681/NODE: The Game of Death 2

NODE: The Game of Death 2
Date of Scene:	26 September 2014
Location:	The Homeworld
Synopsis:	In Vruasa's Node, things go from harvesting resources to encountering a high-Shift Pure, all the while he discusses castle decoration with the game master.
Cast of Characters:	2, Staren, Vruasa Telash, Fiora O'Brien, 181, 253, 347
Tinyplot:	When They Return

---

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    You know what the boring part of this whole mess is? It's the part where everybody gathers at the door and mills around before actually doing anything of substance. VRUASA is sick and tired of this particular part of everything, so he decides to arrive approximately .5 seconds after the last person filed in, and then accelerated everyone past the awkward introductory phase and into the entry into the node itself. THEREFORE, all intended participants rapidly find themselves fast forwarding through a minute or two of their lives, skipping this dreadfully tedious portion of the scene.

    The fast forward stops upon ENTRY past the initial corridor.

    VRUASA TELASH is currently simply himself, though he seems to be taking this seriously. He's clad in his captain's coat and carrying one of his actually effective spears -- at the moment, the diamond-tipped Regispear -- with Ulixes plugged into his empty eye socket. He grins fangily at nobody in particular and opens up a dialogue box in trollian.

DL: hey
DL: hey bitch
DL: w@ke up bitch

    "I don't remember inviting like half of you. Welcome to the motherfucking party. We're gonna go find some assholes living out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. If you ask too many questions or nitpick the minutiae too much I'm gonna vote you off the island." Vruasa addresses everyone assembled. He sounds pretty amped to be here, the harshness of what he's saying aside. Evidently he really enjoys picking at the antagonist of this node for whatever reason.

Psalm (181) has posed:
    Goodness, that's a rush. Awkwards greetings and hugs and shit be damned, we're skipping this cutscene.
    Miss Songsteel finds herself rushed through the explanation of this particular place and straight into things. Acceptable. Maggie still manages out a wave to Fiora and Psyber and the others, most of whome she knows from Sburb and Sgrub. What is new for her is the Node idea, and more so actually using Clef. She adjusts the tiara a bit, and pokes at his braid. "Wake up, soldier."

    That said, she's got her armor, she's got her sword and she's ready to be Maximum Pest. Life is Good.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    HOMURA AKEMII (not very creative on the name, sadly) shows up, wearing... grey shorts and a black shirt. There is a copper gun on it. She has applied shitty grey makeup and put on a pair of fake troll horns, possibly casual bits of candy corn cobbled together correctly, which aren't symmetrical. One is vaguely bullet shaped and the other is curved backwards.

    "Did I do this correctly?"

    She did pick one of the lower blood colors on the chart, going for copper. That was probably the point, so she can just follow Vruasa's instructions without breaking character. Presumably if it were up to her she'd be wearing purple, but that tends to be royalty or something? She's not sure.

    Either way this should totally suffice.

    Suitably, she's holding a wooden rifle, vaguely copper-colored as a result. Looks like a fancier musket, but nothing too great either.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    There is no PSYBER here today. Instead, there's PYRBES LEGNAS. A troll warlord and battle expert, he is most famous for never losing a fight so long as his lieutenant was with him. While not painted grey, he has huge fake horns on his head that may be elk horns painted orange. He is wearing a black t-shirt with a rust-colored pair of wings on it to be his emblem. Otherwise he is wearing blue jeans and sneakers. Scotch-taped to his shirt is his Nathan Hallkind card.

    The reason he is famous for never losing when his lieutenant is around is because of this card. FOR ACROSS HIS BACK IS THAT LIEUTENANT. His name is NATHAN HALSUX (read: Adjudicator). The greatsword has been dressed up in a white long-sleeved shirt and slacks. Over the shirt is a sweater vest. Fitted across the eye of the Abstractum is a pair of lensless glasses. He figures the sword has lived with him long enough to emulate Nathan.

