Welcome to the Character Development Threads! These shared story exercises allow you to develop your characters in a setting shared by other authors and their characters. No sign-up is necessary; simply look over the last few pages and hop on in. If you need questions answered or a recap, head over to our discussion thread
and ask; we’re happy to help. There's also a trope page (with location descriptions and other info).
Archipelago is semi-casual — no violence on the central island, but the rest are fair game. Other islands are built on-the-fly by the tropers whose visiting them, but you should probably grab a few others before having your characters head off — there's not much point wandering an island alone, since this is supposed to develop characters by bouncing them off one another and putting them in unusual situations. Be sure to communicate with the tropers you go with so you're on the same general page.
With thanks to, among many others, Gault, who came up with the initial idea, Nrjxll, who wrote the first draft I shameless ripped off, and the various people who contributed to the trope page location descriptions.
[[Current Time: Early Morning]
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL INTRO FOR THIS THREAD
This has made the hub island something of a designated neutral ground for various strange characters and dimensional travelers. A small cluster of buildings has sprung up near the one natural harbor and its dock: a couple of bars, a couple of casinos, several shops, and even the cheap but comfortable Pax Island Hotel. This is not a tourist trap, though, as much as amenities for the visitors that come here for various reasons. The Hotel's entrance leads out to a central square, with a shamelessly cheesy tiki bar calling itself the Big Kahuna and the Pax Island General Store being the most obvious, though not the only, services.
Inland, the island is covered in jungles that rise steeply into a central mountain, covered in ruins that don't seem to exactly match any of the local cultures. Apart from that, though, they're harmless and unrelated to the area's strangeness. The population on the island, humans of mixed origins, are quite used to the strangeness of their island, staffing the amenities and filling newcomers in but otherwise keeping to themselves.
Beyond this hub island, the archipelago grows more mysterious and dangerous. Fogs often cover the ocean, and compasses and other forms of navigation don't always work right. There are at least a half-dozen other islands at any one time, but that's all anyone can say for certain. The docks on the hub island offer numerous boats for visitors to travel to these islands, either under their own control or with the aid of a local sailor. Of course, there's always an element of risk involved with visiting these islands, because you never know quite what you'll find. One rule has proven consistent, though: any truly catastrophic event on an island tends to result in it vanishing into the fog, never to be seen again.
edited 27th Jun '14 6:59:52 PM by KillerClowns
[motel tv]
"They show moving pictures. Do-" The high-pitched burst of whine that accompanies the turning off of an older television cut her off, and Marla's world went dark.
Yay! Perhaps it did work.
Further away, what she assumed to be her own room's television set the area alight once more.
Nary a second later, it snatched at her shoulder first. Then an arm. Then the skirt of her dress. Then hair, like smoke versus a fan.
She blacked out through the rest, jolting awake only when she felt herself fly through something. Staggering back to her feet, she found herself knee-deep in the bed. Having just been scrambled in and out of radio wave form, all she really wanted to do was rest a bit but Violet probably wanted to see if she was okay, so she disconnected her magoscope and slotted the television's case back on.
[harbor]
Kyros kept himself loose. The bristle of energy wound its way through the words etched into his skin, ready to attack or defend, casting forth a silent warning.
Don't. Try. Anything.
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."
[Quantum Princess, D3 Hallway - Bernhard Beta, The Stranger, and Adrian Kunstler]
Bernhard was unprepared for such a transformation, and was unable to counter the stranger's movement. Once they arrived and tried to strangle him, the stranger might find him much harder to affect than he looked, as a protection spell made his body and skin as strong as steel. "Hey! No fair!" he said, raising his staff to point it at the stranger once more.
"× Ø" he said, as a bolt of nothingness sprung out from his staff, attempting to annihilate the stranger. It's his best spell, and it's more than just disintegration, it actually converts the target into nothing. Of course, it does have a power limit, only about a car's worth of mass and energy can be deleted.
Also, I don't think the stranger has a description...
[Quantum Princess, Engine Core - Cogbeard, Adrian, Virgil, Jarla, and Azatha]
"Bah, just testing you," Azatha said to Adrian, standing still, egging on any attacks.
