For the Horde!
When Ben sat back down, he wasn't expecting to get a message back from the Boss at all, let alone so quickly. So when the Author acknowledged him using the words in midair, Ben nearly fell backwards in his chair. A message appeared in front of him and he snatched it, reading the letter. His brow furrowed.
The Boss (whose name apparently wasn't the boss, he knew that but what was Ben supposed to call him?) didn't seem too upset at Ben. In fact, he was actually fairly receptive of Ben's feedback. He also, surprisingly, seemed interested in Ben's input on how to get more inspiration rather than what he was doing right now. The biggest whammy, however, was his description of Miss Tairee as "a Sekreh Tairee".
Ben looked stunned. Not only was Miss Tairee not her actual name, but it seemed like all of the Boss' assistants were called Miss Tairee while they worked for him. The fact that it was an awful pun made it even worse. He was still stunned, however, by the contents of the letter in general.
He had expected the Boss to reject his request, perhaps with some villainous gloating or bragging that he was more powerful than Ben could possibly imagine, or something evil like that. It wasn't like that at all, the Boss was downright polite. It actually unnerved him. Someone so unfailingly polite and receptive of the hero who had been threatening him since he had arrived... just who was this guy?
"Well, uh, he said yes, but he's gonna make it a challenge. Of course," Ben explained. "And also, he wanted me to try and suggest ways for him to gain inspiration other than this City thing. Maybe if I give him some ideas he'd let us go." There was one problem though with this. He grabbed another paper, furrowing his brow and writing on it.
''It'd help if I knew what you were writing, I can't give you ideas if I don't know that," he told the Boss on the paper, then dropped it into the box. He then sat back down, crossed his arms, and looked at the box expectantly. It seemed a bit straightforward, but maybe this would shed some light on just what was going on in this "prison city". Or maybe he'd just brush it off with something cryptic. Who knows?
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.
someone
Eve|Library
Eve was going to suggest that she write the suggestion then, if Ben was so against asking the Boss for help. But she didn't need too, and Ben got a response from him almost immediately. A response preceded by words that flashed in front of her eyes.
"Whoa."
Apparently the Boss was going to make it the reward for a daily challenge. Also, this entire city, all the displaced people, they were because an incredibly powerful entity was bored? She tried to think of other things this omniscient being could do for inspiration, but all she could think of were novels that she had already read, and had been done.
"Maybe if he tried creating people for the purpose, instead of pulling innocents from various places?"
[TOP SECRET]
feeling blue
"remember when i told you that people wore clothes just because they wanted to, cole? same principle, we make sand castles because it's fun and nothing else," said Sans, while still looking through the telescope
Seiga didn't seem like that was the case right now, and Karkat was much more lovey-dovey, spouting even more nonsense than usual,* but surely it would be a bad idea. Not even counting the threat of the alien, which was still angrily trumpeting off in the distance.
Suddenly, she got an idea that made perfect sense! She didn't have to worry about her master being alone if she just took her along! "Viola, hold on," she said, her expression becoming one of triumph. "I've got a third option!"
Yoshika took Seiga's limp body by the hands and hoisted her over the shoulders, bending over to accommodate her extra height. "Okay, then! Let's gooAAAH" she said as she lifted into the air, Seiga flipping both of them over and back onto the ground headfirst.
For Seiga, in just a brief moment she had just experienced what it was like to be a waterfall. Not just going over one, the physical sensation of thousands of gallons of yourself spilling over a stone cliff every second, eternally replenished and raging. Being a being of constant self-destruction like that brought many new insights, like as if she was reincarnated a hundredfold in the span of a minute. For Yoshika, she felt embarrassed and worried again as she dug both of their heads out of the sand.
She couldn't exactly say her master would be fine if she was throwing them around like ragdolls the whole journey through. The jiangshi looked at her master, who seemed to be enjoying the sensation of rubbing her face into her servant's side, and said, "...I can't make this decision! Viola, you..." She looked like she was in pain as she tried to say this, looking back and forth between her two companions. "...You need to give me a task, alright? Tell me what to do!"
Jack glanced over at the librarian again. He was a little surprised how much she was talking about it, considering she seemed to be mostly focused on whatever she was doing with that hologram thing. "He looks a little bit different really, but I can't quite figure out what it is. But yeah, he was kind of lame."
