From quinn@fazigu.org Sun Oct 10 12:09:26 1999 Return-Path: Received: from casper.realtime.net (casper.realtime.com [205.238.128.161]) by requiem.vv.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA24453 for ; Sun, 10 Oct 1999 12:09:25 -0400 Received: from casper.realtime.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by casper.realtime.net (8.7.4/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA23310 for ; Sun, 10 Oct 1999 11:11:40 -0500 Message-Id: <199910101611.LAA23310@casper.realtime.net> Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 11:11:40 -0400 From: "Quinn@GhostWheel" To: quinn@fazigu.org Subject: GhostWheel Message(s) 1234 - 1244 from *storylines (#5236) X-Mail-Agent: GhostWheel (casper.realtime.com 6969) Status: RO Content-Length: 19485 Lines: 376 Message 1234 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Wed Aug 11 16:22:28 1999 EDT From: Scorch (#16959) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: say Soul Suckers....Wheefun The day started off just as she had left it, nauseating and depressing. She stumbled into the R/T, a half finished whiskey in her hand, on her way to pick up another. After a short altercation in the Lounge with a dark clad Ninja, a loud altercation drew her attention back to the main room of the Round Room. "Whats this?......" The room was in quite a disarray. A short Gnarled man, in dark robes snickered softly, his hands encased in balls of lightning flashes. His dark aura darkening the light of the Round room. His hand shot out, his thin lips uttering words of incantation. Brilliant green flames encased one of the boys standing there. He screamed in agony. One of the spectators stood. "I'll have none of this." The man, Talon, charged the Small Dark man, his blade peircing his shoulder. The man Howled momentarily, but quickly recovered. The Dark Mage Knocked Talon back, returning his attention to his captured prey. His Little Noriko that he would soon consume. Scorch stepped forward, wanting this to be done with, offered her soul in exchange for the boys. The nasty little man just snickered at her, and advanced on Noriko. From the shadows, a dark figure came forth, a mask covering her face. Noone saw him slip from the shadows. The Dark Gnarled man, advanced ever closer towards Noriko. The boy had passed out due to the pain, his limp body encased in Brilliant green agony. The mans lips parted. His words slitherd forth. "I will have your soul..." Scorch Screamed at the top of her lungs. Her Staff raised High in the air. Her skin ablaze with the gift of fire given to her so long ago.... THe man laughed at her. The man from the shadows snickered. Scorch Snarled and tackled the man. He, taken off guard, fell to the floor under the pressure of her wieght. The Man Brushed her easily away, and resumed his attack on the boy. From the shadows the stranger emerged. Leaping lithely into the air, he wielded his two daggers, aiming towards the Mage. From the side, shadows wrapped around his wrists, his ankles. The Ninja strugles Feircly and cut away the dark tendrils with his blades. Scorch watching the Mayhem lifted herself to charge at the Man again, He turned towards her, Knocking her back with an incantation. Her body flew across the room, landing broken, and bleeding across the desk. Scorch looks up just in time to see The man lean over and pull the webbing of Noriko's soul out through his retina. Her consciousness fades from her, and sweet soft darkness surrounds. -------------------------- Message 1235 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Thu Aug 12 04:38:23 1999 EDT From: Shadowrunner (#24490) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: Macho Bullsh** The ninja was utterly pissed. He let his anger get the better of him, but this has always been so rare. A pathetic mechanic with a big sword put him out like a light in one hit. Right infront of somebody he was obviously trying to impress. He would not forgive him, oh hell no. This can't go unpunished. But the damn mechanic has that sword. When he returned home, he slid off his mask and shirt. The first thing he saw was the training dummy. Without another thought, Greenthumb Farm was filled with an eruption of rage from the young man. The training dummy was made useful once again.. "One thing on his mind: Payback...the distant future. -------------------------- Message 1236 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Fri Aug 13 18:52:36 1999 EDT From: Anubis (#22578) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: Ressurection The sun dropped from the sky to make way for the silver moon. The old bridge sat undisturbed, silent. The figure emerged from the mud, clawing out of the silt, he glanced around a few times, gaining his barrings, before heading off to town. -------------------------- Message 1237 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Sat Aug 14 00:51:52 1999 EDT From: SnowHawk (#24690) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: finding balance SnowHawk blinks stinging sweat from her eyes, forcing attention to her running steps through the