quickly while under extreme stress, civilians receive no such training, contributing to avoidable deaths arising from poor decisions and petty disputes. In this context, the National Rifle Association’s favorite slogan about good guys with guns defeating bad guys with guns is more naive myth than solution.

It’s crucial that veterans now bring our voice and experience to the national conversation about reasonable gun reform. As a group, we understand guns and appreciate that responsible gun ownership is an important part of American life — but we also understand that a safe environment is achieved through training and regulation.

 We fought to protect our country, yet see our fellow citizens being gunned down in schools, churches, restaurants and concert venues at a rate unseen anywhere else in the developed world. More Americans have been killed by guns since 1968 than in all of the wars in U.S. history. It’s ridiculous and tragic.

As a veteran, I am often asked what lessons the civilian world can learn from the military. There are many insights each can gain from the other. When it comes to guns, however, the greater wisdom lies with the military. It maintains a high-functioning gun environment because it remains serious about background checks, training and accountability.

It is time for the civilian world to do the same.

Michael E. Diamond served as a military intelligence officer in the United States Army Reserve for seven years.

[theewrites-tf2]

Two Fathers, A Frenchman and a Baby

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12622712

Word Count: 3740 (Uh, yeah, holy shit, this is a big one)

Chapters: 1/1

Publish Date: Nov. 3 2017

Plot: There are two fathers, one Frenchman, and a baby in one room, at about one in the morning.

Warnings: Cuteness, slight language warnings, Scout being a smartass, more cuteness, the author used Google Translate for the French, author doesn’t completely, know how you operate babies, there is barely an attempt at accents, a dash or two of angst, and Spy is still low-key a smartass. Also, Dad!Spy feels. Your welcome.

Also, LONG A.N. at end of chapter. Sorry, but not sorry.

Enjoy!

Two Fathers, A Frenchman and a Baby

Jeremy pretended to stay asleep for at least three minutes… three minutes, did that really make him a bad guy? He winced as he felt the body beside him shift, a exhausted grumble sounding. The Boston native sighed, “I got ‘em.” He muttered, sitting up and leaving a quick kiss on their cheek, before rolling out of bed and creeping out of the room, letting out a curse when he walked straight into the wall on his way out of the bedroom, towards the muffled sound of crying down the hall.

As he slowly made his way down the hall, Jeremy felt a chill as he moved down the hall, and no, it wasn’t just because of his white t-shirt and boxers being his only apparel. Instinct and years being employed as a mercenary made him pause beside an innocent looking vase, until he reached into the vase and silently pulled out a simple, but effective handgun, already loaded. He pressed his back to the wall, all exhaustion leaving his mind as he silently made his way to the final door at the end of the hall, where that feeling of uneasiness originated from. Putting his hand over the doorknob, he slowly opened the door, grey-blue eyes scanning the room.

Once he deemed it safe, he swiftly made his way through the nursery to his wailing son, quickly picking up the four month old from his cradle. “Hey, kiddo…” Jeremy murmured, smiling down at his infant son as he rearranged his grip securely, keeping the pistol in the hand not holding the little one. “Rough night too, eh? Pretty sure I was awake before ya started crying for us…” His eyes carefully scanned the dark nursery, before he slowly made his way to the window, smiling down softly at the small baby he held securely. “Ya know, you usually cry MUCH louder, when there’s no body around… ya seem to have the talent down, when you KNOW there’s someone just two good steps away, so you don’t have to yell as loud.” Jeremy raised his pistol, eyes snapping when the barrel came in contact with a invisible figures chin. “Someone like a no-good, creepin’ Spy.”

For a moment, there was dead silence, before a sigh as Spy dropped his cloak, glaring distastefully at the gun. “I see domestic lifestyle hasn’t dulled your… quirks.” Spy raised a glowing cigarette to his mouth, eyes watching Scout lazily. “Are you going to shoot me?”

“Thought I told you not to smoke with the kid around.”

“This is the first time you’ve caught me coming in here.”

“…Oh. Then I guess I forgot. Anyway, smoke out, now.”

Spy sighed dramatically, smoothly clicking open the window and flicking his prized cigarette away. Jeremy watched for a moment, before lowering the gun and stepping away from the Frenchman, carrying his son away.

Spy noticed he had not put down the pistol, but followed him anyway.

“So, you always break into kids bedrooms, Spook?” Scout asked, flicking on the lamp before sitting down in a rather cushy armchair, setting the pistol on one of the arm, just within reach. Spy glanced around the room, half-hoping there was a second chair. When there wasn’t, he have scout a glare, leaning against the wall. “I simply wanted to see what all the fuss was about that one.” Spy retorted, nodding to the raven-haired child the young father had began to rock in an attempt to calm the boy down.

“Spy. I know this isn’t your first time breaking in here.” Jeremy said, narrowing his eyes slightly. “This is the first time I’ve caught ya, sure, but this, what? Third, forth..?”

“Eighth, actually,” Spy said calmly, eyes roaming around the small nursery, a place he already memorized the first time he popped in. “I’ve been meaning to ask, who gave you the Yeti mobile?”

“Saxton Hale, said he wanted the kid to dream about beating the snot out of living things at an early age…” His partner didn’t like it, but their son had giggled at the ridiculous sight, so Scout somehow got it to stay. “Don’t change the subject, Spy. Why do you feel the need to sneak around, Instead of usin’ a door like a normal freakin’ person.” Jeremy paused after his miniature rant when he was interrupted by a small whine from his son, and he looked up at the older man. “Hey, mind grabbing his bottle from the fridge?”

“Hm. One door down, to the right?”

“Yep.”

“His red bottle or that horrid baseball themed you got him?”

“Just for that comment, the baseball one.”

“Lovely.”

After Spy walked away, the Boston looked down at the baby in his arms, frowning. “Seriously, how many times had this guy been here, and ya didn’t say anything?” He asked, dead serious, and his son merely blinked back up at him, identical grey-blue eyes wide and innocent. Jeremy sighed, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead. “You better not be giving him that cutesy, innocent look. Save it for the ladies, little man.” Spy returned to the room, handing off the bottle to Jeremy. “I took on the generous task of heating up its formula, your welcome.”

Jeremy looked down at the bottle, then back at Spy, looking suspicious. WIthout a word, he screwed off the lid and stuck his finger into the formula, quickly giving it a taste while Spy rolled his eyes. “Scout, it’s not poisoned.” Scout stuck out his tongue at the older man, “Hey, with you, everythin’ is a mystery.” He paused, then gave the Frenchman a sheepish grin, “Plus, some of guys left some of their, uh…supplies ‘round here. Don’t want Jackie here accidently drink some gunpowder or whateva.”

Scout leaned back, letting his kid latch onto the bottle to drink greedily. “It’s a bit… Small.” Spy said, walking around to look at assorted childs toys. Scout rolled his eyes, “It’s a he, first off. Second, he arrived earlier than expected.” The young father sounded a tad defensive on the last bit, going quiet before saying, determined, “Ma said I was a bit small too. Made me faster, easier to get into small places, an’ if this kid is anything like me, he’ll be the exact same.” Spy remained silent as the man ranted, looking distastefully at, what he assumed was, a stuffed bear… However, the crudely sown eyepatch and the (hopefully) deactivated sticky bomb in the bears hand, gave little doubt on which Scottish merc made this. Spy was content with ignoring the Bostonian behind him, until he asked a question that made him stop dead in his tracks.

“You ever held the kid? Or… A kid?”

“… No. And I do not plan t-”

Suddenly, a four month old was placed on one arm, its bottle in his other hand, and Scout was halfway out the door, calling over his shoulder nonchalantly, “You support the head, when he’s done drinkin’, you gotta pat him on the back for burpin’ and if you drop him or ditch him in his crib and try to escape, I will personally send you to respawn before you can say ‘oui-oui baguette.’ See ya in a minute, Frenchie.” With that, the Boston walked out of the nursery and taking his pistol away and out of the room with him, leaving Spy to frantically his name after him, clearly distressed. “Scout, SCOUT,” The Frenchman whisper/shouted after him, because he had no idea what to do. After no response, Spy swore violently in French, warily looked down at the baby in his arms, which was now staring up at him, equally wary of this new development, with…

…

“Mon dieu.”

Spy only just realized, as he stared down at those eerily familiar blue eyes, that all three of them had the exact same shade of blue-grey irises.

At this realization, Spy sighed, criticizing himself for not seeing the similarities sooner. He was a Spy, detecting the details was his job, how he missed this was beyond him. The first time he had snuck in to see the brats son, the child had still been in the hospital. Spy didn’t stick around long, but he stayed long enough to see that Scout… Jeremy, hadn’t left the room where his son was being cared for, and had taken up to sleeping in that cold hospital room on a chair beside the incubator. Spy had taken one look at the scene, before he strode right on out of the hospital room.

Spy would swear til his dying day, that the jacket Jeremy had found over his shoulders the next morning was NOT his own.

He didn’t return to see the newborn, until it had been released from the hospital, and the visits had been short, fleeting. Just a quick peek into the child’s nursery… Small visits, to satisfy his natural, overbearing curiosity over this babys existance.

After a moment, Spy sighed deeply through his nose, shifting his grip on the baby slightly, attempting to mimic the hold he had seen the chatterbox Bostonian use. The child’s bottom lip wavered for a terrifying minute, and Spy commanded, “Don’t,” Although it sounded more like desperation than an actual order for the infant to follow. The baby, miraculously, followed his command, and Spy went to work on feeding the little one, eyes glaring angrily as he looked out the room, waiting for the brat to return.