He'd been smart, though. Really smart. Jack was pained to admit it, even just to himself, but it was mostly luck that let them beat Pitch. And his ability to know your greatest fears... Pitch didn't need to look like a monster to be the Boogeyman. He spoke quietly, though just loud enough for Tairee to hear. "There's a reason he's the Boogeyman, though..."
Jack chuckled at Tairee's next question, which came a while later. "Honestly? North probably had the right idea. Before then, they'd always just been the big four. Better than the rest of us spirits. Believed in completely. And kind of weird. Didn't really want anything to do with them. Figured I'd keep doing things my own way. I was... I was just Jack Frost, the silly little name people would use when it was cold. Barely a story." By the time Jack stopped talking, his tone had become not quite bitter, but more resigned and with a hint of loneliness. He glanced at Tairee one more time, before facing forward again. "So yeah, kidnapping was probably the best choice."
Just another guy
Viola I Beach (Rick's Party) I A kiss what now?
Karkat is not being his usual self today. He's as loud as he can ever be, no question about that, but now he seems more... reserved, than usual. Was this the effect of the the drugs? And what is a kissmessitude anyway? "Why are you asking me that? Seiga's right here, is she not? Why not ask her yourself?" I motioned towards Seiga, who soon afterwards lied down on the ground after her servant tried to carry her. "In fact... hey, Seiga." I poked her on the cheek, trying to get the deluded necromancer's attention as much as I can. A herculean task, but at least I tried. "There's someone here who wants to speak with you. I think he likes y-"
Before I can continue, Yoshika spoke up. Oh, right. I nearly forgot about her. A persistent one, isn't she? "A task, you say...," Something that she could occupy herself in the mean time while leaving me to enjoy this spectacle. "Well, you could try calling out and shout for any doctors around the area." Yeah, good luck trying to find one who's still sober. Or...
"Or you could go to the library and ask for help from the librarian herself. Being the supervisor of this City, I'm sure she has a solution or two on how to cure your master," How far is the beach from the library again? Far enough? And would Miss Tairee even be allowed to help people outside of the library?
Well, that's her problem.
edited 8th Aug '16 6:07:55 PM by JustSomeGuy732
"A post per day keeps the GMs away!"
frustrated artist
If Jack's attention wasn't currently taken by the movie, he might notice that despite his body instinctively lowering its temperature for a moment, Sophie did not show any sign of surprise or discomfort. As the movie continued, the lilac-haired girl let go of him for a while, both of her hands now holding onto her cup of apple juice. She sipped slowly and quietly, her lilac eyes glued to the screen, now showing the other Guardians attempting and failing - to induct him into their ranks.
Just like Asbel when he was young... The positions and circumstances were different, but she could see similarities. Asbel wanted to be a knight more than anything, instead of becoming what he initially thought was a 'boring' job as the ruling lord of the fiefdom of Lhant. The few times she saw him interact with his father Aston about it, he was always brash and hostile, never giving his father any quarter regarding his stance on the matter. He even used 'protecting Sophie' as part of his reasoning - something that she now knew would not have worked while he was that young. And indeed, it didn't work out...
Sophie glanced up at Jack beside her, her neutral expression giving way to one of melancholy. ...Did something happen to him too, to make him choose to become one of those 'Guardians'?...
edited 8th Aug '16 6:25:04 PM by Demovere
Peace. Pace. Sanity. Check out my DeviantArt! ^_^
Seiga looked up at Viola's face, her expression vaguely suggesting that she was trying to listen. She said a soft "whuht", so light that in the roar of the crowd it was hard to pick out.
Yoshika understood the last task given, even if it wasn't phrased like an order. It just had to be in task format to feel right at all, even if the person ordering her wasn't actually Seiga. She got up, lightly laying her master on Viola's lap. "Yes! I'll go do that right now!" She turned around to run off towards the library, but not before stopping and looking back. "...You just...make sure that Seiga doesn't...Look after her, alright?" With that, she bolted forward as fast as her legs could take her, the brief bout of exercise helping her joints and making sure she could move at a much faster pace than usual.
edited 8th Aug '16 6:33:19 PM by wikkit
THE SLORG!