moonlit Wolf Valley. Her usual exercises failing to clear to her mind or to focus her balance within. Last night the Warrior returned for a brief time. Again, feeling so intuned to him, not wanting him to slip away into the night. Even more than herself, he seemed to have some obsessive quest to right past wrongs. She, the need to heal and bring peace to others. He wanders, and that is as it should be. Like him, she sensed an inner vow to no committments.. yet, he had stirred other thoughts and dreams in her. Shaking her inner balance. A yearning for family & hearth, tribe & home. It wasn't to be, between her and the Warrior. .... SnowHawk runs. Aching muscles and stinging lungs, trying to focus on re-balancing. New friends. New relationships. -------------------------- Message 1238 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Sun Aug 15 10:09:26 1999 EDT From: Scorch (#16959) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: Quiet Night was gently pulling her velvet cloak of darkness across the land. Silence seemed to lay at the very heart of every being in sight. Even the river quieted its the babbling murmur of its voice The curved outline of her silhouette could be seen softly againste the last struggling rays of light. The length of her legs dangled down from her seat on the edge of the old stone bridge. Curiously, she lowered her eyes to meet that of her reflection, she tried to read the dark expression that ran across her features there. The watery Mimic of herself winked as a small set of ripples folded across the waters surface. Night had fully drawn her dark folds over the sky, and the chesire cat smile of the moon quickly climbed into the heavens to keep gentle vigil over her people. -------------------------- Message 1239 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Wed Aug 18 22:47:54 1999 EDT From: Dagger (#20375) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: Revenge. Dagger slowly brought "Shadowrunner's Bane" to full height and imagined himself cutting ShadowRunner's head off. He grinned. He wished another repeat of the two kills of ShadowRunner. Next, Dagger drew out JESUS his favorite dagger. He imagined himself cutting Yndi's throat infront of ShadowRunner. Oh yes, the joy of it all. *** LATER THAT DAY IN THE R/T BUILDING *** Dagger came across three men who were also hunting or being hunted by ShadowRunner they quickly formed a plan to kill ShadowRunner and force him to rape ROUS'es. Nonetheless, they formed a friendship. They were no longer going to be pushed around the R/T, there was going to be payback. -------------------------- Message 1240 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Thu Aug 19 14:24:31 1999 EDT From: Shadowrunner (#24490) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: Shadowrunner's Bane He chuckled, placing the broadsword on the mantle of his dojo. The young ninja was very amused. How that twit, Dagger always threatened him. Though every attack he made against him or Yndi was while they where already down or handicapped. Well, last night Shadowrunner wasn't too awfully handicapped from Dagger running into the miedical bay where nobody could attack him, then back out, trying to hit him with no evail. Bad time for Dagger to try that, Williker having gotten sick of it and chased him off. But, not before he was knocked Unconsious. Shadowrunner had taken his special little broadsword which he had named 'Shadowrunner's Bane' and would use to kill the Ninja with. Well, Shadowrunner's Bane is mounted on the Rinadake Dojo's wall now. Too bad for Dagger and his fantasies. They've just been ruined by his own foolishness... -------------------------- Message 1241 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Thu Aug 26 18:38:08 1999 EDT From: Pounce (#24787) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: A quest for meaning... (part 1) (OOC: This is an IC explanation of why Pouncey hasn't been around for over five months of gametime and my probably sickeningly bad attempt at a little in character sci fi writing... If you care, read, if you don't, stop here, and I really will try not to cry too hard.) The rest is IC: It seemed distant.... Pounce, lying in his plasteel sleeping cubicle one warm morning, remembering. He wracks his brain, trying to figure out when it all started... Was it REALLY almost 6 months ago!? Remembering back, Pounce smiles as he thinks of how he felt on that morning... He woke up feeling like the world had become one big string of sleep, wake up, eat, eat, eat, sleep, etcettera. He thought about that feeling for a while and decided to do something about it. He got some gear together in a small travel package, stretched his weary muscles, and descended the creaking staircase. The first thought in his mind was, "I need to pay a visit to the old caretaker's house." Trudging over the plains in the barely-post-dawn twilight, Pounce requested a ship at the landing site and took that ship to Yellowstone. The ride was actually pleasant, the first time in such a long time that merely being ON one of the transport didn't wire his