Arcade nodded and said, "when you're ready. I won't push you to talk any earlier." The tension in his shoulders was draining quickly. He needed the affection as much as she did. He glanced between the girls as Eve apologized, confused as to what he'd missed.
I say that aloud too sometimes, just: "man, no life."Eve seemed comfortable with telling us what happened with her, even me, despite not having known her for very long. Not now though, which was understandable. You need some time to think about what you're going to say and how you're going to say it with things like that.
What surprised me, however, was that she began apologizing to me for what happened in the library. She even talking about how she wasn't normally like that.
I tilted my head slightly. "Why are you apologizing to me? I'm not the one you hurt back then."
Eve|Hospitree|Not Storytime
Eve nodded to Arcade. "Thank you," she said quietly, revelling in the quiet support he and Chise were giving. She looked at Chise, then at her hands again, where the crescent shaped scars from her fingernails were still fading slowly. "You were there. And it..." she raised her head. "It wasn't fair on you."
[TOP SECRET]Veela quickly took a step away and turned to look at Yoshika after she was put back down, breathing quickly and looking still generally in a slight panic. Fastanook cast a few quick glimpses back up towards Dave, but kept himself aware of what Veela was currently doing. "Doc, you got some tall kid in a hood somewhere upstairs? Named Thomas?" Fastanook asked up towards the doctor.
"Yeah, and he will be fine; he's just resting in bed right now" Dave answered back, still a bit frustrated.
With that settled, Fastanook got back on his walkie talkie. "Doctor says Thomas is fine. Rex wants to know what you want, sir" Fastanook relayed into the militia channel.
"It's about Silanea" Wells' voice said simply over the channel.
"Hmm? Yeah just give me a bit. I can't just leave this thing without looting it" Blue said after a glance down at Digger. He drew his ice sword, and started using it to carve into the T-Rex's corpse, taking particular interest in segments of the hide that weren't damaged, and any of the larger teeth that were still intact.
Meanwhile, Louie recalled all his pokemon, and moved back over to Ben. "Where are we heading now, Ben? Back to the hospital?" Louie asked.
As Larry continued out into the jungle, he paused as he heard the transmissions on the channel, and grabbed his walkie talkie. "Mister Wright is just leaving the church now. I'm escorting him to the library" Larry relayed to Ben.
The other two literates were looking increasingly weirded/freaked out, and one of them took another step back out of the cave, ready to book it. But Pastor Daniel kept sitting there, looking at Cole with a fairly passive expression. "An interesting view on stories. I've heard some of my followers say that stories are only good if they are exciting, and they're only exciting if there's danger and stakes; you remind me of them" Pastor Daniel said, and looked back at the fire, grabbing a small stick to slightly stoke it with. "You sound like you intend to hurt people. While there may be a good story to be had there, I must say those are not the only good stories" the man continued, and set down the stick.
"A good story draws the reader in. It makes them want to know more about what happens next; and how it ends. Hurting the characters is only one means to possibly do that. It would be rather tiring if those were the only kinds of stories, but there are others: Comedies, romances, thrilling tales of exploration, and sometimes, even stories about people who live rather noteworthy, but ultimately calm and mundane lives" Pastor Daniel explained to Cole.
edited 19th Jun '17 4:46:31 AM by FirockFinion
You are reading this."Not fair to me? I don't understand, shouldn't you be saying that to Rex?" I asked Eve, now starting to get confused.
So he was going to go look for someone else, perhaps someone who could help with the mind reader's situation. From what I understood that kind of behavior was not normal to him so there was likely something else in play here, something that Rex clearly underestimated even though he already knew that person.
My attention was drawn to the lamia on the ground, who, if I remembered correctly, was this "Silanea" person. I remembered Chise mentioning that helping her would have to wait until Rex was feeling better, which meant that this was something he was needed for.
"Speaking of her, we shouldn't leave her on the ground like that." I said, then glancing back at Rex, "Her body is quite long. Before you go, Rex, could you help me carry her body to another room so she can get some proper rest?"
edited 19th Jun '17 6:29:25 AM by FullMoon
The continuous rumbling in the building continued to keep Ciel on high alert, even despite Tairee's claims that it was all for dramatic effect. The building surely did not seem to be about to collapse, but he was still rather uneasy about the entire thing. He could not even bring himself to get down and comfort the children... although the librarian was probably doing that.