This time, there was no sound of writing or otherwise fancy response; just a small slip of paper appearing in front of Ben.
"Another of his challenges, huh?" Sir Redring muttered, seemingly contemplative. "Well if beating that challenge is what it takes to let you be a hero, then perhaps I will help! It seems a noble enough cause for a gentleman such as myself" the octopode continued, adjusting his hat with the red feather in it.
Miss Tairee laughed after Jack's response. "You know I think that might be the first time I've heard someone say that themselves getting kidnapped was the best way to convince them of something" Miss Tairee said, turning some attention back to the hologram while still grinning.
You are reading this.
Lune seemed interested in the build Rex had mentioned and asked him to show it to her. This caught Rex by surprise because he had already failed to create it several times now and he didn't want to fail again in front of her. But just telling her "no" would make him sound like an asshole.
"Uh... Well, okay, but don't hold you breath"
Rex closed his eyes and pictured what he wanted to build. The structure was simple, he had build it dozens of times. It was just a matter of telling his nanites what to do but the inner mechanism of the thing is what troubled him. He knew how to make it work, it's just that his nanites failed to cooperate for some reason. But this time it was different.
He really had it this time around. Two blue tubular constructions sprouted from both of Rex's arms and a second gray section grew over it and started glowing.
Only to immediately fall to pieces on the sand. That was an epic fail if there ever was one.
"Wait, let me try again. I think I got it" he rubbed his hands as if the sand in them was the cause of his earlier failure "Maybe I just need a little bit more room" and walked a few feets away from Lune
Rex pictured the build again but this time he remembered Holiday's advice of trying to control his emotions. He was going to get nowhere if he was too focused on Lune's reaction and Ghostfreak's escape and the Ruckus' plan wasn't helping.
He had already tried meditating before but it was incredibly boring. But it seemed worth a shot. Just take a deep breath and exhale, rinse and repeat, right?
It seemed to do the trick and, after a few seconds, a pair of oversized nunchucks
◊ were now part of Rex's arms. He made them spin at great speed, being happy to finally get the hang of their construction.
"Now that's what I'm talking about"
The beach - Building more than sand
"Sans is right, Cole. Sometimes it is nice to do something fun and relaxing for no other reason than that. We all have been through a lot, so we might as well enjoy this peace while it lasts," Caro said warmly, while still continuing to work with the sand. The structure now closely resembled a tall tower like that of a castle. "And well, I could say that we are far away from the water and the waves here are rather weak, so they probably wouldn't reach this far ... But at the end of the day this beach will probably soon vanish. But what really matters is not what we are building itself. That will eventually vanish, yes. But there is something far more precious that we would building by doing this and that are memories of having good times with our friends. That won't disappear and that's why I would like to do this with you."
For the Horde!
Ben rolled his eyes at the Boss' response, then tossed the paper over his shoulder. When the octopode offered to help with the challenge when it came up, Ben grinned and offered his hand for the octopode to shake. He didn't know which of the tentacles were for grasping or what it'd feel like to be shaking hands with what is essentially an octopus. He idly wondered if the suckers would hurt him, but it didn't matter.
"Awesome!" said Ben, enthusiasm creeping back into his voice. "Hey, you got a phone? Or did Miss Tairee give you one of those walkie talkies? Uhh, do you even have phones or walkie talkies in your world? What's your world like? What'd you do there?" He looked Sir Redring up and down. "Heh, uh, sorry for flooding you with questions. I've just never seen a talking octopus before," he admitted with a sheepish smile. "But if we're gonna be working together we're gonna need some way to get in touch easier."
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.
Rick rolled his eyes as Plague Knight forewent loosening up for once in his life in favour of stealing the martini and then demanding to know just what was up with the alien some drunks had shanghaied into being a party attraction. Rick rolled his eyes as Plague Knight began yelling at him.
"Look *urp* t-this is a five martini stare I'm giving you, so- so that means that I really don't have the patience to deal with your crap. I - I you know what, I don't know half the dumb shit you people get up to in this stupid city. Like- like now I'm hearin' that Ben- Ben's ghost alien is gonna kill us all? Ruckus is - they're gonna raise another demon and make all our heads explode, and you're choosing this hill to die on here?" Rick rolled his eyes as he watched the alien cavort along the sand. Having calmed down a bit, it was currently smashing its head note repeatedly against a nearby palm tree, wheezing and bleating like a broken bagpipe.