“Je vais tordre le cou de poulet maigre,” The Frenchman swore, unaware that little Jack had pulled away from his bottle, watching the older man curiously. “Avant que je pousser cette chauve-souris à droite dans son-” A small giggle broke his rant, and he quickly looked down at the child, suddenly worried he had broken it somehow. The baby was smiling up at him, toothless and completely unaware of the threats the masked man had been saying, but smiling all the same at the funny noises the man had been making. Spy sighed, but offered a small smile it return, placing the boys bottle down to hold him in both arms, offering him more support. “Ah, mon petit corbeau noir…” He murmured, running a gloved hand through the child’s black hair, one of the few qualities he didn’t inherit from his father’s side of the family. “Quand vous êtes un peu plus vieux, peut-être je peux vous enseigner le français … Vous semblez apprécier la langue,” He said thoughtfully, smiling as the child laughed again.

“Ya moron, he’s not laughing at your gibberish,” Scout said loudly, carrying in the child’s diaper bag over his shoulder. “He probably just made a mess in his diaper. Give ‘im here.” Spy grimaced in disgust and hurriedly handed the child back to his father, who smirked at his succession of the ruining the little moment. “Also, if you try to teach him French when i’m not lookin’, ‘m gonna teach him how to swear when he’s older, and make him to practice all his cuss words on you.” Spy snorted at the threat, walking away as Jeremy started working on the soiled diaper. “It will still be worth it, when his first word is not in any variation of English.” He said smugly, already picturing Scouts stunned and crestfallen face, should the child pick up Spy’s mother tongue prior to learning English. Scout tossed a glare over his shoulder, “I could toss this diaper at you, so don’t go thinkin’ up any ideas about turning my kid into your little French fry.” He warned, and Spy raised his hand in surrender, saving his plots for later.

“Out of curiosity, when do you plan on returning to the base?” Spy asked casually, keeping his distance as Jeremy cleaned up. The Scout shrugged, thinking it over for a second, “I think… Yeah, I think we move over there in ‘bout two weeks. Inks gotta dry on the papers before Ma and Jackie can move in.” Spy paused, not sure if he heard the boy correctly. “… Did you say…Your mother and…” Jeremy turned around, his child back in his arms with a raised brow. “Uh, yeah? Ma and Jack are gonna live in an apartment in Teufort, until the kiddo is going to kindergarten.” Scout walked past the stunned looking Frenchman, still talking about his plan. “After that, Ma will move back to Boston, i’ll move permanently off-base with Jackie, and we’ll live happily ever after, until my contract runs out…IF it ever does. Still got about six years on my current one, and It may be renewed when it runs out. Ya never know.” As Scout started rearranging the baby’s crib, Spy stared at him. “That… sounded very mature.” Spy said, stunned that the fast-talking, cowardly boy in front of him could already be thinking so far into the future, all for the sake of that child.

It was almost impressive, but something nagged at Spy about the plan…

“What about his mother?” Spy asked, and Jeremy froze instantly, his back to Spy. For a long moment, there was dead silence. Then the Scout, picking his words carefully, slowly said, “Jackie’s Ma… wants to stay here in the East… Get her degree. She’ll… probably come down to Teufort in a year or two.”

Months later, Spy would think back to this very conversation, when Jeremy received the legal papers from Jack’s mother… The papers that were to grant Scout full-custody and parental rights of their son. Scouts face was crestfallen, but amazingly, he confided and admitted to Spy that he had a feeling this would happen. Jeremy told Spy that, though they tried to keep the relationship going, it was never that serious to begin with… Spy also had the sneaking suspicion, that the woman herself did not want the child in the first place. Jeremy would never confirm or admit, that he had been the one to convince Jack’s mother to keep the baby. And after the legal papers were signed, Jack’s mother was practically impossible to contact to find out the truth, after she voluntarily terminated all her parental rights.

But, that would be months from now, and Spy only took Scouts words in carefully, before turning away from the subject.

“Well…I’m glad you have that situation all worked out,” Spy said, them smirked. “I’ll be sure to give your mother a personal welcome, upon her arrival at Teufort.” The younger man felt his lower eyelid twitch, but decided to ignore the meaning behind the Frenchmans words. Only a few more weeks, then Scout could send him through respawn as many times as he liked. Jeremy looked down at his kid, who was starting to doze off and smiled down at him warmly, checking to make sure his kid was tucked in, nice and warm. After running his hand over the baby’s soft black hair, Jeremey leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead. “Get some sleep kiddo, okay?” He said softly, waiting until he watched the baby close his eyes firmly. The Scout then turned, and pointed to Spy, then to the door of the nursery, eyes screaming at the Frenchman to keep quiet.

The Spy rolled his eyes, but followed the younger man out the door, pausing a second to look back at the baby within his crib. Spy allowed a small, honestly warm smile to appear on his face, before he silently shut the door behind them and the smile faded away. Spy and Scout both held their breaths for a moment, listening for any signs of a wailing infant, until they sighed in relief simultaneously. Then Jeremy looked up at Spy, eyes narrowed slightly, but not in hostility. “Okay, look. Tonight, you’re using the front door… And, please, just use the front door like a goddamn normal person when you wanna come over, alright?” Spy rolled his eyes, as they quietly walked down the hall towards the front foyer. “Very well, although it goes against many decades of training-” Oh, you actually trained?” Scout mocked, and Spy responded with glare as they reached the front door.

“So, you staying with the guys or something?”

“Or something. I will tell your mother you said Hi.”

“Ha ha…Are you serious?”

Spy smirked, opening the front door silently. “Well, Scout, I cannot say with honesty that I look forward to your return to Teufort, but I can say that it is… an anticipated welcome, both you and your son will recieve when you return.” Jeremy gave him a crooked grin, “Thanks Frenchie. Oh, and before I forget…”

Suddenly, a paper was thrust up into Spy’s face, and Scouts face was cool, a raised brow. “Care to explain what is on this paper?”

It was Spy’s greatest achievement. His best mission, the result of a successful break-in, and, in a way, his legacy. It was also, officially known as baby Jacks birth certificate.

“I don’t see a problem,” Spy said, smirking over ther paper at Jeremy, who pointed at the name that was scrawled carefully onto the document. “Spy. That ain’t my handwritin’.” He said bluntly, before pointing the accusatory finger at the smug Frenchman. “That’s YOURS, aint it?” Scout snapped, eyes irritated and Spy shrugged. “Again, I fail to see the problem with the name printed on the paper.” He say lightly, and Scout only glared back.

“Spy, you literally snuck in, foraged my handwritin’, and you LITERALLY named my kid ‘Jack Rabbit’! Like, seriously… what the fuck?”

“His name is pronounced ‘Jacques Lapin.’ Considering his first name was going to be ‘Jackson,’ there is not much difference.”

Jeremy crossed his arms, fuming silently. “Still! Why’s the name gotta be French?! Jackson was a perfectly fine name.” Spy only smirked, opening the front door, “Well, now little ‘Jacques’ has the perfect excuse to learn French, doesn’t he?” Spy chuckled at the look on Jeremy’s reddening face, before he quickly cloaked and slipped out the door and out of the building, disappearing into the early hours of morning in Boston.

Meanwhile, Jeremy grumbled as he carefully put Jacks birth certificate away in the nursery, before looking over at the sleeping infant in his crib. “Your grandpa is a face AND a name-stealing jerk.” The Scout grumble quietly, before creeping out of the room, for hopefully the last time of the night. He really wanted to catch a few extra hours of sleep, before the sun rose in about five hours.

Jeremy got about halfway to his bedroom, before his son suddenly let out a loud wail from his crib, almost as if he knew that this time, there was no Frenchman in his room who would come pick him up. Jeremy closed his eyes, sent a silent curse up to the Heavens, before he slowly turned and trudged back to his son’s room, about to go though the whole routine all over again.

Ah, the joys of young fatherhood.

A.N. This idea came to me about a month ago, and I fell in love with the plot, as well as lil’ Jackie, who may not be canon in the game or comics, but will always be canon in my heart. It was fun to write Spy and Scout, as just two guys in a room with a baby, but also keeping the undertones of fatherhood within the story. No, I don’t think that canonically, Spy was there to raise a baby Scout, like Scout had dreamed about in comic #3. But, still, it was interesting to write a not-to-angsty story about fatherhood, featuring Spy. He may not have been the best father, but as a grandfather? I personally think, that Lil’ Jack is going to be the most spoiled and protected grandkid in history…

(Also, yes. The other mercs totally spoil and dote on Scouts son. This kid has like, nine dads, and eight of them also double as grandpas… This kid has the best childhood ahead of him, I swear.)

Originally, Jack’s mom was going to have a bigger role, but I decided in the end not to. While I can imagine Scout one day settling down with someone, The character I wrote as Jackie’s mom was not a person I could easily see as his significant other, nor did I see her as a particularly motherly figure to Jack. This isn’t something I would judge her severely about, since I have met people before, bother mothers and fathers, who have willingly given up their parental rights, because they knew that they couldn’t be the parent their children needed. She’s not meant to be written as a bad person, just not meant to be a mother. I also wanted to leave her character, somewhat up to interpretation. Was she Scouts highschool sweetheart? A lengthy one-night stand? I’ll live it up to you, the audience.

Will I return to this little AU I have written? Most definitely, because Jackie has wormed his way into my heart, and I think there’s plenty of material open for me to use with him, in future one-shots or other. If you guys want to REQUEST something in this AU, go ahead! And, if one of you lovely people ever want to, I don’t know, DRAW or create fanart for this oneshot… Message me, so I can publicly declare my love and appreciation for you, because, if I had the drawing and artist talent in me, this one-shot would’ve been a comic, or had plenty of art to go along with the story.