Cogbeard threw his cutlass at Azatha, who grabbed it in her hand, and disintegrated it into dust. "You're going to have to try harder than that!" she said.
Jarla came out from under cover, and peppered Azatha with railgun shots, all of which passed harmlessly through her, before Jarla took cover behind another control station.
"Minions, why do I keep forgetting to use them?" Azatha said, as a new military robot entered the room from another door, and began firing its twin machine guns at the control station Jarla was hiding behind, sending sparks flying.
On the opposite side, a large bear entered the room, squeezing through the door, before growling at the group.
[Nulbarak Island, Forest]
"Okay, good luck! I'll be there in a bit," Kevin said to Layi as she left.
"That's a pretty cool trick," Kevin said to Tamara, "How does it work? I could also use my kit if it would help?"
Danger: Intense gravimetric distortions nearby. Please reverse the polarity on your deflectors now.
[Outside Big Kahuna]
"Alright." George said, "Now that we got that established, I suppose we wait on Hayate and Iris to come with us."
"Shame about the food, though." Thomas said, "I wonder how the waiter is going to feel when he sees half of the customers are gone."
"Hey, I am not putting another foot in there, so I'm not going to find out." Nathan said, before looking at Kaguya, "Hey, something wrong?" he then whispered to her, "Was it something we said?"
edited 11th Nov '13 2:20:44 PM by Masterofchaos
[Big Kahuna]
Coprea looks up for a moment,one of his wings seemingly scratching his back slightly. "Can't say I can think of anything else that's much fun. Guess you could bombard people with your shit or something."
He pauses momentarily, "Do you have any idea where we are? Goddess tossed me out of the palace for a bit, corporate offices said I had too much time off or something. I swear, HR ladies, a step up from a mule in stubbornness. Now why they decided this would be a fun place to vacation, I don't know, but you'd think they'd give me time to pack or put a shirt on or something."
He blinks for a few moments, "I'm not that hard on the eyes, am I?"
Bet you didn't see that coming
They/Them
[Quantum Princess Engine Core]
Azatha's egging was working.
Adrian dropped the two katanas as his body began to fully transform. His arms and the wings on his back merged together, his form shifted into a bat-like state, with a long, flat, wide tail that ended in three-tipped blade-like claws, and his head had become bat-like with the lower haw split into two deadly chompers, while the eyes began to radiate heat. Tentacles now covered most of his body, inert, but functioning,
The newly changed Adrian leaped to strike Azatha
Virgil smirked before doing the same.
[Big Kahuna]
The last part caused Regina's eyes to widen, "Oh Jesus," she pinched the bridge of her nose to keep the headache from happening.
"No, I don't know where we are. I just know that it's a decent vacation spot."
The last sentence caused her to blush slightly. Her eyes narrowed seductively, "Just a tad hard, though I'm not complaining."
Note to self: Pick less edgy username next time.
Drummer Boy
[[Ruins (Library)]]
"You're a little off. Where I come from, ending a pregnancy is a capital offense, depending on whether or not the mother was below the poverty line. That's the murderer part." The corner of Friedrich's mouth twitched as he found a cigarette and lit it up with magic.
"Eeyup." The cigarette dangled loosely from his mouth and seemed in danger of falling when he talked. "I won't lie, it's not something I'm always eager to do. But I'm not a woman, so it's not my place to try to stop them. If they went through the trouble of finding me, they want it done, and that's that. What do I know?"
[[Motel Room 14]]
"Yay! You got out, Marla!" Violet almost dived on the bed, trying to give her a hug, but—oh, right, ghost. "You're okay now, right? What are you going to do now?"
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
[Sea -> Pax Island Square -> Big Kahuna]
Some kind of cloaked vehicle came flying towards the island. What kind was unclear, but it was clearly a some kind of cloaked vehicle. The cloak clearly didn't work properly. For short moments it was pretty much invisible, but most of the time it was just a transparent/translucent blurry mess with shifting hues. It flew close to the water and left two trails behind in it. It also created semiregular splashes. It wasn't clear in what sense of the word flew it flew. Reaching the harbor it made a series of big splashes which slowed it down considerably. The last one sent it flying up in the air.
