Seven stars align, their aspects weak with the corruptions on the waking world. Children in mind, but not in soul or fate. They stand now at the precipice, staring the abyss in the eyes and standing tall as fire and stone come to end all they know. This destruction shall be met uniquely by each of the stars, and none will share the same opinion as the others in the exact same way. In the end, these stars shall transcend the fire of their past, and either grapple with the very powers of creation itself or fall into the abyss, never to return and their life snuffed out forever.

Their equipment is ready, the Sprites prepared to receive their prototyping, and their entrance item hovering in front of them ready to be used to enter the next world. Time is short, as the sky fills with red and green. The colors warn of the power coming, and should make it so their glow quickens the movements of the Stars.

OOC:

Okay, so maybe prototyping her computer was a bad idea. Maybe It was actually a pretty fucking stupid idea, brought on by the mental defects of constant inebriation. Now the olive circle/spirograph thingie just winked at her, as if it wanted her to toss more random crap in.

”Show Kernelspritelog”:

“Yeaaaaah, fuck you.” She sort of kicked the floor instead of walking away, and ended up with her hair in her mouth, flat on the carpet. Spitting out the short, black strands she muttered to herself blankly, staring at the wall. She hadn’t seen it from this angle before. She reached a hand up to grip the coffee table, which was somewhere around here, but the searching fingers found nothing and flopped onto her skull.
“Ouch.”
She had poked her hand on the tip of one of her tiny, tiny trapezoidal horns, but she kind of just left it there. She didn’t really feel like getting up, and the carpet was pretty comfortable.

Her Grandaddy Lusus roared, and she moaned angrily-- “Uuuugh, fuck you and your crazy bloodlussust…” She trailed off, happy with that dorky little pun, which hardly applied anyhow.
Her phone buzzed, but she knew better than to throw it into the kernelsprite desperately trying to get her attention. Rather, she checked it to see that she had around forty messages from three different people/memos. Skimming them for interesting stuff and stopping to let images load, she spun onto her back and sat up.
Her stomach hurt, but that was nothing new.
She tore her eyes from the screen to look for the coffee table, which had insidiously moved to the far side of the room. She scooted towards it on her knees, making zwz-zwz noises with her pant-legs on the carpet. Taking a swig from the fortified wine on the table, she rested her head on her hand, propping herself on her elbow. The sprite leered at her, it seemed, and she threw a paperweight at it. It dodged, and the weight flew down the stairs, an action that definitely wouldn’t have negative connotations.

Goddammit. Taston feels as if he has made a grave error. When looking for an appropriate item to throw into the floating, glowing reciprocal he accidently knocked some clutter off a shelf like a fucking idiot. What went in was a mistake. A creepy white winged demon figurine that his lusus had brought back from scavenging. If he was superstitious he would believe it to be a bad omen but really it was just creepy as hell. It's hands held together like it was ready to cast some horrid sorcery, it's wings outstretched as if ready to take flight and hunt down it's prey and the glowing ring around it's head. Definitely some kind of powerful psionic ability. Just... creepy.

The item had fused with the sprite and become a winged head with the ring hanging above. It's hair was some type of disgusting yellow color. Gross. It begins to float around the room, seemingly following Taston as he went about.

Chatlog:

That's going to be annoying. Whatever. Taston decides to walk over to his window peering out at the sky. Something was coming. The volcano near his hive was looking pretty shady also. He wouldn't trust it as far as he could throw it. He looks back at his hivetop, no doubt the other will have been messaging like crazy.

Shimbi's face lit up instantly after seeing his new friend. He threw in his toy by accident, and he got a Trollian~simon~ghost~type~thing? Then he quickly forgot that he wasn't even wearing pants. He quickly put on a pair of jeans just laying around. He doesn't get too many visitors, so he doesn't often think it's much of a big deal. His cheeks quickly turning a quite obvious violet.

"Sorry about that, man. Hello. Are you a talking~ghost? Do you want any~food?" he said, trying to find common ground with the 'grub's~play~thing'.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBZZT

"What? You~re such~a~riot, dude." he said observing its flashing colors. If one of his friends were underwater with him, they'd sea, err, see the ghost~friend and all of his fabulous~colors, well he assumes it's a he.

"Hey, man, or wo~man, or what~ever, I don~t mean to sound all~offensive and all, but are you male or fe~male or what? You know what? I can just~call your~name if you~d tell me what it~was. ".

"BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP"

"You're a Teal-Cerulean-Olive-Violet-Cerulean-Bronze?" he said making the quick 'great~moral~dilemna' of how to treat this new information. "Can I shorten that to T~c~o~v~c~b?"

"BZZT"

"You~re cool about that? Sweet. Oh hey, I~m going to go tell one~of~my~fronds about you. Taston needs some~shit to make him not so down~in~the~dumps. Oh, T~c~o~v~c~b I wish he could sea you. It~d be hella sweet if he~d actually smiled for once."

He walks downstairs, further under~water of course, to his bedroom.

Where else would any respectable~sea~dweller sleep and chill out, if not as deep under the sea as physically possible? Nowhere, barring of course sleeping even deeper underwater. Shimbi doesn't like to brag, but he is almost completely certain that his recuperacoon is by far the deepest he knows.

He finishes walking down his stairs, to see that one of his friends was on Trollian. He wonders which one of his six, or whatever, friends they might be.

He sits down at his computer's ergonomic keyboard (he'd rather not have to put in any extra effort when he could spend that time doing something else, or nothing else which tends to be the usual one). He looks up at the screen, which is darkened of course, as to not strain the eyes too much, seeing that Taston is on.

He'd love to tell him all about his day, and also all of his friends when they come on eventually. You think it'd be nice if they knew you were having a nice time underwater, and with the game.

Trollianlog:

"Ow."

Calist currently found herself upside down against the wall, staring at a ghostly blue boot, her hair becoming sticky after being doused in faygo, trying to work through in her mind just what sequence of events had led her to this most inglorious of positions.

It all began with that damned Cruxite Extruder. For some Gog forsaken reason, the thing required a heavy impact to get it to do jack shit. For a free runner like Calist, the natural response to a situation of this nature is to affect a heavy landing on the offending object, and allow gravity to do all the work. Calist's server player had other ideas, however. For whatever reason, they had decided they were going to be all like, '|_got_th|s!', and chose to throw the heaviest object in the hive at it, the thermal hull full of Faygo. At least it wasn't the load gaper. Jegus, what a mess that would have been! As it was though, the sequence of events was quickly falling into place in Calist's mind. The countdown to the present looks something like this:

Calist runs up a wall to do a backflip and land atop the cruxtruder. On the way down, the ceiling gives way, dropping the thermal hull onto the cruxtruder, while Calist scrambled midair to get out of the way, flailing her arms like a honkbird flapping its wings. Calist lands in her current position while the thermal hull impacts the top of the cruxtruder, its door flying open and spilling bottles of Faygo everywhere, which quickly turn into miniature fizzy rockets and begin flying about the room knocking things over, drenching everything in sight, and generally being a nuisance, while the thermal hull came to rest next to the cruxtruder, releasing the cruxite dowel and a glowing blue globe that was immediately smothered by the heavilly laden hangtroll (mannequin) that bore Calist's FLARP gear. The result was a faceless, blue armored ghost that stood over Calist as she looked up at it.