"I mean hell, I dunno where it came from, some drunk asshole from across the street dragged over here. It's fine. Just *urp* just relax for once in your stupid life and have a drink." Rick downed the rest of his martini and threw it over his shoulder, where it shattered against the metal forehead of a passing cyborg.
I just want to help!
"Hmm. It is more peaceful here like this than it was anywhere else I went to today."
Cole looked back to Sans, then to the castle, tilting his head a little, then looking down at the sand again, scooping up a handful of it and sort of patting it into a ball, looking at it, then closing his fist to crush it together. "Hmm. It holds better than I thought," he said, before picking up another bit and starting to sort of mash it together into a small, roughly squarish shape. "If you had enough time and sand, you could make tiny bricks, and build your castle like that."
feeling blue
Caro did a better job explaining everything to Cole than Sans himself could, that was for sure. Still, it seemed like Cole hadn't quite gotten it but he still tried to go ahead and do something anyway. Seeing that, Sans decided it was time to join them so he stored the telescope back into the dimensional box and made his way over to where the two of them were.
Without a word he sat down near them and began trying to do something himself, at first he only made a lump of sand in front of him and looking at the progress Caro had already made, it made him start remembering the days where Papyrus would try to get him to make a snow sculpture of himself, only for Sans to be too lazy to make one and instead just making a lump with his name on it and calling it a day. Back then he knew there wouldn't be much of a point to putting effort on things when they would just get reset and none of it would have happened, but if he had known the last time he and Papyrus had done that would be, well, the last time, he would at least try to do it properly that time, just to make him happy.
Even now there was no point in building anything with the sand, like Cole had said, the ocean would eventually destroy anything they made and as Caro mentioned earlier, it's not like the city wouldn't change again in the near future, it honestly sounded like more effort than it would be worth.
But at the same time, he knew this would be the only opportunity he would get to do something like that, even if in the end it was all for nothing and it wasn't exactly gonna make up for all the other times he did nothing in the past, but even still, he felt compelled to actually do something for once. Still not saying anything, Sans decided that he wouldn't make a castle but instead, something more difficult, bigger and also cooler. If this was the last time he would get the opportunity to do something like this, he would at least make it count.
Caro and Cole would be able to notice that Sans was looking quite focused on what he was doing, working hard and fast into making something just by looking at it they would be able to see that it was definitely not a castle.
The fact that Rick was not the one who brought that blue monster, which was no harmlessly smashing its apparent face into a palm tree, into the party did little to alleviate his utter disdain for the older scientist. He particularly hated the fact that, within a sentence, how Rick simultaneously complained about not being involved with the going-ons in City and acted like it was his job to fix everything, despite the drunkard probably spending more time fermenting his own organs and verbally abusing his gradnson than doing anything remotely productive!
"Bah!" Plague Knight grunted, tossing away the empty drink container as he made sure to try to walk in the opposite direction of where Rick went, whatever pleasant he had before completely gone. "Come Q10, let us leave!" he said in an angry huff.
However before the knight could actually leave, he noticed Viola and.......
"Seiga?" he said, genuinely perplexed as he walked towards the young girl and the necromancer, of whom looked rather......out of it.
"What happened to her?" he asked Viola.
DAMMIT MARK, STOP HOTTING HELPY!!
Just another guy
Viola I Beach (Rick's Party) I A (Plague)Doctor is In The House
"Worry not. You'll have nothing to fear while she's with me," I reassured Yoshika one final time before she took off to the library. So now both the troll and the necromancer are under my care, with the latter trying to hear what I just said. Wonder what I could do with the-
And just as the undead servant had left, another person came by, the one wearing a weird 'bird' mask on him. It took me a while before I recognized it as one of the others that Seiga had followed with, so he must've been her acquaintance of sorts to know her name. Tch.
"Oh, nothing much happened...," I spoke to the masked man. "It's just that, well... she accidentally ingested some of the things from the party and, well, here she is now," Oh, and there's the troll too. "And so did he, apparently." I gestured towards Karkat. I might as well play the part of a good girl, in the mean time.