    "Sup?" He asks to everyone, looking around, "Try not to worry my lieutenant too much." He says, jerking a thumb at his back.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    "You guys look perfect. Just like this guy." Vruasa whips out a TINY PRINTER and prints an image to show to Psyber and Homura.



    It's unclear if he is encouraging them to be horribly offensive or not.

Staren has posed:
    Staren arrives a few minutes beforehand. He's wearing what looks like his ALO outfit (with clear crystals integrated into the design here and there,) plus a dark red wizard hat and cape, and, of course, his Abstractum, Eureka on his left hand. A subtler difference is that his bandana and his coat collar are pulled up a bit to cover more of his face, perhaps to help compensate for the lack of a helmet.

    LIVIN' IN FAST FORWARD

    "Umm... asking questions is kind of my thing, just let me know if I'm doing it too much?" he asks, slightly nervously.

    Also... Suddenly, fake trolls everywhere. "Aww man, nobody told me I was supposed to dress up as a troll! Um... shoot. Should I like, leave and come back?"

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    SPEAKING OF PURPLE.

    FIIORA OBRIEN does not arrive, so much as is flopped over on a convenient rock near the entrance, her 'costume' less a contrafaction of costuming things and appears, for all intents and purposes, is her body. Or, the closest illusory equivalant.

    She is dressed in a black t-shirt (with a purple squid punch-out on it), grey jeans, and black shoes. Her skin is troll-grey, with purple highlights on her elbows, shoulders, cheeks, eyes, etc. Her normally red hair is black, and her candy cane horns curl back from her brow into her heinous mane of hair.

    Sitting up, she laughs at the other people, sneering lightly with a toothy grin. "Alright, grubbos, fall in! For everything boring, look to Vruasa! For anything interesting..." She cracks her knuckles, pulling Hecate out from behind the rock, slinging it over her shoulder. "Point me at it, so I can /break/ it and roll around in the GLOREY!"

    She pronounces that more akin to 'gore' than 'glory'. It is an obvious portmanteau.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    What's past the door that Vruasa brings the group to is looking a little strange.

    The door is all on its own, set into a wall without any structure around it. There is a lot of wilderness out here. A LOT. Which is to say, pretty much as far as the eye can see, this place is foresty. There's a silhouette that looks like it might be some kind of castle off in the distance, but it's a ways away, a long, long ways away.

    There's also the beginnings of Vruasa's defensive structures, the myriad bits of architecture crafted out of the local game systems when nearby resources were abstractly harvested and converted into construction.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Vruasa, of course, gets a response.

)(IC: ugh its blue text boy again
)(IC: water you want scumsucker
)(IC: busy keeling some other dumb bassholes right now
)(IC: make it snappery

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "I'm ready." Clef says, simply. "I'm hre to help as soon as you call on me, Songsteel." The tiara's got a rather soldier-like posture, but it might just be that it doesn't have any other postures.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Adjudicator seems to not particularly like this costume. Its disapproval face, in as much as it can have a face at all, seems to be doing overtime here. But it's keeping mostly quiet at least. "Yes, /please/ do not mind." It says, simply.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
DL: wh@
DL: @re there other re@l people in here
DL: who the hell @re you even killing
DL: @nyw@y m@ybe i just like h@ssling you
DL: @ctu@lly check th@ i fucking love h@ssling you
DL: you're hil@rious

    Vruasa looks around at the 'defense structures'. What the hell is he supposed to do with this? Build up into a-- oh. Oh god, no. You've got to be fucking kidding. He makes a disgusted face and shakes his head. This had better not be what he thinks it's going to be. It would be the... second? Third? Fourth goddamn time.

    "I don't feel like checking out the OBVIOUS ENEMY FORTRESS in the distance yet. Let's go exploring and see if we can find some other assholes getting murdered. Pretty sure the godawful GM here is busy focusing on them right now, because she's aggravated that I'm talking to her." Vruasa says to the others, and he doesn't wait for an affirmative to start drifting off from their "starting point". Since they had a clue from last time, he decides to fly in the direction of that area with the cloth trapped on branches.