Sadly, or not so sadly, my hands were made for writing and typing stories for my lovely, amazing audience, and not for artwork of any kind. (dammit.)

Thank you so much for your support so far, and here’s to many one-shots in the future! Thanks again, and I hope to see y’all at my future one-shots!

[ghoultyrant]

Metroid: Rogue Dawn

It’s a romhack of the original NES Metroid game. I ran across it a while ago, and it sounded like a very impressive hack, so I gave it a try.

Visually, the game really is impressive for something conforming to the NES’s technical limitations:

(The character graphic is a New Game+ thing, ignore it)

That Space Pirate sprite is one of the more impressive ones in the game, but in general every graphic is new and they’re pretty consistently surprisingly good at avoiding that old-school blocky effect so common to NES games.

It’s also got its own custom music score, which is consistently good as well, while holding to NES sound limitations. The hackers also minimized the intrusive issue in the base game where stuff like firing your weapon would ‘eat’ parts of the music, so that’s extra-nice.

It’s got a new world map to explore, it’s got save/load functionality instead of having to rely on passwords, your Wave and Ice beams stack, and it’s even brought in two new powerups: Spring Ball and Wall Jump. (It achieves this in part by making Morph Ball and Long Beam innate, which makes perfect sense to me to be ‘cut’ as powerups) It’s pretty fun getting to approach an NES Metroid style game environment with wall jump in mind. Another nice bit is that there are platforms scattered across the game world that rapidly restore Energy and Missiles, making it far less tedious to get yourself to max loadout when prepping for a boss fight, or whatever.

It’s even got a boss fight that’s novel code, rather than an obvious modification of Kraid, Ridley, or Mother Brain. It’s... not a very interesting boss, unfortunately, but its existence is impressive enough that I’m willing to gloss over that just for the variety aspect.

It also has a story of a sorts that’s contained within the actual game -it uses background graphics to have ‘talking’ occur, and thus have a semblance of plot progression, and its ending has custom graphics to boot. That’s fairly unusual, as fan hacks tend to be focused more on the game world than on telling a story.

That said, what I think of as ‘scenario design’ is pretty weak. The game world is huge, particularly the portion you run around in for the early game, and one of the main impacts of this is that it makes getting from Point A to Point B extremely tedious. While enemy graphics are new, almost all the actual enemies are the same ol’ same ol’, so if you’ve already played classic Metroid enough to get bored, you’ll probably find it a boring hassle to deal with Rogue Dawn’s enemies. The exceptions are uncommon, and tend to be familiar faces from Super Metroid anyway, keeping the learning curve low.

The progression is also weird, though in a manner that’s fairly typical of hacks: the beginning of the game is particularly weak/meandering/boring, but once you’ve gotten far enough into the game things pick up in clarity and quality very quickly. The first third of the game, in item progression, probably took 2/3rds of my original run’s playtime, as I was just constantly lost and frustrated, while the rest of the game was actually reasonably straightforward.

Part of this is tied to a different point: Rogue Dawn takes a different mentality for hiding things from the player than the canon Metroid games, and it takes a while to figure it out. For example, the game has a map when you pause the game but while everything it shows you is representative of valid pathing, what it seems to imply about invalid pathing is often wrong, between portions of the world not being on the map, connections between rooms existing that the map implies don’t exist, and straight-up teleportation being used with no obvious signaling that it’s happening. This difference isn’t a bad thing, not in and of itself, and in fact learning and applying Rogue Dawn’s principles was a good part of its actual fun, but Rogue Dawn itself does nothing to guide you into even the most basic elements of its approach, and in fact at the beginning of the game you can explore a ridiculous amount of ground while finding absolutely nothing of use. (Compare and contrast with Super Metroid very obviously blocking off most routes at the beginning of the game, to among other points guide you into ideas like ‘Morph Ball to go into 1-tile tall tunnels’ and ‘your gun can fire in eight directions, rather than the three of the previous two games’)

Lastly, the plot was a disappointment. Stuff external to the game plays up the mystery of the main character -Dawn Aran- and what’s up with her, and I’d taken it as a given that part of the point of this was that the game’s own plot stuff would answer at least part of the mystery, but... nope. Nothing. It’s basically setting up for a sequel, which seems a bit strange given I’ve seen no evidence the team intends to actually make such a thing. What would that even be, anyway? A visually impressive hack of Metroid II: Return of Samus?

Still, while it suffers from subtle-yet-seriously-hurtful common fan hack flaws and has some other issues besides, it’s worth giving it a go if you’re having trouble getting enough Metroid-style play in your life.

[firecakes-art]

Marker Man Misadventures 12

This is it. This is the world that will truly test my abilities as a map maker. It's as if the game is taking my map making as the actual point of the game and is upping the difficulty to maximum. I will do what I have done since the very beginning when faced with a challenge: adapt and invent new techniques in order to get to my goal.

The soundtrack sounds mischievous and is 6 measures even.

I do not show it on the map, but the parts where the black platforms turn gray is a gradual effect. What that means is that in the game the visible platforms slowly fade away to invisible ones, and then the completely invisible ones are indicated on the map by the gray color. So, basically the entire level is invisible. Not exactly ideal when you're trying to figure out where the platforms are. Not to mention there is ZERO background art. It just looks like I'm walking on air and there are also items that are on air. I mean, I get it that you cannot have background elements or else this invisible theme wouldn't work but I feel like this is just a cheap way for the level designers to not have to care about making the levels pretty.

Fortunately that dumb grid that has existed since the very beginning of the game is still there, so I can use the squares on the grid as a reference of distance traveled. Basically, I'm drawing circles and pushing them to see how they respond to the environment in front of me. It's probably a good idea to do that even if I wasn't mapping the levels out because it will help find potential traps for me. Let's face it: the developers are cheap enough to do that. They did it in the last level of the previous world. Of course I'm going to check for traps.

The part with the bouncy walls is annoying because you have to build around it to climb up. Either use a super jump power up or figure out the reach of the bouncy blocks to make the appropriate bridge.

These levels take no time at all to load. GEE I WONDER WHY. Also, do not try to force shut the game when you lose your last life. Just like with that water world, you will lose all of your progress. The only difference is your save file is just straight up gone instead of glitchy. Perfect. Watch out for long falls, and always check where the edge of a platform is before building or making a jump.

It's like a combination of the previous two levels, only simpler.

You sort of don't know which pits are places you can go to or places that will kill you. It's a safe assumption that if a shape you draw in it falls outside your view then it will probably kill you. Another really dumb thing is that sometimes you can draw shapes inside walls. If you're just making random guesses it's not entirely clear whether the successful shape is placed in an area you can walk to or if it's inside a wall.

You doubt my ability to try and make every level's title some kind of pun or reference? Just watch me.

These levels got homogenized really quickly. I had to replay this level and I had no memory of its existence.

Markers are cool. I like markers. Please give me more markers.

So, the first spiky wall area has a little bump before you fully pass the obstacle. If you're me, this means you'll get stuck under the wall, and before you can register that you need to jump, the spike wall crushes you. Note that when you game over, you only gain one life back. So every time this game decides to pull a stupidly cheap trick on me I have to redo the whole world over.

Wow. We have a new contender for the most basic level in the game. Congratulations.

One strange thing is the area under the exit. You can draw shapes under your platform and watch them disappear after falling a bit. No need to worry about crashing your game, because the developers placed triggers under the map that will delete shapes drawn out of bounds. They did at least one thing right there.

It's a level with invisible blocks and things and stuff.

Snoop around enough and you may find the coin. Or a spike pit. Same thing, eh?

I should be more upset at how hard they're trying to hide the coin and exit, but I think I'm too desensitized at this point to care.

Oh... I figured it would take until level 150 or something before the game was over, but maybe it's ending early! If you manage to die here, just remember the trick with the water world when the game over glitch happened: let the game over screen appear, continue, reset, and load to be at the level where you died. Isn't it fun when you apply what you learn?

Oh yeah, the point of the level. The giant ball is back for another rematch, and you have to scale down the level pretty fast in order to beat it (unless you're using power-ups). It took me a few tries before I was able to beat it. Be careful with some of the drops, as they are enough to damage you. After making it to the bottom, stand on the blue platform and let the ball push the other one down, flinging you upward.

Do I... really need a world map for this one? Yes? Ugh fine.

No no no no no. Nope. I'm not waiting any longer. This game is going to be finished in this post whether I like it or not. It's time to end this.

The cutscene showed the dog and marker man jump into some kind of teleporter. The result is that we are now on some space rock or something. It looks like they stuck with the themes of space too, such as making the level vast, yet empty. Hmm, not really a theme specific to this world, but oh well.

Long Boy

WHAT DID THEY DO TO SHOE BOY? It now has an oval head. I guess it's supposed to be an alien. It's really funny how they attack because they rotate their elongated head when they kick, and it just looks funny.

Ugh, these types of levels are the worst. Huge open spaces with lots of emptiness and lack of features between the platforms. It makes the game boring and frustrating to map and play, so why do it? Especially the road to that two-coin exit. Why make the player walk so far to get there? The developers could've easily added a path down from the coin to the hallway.