And that brings the timeline up to current as Calist observes an errant writeplane (sheet of paper) descending slowly from the hole in the ceiling above to land atop the helmeted head of the blue ghost before her. Upon doing a double take though, Calist now realizes that the faceless blue ghost has taken on the features of her FLARP persona, an entity which now stares disdainfully down at her.

"Oh,_fuck_a||_k|nds_of_quackb|rd!", Calist mutters to herself, then directs a query toward the blue, glowing ghost of her FLARP Persona, "|_don't_suppose_there_are_second_chances_for_f|rst_|mpress|ons,_are_there?"

The exasperation that now crept into the face beneath the helmet answered Calist's question promptly, and she made a mental note.

"Server_p|ayer._Must._Pay."

The troll missus stared at her phone, into what looked like a pretty messy hive. She had accidentally deleted the floor underneath the storage unit, instead of duplicating it and dropping it on the thing that looked vaguely like an air strike base. It did essentially the same thing, but instead of using Grist it gave her some. She decided to quickly squander it by placing several useless looking objects, some of which were free and looked like necessary plot objects. Calling on Chekhov's gun (cause ‘errything has a use), she put everything else in it everywhere else, and then started piling up all the faygo bottles in the center of the room in recompense.
Now there was basically no room to maneuver, but it sure as hell looked snazzy. She wondered why she had started with 200,000 grist instead of her own server player’s 20,000. Seemed unfair, but she wasn’t complaining cause the stuff looked really damn cool. There did seem to be more options to place, too, like what looked like a microscope, and the disc thingie.

”Show Chatlog”:

She stood up unsteadily, blearily staring at the stairs, which seemed to be dancing. “Dancin’ steps…” she murmured, wondering why her grandlussus has shut up all the sudden. Actually, that probably happened a while ago, but it hadn’t yelled at her clock for chiming, and she kind of did worry about him a lot.

> [s] Page: Descend.

You proceed to trip the fuck halfway down the stairs, regain your balance on the ninth step, and then fall on your face and slide down.

You think your nose is bleeding.

> Get up.

With a strange sense of grit, you got up and stared at your grandaddy. He was dead all right, the big galoot just lying there in a pool of blood. The perpetrator was one of the stacks of bricks, seemingly toppled by a lightweight projectile.

A shattered glass pyramid was at your feet, which you realize in some corner of the mind that you threw at the sprite, which dodged. Allowing it to fly down the stairs, clipping a brick and toppling the stack. Which made no sense, regarding physics. But then again, none of her life made sense, so this was only fair.

She sat down with a plop next to her guardian, deciding she was sort of sad. But only sort of. At any rate, her grandaddy lusus needed a funeral. Cause staying in the basement was stupid and would probably stink. But she had no way to move his corpse, so instead she just sort of laid on the corpse, staring at one of those objects that her server player had apparently moved into the basement. Ohhhh, that made more sense, sort of. A large object had toppled the bricks, this giant white thing. There was a big, pale olive pedestal on it, on which was a small green snowglobe. She couldn’t remember when the fuck she did that.

> Missus: Bemoan parent figure.

Eh, you’re good. You wipe some blood from your face, staring out the fire escape window to see a sky red with fire. You can’t remember if this is normal or not.

A wind slowly flowed through the fields of wheat in the idealistic farmland. Above it loomed mountains, and beyond them still was the ocean. Typically the ocean meant nothing but bad things for those on the land, but most of them were not Talven Consus. This young troll stood in the field as the gusts made it sway back and forth. A blue floating sphere was behind him. His friends had informed him of what it did by now, and he was determined to pick the best possible thing to prototype.

Talven knew what he wanted, of course. He always did. The boy looked up into the sky, staring directly at the blazing Alternian sun, before looking just beneath it, where a small object was flying in circles. His constant smile grew a bit wider as he marched forward through the fields. Seemed his prey had been found, and there was no time to lose! The troll began sprinting quickly, taking out his Scythe Kind. Normally at this time of year he'd be hard at work harvesting all his produce, but it seemed that wouldn't matter soon enough! The game was afoot in more ways then one.

After a few minutes of dashing through the sun, he reached his goal. A dark cave at the edge of his land where his favorite sparring partner lived. He swung his scythe around a few times, getting a feel for it before a small white bird landed on his should. It had four wings and two long, thin tails. He reached up and stroked its head a few times affectionately, feeling its feathers ruffle under his fingers. After a few seconds of this, a gust of wind much stronger then before flew out of the cave, his hoodie billowing in the wind as a deafening roar emerged from the cave. With a single mighty leap, a lion lusus flew out and landed just a few yards from Talven, lowering its leering maw and glaring eyes down at him.

"7ime for one las7 round. Show me whea7 you go7!"

Palatl, Notice the World exploding

A troll girl stood up from the collapsed tree that had once been her hive, it now thoroughly on fire due to a meteor going through it and blowing up one of her neighbors hive who lived roughly a couple dozen miles away. She was honestly impressed with her own luck, having so narrowly avoided dieing like a complete chump before she could even enter the game. Well, she would be more impressed, if she didn't see the huge fuck off meteor the size of one of Alternia's moons heading straight for her at a speed somewhere between Hot damn and Jegus fuck. One had to wonder what eloquent and long winded diatribe this youth would unleash upon the meteor and the viewers, what words she would choose to perfectly encapsulate the current state of affairs within the physical world and that of her own emotional being. The world seems to quiet down a little, as if beckoning the young purple blooded maiden to unleash her sermons or chuckle voodoos for all to hear, and for all to enjoy.

Palatl, Unleash the wisdom of the Mirthful messiahs on the offending Meteor

Palatl's face took on a determined look, though her knees were weak, palms were sweaty, and her lusus' Boiled grain stalks with red fruit-not-fruit on her sweater. The look of the meteors fire filled her eyes, and her soul seemed to be filled with some odd energy that told her to keep going, the knowledge that the Meteor may one day reach the planets core the cause of such a feeling filling her. It was odd, but she shook her head and stood proudly against the meteor. Then, she seemed ready to speak. Then, in a flash, it happened.

" :O "

She now wore a mask with the offending emoticon, disappointing everyone and causing most everyone to flip some form of four legged platform before fucking off to who knows where. Somewhere, deep within her soul, Palatl smiles a mirthful smile.

On the outside though, she seemed busy going back to her computer to converse with her server player.