    Maybe they can find a trail.

    "This DOES count as boring, right?" He asks Fiiora, who is technically supposed to be in charge.

    To the rest he asks, "So what the hell have you guys been up to outside this nonsense? None of you ever has a boring life, so there's no way you don't have a story to tell. Me, I've been making robot clones of things trying to make some shit for this node. Hasn't been working out though."

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "That's incredibly offensive but seen that way I can see how you might be seeing us that way right now," Homura comments to Vruasa, before Fiora gives a speech. It's odd to see the Voidy Witch use the direct path like that. Or plan to use it, anyway. She must be thoroughly enjoying the ability to do so.

    She will accompany Vruasa, although the wings she uses to fly probably look a bit out of place with her costume, being angelic pink wings and all. A bit blurry towards the purple end of the pink spectrum, but not so much as to constitute corruption yet. They'd be black if it was, anyway. And not angelic at all.

    "Oh, erm... school, mostly. University. There's a thing with lovecraft-based giant robots going on I pitch in sometimes. Mostly other people's Nodes and various Homeworld matters. It's not as exciting as you would think. I'm probably a bad storyteller anyway," she answers, not making a big deal out of her involvements.

    "What do you mean, robot clones of things, anyway? The 'of things' part confuses me. What have you been making robot clones of? People? Trees? Rocks?"

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Uuuuuuh. A city I was watching over got attacked and I managed to talk the invader into calling her troops off. Then I had an argument with Nathan Hall. I fought a traitor who managed to cut me in the side so hard some organs fell out. Uhm... I had dinner with someone the other night at the Boston docks. Lovecraft robots. Some sort of weird concept girl I help out. OH, I negotiated a treatise and put to rest a grudge that was over sixteen hundred years old. I'm helping out in a world where the dead won't stay dead. Mostly, though, I've just been teaching Homura's college classes. And that's mostly just the past month or so," Psyber says, rubbing at his chin as he walks and answeres Vruasa's question with a quick review of his usual activities.

    "So nothing too new, just juggling the same old shit. What about you?" He asks, not paying much attention to how upset his sword is. He's just gonna follow Vruasa.

Psalm (181) has posed:
    Maggie happily trundles along with the party, smiling up at Clef. "We'll find something for you to yell at."

    She's confused by the Blackface thing, but seems to be more a culturatl refrenece so she blowsthat off. The question gets her to smile though. "Oh, would you believe I've stuck my nose in yet another end of the world post apocolypse scenario? This time with actual catpeople and elfs rather than internet fake ones."
    The redhead adjusts her gear. "It's been nice putting my armor back to good use, let me tell you. Oh, and then I've been harassing Arturia and her Consort. That's fun."

Staren has posed:
    When Staren hears there's another group to find, he decides to take to the air -- Vruasa seems to have the same idea, so he flies after.

    "Outside this? Uh... Dealing with some asshole who wants to turn nice bunnypeople into monsters and then use them as an army. Having my head invaded by some kind of memetic parasite. Mizuki got it out. Oh, helping Mizuki with /her/ world. Her evil side is trying to take it over. Let's see... trying to figure out how to make the future alternate universe version of my girlfriend a little friendlier, but apparently everyone she used to know is now out to get her so I can kinda see why she wouldn't be friendly. Uh... Let's see, what else am I missing..."

    Staren blinks at Homura. "I've been wondering what the deal is with that actually..." Then he looks surprised at Psyber. "You teach classes?" Then back at Homura. "Wait, you're going to college?" Finally he looks to Psalm. "/Another/ end of the world? What is it /this/ time?"

    Staren suddenly remembers something. "Oh! Oh! Speaking of internet fake people, I went back to Kirito's node. Somehow, the people inside have access to the internet, the jerk messing everything up there is livestreaming his escapades to an actual multiverse website and he's the #2 most popular on it," *sigh* "but when I asked them for his IP it just pointed back to Kirito's node. So, all that stuff, basically. What about you?"