It landed on the square close to the Big Kahuna. Contrary to the flying it did this really gracefully with almost no sound or air movement at all. Standing still on the ground the cloak worked almost perfecly. The only thing really giving it away was the uncloaked landing gear sticking out underneath.
A head appeared, upside down, from the underside of the vehicle. It quickly disappeared into the nothingness. It was then replaced by a pair of legs, the rest of the body. Hunching down the head appeared again.
It was a young slim man wearing a white coat. He was quite tall, had fare almost sickly pale skin, but seemed to be of east asian descent. The brown hair and eyes made the rest of him and his coat seem even more ghostly.
He headed straight for the Big Kahuna. Inside he promptly found and got seated at Claires table.
"Hello kitty, what should we do now?," he said while scrating her under the chin.
Claire didn't say a word.
"Ok, then. should we go back to that island?"
Claire didn't say a anything.
"That reptilian?"
Claire jumped down from the table and walked for the door. He followed after.
[Pax Island ~ Outside Big Kahuna]
Howell didn't say anything, just nodded his head and followed Regina back to the restaurant, or at least until they came close to the other group of people who had fled the Big Kahuna, whereupon Howell detached from Regina's path and walked over towards the others.
He didn't quite join their cluster, rather lingering just a few steps away and presenting each of them with a long stare. They seemed absorbed by their own conversations at the time, or they just did not notice his presence immediately. As he waited, Howell grabbed his hat and set it back on his head, tipping it downward so that the brim was laying atop his nose. It brought a smile to his mouth.
[Pax Island ~ Big Kahuna]
Iris clasped her hands together and brought them under her chin as Hayate talked. She nodded occasionally and made a few "Hmms" and "Uh-huhs" and then, once he had finished, she said, "How bizarre. To think that all that time, even before the world stopped clicking right, you Youkai were just there. I guess the floodgates have really opened now."
She lowered her eyes briefly and let out a quiet huff of laughter, then paused. "What I don't get," she said, tipping her head to one side, "is why you guys would go into hiding and just let us people hog the globe. I don't think an average guy or girl like myself would stand much of a chance against whatever it is you can do when you're all fired up like you were just a minute ago. Maybe you'd have trouble with the military if they can quit tripping their own shoelaces long enough to manage a real force, but even so, you guys are clearly a lot more than just a bunch of dumb animals." She leaned back in her chair. "You don't seem crazy, you've got wit, and, more importantly, a voice. I don't see why people wouldn't listen."
every little word and every little step
[Quantum Princess, Engine Core - Cogbeard, Adrian, Virgil, Jarla, Azatha, and Emma]
Azatha split herself into multiple copies that circled around the group, all saying in unison, "you'll never get all of me!"
Whichever ones that Adrian and Virgil attacked would merely dissipate into fog, new copies taking their places.
Meanwhile, Jarla ducked out from behind her station cover, her armor's energy shields absorbing the machine gun fire, as she fired five times from her railgun into the robot, destroying it.
Cogbeard then took out his pistol, and firing twice, vaporized the bear.
"Jeez, what does it take to get good help around here?" the Azathas said.
The lights in the room flickered and dimmed, and the engine core itself seemed to weaken, as lightning crackled in a ball, forming into the shape of a floating woman, with the sound of a metallic thunderclap. She was about 1.7m/5.6ft tall, jet-black shorter straight hair, green eyes, and wearing emerald green revealing short pants/trousers and a short shirt, with various arcane mathematical equations inscribed along their edges. She held in her left hand a short metal wand, with the Greek letter epsilon (ε) at the tip, and a small Hebrew letter Aleph (א) at the bottom.
"Hah, such mere mortals as these dare challenge me? I am Emma Epsilon of the Uncountable Empire. Tremble in fear, for now is the moment of your doom!" the floating woman said, all but maniacally cackling. She turned to face Jarla, and said, "ℝ : {0, 0, 0} : m = 1; v = {50, 0, -50}" as a microscopic black hole was emitted from her staff, puncturing straight through Jarla's armor and continuing through the floor.
"Grgl," was all that Jarla could say, as she collapsed onto the ground, holding her chest where the shot had struck her.
Note that any of this can be interrupted. Or, at least attempt to interrupt it.