"So.....CᶏJᶖᶊtᶒ?"
"Thᶒᶉᶒ'ᶊ ᶏ ᶀᶖᶃ ᶂᶙcᶄ oᶂᶂ ᶆᶒtᶒoᶉ hᶒᶏᶁᶖᶇᶃ ᶆy wᶏy..."
"I thᶖᶇᶄ I ᶆᶏy hᶏᶌᶒ to hᶙᶉᶉy ᶏᶇᶁ ᶁo.....whᶏt ᶒᶌᶒᶉ ᶖt ᶖᶊ I ᶇᶒᶒᶁ to ᶁo wᶖth thᶏt ᶃJᶖtchy oᶉᶀ thᶖᶇᶃ \:?"

Palatl, Look at glitchy Orb thing

Palatl attempts to do so, but instead of seeing some odd purple orb that was doing jack all and being annoying, she saw what once was her Snapbeast dad was now floating in a sorta ghost like form staring at her. The proceeding noise was similar to two massive planks of would smacking into each other repeatedly. A noise that Palatl was all to familar with.

Crocsprite:

":|"

The new mask does much to convey your current feelings on the matter. She seems to merely standing there, listening to the sound of her once lusus fill the air as the large totem thing is being Carved, the Sprite seemingly have punted it into the device to do so when it prototyped....whatever that meant.

> Look over that lonely island.

Why, what a lovely day.  But it was already planned to be one, so no surprises there.  The beach was brimming with the color of washed up bloods of all kinds.  Not far from the tide, the massive lusus guardian feasted on the latest victim.  Some lost soul who got caught up in the intense streams that washed up on this shore.

> Take a better look at the top of the island.

A lone figure walks upon the broken ruins, with tense but sure steps, not wanting to get behind schedule.  She stops by a shovel, deliberately painted a single shade of blue.   She quickly captchalogues it, not wanting to waste time manually putting it somewhere, leaving it entirely to the automatic sorting.

Today was an eventful day.  The sands in many an hourglass were ticking close to an end today.  She had capsules to dig up and important things to do.

> [Roxana: Stop by the pile of FLARP costumes.]

Such irritating refuse.  Colorful, nonsensical things that didn't fit anywhere else and couldn't be thrown to the currents.  Even the lusus wouldn't eat it.  If she had the time, she would just throw the new costume that washed up today on the pile and just light it all on fire.  At least the ashes would be just grays.  She clenches her teeth as she gives herself a moment to flip out.

> [Roxana: SCREAM.]

She takes out her harpkind and keeps whaling on the pile of clothes while screaming relentlessly for a good while, angered at that big pile of colorful messy refuse.  In a moment of unplanned recklessness, she accidentally ends up captchaloguing the entire pile.  When she realizes this, it's too late.  All of those chaotic colors were broken down and spread all across her fetch modus.  Too many cards, too many colors, going everywhere.

> [Roxana: Die a little inside.]

Her eye twitches, but there's nothing she can do now.  More plans would get thrown off track if she let this get to her more.  Containing her own rage and disappointment, she brings up the shovel and starts to dig close to where the pile was.  There, she finds a capsule.  Popping it open, it was there, just as planned.  A large poisonated capsule, contained within the time capsule.  It was not for troll consumption, and not exactly safe to handle.  But, she needed this now, all the signs were evident.

> [Roxana: Have your lusus die a lot inside.]

Walking into the beach, she slipped the capsule into the carcass of the latest fool to wash up in her island.  The lusus didn't even notice it, as its many heads gnawed and thrashed trying to get the most food.  It takes a while, but Roxana watches solemnly as her guardian slowly dies from the inside.  It was meant to be.  It screeches loudly, and one by one its heads fall dead.  Roxana barely gives herself the time for grief.  

> [Roxana: Just get it over with.]

At last, the beast was ready to be prototyped.  It died quickly and painlessly, she did not intend on having it suffer during this process...

Lerneasprite:

It is done.  Roxana grabs her trusty device and starts messaging her server player.

chatlog:

Taston sees that many of his friends were coming online, good to know that nothing had completely fucked up yet. Shimbi had messaged him most likely with an update on how he was doing. As well as with any random nonsense he had gotten himself into. It was of some comfort that despite the tense situation his sea dweller friend would, at the very least, be having a good time,

ChatLog:

He decides that he might aswell multitask, letting his husktop levitate behind him as he walked to the entrance of his respiteblock. Straining his weak telekinesis a little to maintain its height. Shimbi had reminded him of the reason why a fairly large chest of drawers was up sideways against his door. Little, Imp bastards hadn't figured it out yet. Though he suspected that they would begin scaling the Hive soon. Pricks. This would require a high amount of PROBLEM SOLVI-....

So in the end he just opened up the door and pushed hard against the chest of drawers until the gravity of the stairwell took it. Carrying the Imps stacked behind it with it. He dusts off his hands, 'That should fucki'n' &uy me some time.'

ChatLog:

He walks down his stairs, picking up the grist left over from his squashed enemies. He spotted the large machines that his Server player had left out for him. He would need to figure those out, something involving those tote-... A loud crash could be heard over head. It sounded like something had impacted his roof. He ran up the stairs, making sure to check on any structural damage along the way. He stopped at a window along the staircase, spotting out of it that his perpetually stationary lusus was flying... why was he flying? To be fair, he had also ever seen his lusus' body coated in a matt burgundy either. He was injured, bad. He must have flown off to find a peaceful spot to... well, at least Taston didn't have to worry about a goodbye.

He floated his husktop in front of him, deciding to take advantage of the viewport to distract him from what just transpired. He had placed down Shimbi's equipment in a hurry without checking up on him. He could now see that his friend was standing next to this t-c-o-v-c-& fella,

ChatLog:

He sets aside his husktop, examining the machinery.

Shimbi answers his friend who doesn't seem~ecstatic about this at all. Though who expected he would?

Chatlog:

He then draws something to show Taston a piece of his mind!



He then instantly regrets drawing that. He wouldn't want Taston to think he hated him. Maybe you could find a nicer way to tell him that he's acting like a real poophead. Though, to be fair, this drawing kind of proves that it is SHIMBI who is the poop~head.

He crumbles up the paper and throw it at the Cruxtruder. He sees something on it he recognizes and stares at IT. Shimbi is a GENIUS. He has cracked the code! It's a under~water~door~turny~thing which he has been turning his whole life. There has to be more shiny~flashy~things like Tcovcb.

"Should I turn it, T~c~o~v~c~b?"

DINGBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP
DINGBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP
DINGBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP
DINGBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP

He turns it freeing the rest of the shiny~flashy~things!

Well, not actually...

Instead pops out a Cruxite Dowel.

Shimbi does not understand at all what this weird thing is. He attempts putting it on top of the Cruxtruder. He turns it again, and then another Cruxite Dowelcomes out, causing the one on top to fall.

He puts one on top of the Alchemizer in the place where it looks like it'd fit and it scans it, giving him a perfectly~generic~object. He puts it into his sylladex due to some sort of kleptomania of green cubes. He stashes it into the lime space, because that seems to be the closest color to it, and... everything stayed in!! It was the right color.