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiiora, the Purple Blooded Land-Tyrant just sort of looks intensely bored. "Yeah, yeah, it's boring. It's all boring. Tactics are boring. Planning is boring. Organization? Boring. Gathering information is for nerds. I want to get into a fight, kill whatever I'm fighting, and roll around in all the Glorey. It's bluebloods like YOU!" She jams a black-nailed finger into Vruasa's chest, with a huge grin on her face. "To find the fights, plan the fights, and do all the stupid, fiddly boring shit. THat's how this works. Oh, and it's my job to JUDGE you for it. That's right. So, chopchop!" She offers, tokking him on the head gently with Hecate.

    "Oh, what I've been doing? I dunno. Eating food. Sleeping. Being a huge entitled bitch to everyone? You know, the usual." She jokes, wandering around below the group and letting her voice carry up.

    She's very casually conversational as she wanders boredly along.

    "Hey, Pyrbes. Tell me something insightful. Or funny. Do a trick!" She urges.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    "Working on non-sapient things at the moment. I tried making a robot clone of a mime and a clown but it didn't work out." Vruasa doesn't explain the situation any further than that. Given how he views everything ever, 'didn't work out' probably means something profoundly horrible. It's probably best not to inquire further on that subject. With regards to what he's been up to, he shrugs, "/I've/ been boring lately, apart from experimenting with the ectobiology machines on and off. Even I've got to take it easy once in a while, I guess."

    "Oh man, the people I associate with sticking their noses in apocalypse scenarios. What a fucking shocker. Man, it's like some asshole out in the sky just sits around coming up with these and throws them at the wall until they stick and people go avert them somehow." He rambles, in reaction to Psalm's tales.

    Vruasa tilts his head in Staren's direction, offering him what may or may not be a sharp look. It's hard to tell with those sunglasses. He shakes his head, "I'm not surprised, and I'm pretty fuckin' sure we'll see more bizarre instances of node-based interaction with the Multiverse at large."

    To Fiiora, he says, "We live in the same hive, bitch, I know what you've been doing. I'm sure we'll find something you can kill soon." There's no real bite in those words.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber responds to Staren with, "Interim Dean of Occult Studies at Miskatonic University," He notes rather simply, "Filling in for a friend on sabbatical. It was part of a favor I did to get Homura into the University." He explains, hands falling into his pockets as he walks along.

    To Vruasa, he simply replies, "My life has a fever and the only prescription is more apocalypses."

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "A... clown and a mime." He did say not to ask for more details. She decides she really does not need to know. This sounds like the beginning of a horror game story anyway. 'You've been hired to watch over the clown and mime animatronics at the restaurant during night-shift,' or something like that.

    She shudders and files it away for now.

    "I could do with less apocalypses, but as I don't see what happening any time soon, the sane solution seemed to be to just get used to it and roll with it," Homura finally settles on for an answer, then she glances ahead.

    "So, the gamemaster. Do you think she's your antagonist here?"

Psalm (181) has posed:
    Maggie crsses her arms and her chainmail clinks. "Look, buddy, i can't help it if I'm good at resolving apocalypses. It is a Thing I do, alright? Only this time it's not a death game and the world isn't quite dead."

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Another response, sent to Vruasa.

)(IC: duh
)(IC: plenty
)(IC: none of em are dressin up like trolls
)(IC: thats new
)(IC: whatever doesnt matter
)(IC: what do you think i just sit around playing games
)(IC: by myself
)(IC: nah this is gon be new empire eventually
)(IC: just gotta work the barnacles off the thing first

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Heading out into the woods brings the group into the clearing they found before, which is the area where they fought the bugmen. There are, of course, plenty of other similar flickering bugmen, adorned with bars and readouts that are apropos for a FLARP setting, but they appear to mostly be alone, or lower level than the group that was initially cleared out. Some might attack if you approach too quickly, but the GM seems disinterested in running them!