Danger: Intense gravimetric distortions nearby. Please reverse the polarity on your deflectors now.
[motel room 14]
She stood quite a bit taller than her televised visage suggested, near five and a half feet barefoot. "I'm a bit woozy, but I'd like to go find Ky in a bit. I'm preeety sure he came looking for me." Marla went around and put the screws back into their proper spots, then pushed Violet's television to the hole she made in the wall.
She tilted her head at first, looking around the edges of the hole. Then, she stepped through it.
"Good thing your rose didn't knock out the electricity," she said, pulling the television through the hole and back to its little table on the other side. "Do you have another, perchance? I couldn't see the first one very well- I just want to look at it."
[quantum princess C3]
Watching the fight further down the hall, Adrian strained his eyes. No attempts he made brought him any closer to understanding just what the hell he was seeing. Equally confounding as it was instantly forgettable, the man's... opponent evoked such visceral revulsion and fascination in him that he had to force himself to not look, to simply focus on avoiding it altogether so he could go get his assignment done.
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."
Big Kahuna
Hayate frowned again. "I wasn't alive when the actual decision was made, but I believe the reasoning was that it was just not worth the effort. Millennia ago, the life of the average human was much simpler and we felt we could intermingle as we pleased. But then they started advancing faster then we could, and we started to fear for our entire civilization should the humans start getting a little too proud of themselves and decide to test their mettle against us. In the end, it was decided to separate from the humans to put an end to any potential bloodshed before it could begin." He shrugged. "Was it a justified decision? Would such events had come to pass if we hadn't gone away? I don't know, but I don't see the need to go against that ancient edict and neither does anyone else. Besides, world domination was never our goal."
He gazed out the door briefly, before turning back to Iris. "I also have something to say about your usage of the term 'animal.' Animals form only a small subset of the youkai; we are a much more varied group than that. Kaguya is also a youkai, and she'd probably be a little insulted if you called her that, to say nothing of the reactions of the other youkai. Something to keep in mind if you wish to avoid another near-death situation."
Outside Big Kahuna
Kaguya briefly considered telling Nathan just how she felt about their request, but firmly decided against it. It wasn't worth raising such a stink over such a simple request. It would be very disrespectful of them after they extended hospitality to Hayate and herself, not to mention make herself look rather childish.
"I-it's nothing. I'm fine," she responded, although her tone betrayed her real feelings despite her best efforts to hide it.
Icon by Civvi the Civilian!
[Pax Island ~ Big Kahuna]
"Well, I didn't mean 'world domination' or anything nearly that extreme, just that it's..." Iris paused, blinking at a spot above Hayate's head while she gathered her thoughts. "It's a big world, right? We've got room to share with another intelligent culture. I think it's possible. Not easy or quick necessarily, but you'd be surprised at how many people adapt with ease. Again... I think. It could be that my idea of the worlds population is just a thin romantic notion that doesn't hold true outside of idealism."
She paused again, glancing aside to the other table for a moment as someone came to collect the cat that had sent her off rails earlier. It wasn't the most interesting thing in and of itself, but it did highlight just how many stories and purposes and aspirations were there, mingling on that island. Each seemed like a mystery, waiting to be decoded.
"Sorry," she said, turning back to the fox, "I guess I didn't mean all the youkai when I said animals, just... you know, the ones like you. After all, you can't exactly deny that—upon first glance by an ordinary human—you look like an animal, can you? And hey, you yourself said that you liked getting a kick out of exploiting that little presumption we have. Anyway, I don't think I'd ever make the mistake of calling someone like Kaguya an animal. Certainly not to her face."
She glanced at the door herself. "Speaking of, were you just going to have her follow Thom and his friends? I thought they were headed back up to that hotel."
every little word and every little step
[Quantum Princess C3]
The stranger absorbed the nothingness; it was as though Bernhard had thrown fuel on a fire. But rather than take joy in the unexpected gift, the stranger seemed alarmed, quickly disposing of the extra energy as though desperate to avoid Bernhard noticing. Then Adrian came, and the stranger watched him try and focus. Something about the whole situation caused the stranger clear agitation — perhaps even fear — and it quickly flitted away.