It might work with other objects? He tries putting the broken skull of his lusus, Sir Captain Admiral Dolphindad Aqua Ventusque Esquire Rex II*, gog rest his weary bones for they have traveled quite the distance before reaching their end.

*To be fair, he was neither a Captain, nor an Admiral, nor was he an esquire, nor a king and at that not the second either, though the abbreviation C~A~D~A~V~E~R is quite accurate and would be quite entertaining to Dolphindad if was alive, and Dolphindad, though not being any of those things, definitely deserved those titles in the eyes of Shimbi.

The Alchemizer does not scan it at all.

Hmm...

Shimbi decides to put his drawing~skills to work... for good this time! He observes what he can see from the machines and he doodles what he has learned so far.



After finishing, and being quite proud of his drawing, Shimbi thinks about the drawing.

He realizes 4 facts:
1.) The thing T~C~O~V~C~B came from must be a blue~cylinder maker.

2.) There's two slots on the typing~thing, and if he learned anything from Dolphindad, it was his love of typing~things. Back in his youth, youngsters would use old~typey~things much like this one instead of computers and husktops and the such. The slot on the typing~thing of course means that something that size, must come out after typing after something the same size was put into the other slot.

3.) A thin thing goes into the slot of the weird shaped thing, and a totem must also go in.

4.) The scanner thing makes things from blue things.

He tries putting a totem into the weird~shaped~thing and it does nothing, so a thin thing IS required.

A thin~thingy MUST be the piece of the puzzle he is missing.

He checks around his hive looking for a thin thing. Something that can fit the slot. A picture maybe? He takes down the portrait of Sir CADAVER II that he knows and loves, puts it in the white slot of his sylladex, and it successfully goes in.

He puts it into the slot of the Totem Lathe, but it spits it out, folding the paper and without his knowledge, turns the portrait lime green. He puts it into his sylladex in the white slot, and... it fails.

Items scatter around the room as the cards empty.

Cards? That's it!

He gathers everything up back into their correct spaces... after a couple failures that is...

He looks at the code on the back of the Sir CADAVER skull. That's probably what you type in, he guesses. He puts the card into the Punch Designix in~slot, types in the code, and out comes the card, but it is now punched in.

He remembered getting a pre-punched card from Taston, now that he thinks about it, and he remembered giving one to his client player, Infira.

He puts the skull~card into its slot, and the first totem into its place. It takes the totem, and it carves it into a new shape.

He puts the pre-punched card into its place, and the second totem into its own. Again, another totem is carved.

Shimbi revises his drawing.



If the new blue things do something, he has stumbled upon something marvelous.

He puts one onto the place of the Alchemizer, and it gets scanned. A broken skull comes out, he's lost some grist. Did the green thing make him lose any? He can't quite remember

Nevertheless, he puts the other totem onto it, and out comes a giant~blue~colored~whale~type~thing. He jumps on top of it with his husktop with him.

He chats two of his friends his findings.

Chatlog to Taston:

Hmm, you don't even know how Inny is right now. She might be super drunk or something, or she might be being a complete beach right now.

Chatlog to Infira:

You then ride your whale!!!!!!

The ferocious Maneclaw leered down at the lone adolescent troll. It’s stark white frame contrasting both with the darkness of the cave it leapt from, but the setting Alternian sun behind it. The beast was covered in scars from previous encounters with this troll, who had a few marks from these fights himself.

This monster was almost like his second Lusus, Talven pondered as he casually leaned backwards, narrowly avoiding a paw bigger than his head. The claws slid just in front of his nose as the warrior turned the dodge into a back-flip, getting some distance between himself and his sparring partner. Boots slid across the ground, getting a degree of footing in preparation for his next attack.

With a flourish of his scythe, Talven side stepped a powerful pounce that sent a cloud of dirt around both combatants. The farmer’s eyes watered just a bit, but that didn’t stop him from racking his blade across this Maneclaw’s side. Another roar sounded over the wind it swiped at Talven one again. Once more, the dodge was narrow and with minimal effort. He squinted in skepticism.

“Geeze, you’ve really go77en sow, haven’7 you?” Talven asked as the floating orb circled around the lion, apparently excited for this ‘prototyping’ that Roxana had talked about.

The wounded Lusus swung with the momentum of its swipe, facing away from its opponent before delivering a swift kick with its hindclaws. This time the troll leaped up into the air to avoid it, followed by whistling in a high pitched note. Immediately his true Lusus, the Sparowtail, dashed in and cut across one of the Maneclaw’s eyes in a flyby.

“It's okay friend...” Talven said, his voice drowned out by the roars of pain.

Sparks leapt between his fingers as he gestured with his left hand at his enemy. A moment later, fire burst out, overwhelming the darkness that was the shadow of the cave as the Maneclaw’s white form was engulfed in a cone of flames. As Talven landed, his Lusus met him on his shoulder once more.

“...I’ll pu7 you out of your misery.” He said with finality, the beast writhing and eventually collapsing on the ground.

However, out of the burning hulk floated a small glowing orb of fire, moving near Talven and dashing around beside him. He didn’t know if prototyping fire was possible, but he sighed knowing this would upset she-who-must-not-be-relaxed.

Spoiler:

As calist righted herself from the unflattering position she had found herself in, she decided that now was as good a time as any to give her server player a piece of her mind, and flipped open her phone to do so. What she found however, was a few messages from the one troll she least wanted to deal with right now, but apparently needed to assist in entering the game. The messages she had received from her client player however, gave Calist an evil, evil idea.

Trollianlog:

Calist's expression transitioned from ]: [ to ]: ] in short order, then changed back again. She still needed to deal with her server player.

Trollianlog:

Calist's expression had not changed much, but there was the awkward silence permeating the air between the two trolls in the room. well, a troll and a trollsprite.

Calist hoped the hate was platonic.

'That_wou|d_be_so_fucked_up.', Calist thought to herself, shaking her head to try to banish the image from her imagination.

She failed.

Infira stretched, right elbow behind her skull, hand on spine. Other arm.
Right arm over chest, left arm on right elbow. Repeat in inverse.
Sit down.
Right leg out, left foot on hip. Repeat with opposite leg.

Officially limbered up, she stared at the sprite which had floated down the stairs. She had to smash the snowglobe, that’s what IGN said. But the kernalsprite wasn’t duo-prototyped, and it wanted a corpse. Creepy, but okay. Later.

> Inny: Smash the goddamn snowglobe.

You proceed to smash the goddamn snowglobe, hurling it at the spirograph platform.

*bounce*

Fuck.

*bounce*

Shit.

*bounce*

Fuck.

*bounce*

You watch it roll to a stop in its oblong fashion, then pout at the sprite. You just can’t break the goddamn snowglobe.

> Entertaining montage: Exist.