"Me and Yoshika thought about bringing them to a doctor to help them up, but...," I sighed. "I doubt there's any sober enough to deal with them in this party." I suddenly looked up at the man, with a thought in my mind. "... You don't happen to be one, do you?"
"A post per day keeps the GMs away!"
The beach - Things are building up nicely
Caro watched with a tender smile as Cole made his attempt to build something with the sand. It was endearing, to say the least. "Well, I suppose that could eventually work, but it would take a lot like you said. The best way to do this really would be if had a small bucket. Then we could shape these towers a lot better," she said as she kept at her work with the sand tower After she had the general shape of the structure done, she poured a bit more sand over the top and began to use that to start decorating it a bit.
Sans joined then at some point and also started working with the sand. However, it was fairly easy to tell after a while that he was doing something quite different and probably way bigger. "Wow, Sans, that looks like it's shaping up to be quite something," she quickly commented and then figuring she should leave him to concetrate on what he was doing, she turned back to her own work and would keep at it until either of them were done with it.
A small lop-sided grin appeared on Jack's face when he heard Tairee laughing. Ok, he could admit that that was pretty funny. His life was just like that, he supposed. Full of strange and amusing things. He looked over at the red-headed woman, idly noting that she looked a lot nicer when she wasn't staring emotionlessly at things like she usually seemed to. He raised an eyebrow, and teasingly said, "Huh, so you can be something other than serious all the time. Colour me surprised."
Shifting back around, he caught a glimpse of Sophie looking his way and turned to check; to find the young girl with a downtrodden expression on her face. His own face shifted to concern, and he whispered quietly to the girl. "Hey Soph, everything alright?"
I just want to help!
Cole contemplated the idea of the bucket for a moment, making a couple more of his sand "bricks" as he turned to watch what Sans was doing with wide eyes. After a moment of that, he abruptly reached up to take off his hat, holding it out to Caro. "Would this work? The helmet outside is like a bucket. Maybe it would do something like what you want?"
Annoyed Mode: ON
Ara had experienced many events throughout her life. She had trained diligently for most of her life, witnessed first hand the cruelty that demons were capable of, and travelled both alone with me, and alongside others. But in all her twenty years of existence, she had never experienced something as amazing as what was currently in front of her. She stared at the screen with the fascination and curiosity of a child, and she immersed herself in the events unfolding to such an extent that, from the point the movie began until the first thirty minutes had passed, she only turned away from the screen a handful of times.
And each and every one of those times she turned to look at Jack.
The first time, it was because of the sheer surprise of seeing the boy in the screen in front of her, which was quicly followed by an even more surprised look the second time around, when she witnessed his resurrection on the screen. The third time, in which her expression was significantly more annoyed than the previous two, came after she saw Jack perform a very quick streak of unpleasant pranks, which included freezing a fishbowl, and freezing the water a little boy was drinking, which caused his tongue to get caught in the ice. A very mean act for which he had not even apologized. The fourth time was not very different from the third, albeit somewhat more subdued. She could understand why Jack would not want to become a Guardian, but his attitude had still been very disrespectful. The fifth, and final one, however, was unlike any of the others. As Jack and the heavily accented man called North discussed what their "center" was, she turned her head towards the real boy once more, and for the first time took the time to see how he was reacting to that scene where he seemed to be so lost, so confused... yet his face irradiated a peace she had not seen in him before. It was clearly a very important moment, and one that he remembered quite fondly.
Which convinced her with almost absolute certainty that what the events being projected on the screen had indeed happened.
Without anything to say, or anything relevant to add to the conversation, she focused her eyes back on the screen, and was once more absorbed by the story unfolding before her eyes. As for me... well, I was paying significantly more attention to the conversation the others were having, but I was unable to contribute, and even if I could, I was not willing to interrupt Ara. Moments such as this, in which she was able to take her mind off her usual worries were very rare, and thus very welcome.
She would thank the others for it later, that much I was completely sure of.
feeling blue
Sans kept working on his sand project and even though he was focused on it he was still paying close attention to what Cole and Caro were saying around him.
"i don't think filling something you'll be using on your head all the time with sand is a good idea, cole," he commented, not even looking at the spirit as he talked, remaining focused on his work and expecting Caro to elaborate on what he was saying.