Lu, in the meantime, listened to Jack's explanation while she continued to drink her tea, but she spat some out when she heard part of the response. Fortunately she was able to turn her head around so Jack wouldn't get sprayed with shock and tea.
"Rides?!" the small demon asked, clearly scandalized for whatever reason. "Rides and games?! You sly bastard! I knew something outrageous like this would happen!"
Upon hearing his name being called with such urgency, Ciel quickly headed towards the couch with the tea at the ready,
"My apologies, I was distracted."
"Ciel, he and Ara 'had rides' and 'played games' together!" Lu exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger towards Jack. "That bastard took advantage of her like I feared he would!"
"...Lu, are you sure he meant what you think he meant?" Ciel asked, seemingly not very convinced by her accusations. "Are you sure he did not mean they, for example, used a vehicle or animal to move around? Or that they played actual games?"
"I am... mostly sure! You dare doubt my testimony, Ciel?"
"You are not the most reliable of witnesses when you are upset. Did something else happen?"
"Well... as a matter of fact, I also found a leaf on my tea!"
"I figured as much." After a long sigh, he focused on Jack. He figured he had to wrap up the discussion quickly before Lu burst again. "Did you two of you have a nice time?"
edited 19th Jun '17 11:55:06 AM by Katarsus
Ben nodded, then looked into the walkie talkie again.
"Good to hear," Ben told the militia. "Louie and I are right outside the library, we'll meet you guys there. What else is going on at the hospital? You guys said stuff escalated?" Ben asked, looking curious as he gestured for Louie to follow him through the winding caves of the volcano surrounding the library. The ground was cracked, but the "lava" had luckily receded, so he could make his way towards the library and hopefully not get papercut to death.
Ben moved through the doors and entered the library, looking around and seeing who was present there.
"The library's safe for now," Ben told the group in the library, smiling and nodding. "We took the boss down."
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.Despair just smirked faintly, and a feeling of slight moroseness might have begun to creep into the three Literates. "And with all that has happened in this city, do you think that your Writer is someone who wants mundane stories? What would you point to for that...the 'break days'? You would know nothing of tormenting someone for a long period of time, if you would think we would not be allowed moments to catch our breath, to have happiness to compare the pain against."
Despair just stepped closer, settling to sit at the fire, hands folded as he stared into it. "Circumstances in this city have conspired against me from the beginning. This is not who I came here as. Cole struggled, fought hard against this...but it kept coming. The creatures who forced this upon him have left the city, and he made every effort to remain hidden away, to deny me what I would become. And yet, as soon as he left his safety, his protection of friends and the librarian herself..." There was another, far-too-toothy grin. "Here I am again."
He raised his head to Pastor Daniel. "Your god insists upon my existence. He has led me, pushed me to places and ways to exist, and now, upon allowing me escape from those who would erase me once more, he has brought me to you. Do you deny that my appearing here, to you, specifically to you, the leader of his worshippers, seems ordained? Seems to be his will?"
edited 19th Jun '17 3:51:37 PM by ColeMinor
"It isn't that funny," Seiga very quietly whispered, but she didn't let up her smile because it was normal people's fun time! Exaltation, the period of the day where Seiga had to avoid any more foibles to keep her annoyingly attentive servant enjoying himself!
"Yes, she normally will go out and stare at those kinds of things for as long as I let her, and it's just adorable," Seiga said, still as sickeningly sweet as before, "I'm sure that there are many people on this Earth that enjoy such things if they've incessantly made them for the last 50 years!"
"...Actually, that reminds me of something," she remarked, her tone a little less saccharine, "Do you feel hungry? Are you capable of eating with..."
She slowly pointed to her bottom jaw. "Without..."
"Well, it's not really up to me to forgive you for it. You were really dismissive of Rex's problems and while I understand that you were feeling stressed at the library, it doesn't really excuse any of what you said," I replied, my tone of voice remaining neutral as did my expression, "I won't be holding it against you, but I really hope you've learned to be a more sensitive regarding people's issues."
Now that I thought about it a little more, Rex was also being really dismissive of the whole situation with that Cole person and by the time he decided to take action, it was already too late. These two really weren't all that different, Rex was just more brash in how he spoke. Although when I spoke of my past, he did act in a respectful way so... there was probably something I was missing here.
Elias pointed out the elephant snake-woman in the room. Rex just wanted to leave and take his mind off everything but, then again, leaving someone unconscious on the floor was a dick move.