[Ruins (Library)]
As she stood up, coin in hand, it was clear from the way Esa raised her eyebrow that she'd now decided to add the Republic alongside the Vespers to the list of cultures she regarded as savages. (Of course, as she was a Uelane, that list already included every non-Uelane culture in her planet's history, with the possible exception of their Xeqane progenitors. This just confirmed things.) "I would ask what sort of 'reasoning' was behind their strange definition of 'murder'," she said, "but I get the impression you think it just as mad as I."
She took the coin and flipped it. Heads. She looked again between picture and floor, then to Friedrich. "I do not believe it is coincidence we found this place." She walked up to the painting and removed it to examine it — and the wall behind it — more closely. "Let us see where this leads."
[quantum princess C1]
Irilemi shook her head and said, "I have no need to fear the incorporeal." Mostly because she could literally punch them. But no need to reveal that card. "Let us continue," she said, heading upwards.
edited 12th Nov '13 5:51:21 PM by KillerClowns
[Outside Big Kahuna]
Nathan shrugged. "Alright, whatever you say." He didn't completely buy her statement, but he figured that she didn't wish to talk about it, so he decided not to bother her with it. Besides, he really just wanted Hayate and Iris to come out already so they could leave.
Thomas stretched his arms, before turning and noticing Howell. "Oh! Howell! You're not inside with your sister?"
Big Kahuna
Hayate nodded. "Understood," he said, before looking back at the door. "On the subject of Kaguya, I did send her after George and his group. Considering the situation that drove me to stay behind has been resolved, I do believe it is best I go join them."
He stood up and stretched. "You're more then welcome to join me, unless there's something here you absolutely must do." With that, he started making his way towards the door.
Outside Big Kahuna
Kaguya was relieved that Nathan didn't push the subject. At the same time, she was a little disappointed in herself for not letting it out to begin with, but she tried her best to shove that feeling to the side. She would respect their wishes and keep a handle on herself, and maybe make Hayate happy in the process. Of course, that was easy enough to say. She could only hope that such a situation that would sorely tempt her would never show its face.
She fell back into silence when the attention drifted away from her. Occasionally she glanced back towards the restaurant, waiting for Hayate to finish whatever it was he was doing and come out looking for her.
Ruins (Library)
Esa would find that the painting was much more firmly attached to the wall than it might have appeared. In fact, it would be next to impossible for her to get her fingers behind it; the gap was small enough to be near nonexistent. This manner of attachment was a small and quite subtle clue about how it was hanging there, and quite possibly about what exactly its connection was to the actual floor.
Icon by Civvi the Civilian!
[Pax Island ~ Outside Big Kahuna]
Howell's hat shook side to side in response to Thomas. A moment later, he asked, "Aren't you hungry?"
[Pax Island ~ Big Kahuna]
"All right, you'd better get going then." Iris said, she too stretching, but making no move to leave her seat. "I'm going to stick around here. Can't just let a meal go to waste, let alone eight. At the very least, I can explain to our waiter that he wasn't imagining the rest of the table."
She gave Hayate a slight wave as he headed towards the exit, then added, "Oh, and tell them not to bother waiting up for me." She leaned forward, propped her head up on her hand, and murmured, "If they were bothering in the first place. I guess I can't blame them either way..."
Iris couldn't be glum for long, however, as she spied their waiter a few tables away, carrying what certainly looked like two or three of their orders.
every little word and every little step
[Outside Kahuna]
As if on cue, Thomas's stomach suddenly growled.
"Oh. Yeah. The food." he said, "Right. Sorry about all that." He turned to the others, "Unless we're all still paranoid about what happened, we can at least take the food with us so it won't be a complete waste." When Hayate appeared, he was even more surprised. "Iris didn't come with you?"
"Looks like she didn't." George said, before sighing heavily, "Alright, alright. I'll get the food. I'll be right back."
Nathan watched as his father walk back in, then sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Hayate, sorry for leaving so abruptly. I promise you that never happens with us."
Attitude is prohibited
[Nulbarak Island, Forest]
Tamara still wasn't in any condition to answer questions, but if everything went according to plan, she figured she would be fine in just a moment. She was also glad the strange energy emanating from the sword hadn't spooked either Kevin or Layi. Mysterious, black energies that absorbed light from the space around them tended to give people the wrong impression.