This isn’t fair. It won’t break.

you canp break the godam SNOWGLOMB

You glare at the snarky Computersprite, as if it’s the fault of something so precious and innocent.

”Show010110log”:

You throw a brick at it, and it obediently dodges. Into a pile of bricks.

> [s]
Terrible pun aside,

Bricktopsprite: “Clack clack crack.”

> Realization: Set in.

Well, you fucked up, but hell if this isn’t getting a selfie.

[image not made. I might make it later, ugh, restrictions, imagine a troll looking fabulous as fuck in sunglasses brohuggin a masonware laptop man. woulda been the shit.]

You proceed to send this to Calist and Shimbi in response.


> Inny: Get your hired muscle brick to break the orb.

You gesture all cool like, ‘cause suddenly you’re wearing sunglasses and feel snazzy as shit.

The bricktop fires a beam of condensed, sickly-hued, brick-and-digit-filled sunlight about as wide as a garbage can lid at your floor and the snowglobe. It’s a good thing, too, because there was a meteor above you in a fabulously cliffhanger-ready position. As they say, ignorance is dope-as-shit selfies.

And you’re asleep, because for some reason you fell over and hit your head. Light, that wily bastard. Always pushin you around.

~~~~~< { >{ Prospit}< } >~~~~~

And you see yellow cities out your window, cause that’s where you fell asleep last time, drunk on Prospitian wine. Because they made that there, cause they’re adorable little chess people who obviously need that.

You just fly around, being extremely unhelpful to everyone in general.
[/s]

> [Roxana: Be irritated by the unexpected expectation of your server player failing at the most basic levels of instruction following whilst mentally ripping apart some of your carefully laid out plans.]

chatlog:

> [Roxana: Scream therapeutically]

Yep.  This is very healthy.  Good thing you're in an isolated island, or else it might seem like a bit of a scene.  Don't pull your hair out now.

> [Roxana: Flare your teeth at the screen like you just wanted to jump in there and smack sense into your server player]

Okay, okay.  Tone it down now.  Take a few breaths.  There you go, a little better.

> [Roxana: Politely inform your server player of his inadequate behavior]

chatlog:

Well...could have gone worse, I suppose.

> [Roxana: Look up to the sky]

As you finish typing up your reply, you notice the big, fiery rock in the distance. You then look over at the ruins, at a large hourglass in the courtyard. The sand was almost depleted.

> [Roxana: Catch up to the schedule]

You pace faster than usual, knowing all these unscripted issues have thrown you off your optimal run. What was supposed to be a calm and casual occasion was now turning into an actual rush. So much for not panicking during impending disasters.

> [Roxana: Do everything in a rush yet in planned fashion]

And there it was, a sky blue colored hourglass that had been spawned from a pedestal in her Alchemizer. Nothing to do now but wait for the sand in it to tick down and send you into the game.

> [Roxana: Talk to your client player, to check in on things]

Except, looking at your screen you notice your client player is now unconscious. You blink, take a deep breath and ponder profanities in silence.

That's when you notice that your hourglass has run out of sand.

> Enter

The isolated island off the coast disappeared in its entirety, leaving nothing but a crater in the sea for the meteor to strike.

==> Palatl, Stop getting distracted

She fails miserably, maintaining her masks expression as she listened to seemingly infinite Klaks of her crocdad as fire rained from the sky. The only thing the seemed to jog her out of her stupor was the chime of Trollian filling her ears, as her server player seemed to reply to her. With a flash of movement a new mask appears

"}:|"

And with that, the best she coudl do for a serious face appeared, and she went to the husktop and began her reply.

Trollianlog:

Palatl looked around her hive, until she noticed the big ass device she remembered was mentioned to be the Alchem-whatever. She walked over to it, and began to think to herself as she tried to figure out how to work it. However, her Crocdad seemed insistent on helping. Within a short amount of time, Palatl had managed to work out just what she had to do, and now stared at floating mask with a gruesome and furious Juggulo face upon it, glaring into her soul as she stood in awe at it's glowing purple form.

She shook a bit, as some memories clawed their way into her conscious mind. Her claws immediately went to her arms, the urge to puncture her own skin rising as she stepped away. It was suffocating her, the eyes of the mask were mere holes that revealed the world behind it, but the fires of the world lit the holes with a burning rage that reminded her to much of what she saw herself as. What everyone likely saw her as. A rage fueled monster....

Numerous Klaks broke her out of her thoughts, her Crocdad gesturing to the husktop and reminding her of her server duties "Oh that's right. Thanks Crocdad." She said, patting it on the head and panickingly going to the tab to work. Crocdad nodded, happy with accomplishing it's goal of keeping his charge from further mauling herself.

HS to PA:

After being sure her player was set, her eyes fell back to the mask that stare down at her, menacingly glowing with the fires of the world behind it. It was simply to much she thought, the idea of that mask being something related to her survival. Why was such a thing so key, when she tried her best to remove herself from all of those things. The Juggulos, the Mirthful messiahs, the face paints, the faygo, everything. Yet no matter what, it was always staring at her, only now it did so in the material plane.

">:("

Her masked glared into the other, and she began to shake in anger. The thought that all her efforts were enough, that she was never going to escape it, began to relight the fires she always tried to keep dead. Her hands went to her arms, going through her arm holes in the sleeves and puncturing her skin immediately with her claws, trying to use pain to make it all go away. The pain only helped the fire now, as it reminded her of where she was now, and what her own damn blood did to her.

Her teeth clenched down hard, creaking being heard from her jaw and fangs as the pressure built and blood came from her abused gums. More fuel, growls rising from her throat as she glared at the mask. It was what was wrong with her, why her life was the way it was. If she had been a blue blood, or a red blood like her ex-moirail, she'd have never snapped like she did. She would never had hurt her closest loved one, or herself. And now it all stared her in the eyes in the form of that damn mask.

The thought that Calist was watching made Palatl freeze a bit, the idea of showing her Ex this side her pouring some water on the flames, enough for it to not completely control her. but the claws still dug into the skin, and her fangs still made her gums bleed.

She slowly began to walk forward towards the mask, her blood covered hands coming out from her sleeves, one picking up her hooks. She began to spin it, like she remembered seeing the Chainizerkers do when they were pumping up for a swing. then with a loud growl to let out what aggression she had left, she swung towards the object of her anger, and everything went white.

Calist stood in the middle of her rumpus block, staring nervously at her phone and Flarpsprite, alternating between the two, waiting for something to happen. All the while, the sky outside the windows started to take on a reddish tinge. Then, she decided to make something happen.

[Happen xSomething]

Calist picks up the blue colored cylinder and bites into it, much to her sprite's surprise and amusement.

BLECH!

That tastes awful! Like moldy old shoes that have been boiled in sweat and sopor! Lets not do that again.

Calist is unable to help but notice her flarpsprite visibly facepalming and her mood further sours. She then notices the reddening sky and wonders, 'Wa|t_a_m|nute._Just_what_the_actua|_fuck_|s_go|ng_on_here?'.

"Oh,_fuck._That_|s_one_fuck_huge_meteor_headed_for_us."

Calist stood there for a moment, not quite fully comprehending that this was, in fact, happening within the realm of her own reality and existence, but after that moment passed, it clicked.

"OH_GOG!_WE'RE_GONNA_D|E!"

She then pauses for a moment considering briefly her flarpsprite, "Wa|t,...._can_you_even_d|e?"

Calist then returns to her own predicament and begins trying to figure out the machinery surrounding her in a feverish flurry of activity! She settles on this one microscope looking thingy and starts fiddling with it roughly, but is getting absolutely nowhere. Calist appears to be fixated on the machine, muttering under her breath, her voice rising into a crescendo as the red light grows brighter and begins permeating the block, accompanied by a loud roar.

"oh_fuck,_oh_fuck,_oh_WHY!_WHY_DO_|_A|WAYS_HAVE_TO_FUCK_EVERYTH|NG_UP_WHEN_|T_MATTERS_MOST?!


[Happen xImpact]