"...fine" he rolled up his sleeves and lifted the snake with his mechanical fists with surprising difficulty. It wasn't that he couldn't actually lift her but he really expected her to be more on the lighter side. The fact that her tail was dangling because there wasn't enough room for her whole body on his palms wasn't helping either "How does she move around all day?"
Meanwhile, Wells talked back from the other end of the militia channel and made it clear that he wanted to talk about Silanea.
"Oh right... we talked about her before" it was a bit hard to remember but yeah, they had discussed helping him in exchange for finishing the ship or something of that nature "So, what do you say? Deal?"
Arcade looked slightly annoyed at the conversation, realizing that the girls weren't going to be explaining things unprompted. "Well, I missed something quite interesting," he snarked, "would you mind terribly filling in the gaps? Or am I intruding on a personal matter?"
I say that aloud too sometimes, just: "man, no life."Hospitree - ex[P]lanations, please
Alright, 9S thought to himself, it's time I get some explanations as to what's going on in here. Rex seemed like the more experienced person he was familiar with, so he decided to ask him as to get a sense of what had happened.
"Hey, Rex," he greeted, "do you know what just happened around here? It seems awfully... chaotic, to say the least. I think I'm going to require some context here."
edited 19th Jun '17 6:38:22 PM by NagisaStick
Rero.Fastanook looked over at Silanea again, then up at where Dave was and Cole had previously been, then said into his walkie talkie, "I don't think I should say right now, kid." Fastanook then looked at Rex with a confused expression when the Evo spoke up. "Uh... And Rex is saying something about a deal?" the gremlin then asked into the militia channel.
"I want to be sure we've got these terms right, first. And I want to speak to Rex directly for that" Wells' voice responded, his tone sounding a bit stern. Fastanook shrugged and moved over to Rex, holding his walkie talkie up. "The deal is that we allow you to help Silanea without interfering with other tasks; and in return once it's done, you'll help us finish our ship, correct?" the militia leader's voice then asked, still somewhat stern in his tone.
The Miss Tairee at the central desk simply looked over with a slightly raised eyebrow at the ongoing shenanigans between Jack and Lu. Meanwhile, the children had finally calmed somewhat, and Tommy perked up when he heard Ben speak. "The monster's really gone?" Tommy asked, sounding a little amazed and pretty relieved.
"You helped take it down?" Seirwuosuhr asked, sounding also a bit amazed, but also somewhat doubtful.
"I'm sure he did" Miss Tairee said simply, then looked over at Ben and Louie. "Do you two need anything?" the librarian asked them.
Louie plopped himself down on one of the couches with a relieved sigh as he started to relax. "I could use some more food and water for myself and my pokemon" Louie said simply, sounding a little exhausted.
"You mean do I believe he uses plot convenient coincidences? I'm sure he does. But I don't think he has the same intentions for us that you seem to think he does" Pastor Daniel said, then looked back into the fire. "His prophet has told us that our purpose here is to interact and react. That we should ultimately do what comes naturally to us, depending on the circumstances around us; and that is why the city changes every day, to change the circumstances around us, to force us to change our reactions and interactions. Or else, it would just be a monotony of repetition" the man continued.
"So that is what I intend to do: What comes naturally to me. Though, I do try to keep it at least interesting" Pastor Daniel stated, and looked back to Cole with a warm smile.
"I don't know, but I want to find out" Blue said, rather cheerily. "This beast did take a lot of damage before it went down. Maybe it could be fashioned into an outfit for a unique bonus. I bet it won't beat my frost armor, but maybe Hartwig or Veela could wear it" he continued, then took a step back to take one last look over his handiwork.
"Alright, I think that'll do" Blue thought out loud as he put the pieces of T-Rex hide and bones into seemingly nowhere. "Let's go back then" he told Digger, and offered a hand down to her.
You are reading this.Eve|Hospitree|It's Never Fun To Have Your Mistakes Thrown At You
Eve blinked, and lowered her head in quiet shame. "I was on edge, it's true, and it's also true that what I said was unacceptable." She looked at Arcade. "I was in the library, and panicking, and I said some things to Rex I now regret. I'd rather not say more than that." she finished, still leaning into his arm. "I'm...not exactly proud of it."
[TOP SECRET]"D-do you have a pancreas in there?" asked Rick - who was looking somewhat singed and worse for wear - as he finished a long draught from his flask. "Look - I - I'm just asking because d-dinosaur *urp* dinosaur insulin goes for good money in some circles and it's a *urp* it's a bitch to extract."