Alien

A projectile-based enemy, just like all the other projectile-based enemies. This one has a scarily fast firing rate, making it a very dangerous long-ranged enemy. Its barrage of bullets can also make quick work of drawn shapes. Be careful. When trying to block its bullets, don't just put a single line over it, as the place the bullet spawns can bypass the line. Place like, 2 lines. I don't know. What's interesting is the developers actually managed to make the bullet spawn from the gun's barrel instead of the top left of the sprite. Good job. You're learning! It's a little late for that, but whatever. This does mean you may need to place lines completely covering the alien before the projectiles are stopped.

Same glitch as last world. Do not force stop the game on gaming over. Let it happen, continue, exit, then get back to the level you died on.

The spike walls move at different frequencies. I recommend activating super speed and just focusing on the bottom one moving out of the way. Seriously, you better have some markers coming into this world or you're in big trouble. Actually, there's an easier way to get past this part. When the bottom spike wall is hiding under the floor, lodge a line between the floor and the wall and it will get stuck there, allowing you to pass without doing anything ridiculous.

Pleeeeeease give me more markers. I actually have to conserve resources in this world and it's annoying. There's simply too much terrain that needs to be covered that will inevitably use up all my markers. This is different from the lava world because in the lava world there were at least interesting elements in the levels that made you think on how to approach the problem. In this world it's just a battle of attrition.

Speed Cheese

It's cheese on.. wheels? This is probably a reference to moon cheese. It quickly moves back and forth, simply knocking anything that touches it out of the way. It deals no damage.

I think I know why there are so many dead ends here. The game just really doesn't want the player to have any markers in this world. How rude. This is why people like me have to come in and bright light to the correct pathway to victory.

Oh yaaay. Another level where you just have to look everywhere to find the coin and exit. The part of the map where it says SLIDING has no friction. Marker man will not stop moving on that platform until a wall is hit. The exit is kind of dumb to get to. In order to even see it you have to either stand on the platform with the alien (which noone is going to do) or build up and then look up. I recommend just making a giant rectangle on the corner of the map and then building off of that to the exit.

This is the realm of the shoe boys. Their final congregation is at this location. They are planning big things. They already have presence in just about every world. Their plans to finally take over the world of marker man have started to unfold in this meeting area, and you are in the middle of it all.

This is pretty straightforward, isn't it?

Beware of the many dead ends in this level. You get one marker in here. Well, there is a second one, but it's in a trap so I'm not counting that one.

What. Why is the map so linear? Why is there a pointless dead end to the right with a moving platform? Why is the map small? Why is there large stretches of nothingness? I don't understaaaaaaaaand. Maybe the devs want this game to end as bad as I do. Fair enough.

We all want this to be over! Just walk down this straight pathway, hug the left, and you'll get your coin, and you'll get your exit right above the coin. It's that simple. We even went ahead and put the useless parts of the map all on the right side so you don't even need to travel there. I'm doing you a favor, but don't tell my boss I'm doing this. These are supposed to be the hardest levels in the game. Go forth!

Uhm. What. WHAT.

This is the final level. There is no indication that this is the final level. There is no dog seen anywhere, and the level number didn't jump to the range where the dog levels appeared. I simply walked into the exit, my level got reset to one, a cutscene played, and the game is over. I think it's really fitting that the background track that plays throughout the cutscene and the credit rolls is the game over music, because did I really win by beating the game? Everyone's a loser for trying.

But hey. I get a star next to my save file now. I guess any recognition of me going through this torture is better than nothing. I was curious to see if this star meant some sort of change in the game, like a new game plus, but it doesn't seem like it. My markers and lives left carried over from the previous game to this one, but that's about it.

And.... that's it. The game is done. I mapped every level. Here is the final world map.

Thanks for reading. However, there is still one final post to make...

[valkyrie-echo]

Project Echo, Part 1: Chapter 36 (A Five-Front War)

Part 1 Summary: A long-buried Hydra disaster, a monster in the shadows, a missing child. Eight months after the events of “The Winter Soldier”, Bucky turns himself in to the Avengers on one condition: They must help him find a girl snatched off the streets by Hydra seven years ago. In their quest, the Avengers accidentally unleash a horrifying creature of darkness and shadow, intent on making their quarry its prey.

Chapter 36: A Five-Front War

Avengers Tower

Between the minor argument over dinner and the much larger one that took place in private later that night, Steve was done listening to Clint- a stance which he made very clear. He hadn't pulled the decision to hold him back out of his ass, it made strategic sense- why couldn't he see that? He was one of SHIELD's best, yet he was acting like some egotistical hothead.

Within two days JARVIS reported a nearly 300% uptick in tourists from countries with known Hydra ties. Dennisson was bringing in an army, and all they could do was wait for the attack. Tony had gone to the mayor, CIA, and FBI to try and get some sort of protective action organized, all without luck. No one was willing to further fan the unrest after Bucky's little swan dive from Avengers Tower. When he took to social media to encourage New Yorkers to remain in their homes his accounts were shut down. JARVIS could re-instate them, but the constant battle for control meant the message was trapped in digital limbo where it did no one any good. Steve couldn't even raise SHIELD.

"He'll attack at night," Bucky was positive, "he isn't afraid of Hydra's monster, and he knows we sure as hell are." Bucky was wearing denim and wool everywhere- even though it was hot and he looked ridiculous- to try and build up his new flesh. And he wasn't the only one preparing for battle.

Banner was living in his Hulk-Out clothes, and Thor had returned to his full regalia. Natasha trained Sam in hand-to-hand combat, but kept the lessons short and didn't push hard enough to tire him out so that he would be ready whenever the attack came.

Clint just sat alone with Inessa and fumed. He wasn't debating that the plan made sense, it was just- he hadn't fought with them since the last battle of New York. Tony, Thor, Steve, Nat, hell, even Sam had all saved the world with flair since then. They'd gotten themselves on TV and been dubbed "Earth's Mightiest Heroes". But what about the one who fired the arrows? After Christmas he'd been in a mall, stalking a suspected Chi'tauri arms dealer and he saw no less than four kids in like at the toy store- all returning their Hawkeye dolls for "literally any other Avenger", as one of them loudly declared. Banner hadn't been in the limelight either- but Hulk was sold out everywhere.

Did you hear about the Mall of America disaster? Clint wanted to ask, No? What about the obliteration of Disney's Florida parks over high-peak tourist season? No? That nuclear attack that wiped out India? Not that either? You're fucking welcome! He didn't care about the fame, not really, but he hadn't done his heroics in front of an audience of millions. He did it from the rafters, where no one could see him. Now another battle was on the horizon, and once again he wouldn't be there. The surplus Avenger. The Avenger's babysitter.

"If you keep scowling your face will get stuck like that," Natasha came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm not scowling, that's my resting face."

"Really?" she peeked around to get a look, "because these are your scowling shoulders."

He shrugged her off, "I thought you were training Sam."

"I was, but then this slipped off," she pressed the Asgardian band into his chest. He forced a smile and turned to inspect the leg. It was seamless- he couldn't even tell where it had been severed.

"No more pins and needles?"

"None."

"That's great, Nat!"

She raised an eyebrow, "Once more, with feeling."

Clint tried being cheeky, "I'm in mourning. With that off you'll go back to the fight-suit and I won't get any up-skirt shots to look forward to from the paparazzi."

Natasha smiled, "Good cover."

She glanced to Inessa and patted his arm, "Hey, want a mission?"

"Whatcha got?"

"Thor's been trying to find the footage from when Bucky took Nessa out of the torture room. Could you help him with it?"

"Sure, whatever."

Natasha leaned in to whisper something (presumably naughty) in his ear when they heard a sudden parade of booms, followed half a second later by a shudder throughout the Tower. In the twilight outside the city went dark as buildings were knocked off the grid. Only the streetlights and Avengers Tower remained lit- all thanks to Tony's insistence his arc reactors power New York's emergency services.

"Avengers Assemble," Clint said sarcastically. He stood with Natasha and grabbed her arm as she turned. "Take care of yourself," they kissed quickly and she ran off downstairs.

Clint turned to Inessa, vacant as ever. He sighed and reached up to pull out his hearing aids, "So," he hoped he sounded somewhat intelligible, it was hard to speak without being able to hear, "shall we bake cookies for when the heroes return?"

Avengers Tower- Meeting Room

Steve and Tony were already gathering information when the Avengers came together. No one save Thor and Banner were dressed yet.

"We've got simultaneous explosions all over New York," Steve spoke very quickly and waved to a map. "Dennisson is forcing us to divvy up."

Bucky glanced at the map, then pointed to one of the southern locations, "That's Dennisson."

"You sure?"

He nodded, "State supreme court. Big and flashy. It's him."

"That's our target then," Bucky nodded and left to start loading up on knives and guns. The rest of the locations Steve dolled out at random, "Natasha and Sam- Battery Park. Banner, you and Stark are taking Washington Square. Thor- Bryant Park is yours, and it's just a few blocks east off the balcony."

"Look for fire," Tony suggested. Thor nodded.

"Get civilians out, then focus on routing Hydra. Keep it contained as best you can, there are no acceptable losses. Go!" Everyone ran towards the armory door- save Thor.

"Natasha," Steve called ahead to her as they ran, "Is Clint-"

"He knows what to do!" she ran into her workshop where she kept her suit and Steve changed direction to show Bucky where their new uniforms were kept.

Thor: Bryant Park

Thor jumped off the balcony and launched himself towards a plume of orange-black smoke in the east. He heard gunfire and the scream of the human's emergency vehicles. The foe, he knew, would be likely waiting for him. He changed the direction of his descent and flew around to the back of the park so that when he landed he would be facing towards Avengers Tower. Any trap they had ready would be thwarted.