(was gonna post, then saw now one did. BUMP)

Infira wasn't quite sure what do do at this point. All of them were either asleep with their heads to the table or leaning back mumbling drunkenly. She had completely won everything, though. Her side of the table was filled with poker chips in shades of white and tan, a few weird, rainbow bars and an IOU. She took a long swig from whatever the thing she was drinking. The label just said "Lux Aurumque 1986." It was pretty light, but had knocked out the cute chess guys rather effectively.

"well, shorry ta play an run," she slurred slightly. "but I gotta wake up, probably." She had the strangest feeling that she was being deadly irresponsible by not being awake. She stared at her hand of cards. Some of these didn't make sense, there was a Prince of Void in there. She didn't know much in the way of tarot, so maybe it was a different deck. She captchalogued the hand in her Bloto Modus, and it landed in the tenth slot. It blinked red a bit, then calmed down. Apparently she was just basically hammered. She added the bottle for later, and it booted the cards to the eleventh slot. She sat down, suddenly slightly dizzier. This modus was both a blessing and a curse. Mostly that last one, cause she already knew when she was drunk.

”Bloto Modus”:

> Awake.

Snap. You’re up. And what the hell, you’re in your living room now. Why not. A little crocodile imp thing is biting on your toes. Somehow not the strangest thing you’ve seen.

> Captchalogue Imp.

You catch him off guard, and he goes into the tenth slot, pushing the bottle, luckily, into the ninth. Don’t want that one ejecting.
Wait, why the fuck did you do that?

> Allocate cards to Strife Specibus.

You add the cards to your specibus without resistance to the magical commands. You already had some normal playing cards, though, so they go into the tenth slot.

But wait, it’s full!

Fifty-two cards are propelled at around ninety miles per hour into your living room etcetera. You know, you don’t even mind the new look. What with a vandalized vase with a card in the wall behind it, a shredded sofa, a crippled coffee table. 10/10, would fuck up again.

You take out your phone, which was not present in the silky pyjamas. You scroll down on Pesterchum, futilely making it reload for new messages that would not come. You switch to your browser, Bacchus. You’ve got a forum thread to read about the shit that’s now scattered around your house. No, not the cards, the weird white things that look like alien landing platforms and shit.

Taston goes to reach for the machinery in front of him, ready to figure out just how all this crazy shit would work. He was interrupted, however, by two separate messages, one from each of the purple bloods. He scans through the messages one after another, a disapproving expression coming about when trying to remember the ins and outs of Palatl's typing quirk. To make a long read short both messages consisted of the purple bloods explaining exactly how these machines work, one more coherent than the other but still; the jist is the jist. He thinks for a moment that *maybe* the Purple bloods were explaining this to help out what they saw as a simple minded, easily-confused, low blood. He, of course, shakes this ridiculous notion out of his head. There is no 'maybe' in the matter! Of course they thought that, condescension is in their nature after all.

After taking a small break to mumble a hemospectrum's worth of swear words under his breath, the culmination of which resulted in his new favourite phrase, 'Fucki'n' Clow'n' fish', he gets to work creating this 'entry item' Shouldn't be too hard, only problem are the imps. Working upstairs would at least mean that any interruption would swiftly be solved by throwing a book and letting the ground below handle the rest. He decides to operate up in his respiteblock.

Despite the overwhelming and straining task of putting objects into object shaped holes, he manages to pop out his carved totem. His celebration, however, would have to wait as he suddenly found himself preoccupied by the new architectural feature of his house. A large hole, massive rock and loud fuckin' crash was the all the rage nowadays. Quite literally if his friends were also suffering from similar apoca-weather. But hey, look on the bright side! The slightly flaming hole in his respite block gave him an ample view of the sky outside. It was red, very red. 'Sky on goddamn fire' red. He briefly recalls an old saying regarding red skies at nighttimes and some type of woolbeast herder but then remembers that 'saying's are a luxury afforded to those with a life expectancy longer than a mayfly's. And the fire skies accompanying meteorite hail was not making that expectancy any bloody higher.

Though he did take the time to captchalogue a small chunk of the meteorite. Space is cool, Space trying to kill you with big rocks does not lessen that fact.

A hop, skip and a couple of window shattering rumbles throughout the hive later and Taston was back to the Alchemiter. Placing the totem was followed by a flash of light. The result of which lay on the ground of the platform. It was a box, made of some weird crystal material colored the same shade of burgundy as his blood. It seemed to have a door with a dial on the front of it. His first thought was how incredibly unlike a whale this looked. But a little shake from his good friend earth shattering impacts reminded him of what his goal should be. The combination.

...

What the fuck was the combination?

Like seriously, what the fuck? At first he tried the basics, spinning the thing around randomly to see if it was that simple. When that wouldn't work he tried numbers that were important to him. Every other improbable goddamn thing had happened today maybe he would end up being the answer. He wasn't. And after getting to 0-0-3 of his trial and error solution he realized that no amount of random guessing was going to fix this. He did come up with an idea after seeing an especially nasty looking piece of orbital debris heading right for the area between is hive and the volcano. If he had a calculator he would have done the math but unfortunately he was pretty sure such a thing resided in the half of his house that was on fire. But he knew enough to understand that the resultant force from the impact would eviscerate him and his hive... But it might also be enough to crack this safe. He hoped that the safe didn't hold anything living or priceless because it would be nothing but molten glass after that big motherfucker hit.

He removed his jacket, wrapping it around the safe and dragging it along. His levitation was far too weak to hold the thing up alone but all his headache inducing straining made the impossible task... Really really hard. An improvement he guessed. All his huffing and puffing even made for some good time, a nice little clearing being the spot he guessed would be within the impact zone. He sprinted back to his hive coat in hand and dove through the front door into a ball on the floor as the ear drum piercing collision filled the room. His shut eyes could not see the shockwave racing towards the hive behind him, nor the floor and walls around him glowing white. In fact, he didn't really see anything until the impact of glass on the ground around him not being followed by hot, megatons of death. The realization that he was not, in fact, dead made him jump up and scream to his ceiling,

"WOOOO, FUCK YOU SAAAAAAAFES!!!"

Nanako wrote:"oh_fuck,_oh_fuck,_oh_WHY!_WHY_DO_|_A|WAYS_HAVE_TO_FUCK_EVERYTH|NG_UP_WHEN_|T_MATTERS_MOST?!


[Happen xImpact]

====> ??????? Help out the little one

You appear in the frame, time stopping and standing still as you looked around the room with a slight distance to it all, despite feeling the foreign familiarity of the place. You could dive into what was different, and you would like to delve into that, however the needs of the session took precedence and you could only keep this up for so long before you were expelled like the foreign body you were. So, with a sigh, you look to the Troll girl known as Caliste, in the midst of her freak out. With a shake of your head, you moved forward and began to quick process of getting the troll girls entry item. She had been close to figuring it out, but her team it seems left her in the dust and it was all for naught.

After a short time playing with the machinary, the entree item appeared before you and you smiled. You then stared towards the Troll girl behind you and began to walk towards her. She would end up being an issue later on, but that issue was needed. Your comrades have worked to hard for you to question them, so with that though, you simply tapped her head. As you did, she personally began to once more play out in real time, while the environment around her was still frozen in time. She would have time to figure out just how to enter the game, but you would be long gone from this hive and scene. She may see some hint you were there, but only if she wer enot focused on the glowing entrance item that beckoned her attention....