fragile nerves to the point of an extreme headache... He easily found the old house, slightly run down from an entire year and a half of noninhabitance, and proceeded to chop enough would to fill the woodbox by the old iron stove as if he'd never left. He then proceeded to build a fire in that same old stove he used to sleep in front of (an odd feeling haveing to do it himself), and then curled up for a nap on the slightly dusty floor mat in front of the fire. He stayed there for a few days, eating rabbits and other small animals he could catch... On the fifth day, while hunting, he heard the hungry growls again, saw the red, glowing eyes, and smelled the wet stench of damp fur and canine breath. He stopped, finding several fairly large, bristle-furred, black, canine forms pacing around him in ever-tightening circles. He calmly drew his hunting knife and growled out, "I'm not the scared kitten you mongrels used to like totree and harass untill the master came out shooting at yer worthless hides..." With that, he eviscerated one of the dire wolves with his hunting knife and another lost its juglar artery to the claws of his left hand. Upon the sound of pained yelping and padded feet moving swiftly away, Pounce made the realization that 16 years in this skragged up world meant time to grow up and fend for himself. -------------------------- Message 1242 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Thu Aug 26 20:06:03 1999 EDT From: Cirrus (#24781) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: What NOW!? (part 1) Cirrus woke in a cold sweat. He sensed people around his burrow and NOT friendly ones at that. How the hell did they get into the fortress... He got a sinking feeling when he remembered he'd moved to his burrow in Yellowstone to fill it in. He sweared slightly and listened. They wouldn't get him, but he had to dive out when someone wasn't standing right on the fake ground lid of the hole in the ground he lived in, which right now someone was.... And he listened... The first voice was deep and throaty, definitely male, with a hard edge that indicated mercenary, bounty hunter, street scum, or some other form of degenerate to Cirrus. The second, he knew. It was that mage bitch that'd been hounding him for so long. He thought he killed her a few days ago! (The dialogue follows....) Nameless: I thought this was where you said the freak lived. What the frag are you people trying to pull on me? Mage: You'll get your money either way. He's below us. I can sense him. Nameless: I'm not going underground to get the drekeating freak. If he doesn't come up, he can go straight to hell. Mage: Step off of the hidden hole and I'll get him. And you won't get paid if _I_ have to get him. Nameless: I get paid or you get shot the frag down. It's that simple. I gotta kill SOMETHING to justify draggin' my ass out in the woods in the middle of the fraggin' night in the rain. (End dialogue...) Cirrus muttered to himself, "Oh just fuckin' great." He waited a moment, heard a slight scuff and dove out of the hole, knocking a very large, muscular man aside and coming face to face with the mage. Not letting her faze him, Cirrus attacked the large man, wresting a submachinegun from his grasp, turning it on him, and shooting him ten times in the chest with it before he even knew what was going on. He then turned toward the mage.... "Keep your hands where I can see them or you're fuckin' hamburger like that holesucker, bitch." Then he remembered something he'd learned of how magic workd from a couple friends who are mages and simply shot the mage once in the crook of each elbow, preventing the movement of her arms, even slightly, and causing her to squirt blood everywhere... "There now. If you can concentrate enough to cast a spell with pain like that, you're a demigodess." The mage, just now reacting to the sudden motion and loss of her hired muscle, compounded with the sudden pain, fell to the ground on her rear end and sat for a moment, her eyes glazed in shock. She shuddered in pain, and then began to cry. As Cirrus listened to the wracking sobs from the woman, he kept the SMG trained on her head. "Not so high and mighty when you're not in control, are you, bitch? Now sit there, don't make a SINGLE fuckin' move and tell me if you've got any backup in a convincing manner or I'll blow yer tiny mind out the back of yer head." The mage looked up at Cirrus with the questioning shock of one hit by random brutality and Cirrus began to think that this might not be the same mage... What does Dakiron do, clone them!? He kept the SMG trained on her, but asked, "You're not Her, are you?" It took the shocked woman a moment to react, and she merely shook her head, brushing tears from her eyes with her upper arms. Cirrus was suddenly overwhelmed with the sickness in his stomach that usually ensues in a nominally sane person when he nearly kills someone who never did against him. He said softly and uncertainly, "If I bandage you up and fix that bleeding, are you gonna repay me by hurting me somehow?" The mage shook her head and finally spoke, her voice