Bryant Park was little more than a large grassy space with a cafe at one end- Asgard's banquet hall was larger. Now though the cafe was a fireball. Bodies lay strewn about- some in far too many pieces. Black-clad soldiers fired upon emergency vehicles and screaming civilians alike with rocket launchers and large guns- half of them turned inward as soon as he landed.

Thor immediately whipped up a storm around himself. Bullets pinged off his armor and he struggled to shield his exposed face. As soon as he realized their barrage would not soon end, he threw himself forward blindly into a line of soldiers. Before they could recover he was gone, smashing into another batch. They broke formation quickly to minimize how many he could target at once, but maintained their combined inward-outward assault.

One thing worked in Thor's favor- to avoid catching their comrades in a crossfire, they kept most shots aimed at his torso and legs- which were protected well enough. It also meant that when he uncovered his face he had a few seconds to take stock of the new arrangement of men.

Thor released a wave of lightning and blasted several soldiers at once. He opened a small window for police to push in towards the victims and pull people out of the firefight.

A bullet grazed Thor's cheek and he launched into the air- only to tip downwards and crash with enough force to put a small crater in the park- and take out four more Hydra soldiers. He may not be able to throw the hammer with any real effect, but he could at least-

Something slammed into him and knocked him off balance. Thor swung Mjolnir blindly while he recovered his balance. Whatever it was, it slammed into him again a second later and threw him backwards several feet. He launched into the air again and blanketed a Hydra-controlled area of the park with electricity. The more emergency personnel who "helped" by filling the park, the less Mjolnir's lightning would be useful. He couldn't put any civilians in harm's way. This was quickly becoming surgeons work, and the hammer was not a precision tool.

There was a blur and a dark-skinned man appeared, grinning wickedly up at Thor. He held a club in each hand. Thor dove for him and he moved so impossibly fast that when Thor landed he was in front of the man rather than the other way around. The stranger slammed his club into the back of the god's helmet with savage strength and speed. Thor wheeled around, but the man hit him again from behind.

Dazed, and more than a little angry, Thor faked a turn and tackled the man when he tried to intercept. They tumbled head-over-heels, then the man phased out and vanished again- he was moving too fast.

Hydra was losing ground now that Thor had put sizable dents in their manpower. He wheeled about freely, looking for his enemy. He spotted him on the far side of the park, still grinning. The man pointed to Thor and waved. He looked down just in time to see the bomb on his chest trigger.

With his last seconds, Thor released a vortex of wind and lightning at the man- if he was to fall, his foe would fall too. When he fired he saw something from the corner of his eye and turned his head. The last thing he saw before the bomb blew was Avengers Tower going black.

Avengers Tower

Clint was on edge, trapped in the Tower in complete silence. They could be screaming through the comms for him and he'd never know. He clenched the hearing aids in his fist as he paced- nearly put them in- then threw them angrily at the dining room table. He couldn't. Stupid fucking plan.

He picked up a tablet and told (or hoped he did) JARVIS to bring up the feed Thor had been watching from 'Project: Echo'. He put a hand on his throat and felt he vibrations as he spoke. Good, at least I'm speaking out loud. He hadn't been truly deaf in a long time- he'd forgotten how frustrating it could be. Especially in a fight.

The tablet lit up with security footage and Clint set it to play double-speed. He paced the apartment furiously along the balcony window- half watching the footage, half watching the distant glow of fires still raging in the dark city.

Stupid. Fucking. Plan. Clint dismissed a cold prickle on the back of his neck as simple nerves- he didn't know the Shadow was watching.

Natasha and Sam: Battery Park

As soon as Natasha was in her suit and loaded with weapons she ran up to Sam's launch pad. He was ready for her, wings already on.

"When was the last time we really fought together?" she hit the door release.

"Astana? For like ten minutes?" he double-checked the straps on the wings.

She smiled, "You want point or sweep-up?"

He shrugged and pulled down his goggles, "Ladies first!"

Natasha lunged forward and dove off the pad and out the side of the building, "NOT WHAT I MEANT!" he took off after her. As soon as he was in range she spun mid-air and grabbed on to his boot. He banked sharply and set a course for the financial district and Battery Park.

Strangely, there was no smoke from their destination. Sam glanced down at Natasha. She wasn't telling him he was going the wrong way, so he pressed on.

Battery Park, the narrow strip of greenery between New York City and the Hudson, was completely encased in clear, slippery ice. Natasha kicked her heels together as they landed and spikes shot out. Sam maintained a low altitude and swept the park for signs of life.

There was a mountain of clear ice not far from them- and inside they could see chunks of soil, bark, and people, their faces trapped forever now in a look of surprise and fear. It was as if the park had frozen at the moment of the explosion.

Sam felt something hit his back and he screamed as his muscles suddenly clamped. He shook uncontrollably and struggled not to bite his own tongue as his jaw locked. His wing unit shorted out and he crashed heavily to the ground.

Natasha saw the Tazer-Arrow a second before it hit Sam's wing unit- too late to do anything. She wheeled around, guns out, and saw- Clint? No. His eyes were wrong- slightly off color and way too pleased with the shot. A copy. Her hesitation almost killed her. Someone fired at her from the side while she was distracted and she dropped to the ground with only a fraction of a second to spare.

A man with black hair was standing to her left with an arm out. The tips of his fingers were blue and let off a constant shower of powder- as if he were freezing the moisture in the air itself. Natasha glanced at Sam. She saw that the arrow had stopped sparking and fell from the wings. He was moving already. She cast another glance to the Clint lookalike, he was loading another arrow. The Ice-Man was walking towards her.

She dove at him first and tried to stab the arrow into his stomach. He reached out for her with his frozen hand and she twisted away, losing her chance. While his focus was on her still she ran for the Clint-Clone. He gave up trying to seat the arrow and ran to meet the charge. She slammed into him full-force and they tumbled across the slick ground. The Ice-Man wasn't a professional- he was waiting for a clear shot of her. A real Hydra agent would have fired- comrade be damned.

He turned his attention to where Sam was and saw only the dead wings. Stumbling and half-bent in pain still, Sam tackled him from the side and swept his legs out from under him. The Ice-Man went down hard. He grabbed Sam by the throat as the other tried to get to his feet- but with the wrong arm. Sam shoved back and kicked at the man's blue hand. He tried to shoot a beam at Sam's foot, but the power failed him. Spikes drove through his hand from Sam's shoe and the man screamed. Ice shot out from beneath him in all directions and Sam's other foot was frozen to the ground instantly.

Natasha was in the process of getting her feet under her when the ice hit and locked one hand and one foot to the ground. Her gloves barely protected the skin. She gasped at the sudden pain and kicked at the Clint-Clone- frozen with his back end still on the brittle grass. He took the hit to the stomach (sadly from the blade-less side of the boot) and swung his arrow at Natasha's throat. She threw her body to the side and felt two pops as her shoulder and knee dislocated. The effect was worth it though- she broke from the new ice and flew across the snow. Natasha half-stood and then slammed onto her back, popping her shoulder back into place. She allowed just one scream, then grabbed her knee and relocated it as well.

Facing the Clint-Clone once again she charged- ignoring the shooting pains in her leg and the instability in her knee. Before she got to him something shot out from behind a tree- directly for Sam.

"LOOK OUT!" he dove to the side as best he could- and the shadowy wolf just barely missed taking off his head. Natasha wheeled around and looked up. When she gasped, her breath was ragged with fear and worry.

Avengers Tower was dark.

Avengers Tower

"Stop!" Clint saw what he was waiting for, Thor had been very close. The video kept playing. Clint hit the screen, but the pause button wouldn't come up, "JARVIS, stop it! Wait! Rewind!" he put a hand on his throat and felt nothing. Clint growled- there, the vibration, he tried again, "STOP PLAYBACK!"

He was frustrated and trying to speak quickly without monitoring how he formed the words. He could tell just from the feeling in his mouth that he'd probably said something more like "Awob baai-pak," but JARVIS understood him. The video began to rewind. Clint called (in a much clearer voice) for him to stop when it got to the part Bucky had described.

Bucky was running through the halls with her in his arms. The video switched between cameras as he ran out of their range. He got to a corner and stopped abruptly- he'd heard the soldiers. Bucky set Inessa down, in front of him, Clint noted. His body partially blocked her from camera, but he set her upright and carefully leaned her against the wall. On the tablet the video wasn't large enough for precise detail, and the hallway wasn't the most well-lit place. Clint zoomed in on Inessa and tried to distinguish her from the cement. "Increase contrast" he said very slowly. The shading warped and he got a clearer outline of the girl and Bucky's legs.

The soldiers rounded the corner and she abruptly vanished. It looked like a glitch in the tape- but one moment the white outline of her body was mostly blocked by Bucky's legs, the next it was Bucky blocked by Inessa. He doubted he'd be able to see the change without the contrast. "Replay, no contrast." JARVIS played the video as he was told. Just as Clint suspected- the plain video was too dark to see the move. But-

"Half contrast, replay," he zoomed in on her again, "Slow," the video played at half-speed. Bucky set Inessa down. He leaned her against the wall so she was propped on her right shoulder- she vanished for only three frames, less than a fraction of a second, then she was behind him, laying on the floor with her feet pointed to the wall. Her right arm was now against the floor, and she held Bucky's leg with her left arm. So he was right about the teleportation? Something still wasn't right.

He felt a creeping sensation on the back of his neck and abruptly dropped the tablet. He pulled a long knife from his belt and breathed slowly. Hearing would have helped, but Clint felt the subtle vibrations in the hardwood with his bare feet. He lowered his chin slightly, squared his shoulders, and turned around.