~~~~~~~~~~

PerpetuallyAdroit wrote: "WOOOO, FUCK YOU SAAAAAAAFES!!!"

As Taston screamed this out into the heavens, he could hear a bunch of movement within his hive on the floor above him, a sif numerous feet were running about. The sound of furniture being tipped over confirmed the presence. Out side a nearby window, he could see an odd landscape sprawling out before him, and reaching over the horizon. With all this, it was quite obvious that Taston wasn't on Alternia anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~

As Infira played with her devices, more imps began to crawl into her hive cautiously. One of them had massive jaws like a snap beast, while another seemed to be made purely of fire. Both of them seemed ready to fight, and began to stare at the troll girl as if preparing to -oh wait there they go charging before I finished, well isn't that rude.

~~~~~~~~~~

Roxana awakens to see the open black sky of her new world, the sound of waves oddly absent to her despite how much of a constant they had been before. The heat of the moon was different as well, as if she ha dfound herself somewhere that was not where she had live dher entire life. The sand below her though spoke otherwise, and she would quickly figure out that she was not alone, a quick glance to her side showing small foot prints in the sand that were obviously not made by her now dead and reanimated Lusus, which seemed to be now finishing up a meal despite she knew she didn't feed it since the last time she did.

It took a few moments, but it wasn't long before Calist noticed that despite the red glow that still filled the environment around her hadn't changed, the loud roar had stopped. More than a little puzzled by this turn of events, as well as a pair of glowing statuettes on the pedestal of a machine nearby, Calist decided that she was going to figure out just what was going on. Stepping quickly through the mess in her rumpus block to the window, She discovered that the meteor that had been headed straight for her hive had stopped a matter of maybe the height of a single hive short of crushing hers, and any hope she had had of entering the game and surviving. Needless to say, the sight of such a large celestial body suspended in midair with no apparent cause gave Calist chills, and highlighted the need to get moving.

It was then that Calist turned back to the glowing figurines on the pedestal, adding much to her general lack of amusement. While having her flarpsprite frozen in place such that Calist could conceivably do anything she wanted to mess with said flarpsprite, the subject matter of the two figurines was sufficient to counter the thought of playing some manner of prank on that high and mighty flarpsprite, and then some. WHile most would not be able to decipher the meaning conveyed by the two figurines, Calist had no trouble recognizing them as representations of herself and former moirail Palati. Worse, the two were clearly part of a single whole, making it painfully obvious just what Calist had to do with this glowing item. Calist resolved that the moment she got the chance, it was going to be pitched straight out the window.

Fortunately for Calist, the act of reuniting the halves saved her the trouble with a flash of white light and a change in scenery. Where Calist now found herself located, or the how of getting there, she did not know, she did know one thing. The bright white sky and endless sandy, rocky, canyons were painful to look at.

"Fuck!_Why_does_|t_have_to_be_broad_day||ght_r|ght_now!_Th|s_can't_be_good_for_my_gander_bu|bs..."

Infira looked up at the imps charging towards her. “Ohhhhfuck, rnonsters, fuck fuck fuck”
She backed away slowly, holding out a card. Heir of Doom. “welp that can’t be a good ornen,” she murmured to herself, gracefully whacking her had on a wall shelf and bumping her bony butt against the wall on her way down.

“you know, guys, i think i’ll fight ya frorn down here, yeah?” she looked up at the crocodile one, which looked confused. She grinned up at him blearily, then held up a finger. “wait, deal, so, I don’t trounce your butts and you don’t trounce mine, k?” She took out the bottle of Prospitian wine and handed it to the other guy, cause the crocodile jaws didn’t look fit for the job. “hey croc, go grab yourself a cup from the pantry, it’s in the kitchen.” He turned away, as though questioning why he was listening to the girl. Maybe he hadn’t expected conversation. She paused, sitting up and looking at the fire guy. “He’s never gonna find rny dad, he’s dead.”
The fire thing looked at her like she was crazy.
“Hey, we’ve known eachother like five rninutes, at least try to rnake conversation!” She patted the floor next to her, and the imp fell to the ground as though its body were suddenly very heavy. “Woah, didn’t do that on purpose, sorry little guy.” The fire thing nodded, as though it were no problem. Then he shook his head, cause he didn’t believe the situation he was in. First he leaves for the first day of work, says a dramatic goodbye to his family and then catches the fuck on fire. Then he goes to the thing that he’s supposed to find, and it turns out she doesn’t wanna die and just wants to drink the funny smelling liquid.

The snapbeast guy came back with a martini glass, looking at her for approval. “Yeah, works, siddown.” He sat down gently. She had been trying that time, but no dice. “so, whadda you guys get up to? lots of players stornped today?” The croc gestured a bit, and she got the gist. “All your friends turn into weird things like you two?”

This time the fire guy responded, nodding curtly. Then he turned the bottle upside down, because they had apparently finished it off all already. She sighed, pulling a swig from her hip flask. “Don know what to tell ya, firehead.” She looked at the two, and unsteadily stood, using the nearby door jamb as a support. “I’m all out of alcoholic beverages of any shape sort or sound, haha…” She lied because she didn’t want the imps drinking all her booze.

And then she looked out her window, and hot damn. That was not her lawn ring.

Land of Gilt Walkways and Bookshelves

That was a whole fuckin library. IN her lawn ring. Okay, so it was actually her lawn ring. But it had a lot of shit that would not fit inside her abode, like the gold.

All that goddamn gold.

And if gold were wine, which it technically is at a slight rate, she saw a paradise there. Although the fact that her entire planet, and presumably its economy, had been burnt up by meteors sort of soured it for her. She reverently smooshed her face to the window. Books, whatever. Bookshelves, whatever. But gold, that was a sight for sore eyes. Which hers were, bloodshot with green. She slowly walked to her door, pulling the knob back.

And on her butt again. Wow, fancy seeing you there, floor. She crawled past the door, afraid it would knock her over again, and onto her sort of withered grass. She had forgotten to mow again, whoops. Ha-ha. Crawling, past the yard gnome, past the sprinkler, past the little ceramic dinosaurs next to the birdbath. And then she whacked her head on the bookshelf cause she was still staring at the dinosaurs.

Trolls have fantastically thick skulls.

She stood up, head a bit clearer from the collision. The sign was terrifying to her. It read “A- cont. part 97.”