Having absorbed enough energy from the blade to cast a spell, she took as deep a breath as she could manage, clenched her fist and said "Sano!" It was actually more of a gasp, given how much breathing hurt at that point, but it still worked. A greenish-white light flashed and quickly spread through her body, mending her battered body in an instant. She took a deep breath and let it out in a great sigh of relief.
She put the sheath back on the sword and managed to sit up with her back against the tree she'd hit. She was out of breath and didn't have much magical energy left, but those could be solved with a bit of rest, and were better problems to have than several bone fractures. It soon occurred to her that she'd just cast the most taxing spell of her entire life so far... And that she still had a fight to finish... Adventuring was much more difficult than she'd thought it would be.
A new idea came to her, and she glanced up at Kevin. "Hey, um..." She said, still catching her breath. "I should be fine now, but... Do you have any... Uh..." She paused to remember a specific term. "Mana potions! That's it!" She rubbed her left shoulder; it was healed, but still a bit sore. This was the first time she'd ever had to heal more than a few cuts and scrapes, so all things considered, the spell had worked spectacularly. "Because I could really do with a boot right about now..."
[Nulbarak Island, Shore]
The crustacean managed to stop Askeda's sword with one of its claws, and while the thicker shell didn't break like the armour on its leg had, the sword left behind some pretty severe-looking scorches. The crab thrashed about furiously, trying to shake Askeda off, and the thrashing only intensified when Layi started bombarding it with crossbow bolts. A fortunate shot landed near the wound Askeda had left a moment ago, and the beast responded by swiping at the ground, shaking the area and sending a shower of rocks at Layi.
Not entirely dead.[Big Kahuna]
Coprea smiles, "Oh, good. So my exercise has been paying off. I swear, if one more guy calls me a...."
He stops mid-sentence, looking at Regina, eyes squinted. "Never mind. But seriously, you know we're at a good vacation spot and you have no idea where we are, it's a bit weird. I haven't even left this building and...."
He looks around, frowning slightly, "My god what did the interior designer take?"
He looks back at Regina again, "Sorry just taking this all in. You know. It's a bit much."
He laughs nervously.
Bet you didn't see that coming
[Quantum Princess, D3 Hallway - Bernhard Beta and Adrian Kunstler]
Once the stranger had left, Bernhard canceled his zero-gravity spell from earlier, jumping down onto the floor, as the robot parts from earlier hit the floor with a loud clang.
"Well, that was strange..." he said, dusting himself off. I've never seen anyone just shrug off the null set spell before... he thought.
He then noticed something down the hallway, and presumably at Adrian, said, "hey! Who's there?"
[Quantum Princess, C4 Hallway - Raphael, Irilemi, and Kina]
On the next deck up, they would find an ordinary-looking hallway, with nothing obvious of note. The normal empty rooms and still-closed rooms lined the hallway, and other than scattered debris nothing else was apparent.
Kina followed them silently for now, still shaken by the voice from before, although at least this hallway did not have the muzak that played in the deck below.
[Nulbarak Island, Forest]
"Well, I don't have any on me, but the kit restores some MP as well," Kevin said to Tamara, as he pressed the red plus sign on top of the kit, pointing it at her. It was, of course, a techo-magical videogame kit, and was able to heal minor injuries, reduce pain, and restore about 1/8th of a person's magical energy reserves.
"Did that help?" Kevin said to Tamara, "because I think we should probably get back and help Askeda and Layi if we can."
Danger: Intense gravimetric distortions nearby. Please reverse the polarity on your deflectors now.
They/Them
[Quantum Princess Engine Core]
Virgil jumped next to Cogbeard, his breathing heavy, "Any idea how to defeat her? It's like she's untouchable."
Meanwhile, Adrian kept leaping out at the copies, occasionally swinging his tail as he worked to find the right one.
[Big Kahuna]
Regina giggled, "I understand. Suddenly finding yourself in some place unexpectedly can be confusing for anyone. Not that I can understand the feeling at the moment, I planned to come here."
She stared out into space before shaking back into focus, "So, anyway, you work for a goddess of some sort?"
Note to self: Pick less edgy username next time.