sounding slightly higher pitched than the deep, throaty, oddly seductive tone of that of the psycho-bitch who tortured him. She said simply, "Now that Kemp is dead, we're alone. I didn't bring anyone, but he was only insurance against something like.... well, like what just happened." "With all that's happened, if know of me or my history, is it any wonder I'm constantly on edge?" rasped Cirrus, "You honestly think I wouldn't have nearly killed ANYONE who's snooping around outside my burrow with..." he looked over at the man identified as Kemp... "That fuckin' walking muscle machine and a damned HAND CANNON pointed at me!?" The mage looked at him defiantly as he finished a little surgery on the wounds in her arms and said, "So you wouldn't have done ANYTHING if I'd simply knocked on the burrow cover and said hello, I suppose?" Cirrus replied, "I would have subdued you to make sure you weren't going to hurt me, but I surely wouldn't have SHOT you... Simply because you're a stranger and you look a LOT like one of my enemies.... What the hell...? Does Dakiron genetically engineer mages or something!?" The mage chuckled softly, in spite of herself, and said, "No, I am the psychopath's younger sister. She had a total nervous breakdown from overwork and stress, due to extreme dedication to her job. Dakiron fired her over five years ago, and I have never worked for them, nor ever will I. My name, in case you care, is Janna." Cirrus only nodded. -------------------------- Message 1243 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Thu Sep 2 01:05:24 1999 EDT From: Cirrus (#24781) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: Oh, my distorted smyle! (part two) After that night, something changed in Cirrus. The mage woman wanted to train Cirrus, to make him strong... he was skeptical at first, but eventually agreed. They actually became good friends. The training Cirrus was given was brutal. Some would call it a cross between physical torture and brainwashing, tempered with only the slightest amount of compassion from his "trainers"... He got up at 5:00 every morning, and ran through the predawn desert untill nearly noon, evading tricks, traps, and things that if this weren't training would kill him quickly and easily. At noon, he would take a vitamin, and a vile, protein-carbon supplement he called "powerdrink"... The rest of the day was spent learning swordplay and studying various academic subjects. He loved the training. He felt that it ran concurrent with an unspoken ideal of the only human he currently trusted: Red Fang. This was his punisment for being LAZY. They renamed him as well. They called him Tikiaido.... They ASSURED him it was honorable. He couldn't pronounce it at first and asked to be cakked Tik for short. They noticed this and granted. They got along fine. And he grew much. Spiritually, and mentally, Cirrus/Tikiaido was pulled out of a deep, dark, fear-filled hole......... And he was glad to be out. -------------------------- Message 1244 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Thu Sep 2 01:59:03 1999 EDT From: Pounce (#24787) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: Damn, but it's dark... (part 2) Pounce had been affraid of the dark since he didn't remember when. REALLY affraid. Yet here he was, down in the underdark known as the Steel Bowels, "facing his fears".... and he wished he hadn't gotten up in the morning. 5 months ago, he began facing fears. Started with little, bullshit fears like dogs, hate, people being angry with him... and worked up to.... THIS. His single WORST phobia. And he really did wish he hadn't gotten up in the morning. He'd talked to Scorch tonight... his second biggest fear, a combination of several smaller ones, as a matter of fact. He didn't DARE tell her that, though. And the meeting had worked favorably. Now he was literally alone in the dark and he REALLY wished Scorch was there. He stopped mewing pitifully after the first ten minutes he sat there... watching slisssh pass and listening to gods aweful sounds, wondering why the HELL Scorch liked to live down here.... But he felt a love for Scorch still.... and he wanted to live with her again. He faced it down... then unsheathed his spear and decided to really prove himself. The combat was actually quicker than he thought. He stabbed the slisssh a couple of times in its armoured carapace, and then got wize..... as his spear thrust for the head of the creature, he began to see things in slow motion... the slisssh's stupid, worried look... the old master dying.... the idiot beast's feeble attempt to dodge... his fear of water.... the creature's features compressing under the point of the spear... the darkness around... the spear sliding into what passed for the critter's eye for what seemed like an eternity... green stuff squirting everywhere... and then it hit him. His fear, all his loathing of everything and phobias crystalized and turned inward... and he had found peace. And his center. And he silently thanked the gods as he cleaned the insectine horror's "brains" from his tunic. --------------------------