Now, realistically, this would be terrifying to anyone, but Infira found it terrifying because while she had looked at it she had had the original intentions to read its letters and gain a bearing of her location. However, the behemoth reflected in the gold plaque was much more eye-catching, so she spun around and stared at it. Fuck. It was huge. It had black skin covered in green digits. It had tusks.

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD

She dashed down the hall created by the massive bookshelves, and then in an alarming display of agility climbed up the sliding ladder that miraculously did not slide. And the ogre was having a trouble lifting his feet. Well, okay, that’s good.
She fell to her back on top of the huge bookshelf, staring into a solid black sky. Her heart was beating really, really fast. She was panting too. She had made it up the ladder.
She had climbed a ladder.

This accomplishment apparently warranted a nifty jingle, a pretend feather in a fantasy cap, and coins falling into a piggy bank that probably didn’t exist. She was now a “Half-Pint Wannabe,” according to the Echeladder.
She looked at her phone.

”Show Memolog”:

Your arm falls to the side, and you stare at the back of your eyelids. The vibration of your phone will wake you up.

"Uh..."

Taston was... confused. As confused as anyone would be if their front lawn had transformed into a weird new landscape in, what felt like, an instant. But hey, he would take a weird fuckin' new lawn than the smoking crater that his old one was now.  He slowly approaches his front door, cautiously poking his head out to investigate where exactly he was at.

The first thing he noticed was how goddamn dark everything was. Even as a creature who spends most of his waking hours living and working at night-time he could barely make out objects more distant than the volcano. Oh, the volcano made it... sweet? Don't know why the game choose to bring along one of the contenders for the 'Things that might kill Taston instantaneously' list but whatever. He did notice, however, that there were massive, inky silhouettes of grand structures in the distance. Far too faint to distinguish any architecture but they were definitely goddamn there. These... towers maybe? Whatever they were they seemed to be one of the only sources of light around. A single source of randomly coloured light projected from what he assumed was the top of these things. As his vision adjusted more to the new lowlight environment he began to see that many lights were all around him, a sea of multicoloured coloured dots painted along the night sky. He has never witnessed something so weird in his entire life... well apart from every other weird thing that had happened today. They were like stars at night but that only fill a section of the sky closest to the horizon. Huh, suppose he will have to go see what is up with them at a later time. For now he had more pressing matters concerning the hive guests pissing about upstairs.

He withdraws his ShortBladeKind, barging into his respiteblock in moment that was both over-dramatic and painfully unintimidating. The reaction to this being several imps looking back at him with befuddled expressions. Or at least he thinks they were imps. They seemed to have changed from little black men into randomly designed monsters, themes and body parts that he doesn't recognise. They looked kinda dangerous actually, they had wings now. That's uh... wait they look like your sprites wings. He wonders if any have that circle thing above their head. He also concludes that the random designs might have something to do with his friends and his prototypings. Welp, doesn't matter, time to meet your end imp fucks.


So he steps forward, taking a MIGHTY SWING like a TRUE HERO.... it was not very effective. Infact if a hit could be so weak it could heal an enemy then this would do it. The imp is cringing, it's embarrassed for Taston. It's not even attacking back it's so embarrassed for him. Taston decides whether to be offended or to try again but he end he decides that a tactical retreat is best. So after running away from the imps like a little bitch grub he slides to a stop in front of the machinery. Hmm, he wonders if these could help out. It would be pretty ridiculous if they only served to create an entry item. Their huge. Maybe if sylladex cards are punched in order to create the totem that creates the item then other sylladex cards can be used to create other shit.

After a few moments... okay several moments... several minutes... okay 20 minutes fine!!! ... ... ...and 37 seconds Taston comes to a conclusion about the machine, which is good because he really didn't want to find out what happens if he uses up all his cards. From what he can tell the punch combination that the card goes through to create new items can overlap with other cards punch patterns. The result of which is an item created from the two, a mish-mash of the two's abilities. So he looks in his sylladex, didn't seem like anything particularly good enough to mix. Husktop, meteorite chunk, Short Blade... He decides that mixing a meteorite chunk with a short sword is the coolest thing he has ever thought of.

You make the METEORIC BLADE, a thing made from a thing that almost killed you 20 minutes, 37 seconds and bit a little bit ago. Perfect.

You quickly rush upstairs blade in hand to put an end to these imps insulting empathy however when you get there all you find is a floor full of grist and your sprite. She, you're assuming she's a she, has changed since you last saw her, actually having a body and such this time. She must have killed these guys,

Pesterlog:

Some time later

The Sparrowtail circled beneath the layer of smoke that separated Talven from precious sunlight. Burn marks and chunks of little black monsters decorated the area, his personal garden long since trampled. He scowled and looked out from his position atop the heap of charred imps, hoping to find no more enemies forcing their way into his courtyard.

A lone surviving imp was sprinting away as hard and fast as possible, making small screeching noises. Talven chuckled. It was funny because it was on fire. He slowly reached for his scythe, resting in the carapace of another minion, plucked it out and through it. Before it even connected, he leaned back on the pile of corpses and just listened to the sound of an Imp being cut in half.

Scling

Tick

Thump Thump

Perfect.

Talven lit a fire between his thumb and forefinger, juggling it between his fingers. He stared up at the clouds of smoke as they slowly moved away, allowing a blazing orange sun to beat down on him. He needed to find a way off of this terrible planet. This place wasn't terrible to visit, what with the endless fields of wheat and monsters to kill, but the fire and interrupted sunlight made it unlivable.

The Troll leaned up and looked out from his high ground, over the castle walls and off into the golden-brow fields of freshly grown crops. It swayed just like it did back on Alternia. A little ways west of these fresh plants, a massive curtain of fire roared and continued on its journey, dragging a trail of smoke behind it.

As his Swallowtail landed on a nearby tower next to Firesprite, there was only one thing Talven could say.

"We have to move."