Thanks to how hard and quickly he was working, Sans had already made a tall enough figure that he needed to stand up in order to be able to continue building it. By this point it was pretty obvious to anyone looking that what Sans was doing was a sculpture of someone and that this someone was also a skeleton with a different shape from him.
The beach - Explanations both required and not required
"I think that Sans is right, Cole. Sand can be a bit hard to get off clothes and if you wear something that got sandy, it will be really uncomfortable. Even washing it off is a bit hard. If you're not careful, the wet sand is going to dry and become even harder to remove. It was all just a bit of wishful thinking on my part. Making it like this is quite nice too," Caro carefully explained to the spirit.
What Sans was building was starting to take real form and she had a fair idea of what, or rather, who it was that he was making a sculpture of. She may have seen the image only once, but the general shape of the skeleton that was starting to appear was still rather unmistakable. She smiled tenderly at the sight and figured she should leave Sans to it for now. Making that was probably hard on so many levels and she didn't want to end up getting in the way of something so precious. Thus, she quietly went back to her own work once again.
I just want to help!
"I know. There is a desert where I come from called the Hissing Wastes, and I would scout ahead in the bad places since I could hide. And on the day with the undead, I was out in the sandstorm trying to help people and I was covered in sand and blood most of the day. I'm used to being in dirt or mud or things like that."
Cole just sat back, flipping his hat over, then starting to pick up handfuls of sand and dump them inside it anyway, looking back at Sans's work, looking it up and down for a moment. "I...you've...thought about him before. I remember seeing him once when we talked before..." Cole tilted his head to the side. "...is that your brother?"
Once again, Miss Tairee's reactions to the movie itself were rather minimal, only speaking up towards it once Pitch Black was introduced. "So that's your universe's Boogeyman? They're usually a lot more monstrous than that" Miss Tairee idly commented.
She also didn't respond as much to Jack's comments; trying not to upset him so much by speaking up as often. Only when a certain exchange came up did she speak again.
"What makes you think I want to be a Guardian?" the movie Jack said.
“To be fair, you guys did just kind of drop that all on me within, like, five minutes of kidnapping me.” the in person Jack responded.
"What do you think they could have done differently that would have convinced you?" Miss Tairee asked, half rhetorically. She could tell that convincing that Jack of the past would have been no easy feat, given his biases.
Sir Redring watched as Ben wrote his letter to Miss Tairee's boss, though was polite enough not to try reading it over Ben's shoulder. He kept idly petting the gerbil in the meantime. After Ben placed them in the box and muttered his statement, there was a bit of silence. "I've heard the librarian is the one who delivers the responses. Will we have to wait until she's back before..?" Sir Redring trailed off as something strange started to happen. A sound that Ben, Eve, Grimlock, and Sir Redring would all hear clearly; the sound of a pen writing on paper.
"Here you are."
The words were not audible out loud; nor were they heard inside their minds like some kind of mere psychic message. Wherever they happened to be looking, they would see the words in their vision to be read; as soon as they had comprehended the message, it was gone. "What in the devils was that?" Sir Redring asked, looking around, but getting no response from any otherworldly power. There was a blur in the air in front of Ben, and a sealed note appeared, and floated in the air until he would grab it. Whenever he got around to reading it, he would see:
Many in the city have referred to it as a prison; you would request a prison within a prison so that some of the subjects may lock up the others? It seems perhaps redundant, but interesting. Expect it as a reward to one of the upcoming challenges.
You need not worry about getting everyone out of the city; you will all be released in due time. Just as the important plot threads will be revealed in due time; a good book does not give away all its secrets at the beginning.
If you can think of a better way for me to gain inspiration, then by all means, place it in the box. I have tried many things for a very long time. As for my assistant, having a Sekreh Tairee to help me keep things organized and give the unique feedback of a mortal turned immortal has been an immense benefit for the last eternity. They also provide a much more relatable middle man in the times when I feel like interacting with mortals such as yourself.
...
P.S., my name is not 'Mr. Boss', but that is just another plot thread to be revealed in due time.
Between the end of the main message and the post scriptum was a mind hurting jumble of ten dimensional text that served as the signature of Miss Tairee's boss.
edited 8th Aug '16 4:08:49 PM by FirockFinion
You are reading this.