Natasha was behind him- battered and beaten. She was speaking quickly, gesturing desperately at something outside. Slow down! Clint moved the knife to his left hand and signed back at her, Can't hear, remember?

She looked confused, "What the fuck? Stop screwing around and talk to me!" Clint read her lips.

Then he threw the knife.

She slapped her hands together and caught the blade between her gloves. Natasha smiled and dissipated as if she were made of mist. A thin man stood in her place- Dennisson's man who installed the Devices. Clint pulled another knife from his belt and put Inessa behind him. Thanks to Steve's not-so-fucking-stupid plan (which he would never admit to Cap's face had actually turned out to be a good idea) the Avenger watching Inessa was one best poised to tell a fake Natasha from a real one. And the only one Tyson couldn't talk into committing suicide.

"This will be fun," he read Tyson's lips as the other shifted the blade into his right hand.

Clint could tell he didn't know sign language- it was what gave his "Natasha" away- so he gave Tyson the simplest gesture he knew- this one only required one finger.

Tony and Banner: Washington Square

"Don't change, don't change, don't change, don't change," Banner was green and barely holding on to his form. Considering he was latched on to Tony's foot (it seemed like a good idea when they saw Sam and Natasha take off), he very much preferred to NOT find himself suddenly carrying the Hulk. The Suit couldn't handle that kind of weight.

They were high up- well hidden in the darkness of the night sky. Washington Square was swarming with Hydra agents- but one stood alone in the middle of the blown-out fountain. The other agents were grabbing anyone they found, making them kneel, then shooting them point-blank. Carnage- that was Dennisson's plan. Tony's blood boiled.

"Drop. Me. From. Here." Banner's voice was strained over Tony's comm.

"Can you survive the fall? I can drop you closer?"

"HERE!" he shouted and closed his eyes, trying to maintain control.

Tony began lowering himself anyways, "There's someone in the middle- Hydra's giving her a wide birth so I'm betting she's someone nasty. Can you take care of the civilians and the soldiers while I go after her?"

"Don't worry," Banner released his control and began to change in earnest, "Hulk smash bad ants only." he let go and Tony shot down after him, then veered off at the last second towards the woman.

Hulk landed fully-formed in the grass next to the large square and left an impressive crater. He immediately charged for the black-clad humans, leaving the others to run away in terror.

Tony, meanwhile, charged the redhead in the center of the swarm. She snarled and launched a fireball at his head, "WOAH!" he veered to the side, "JARVIS, what temp did that hit?"

"Hot enough to melt the suit to your skin," Tony made a mental note to tune down the extra-cheery setting, it made JARVIS sound vaguely sadistic.

"I want partial auto-pilot. Use the sensors, if she's heating up to throw another ball, estimate trajectory and get me the hell out of the way if I don't move fast enough."

"Yes, Master Stark." The padding inside the Suit expanded slightly to hold his limbs a bit tighter. He could still move, but if it had to it could move him as well.

He began a wide loop around the girl and spiraled inward. Tony focused only on her- always just in the right side of his vision. He ignored the swirling around her and the nausea building in his stomach. She threw fireball after fireball, but he moved too fast for them to find their target. Instead, the buildings around the square were peppered with incineration-level fire. The stone facade took most of the hits, but he had to do something to stop her- preferably before anyone was hurt.

The g-forces working against his Suit made it difficult- but Tony shut off the rockets in one hand, steadied himself, and fired a pulse directly at her chest. The blast blew him backwards out of control and he slammed into the bell tower of a nearby church. Dazed, Tony turned back to the fray, "JARVIS, tune down the other life signs, show me where she is!"

She was standing up on the far side of the park. Her armor had taken the brunt of his hit. She was very much alive, and extremely pissed. Tony launched directly at her and fired several choice pieces from his arsenal. She responded with fire-bomb after fire-bomb, detonating all of his missiles before they had a chance to do any kind of harm. That was the idea. He shot through the smoke and grabbed the arm she threw fire from. The Suit responded to the building heat and, as he wrenched it to one side to deflect the blast, the Suit tried to take off. The next thing Tony knew he was spiraling several feet over the Square with her arm in his hand- but not the rest of her.

"I think I diffused their-" the suit jerked to the side as a column of fire erupted from the ground. Tony spun and scanned the source- it was shooting out of her severed arm. She was screaming, turning away from the conflagration. "HULK, DUCK!" Tony shouted as the girl turned and vaporized half the crowd- not all of them Hydra. He shot to the ground and began scanning for Hulk's location.

Something slammed into his back and the suit crashed into the pavement. Tony was thrown about- he felt the mechanics inside the mask cutting his forehead. It happened every time he crashed. Goddammit. He groaned and lifted his head from the rubble to see what hit him- a black wolf.

The woman saw it through her crazed screaming and tried to direct the torrent of fire at it. Hulk appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Tony before the fire hit. It lit up the wolf and the snarling beast turned- half transparent. It lunged at her through the fire, clamped it's teeth around her head, and in one savage motion smashed her skull between it's jaws. Before the fire had even died down it dove at Tony and Hulk.

"JARVIS! What's the status of the Tower?" no response.

Hulk grabbed the idiot human who wasn't paying attention and threw him at a tree to keep him out of the way. He tried to punch the wolf in the darkness, but the blow wouldn't land. Just like inside the Tower. He turned and roared a challenge at the beast. It landed on a Hydra soldier near where Tony had been. The force of the landing sent the wolf's claws through the man's chest. He died screaming. The wolf turned and ran again at Hulk.

Tony looked up at the Tower and felt his heart sink in his chest- it was pitch black.

Avengers Tower

Clint let Tyson play offense.

The man lunged at him with his mouth open (presumably shouting). Clint brought his knife up and blocked the initial blow- but then it got difficult. Tyson was trying to force him to turn, to lose both ground and his position in front of Inessa. There was only one person in that apartment Dennisson was fixated on killing, and Clint wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

Tyson brought his knife around towards the side of Clint's ribs. It was an exceptionally hard move to block. Clint grabbed Tyson's left arm with his and tried to force the blade to slice wide, then drew his right arm up to intercept the strike. It nicked his hand, but otherwise left him undamaged. Clint planted a foot between him and his enemy and shoved him back towards the door.

The move threw Tyson off balance for a few seconds, but Clint didn't follow through with the attack. He held his ground and spared only a fast glance at Inessa to make sure she hadn't moved- as if she ever did. Tyson tried to circle Clint. He side-stepped to maintain the line. He tried circling the other way- again Clint blocked him. "This isn't a ballet," he said slowly, carefully, "stop dancing around."

Tyson's empty hand flicked behind him for a second and Clint ducked. The throwing knife hit the reinforced window and took a chunk out of it, but otherwise did no harm. Tyson took the opportunity to throw three more knives in quick succession. It forced Clint to the side and away from Inessa- if Tyson was throwing things he had to keep their trajectory away from her.

He lost the ground he'd been trying to keep. Tyson lunged at him again and renewed his attack in earnest. He pressed himself at Clint until the other was forced to step around in order to have adequate room to defend himself. Rather than going after Inessa, he pushed his advantage and swung wildly with one arm while punching Clint in the stomach with the other. The air was forced out of Clint's lungs, his next strike landed too softly, and Tyson blocked it with his forearm. This is why I prefer arrows he thought a second before a cold shiver ran through his knife-arm.

Clint felt an odd chill, and a bone-deep soreness he couldn't place at first. While his armpit felt cold, his side beneath it trickled with warmth. He looked down, dazed, and Tyson pulled the knife from his underarm.

Running beneath the skin of the underarm is the brachial artery. One that- if severed- can kill a full grown man within fifteen seconds.

Dazed, Clint dropped his knife. Tyson stepped back, grinning like a banshee, and Clint's arm fell. He grabbed it with his former knife-hand and held it against his side as tightly as he could- but the cold was spreading. Tyson pulled back his foot and kicked Clint in the chest as hard as he could, launching the Avenger back against the wall. Clint hit hard and slid to the floor. His vision was fuzzy, his head was spinning.

It takes out anyone around her first. The thought floated around for a moment before he grasped it. As if it could sense his thoughts, Clint finally noticed the chill that had nothing to do with blood loss. He thought he heard a growl. Tyson turned towards Inessa as Clint struggled to his knees. He abandoned his arm and tried to reach for the switch- but his hand fell short. He was backed up against a table and couldn't get over it.

There was something on the table- something golden and magical and important, but he couldn't think what. Clint grabbed it and swung at the switch again. In stretching for it, his bleeding arm raised slightly and fresh, hot blood splattered his face. He fumbled with the golden thing and swung it again- dragging it against the wall as he slid down. He dropped the band and it slid up his bad arm halfway, but it did the trick.

It will clear the path before it tries to take her.

The lights in the Tower went out.

Just a few seconds, he fought to stay awake. There was something tight on his arm. Clint shoved it up towards the cut and kept pressure on it, he's the biggest threat. It will kill him first. Just a few... seconds...

Bucky and Steve: New York Supreme Court

They landed on the steps of what used to be the government building. Now it was a burning pile of rubble. The Suits that had flown them over took off to patrol the city.

Steve looked at the vast, empty square in front of them. Hydra soldiers flipped cars out of the street and shoved them away from the building to form a barricade of the area. They were climbing over the cars though, away from the Avengers and the man standing in the middle of the road- Dennisson.