    There is no trail. However, there IS indication of what the others come here for: Resources! Specifically, the resource collection nodes in the trees and rocks here are lightly depleted. So it's a question of how you'd analyze their depletion, when it comes to figuring out how to deal with this.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Most of what PYRBES LEGNAS does is try to one shot as many nearby bug men with his weapon to see what livers or bug asses he can harvest off them for later vendor trash purposes.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
DL: why would you even want to take this place over
DL: why do you want an empire at all
DL: i thought you were done with that

    Vruasa looks vaguely aggravated with this entire situation. He kicks at a 'drained' tree, and doesn't bother engaging the local flapstractions. They're too low-level to be worth engaging, and even if they all bunched up they wouldn't be worth much of anything. Especially with the GM gone like this. Alright. That's not really particularly helpful overall, but it's a start. It means that somebody keeps coming back here.

    "Ulixes, rev up and turn back the clock on my visuals in your side of things to when these guys were here last. I want to just follow them back to wherever they came from." Technically, from the future of them actually having been here. Vruasa looks around towards Fiiora, and points at her, "Unless you just want to punch bugs--" PYRBES is already doing that, "-- maybe you should use some of your spooky mystery powers to, I dunno. Figure out where the fuck we're supposed to go to find these chucklefucks."

    He's pretty sure it doesn't work that way. Regardless, he is uncharacteristically unable to offer suggestions as to how people could exploit their abilities to get them where they're probably going.

Staren has posed:
    Staren nods in response to Vruasa's instructions to Ulixes. "That sounds like a good plan." He waits for Vruasa to show which way to go.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "The only thing my powers will be good for is for putting holes everywhere once we actually get there. Or in people. Which is something you can also do, anyway," Homura comments, as she checks the trees out. So this is the sort of game where the players aren't just expected to wander about killing people, but actively gather resources to build things? Hm.

    "What about setting traps, though? Find a place with rich resource nodes that hasn't been tapped yet, put... I don't know, nets, mines, holes and such under the ground with something to alert you when they go off, and wait it out. Keep a tyrannical grip on your resources, ensure people get the message they're yours and nobody else's," she does offer, though.

    That might tickle Fiiora's fancy more than Vruasa's though.

Psalm (181) has posed:
    LUCKILY, Maggie's not just good looking. She's also got some smarts when it comes to How To Find Things Out. Also, she's sneaky.

    Psalm steps on over towards one of the EMPTY ASS ROCKS and kicks at it a little bit, turning in place a few times as she plucks out her greatsword. This gets planted tip first into the ground, and the bard leans her forearms on it, starting to hum a merry little march, starting to trickle energy into the area, empower it, set it alight.
    She smiles, and right along side Vruasa, tries to call up the recent past herself. She's even putting Clef on this one. "It's a party, Clef, they've got to have Marching Orders. Where did those Orders take them?"

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Another response, sent to Vruasa.

)(IC: work out the kinks and we can get this ship sailin
)(IC: and no im just done with the whole troll jam is all
)(IC: i mean
)(IC: was great for a while
)(IC: controlling reality just kinda does it easier
)(IC: im empress i do what i want

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiiora has whipped out a very violent sounding game slotted in a game system, and was pressing buttons and doing shit with her handheld gaming device than actually pay attention. But, when they finally arrive, she looks up at the tree full of RESOURCES, and delivers a swift kick to it. "Thiis iis bullshiit." She grumbles, before snapping her finger. "I've got an idea. Hey, nerd." She points at Staren. "Do that Psychic Imprint shit you do." She points at Psyber. "You're a fucking badass. You're with me. Vruasa, baby, hurry the boring shit up. Work with timey-wimey mismatched horns over here to make this all lickety-split, because intrigue is shit and boring. While that's happening, Team Smart Assholes put your think-pans together, come up with a way to stripmine this shit fastlike and cram it in our warchest, and we've got a plan. Then fast forward through it all, because it's INTENSELY BORING AS HELL." She barks, before grinning at Homura. "I hate any planning that isn't how to get me to a fight as fast as possible, and all preparation that's not crushing fools and mudbloods over my knee. So get this place scoured and stripmined and let's move on to crushing the assholes who think this is their place to harvest. Because they're wrong. It's ours."