"What?"
"The dinosaur organ black-market is a harsh place, Morty," explained Rick. "Y-you don't know what it's like 'til someone *urp* someone tries to do you in with a stegosaurus spine."
I couldn't stop.
When just moments ago I managed to choke down the giggling fit enough to retain some sense of decorum, now I couldn't seem to control myself. Not even when actually replying to Seiga, or when she expressed that she wasn't all that amused. Hah. She thought it was because I found it funny. That was almost funny in itself.
"I don't know...ha ha...never tried. I don't—hehehehehehehehe—I'm not hungry, no. Ahahahahahahahahahaha..."
I began feeling weak in the knees.
i guess you can watch me shitpost i guess"'Panicking'?" Arcade repeated, sounding on edge himself. Could he have helped her if he was there? He frowned guiltily, rubbing circles on her back.
"Well, whatever you said, you're going to learn from it and avoid repeating it in the future," he pointed out, "that's the important thing to remember moving forwards. I used to be so terrible with bedside manner that I told someone they were an 'incompetent moron' for not getting treatment for their addiction."
I say that aloud too sometimes, just: "man, no life.""I'm sure Rex will forgive you for it, although maybe instead of just hoping an apology will fix everything, you can try doing something to make up for it. What, is up to you," I said, offering Eve a small smile.
Arcade's attempt at helping was... Different. What he was saying was not exactly something that one would like to hear coming from a doctor, but at least he knew better now. I stood up from my seat, seeing that my presence wasn't really necessary now and that maybe giving Eve some space would be better.
"Well, I think I should go see if anyone else needs my help. You should take a break to de-stress, Eve," I echoed my advice from earlier just as a reminder
I began heading towards the door to leave the two of them alone, since I figured they would be more comfortable that way.
I helped Rex with carrying the lamia, although he seemed to be trying to both carry her and talk with the militia leader at the same time. "Can't you wait until we've placed her on a bed before trying to hold a conversation? We both have our hands full."
edited 19th Jun '17 7:20:24 PM by FullMoon
Despair simply regarded Pastor Daniel with a somewhat inscrutable expression as the man spoke, only once tilting his head to one side, almost quizzically. "Interesting," he said finally. "You are not a brainless sycophant as many worshippers I have known in my days are, desperately clawing upwards to prove their holiness as a bludgeon against those they deem less worthy. Belief is no weapon you wield, but a hand held high, a signal of salvation offered all those that come to you. ...that is good for you."
Despair stood from where he was, momentarily regarding the other two Literates in the cave with them. "That said, you have been targeted, have you not? The one your people saw, the one called 'Ben' they said earlier...killed so many of you. What reaction would one naturally have to that? Fear? Vengeance? None of these I encapsulate. None of those can be offered."
He turned back to Pastor Daniel, head tilted backwards slightly, as though to look down his nose, almost...though perhaps it was not intentional, simply the angle to look down at the man. Possibly. "What would you do to keep your flock safe from those who would persecute you?"

I couldn't stop with the giggling for a while, but I managed to rein it in enough to listen to Seiga talk, by some miracle. Thank god, someone concurred with me on how poorly-decorated this place was.
She always understood. I loved that about her.
She wanted to talk about...mecha? Yoshika apparently loved them, which obviously made them of the utmost importance. But..."I don't know, I've never seen one," I told her, staring at the ceiling. "Not that I can remember, anyway."
It'd be nice if I could remember any of that stuff. It was just...sad, that I'd lost it. Infuriating that someone could be petty enough to deliberately take it from me. I would have liked to have at least that much of myself...
How did I even know what a mecha was? Was I ever fascinated with the concept? Did I know someone who was?
("Who knows? Maybe they'll come out with something else interesting, like...I don't know, a kid who turns into aliens? I think I saw a rumor like that online...")
("I guess...I don't know, I'm just bummed, I guess. It feels like they cancelled it before it really got off the ground. I feel like I'll probably drift away from the channel before anything like that comes out. Megas was the whole reason I watched them and now...")
"Arthur?"
Where did that name come from? And why did it feel so bitter to say?
"I guess we could watch one sometime. Would be nice of her to introduce me."
I didn't know why, but almost as soon as I finished saying that, the giggling was back.
i guess you can watch me shitpost i guess