Drummer Boy
[[Motel Room 14]]
"Uh..." Violet reached into the doctor's satchel and found another arcanoconductor. "Here you go."
It was made of a silvery metal and was best described as a rose with hexagonal petals. "There's something about this shape that allows us to store magic inside it. You can sort of feel it swirling around inside. Because the energy doesn't have to go through my body, it's the only way I can use magic right now, so don't try to take any out, okay? The doctor has to replenish it with his own energy and he's not that strong. Don't tell him I said that, though."
[[Ruins (Library)]]
"Would you agree that killing an infant is murder? Apparently, getting rid of poor, defenseless future infants is murder, too. Has no one brought up that point of view where you come from? Really?"
Friedrich poked the very center of the painting with one finger. What was up with this thing?
edited 13th Nov '13 4:05:03 PM by SnowyFoxes
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
[Ruins (Library)]
Esa shook her head, clearly puzzled, and said, "the spirit enters the child after birth. It is not a child, not alive, before then. This is simply known, as it is known that trees are green and the skies are blue."
Though Esa did not realize it, the reason nobody had offered an alternative point of view was simple and brutal. The Magocracy terminated illegal pregnancies ruthlessly as part of their Population Control program. (In theory, anyways.) Saying that terminating a pregnancy was murder was thus implicitly accusing the Magocracy of mass infanticide. A treasonous accusation punishable by death or worse, a re-education camp.
Following Friedrich's logic, Esa gave the painting a hearty push. If it didn't react to that, she'd try sliding it next.
edited 13th Nov '13 1:26:34 PM by KillerClowns
Outside Big Kahuna
"Farewell for now, then," was Hayate's sole response to Iris as he made his way out. It did not take him long to find George and his group, and with them Kaguya. Thankfully, they had not gone far.
"Iris told me that you needn't wait for her," he said to Thomas, although by the looks of things the response was unnecessary as they had come to that conclusion themselves.
To Nathan, he raised a paw. "It's quite all right. I didn't think your response was anything unusual, and I'm not going to hold it against you." He placed his paw back on the ground before looking between Nathan and Thomas. "I only hope that my decision to send Kaguya with you was not a bad one."
Kaguya turned back towards the others once Hayate exited the restaurant, but beyond that she stood in silence with her hands behind her back.
Ruins (Library)
Once again, the painting didn't respond to Esa. Pushing it was as effective as pushing any of the other walls. Sliding would only further reveal its solid attachment, but at the same time the manner of its resistance seemed to suggest a mechanism holding it in place rather than it being glued or nailed to the wall.
Friedrich, on the other hand, had more success. Not only would he feel a slight depression in the painting that Esa likely missed, he also triggered a barely audible, mechanical hum. However, the hum only lasted for several seconds and faded soon afterwards.
Icon by Civvi the Civilian!
Big Kahuna
Hayate laughed again, although this time it was more of a chuckle. "My abilities would fail to impress most of the youkai. As amazing as they might seem to you, to any other youkai nothing I can do would seem out of the ordinary. Strange, isn't it?" He frowned, or rather made the closest foxy equivalent to a frown. "Most humans would be shocked, as you yourself were, but there has to be an extremely good reason for a youkai to reveal him or herself to a human, and trying to entertain them isn't considered as such."
He shook his head. "The things I speak of are not common knowledge for humans, as it's been centuries since the youkai as a whole decided to live apart from humans. To most humans, we're nothing but myths. We've always been there, but you'd have to break your back to find even one of us."
Outside Big Kahuna
Kaguya didn't think the request was unreasonable. After all, she had witnessed that altercation back in the restaurant just as Thomas and his group had and had found it just as disturbing, so she understood that they probably didn't want a repeat of that. Furthermore, she had been trying to keep a handle on her ability, even if Hayate seemed to think otherwise.
So why did it feel like she was just asked to not be herself?
She was silent for one long moment, wearing an even bigger frown. In the end, however, she looked back towards the others and nodded. "I'll try," she said.
Ruins (Library)
The floorboards refused to budge in response to Esa's prying, as might have been expected. However, she would find that her coin went in surprisingly deep; she might even lose it completely if she lost her grip on it.
Icon by Civvi the Civilian!