Bucky stretched in his suit- it looked just like Steve's, only the colors were flipped. The star in the center of his chest was red, and his metal arm was completely exposed. It would hinder his movements more than the armor he'd worn as Hydra's Winter Soldier, but not by much, and the protection it offered was far superior. He had his preferred weapon- a long blade. Steve held the shield in one hand and a gun in the other.

There was no speaking. The enemies faced one another and waited for someone to make a move. Steve decided to break the standoff with a gunshot.

It hit Dennisson in the arm, but he didn't seem to notice. He and Bucky charged at each other. Dennisson swung up at Bucky's stomach. The Winter Soldier chose to take the punch- ever since Steve had found him in Red Skull's base- that first time he was captured- he could take a hit pretty easily, as Dennisson was well aware after days of torture.

But this hit was different. He struck Bucky like a hammer and lifted him off the ground. Bucky bit the end of his tongue unintentionally and tasted blood. He was thrown several feet to land on his back on the pavement. Dennisson laughed, "You caught me," he smiled, "I was holding back before."

Steve ran at him, firing. The bullets struck his Kevlar and he barely registered them. It was almost like he was- not possible. The bullets ran out and Steve swung his shield down on Dennisson's head. His target dropped and swept his legs out from underneath him. Bucky jumped on his back and tried to wrap his metal arm around Dennisson's throat. He grabbed it in his bare hands and pried it away, then threw Bucky into Steve.

They landed in a heap a few feet away, "He's a super soldier," Steve panted.

"You think?" the sarcasm was unnecessary.

"How?"

"It's gotta be recent." Dennisson waited for them to attack again, grinning. Bucky popped his neck and rolled his shoulders back, "Do you remember Bobby Iverson?"

Steve glanced over at him, incredulous, "The little German kid I tried to beat up when I was eight?"

Bucky nodded, not taking his eyes from Dennisson, "He called me a 'Mick' and you tackled him."

"You had to pull him off me, then I had to pull you off him."

"Good, then you remember how it worked," he broke eye contact with Dennisson momentarily to grin at Steve.

Steve thought of an expression Tony liked to use, "Let's Bobby Iverson this bitch."

"You killed the moment," Bucky deadpanned, then winked and the two attacked.

Bucky dove at Dennisson's chest while Steve dropped to the ground in a slide and knocked his legs out from under him. Bucky straddled Dennisson's chest and slammed his metal hand into the enemy's head over and over. Dennisson grabbed his fist on the fifth hit and twisted it to the side, dislodging the Winter Soldier. Steve was trying to pin his feet, and he slammed his heel into the Avenger's nose. Before they could regroup, he scrambled backwards. A Hydra agent dislodged himself from the shadows and ran at Dennisson. He grabbed the back of his neck and a second later the enemy was standing up- his wounds gone.

Steve cursed, holding his nose, "He's screwing with us!"

"Kill the healer!" Bucky ordered and dove at Dennisson once again, knife in hand this time.

Dennisson blocked the initial hit, but he was no match for the Winter Soldier in a knife-fight. As quickly as he moved with his new super-soldier abilities, Bucky moved faster. The watered-down serum had it's benefits. Less strength, but twice the speed. Bucky backed him into a wall and brought the knife down in an arc- aiming for Dennisson's head. His enemy slammed his head forward into Bucky's and he staggered back, dazed.

"You were always the weakest of Hydra's heads," Dennisson spat a wad of blood out the side of his mouth. He made a show of pushing himself off of the building wall and glanced over at his healer- he hadn't even seen Steve sever his head with the shield, "You should have been cut off years ago."

"By your rules, wouldn't two more just have taken my place?" Bucky sneered. Steve carefully walked around to stand next to his friend. He didn't trust how quickly this battle was ending. Dennisson staggered towards them. They didn't see him pull the weapon out of the back of his vest.

Dennisson smiled, "Do you know how Hercules killed the Hydra?" he was panting from trying to keep up with Bucky. Dennisson didn't wait for a reply, he answered his own question, "He had a servant cauterize the stump before the new heads could grow."

"We'll remember that when you're dead," Bucky swung back with his metal arm and lunged at Dennisson. He pulled the device out- an elongated silver box.

Steve was closer to Dennisson, and he remembered that thing- one of Red Skull's tesseract weapons. "BUCKY!" He dove in front of his friend, shield up. The blast hit it dead-on and the shield shot back with such force the edge smashed into Steve's throat, choking him. He hit Bucky at an angle and the two went flying in different directions. Dennisson laughed gleefully. The beam stopped and he closed the head of it to re-build the charge. Steve slammed into the rubble of the senate building head-first. His own shield dragged him across the jagged stone before it was embedded in the middle of some beam.

Bucky, meanwhile, was thrown into part of a still-standing column. He blasted through it and flipped horizontally several times before coming to a stop on the far side of the street. He choked on dust and rock and gasped for air. His chest burned, his extremities tingled as if they'd been subjected to an electric shock. He opened his eyes weakly and saw a red path traced in the rubble where Steve had vanished. Dennisson walked over easily. He'd exaggerated his condition. Bucky wasn't a threat anymore- not even close. He couldn't even move enough to sit up. Captain America though- Steve managed to pull his shield out of the beam and was staggering out of the rubble. He pulled off his hood and wiped the blood from his eyes, ready to stand against the enemy. Dennisson raised the weapon again and Steve braced himself. When he let the energy fly, Steve met it with his shield.

Bucky had to look away, the energy arching from it was too bright. He looked up at the skyline above just in time to see Avengers Tower go dark.

Avengers Tower

Tyson didn't care that the lights went out. He had his orders. He took his time getting to Inessa- if the other guy was still alive he could bask in the knowledge that his charge was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.

A small light remained between him an Inessa- Clint's tablet. It cast a dramatic glow over him as he advanced, knife out and still dripping. Tyson imagined he looked like the villain from a kids story with a flashlight under his chin. Soon enough he was in front of Inessa. His shadow stretched behind him and splashed across the ceiling. Something glinted off a dead light bulb back in the kitchen- something silver. A second appeared.

"I'm doing you a favor, kid," he raised the knife, stepped forward-

Four long, black talons stuck out of his chest and held him in place. He tried to breathe in, but couldn't. Silver dripped from their tips mixed with his own red blood. There was a colossal roar from behind him and Tyson was flung aside- into the reinforced glass. He hit it with impossible force, broke through it, and tumbled out into the darkness.

Now, Clint felt the Shadow's roar, even if he couldn't hear it. He tried to reach up to hit the switch- where was the thing he'd been holding? His body was so cold. Now, he tried to speak, tell JARVIS to turn the lights on, but he couldn't tell if he was speaking aloud, let alone clear enough for JARVIS to understand the command. He tried again and again as the Shadow's form solidified. It wasn't coming after him- it was going after Inessa. She sat there blank, unaware of the deadly creature that approached. Now, now, NOW, NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!

The Shadow reached out a talon. Clint must have spoken, because the lights faded up abruptly- just in time for him to see the Shadow touch the side of Inessa's head. It began to dissolve into black smoke that flooded into her mouth and eyes. The Shadow threw back it's head and roared. Her body tensed, mouth open. She was screaming too. Black fog began to roll from her skin as the Shadow shrank.

It didn't dissolve completely into Inessa. The creature grew smaller, more defined. It's hind legs shortened and solidified, the flat, terrifying grin elongated into a muzzle, the ears pushed out. Even it's talons shrunk. Inessa's head rolled forward. Silver burned in her eyes. With halting, strangled movements she came over to Clint, grabbed his outstretched, and flipped the switch back to the 'off' position.

She pulled him into the shadows, flanked now by an entire pack of black wolves.

Clint thought of the security video as he faded into unconsciousness. The hallway wasn't the most well-lit place. It was downright dark. When Bucky put Inessa down, he couldn't see her anymore, not until he increased the contrast. It was too dark. Something clicked. He looked up as best he could. 'Project: Echo'. Echo. His slowing mind remembered a fairy tale from his childhood. One his mother read to him from her faded book of mythology.

Echo. The girl who turned into a Shadow.

Chapter 37: The Shadow

[thehalfworld]

Fanfic MST: ITS MY LIFE!, a Portal fanfic [part 12]

Oh yes, friends, it’s back! It’s been entirely too long (two years too long, to be exact) and I hope you’re all ready for some more vaguely Portal-flavored nonsense. 

No real warnings for this chapter, just typical MarissaTheWriter ridiculousness. And canon character death, maybe, depending on whether or not you take the events of this chapter at face value (and, if I remember this story correctly, you probably shouldn’t).

Recap: Chell and GLaDOS have fused into one entity, P-body is pregnant, and Marissa for some reason decided that Rattman is the only one who can prevent disaster even though dude is strictly a non-action guy. She located him and now the two of them are planning on taking down the Chell/GLaDOS fusion.

Chapter 1

Previous chapter

AN YOU GUYSARE ALL SO WEIRD! YOU WERE GIVIN ME GOOD REVIEWS THEN YOU SAY IM A TROLL AN THAT YUR GONNA KILL ME AN PUT SALT IN MY THINGS? 

That is pretty weird, yeah. 

(I’m not even sure what she’s referencing. Maybe a play on “assault”?)

IF IT WERENT FOR THE PEPOLE HOO REALLY LICK MY STORY LIKE THE BUZINESS GUY AN SEPHRAL AN CAT NOT BOUNCY ID STOP IT RITE NOW!

I dunno who Sephral is, but “the buziness guy” is user ASBusinessMagnet (later a recurring character in MarissaTheWriter’s stories; I’m pretty sure we got married at one point), and “Cat Not Bouncy” is Tumblr user catbountry, who was going by “Not Cat Bountry” on Fanfiction dot net and who did a dramatic reading.