Staren has posed:
    Staren looks over at Fiiora. "Shouldn't that be 'Ii've got an iidea'?" He shrugs. "Anyway, I thought of that -- DL's looking into the past is better but I can give it a try. But umm, I thought we were gonna team up with this other group to fight the bad guys?" He flies down, pulling on one of the protoabstractum psychometry gloves and touching one of the depleted resource nodes that he thinks is outside the agro bubble of the bug things.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Psyber aggros several of the bugmen, who attempt to viciously savage him with melee attacks. The GM is inattentive, though, and being especially petty and unfair tonight, so he seems to be getting no loot, even though by the rules of the game he's supposed to.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "This GM blows giant dicks," Psyber comments after brutally slaughtering enough bugmen for it to become apparent their loot drops are non-existent rather than nigh-non-existant, which is a very important distinction. He looks over at Fiiora and then says, "Yeah, sure, boss. You point at what needs smashing and I'll get right on it. Don't wanna disobey a purple."

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "Yes ma'am," Homura says, and she whips out... a pickaxe. She has a couple in case of emergencies. This is not really an emergency at all, but hey. She's going to swing a few times at a not-yet-exhausted rock node, see if there needs to be actual effort involved in mining or if just poking it tells the place she's harvesting.

    She is going to use explosives if real effort is needed, yes.
    Possibly some time bullshit to make it go faster.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiiora just grins devilishly at all this. Especially the validation. "Right. OH! WAIT!" She points at Psalm. "You! See if you can narrative us up some SWEETLOOT. Yeah, spin us a tale while we slay. Come, Bardblood!" She cries, before drawing forth her great... broom.

    "Strong assholes and anyone not cool or special or me! Kill the stupid bugshits so we can score sweetloot and treasure!" She cries, before going off to BROOM and BEAT some BUGS. She, in fact, mostly lets Psyber wreck shit.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Ulixes seems to be working together with Clef on this. They're both green-types, so a quick TANDEM is easily sustainable. It looks like Ulixes doesn't have a lot of clarity with the huge density of bugmen that keep winding up, and Clef can't normally tap into orders given far in the past, but it looks like the resource-gathering person who was attacked before was someone who came from a fortress a ways off. Exactly WHAT happened is another matter entirely, which they're not able to directly view just yet.

    Together, though, Psalm and Vruasa will be able to get a nice, covnenient green light lighting up a path that goes further off into the woods.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
DL: empress huh
DL: you know i've learned something about that kinda shit over time
DL: being the person on the throne usually sucks a bag of dicks
DL: troll or otherwise
DL: now that you're free of that i don't really get why you'd want to go back to it in any form
DL: you can do basically whatever now
DL: so why
DL: why just make another big ass throne
DL: why not just fuck off to space hawaii or something

    It's an incredibly pointless conversation. Vruasa is pretty certain that a bent towards ruling is built into the psychology of the upperclass. His gaze follows the trail highlighted by Ulixes, and he points through the trees in that direction. "We're fucking shit up in that direction. Come on, let's get moving. We're burning daylight. Or night time. I don't know." He checks the sky, wondering if it's more like Alternia or Earth, or if it's just kind of whatever time it narratively needs to be. It'd be pretty shit if it was like Alternia.

    He whacks trees with his spears, floating at a leisurely pace along the trail designated by Clef and Ulixes. No sense in getting ahead of the others, after all, and they've got their own shit they're doing.

    Vruasa pauses, however, to look at Fiiora over the top of his sunglasses. "/Mudbloods/?" He echoes, incredulously.

Psalm (181) has posed:
    Maggie gets a Visually Rewarding Green Line to show for her efforts, and happily hoists the Gleamsong over her shoulder.
    A look up at Fiiora though, and she purses her lips. "A song, eh? Treasure and Riches? LOOT UNIMAGINABLE? I can do that."