PS - I NO THAT GLADOS IS SPELLED GLADOS I CALLED HER FUSION CHELLGADOS BECOS CHELL ALREADY HAS THE LS AN IT SOUNDED MORE COOLER!

See, I told you she’d explain that. All makes sense now, right? Perfectly logical writing decision.

ITS MY LIFE!

CHAPTER TWELF: THE FINAL BATTLE

Bit of a misnomer, since this is not, in fact, the final chapter.

(Actually, if I remember correctly, MarissaTheWriter may have been writing by the seat of her pants; it’s possible she initially intended this as the True and Honest Final Battle.)

Ratman an I were goin thru the air ducks to get to CHELLGADOSs layer were the final show down wold be. 

Oh my god, she means her lair, not her layer. That literally took me years to figure out. Holy fuck.

Wheatly was growlin an tryin to be scarry becos he didant have weapons so he was lick are cheer leader. 

Considering what happens when Wheatley actually tries to be the bad guy, I think this is preferable.

We intered the layer an saw CHELLGADOS buildin turrents but these ones was speshal becos they cold walk a round an shoot an stuff! 

Hey, I played Portal 2, I saw the turret assembly line. It’s pretty much autonomous. She doesn’t have to build them herself, and honestly I think she’d find it beneath her.

But maybe things have changed since I left the building.

"INTURDER!" One of the turrents called to CHELLGADOS. CHELLGADOS looked at me with all the angry she ever had.

That’s a phenomenal amount of anger. Surprised Marissa didn’t combust on the spot.

"Marrissa Roberts you have interfeared with my plans for the last time becos now I will kill you." 

All right! Time for some murder!

Then she seed Ratman an got more angry. "RATMAN IS A LIFE? NOW YOU WILL BOTH DYE!" 

I doubt she cares about killing Rattman, considering that she didn’t do so before and that he poses basically no threat on his own. Like I said… non-action guy.

CHELLGADOS taked out her portal gun wich was modified to shoot bullets lick a reel gun but cold shoot portals to just in case. 

Okay, but does it really shoot bullets? I ask because the turrets use spring-loaded action in order to fire the entire bullet, which is obviously a hell of a lot less effective despite delivering more bullet per bullet. Explains why Chell can take so many hits without dying.

Point being, there’s no evidence Aperture Science knows how guns are supposed to work.

She fired the portal gun an it hit Ratman with a boom an I thot he was dead for sure.

But Ratman gotted up! 

What? Is he still alive?

"Silly CHELLGADOS you cannt hurt me becos..." He pulled down his pants an I saw that he had replased his man thingys with... the space an rick cores! 

…I know we’re leading up to a “balls of steel” joke, and I shan’t comment on that, but this raises so many goddamn questions. How do you replace your testicles with personality cores? A personality core is a hell of a lot bigger, and heavier, than a human testicle. Also, Space Core is in space, so how did Rattman get ahold of him? Did he shrink the cores somehow? How did this make him immune to bullets? How did he fit two personality cores in his pants? Why did he need to flash everybody?

My brain is hurting over this and I know it’s only in the story because the author wanted to make a stupid pun. Moving the hell on.

"IVE GOT BALLS OF STEEL!" (Thats from a game called Duke Nukum Forever its funny) The space core was still thing he was in space but Rick was mad at been one off Ratmans tentacles. 

One of his tentacles? Are we in a hentai now?

"Well then ill just portal you into space like Wheatly an see how you like it you wont!" CHELLGADOS shooted a nother portal unner Ratmans feet an he was sucked into s space. "No dont you are my dotter Chell!" Ratman yelled as he got sucked in.

Uh… what? How? I thought Marissa and Chell were both Cave and Caroline’s kids in this story. Wasn’t that established several chapters ago?

"OMG HOW?" CHELLGADOS an me said at the same time to gether. "It all storted a long time ago..." Ratman gave us the down lo as he was just barely hanging on to the portal. "I used to work for Gabe Jonson affer he changed his name to Cave in onor of his dead brother. Caroline was got shot as you no Marrissa an was put in a robot body that was called... GLaDOS!" 

Right, we know. How is he hanging on to the portal? Can you do that? I don’t think you can do that.

CHELLGADOS o-mouthed at his shockin words. 

Did she forget she spent the beginning of this story being a goth emo over the revelation that she used to be human? Like… this isn’t news anymore.

"Gabe new he wold have to dotters named Marrissa an Chell but since GLaDOS was a prototip she an Cave coldnt make baby normal way an instead used the artificial enseamanation an grew test toob babys. 

Hey, what the fuck is the “normal way” to have sex with a giant robot? Seriously, please inbox me if you know. It’s for a friend. I swear.

But there was a miksup an my dna got used instead of Gabes for one of the toobs that toob was... CHELL!" Then Rutman coldnt hold on any longer an fell into space an died.

Why did Aperture Science have a sperm sample from Rattman on file? How did they get DNA from Caroline, since her physical human body no longer exists? How does Rattman know about the mixup? Who carried the baby to term? How did two white people birth a woman of color? How did two white people birth a woman of color? I don’t know if I brought this up earlier in the MST, but I am directing that question at every “Chell is Cave and Caroline’s daughter” theorist too. You’re not off the fucking hook.

Then CHELLGADOS started shackin an looked funny. Chell was fightin back a gainst GLaDOSs control! "Marrissa there is not much time left you must kill me to stopped GLaDOS once and four all!" 

Okay, but we know what happens when Marissa kills Chell — thanks to having consumed the “zombie taters,” Chell will just turn into a zombie. You don’t want the most tenacious woman in the world after your brains, but especially not when she’s fused with the most massive collection of wisdom to ever exist, who also hates you.

I o-mouthed becos Chells brane damage was cured so now I coldnt put her out of MISERY lol. 

That’s actually not the concern I expected Marissa to have. She has no problem killing disabled people, but being fused with a homicidal AI who is using your body as her puppet is A-OK, even when the victim is begging for death?

Man, this girl could use some new priorities.

"But I cannt kill you Chell yur my sister there must be a nother way! Chell got sad "Hurry GLaDOS is takin control!" An she started lollin with evil. There was no way I cold kill Chell an then I rembered that GLaDOS used to be Carlion an that made me not want to kill herr neither.

Yeah, and remember how she used to be a well-written and complex character who cannot be reduced to a mere villain and who actually likes Chell so much she keeps writing songs about it?

Sorry, there I go talking about canon again.

"Bloody hell Marrissa shes powerin up!" Wheatly screemed from inside my jump soot an I looked up an saw CHELLGADOS was floatin in air an electric stuff was comin out off her. "THANKS MARRISSA YUO REMINDED ME THAT I USED TO BE CARALIN SO I REMBERED THAT I HAVE POWERS TOO!" 

Hey, uh, what the fuck? 

I o-mouthed, that dumb ingineer forgot to make it so only I gotted the powers! I didant no what to do now an it seemed hope less when a herd a sound. "Hey b**** were heer for backup!" It was... ATLAS AN P-BODY!

Who are they here to back up?

"OMG why are you jersk helpin me?" I asked while o-mouthin from the shock. "Becos CHELLGADOS is half yur sister an we dont lick you so we dont lick Chell neither!" Atlas eksplained. "An I rembered that you gave us the drugs an beer in the first place so if it wasnt for you we woldnt have drugs an beer!" P-Body added an Atlas nodded like yeah! 

I guess that’s reasonable. I, too, feel indebted to those who give me drugs and beer.

We started ti fire are portal guns at CHELLGADOS an the portals combined to make a big portal black hole.

Co-op mode would benefit from the inclusion of this feature, I think.

"OH SH**!" CHELLGADOS screamed as the GLaDOS parts were all sucked out off Chell. 

Should have attached them better, I guess.

Ones all of GLadOS was gone we closed the portal an Chell falled down on the ground. "Chell I safed you!" I rant to my sister an gave her hug. "Marrissa Im sorry, but the damaje from GLaDOS was to much..."

“…not to mention, having my butt sliced off after someone used their powers a little too recklessly…”

An she dyed in my arms. "Nooooo Chell my sister you are died!" I cried soooo much an Whealty cried to becos they was frends even Atlas an P-Body looked kinna sad.

Isn’t Chell gonna turn into a zombie now or are we not doing the zombie stuff anymore? Was that only because she was brain-damaged? This fic is confusing.

I put down Chells body an stand up when there was a clikclak nose be hind me.

Oh no! Not a clikclak nose!

"LOL we tricked you to get yur guard down Marrissa! Now die b****!" An Atlas an P-Body lolled an shot me in head.

I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I love that the author of this mess has no problem writing over-the-top violence but feels the need to censor the word “bitch.”

"Marrissa!" Wheatly screamed an ever thing got really black an I died.

Love the prose.

TO BE CONTINUED?

Yes, indeed, we’re not done with this fic yet!

OH NO MARRISSA IS DIED!

Oh, yes.

CAN WHEATLY SAFE HER?

Well, seeing as she’s dead, I think it may be a bit late for that.

FIND OUT IN THE NEXT ONE PS IM THINKIN OF MAYBE WRITIN A SPINNOFF A BOUT TEEN FORTRESS 2 AN GABE JONSON AN CARALION LIVIN IN PORTAL HIGH SCHOOL WHAT DO YOU GUYS THIN?

She actually did write that spinoff, by the way. I’ll put my MST of it up on this blog at some point.

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