    And she starts singing a Dwarven marching cadence!
    GOLD GOLD GOLD GOLD
    GOLD GOLD GOLD GOLD
    GOLD GOLD GOLD GOLD
    GOLD GOLD GOLD GOLD
    GOLD GOLD GOLD GOLD

    It is an amazingly varied and wonderfully nuanced lyric in the native tongue though.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Staren examines the PSYCHOMETRY of the location, showing a mix of agitated survival instinct and a sudden rush of animalistic motivation prompted by a flag of 'RESOURCES ARE BEING GATHERED'. Staren will be able to tell, from a rough psychic imprint of the resource-gatherer and the monsters who attacked them, that the act of resource-gathering attracts the local monsters.

Staren has posed:
    Staren reads psychic impressions and gets something maybe-useful? He nods to himself, puts the glove away, and pulls out a magic bead. "Well, if I'm gonna play along... Eureka, troll me." Normally, it covers the user with an illusion making them look human. Should be a simple Rotation, right?

    "Looks like gathering resources automatically aggroes the bug monsters. That's all I got, boss." he says to Fiiora.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    There's some drain on these resource nodes, though it gets worse the further the group moves towards wherever the other resource-gatherers from the other party went. Homura Akemi should have no trouble doing the harvests, though; tap a rock or a tree with the pickaxe, and it starts draining the resources off of it. Useful! Very RPG-like. Vruasa finds approximately the same thing as he smacks the trees.

    COINCIDENTALLY, local bugmen are becoming agitated and approaching the group in greater numbers, ravenous for resource-gatherer blood. They're targeting the people who did the resource-gathering specifically, madly dashing in and intending to tear them open.

    More messages from the empress, though this is to the whole group..

)(IC: okay guess were doing this then too
)(IC: ugh
)(IC: bug jams got
)(IC: i dunno
)(IC: ambush advantage?

    There is no ambush happening.

)(IC: w/e plus five to initive cause fuck you for that picture is why
)(IC: lets get fights on

    The twitchy, flickery bugmen suddenly aren't several dozen feet away but right in the faces of Homura and Vruasa, trying to tackle them and start ripping open important organ-containing body sections.

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    "Good job! Now, do some crazy shit to get all the resources, smart guy!" Fiiora calls back to Staren. "Surely, you, the both most intelligent and nerdiest troll I know, has all of the best tools for stripmining! Be efficent. If the bugs attack us when we gather, then we should do all the gathering SUPER FAST! You and Homura handle that, maybe with a little time boost... And... Oooh." Fiiora notes, now slaying to a HOPPIN' DWARF BEAT. Dwarves have a dozen words for 'gold' and almost all of them involve getting RICH AS FUCK.

    She likey.

    "OH YEAH? WELL I CAST SUPER CONTEXTUAL INTANGIBILITY ON ALL THE NOT-FIGHTY PEOPLE!" She cries, swinging Hecate back to point at the group that... Well, the group that isn't Psyber. They all wink out of existance. "It lets them skill check as much as they want on anything, as long as they don't attack. So there."

    She grins. "Oh! And my Voidy Aura removes all enemy advantages based on terrain, ambush, or positioning!" She crows.

    The latter thing doesn't actually happen. The former... Well, people are generically voidy-smokey.

    It doesn't actually do anything actually but buff their stealth, but... You know, it's a fun thing to try.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    More responses to Vruasa spe<span class="flash bg_m fg_n ++ ifically.

cm">)(IC: do waterver youre good at
)(IC: dont need you judgin me bluetext
)(IC: got a dumb fool i need to krill
)(IC: gotta krill him with a real empire
)(IC: whatever who cares
)(IC: what you think you are
)(IC: my glubbin mother grub
)(IC: dont need some random guy givin me life advice</span>

Psyber (253) has posed:
    [BA:] joke's on you, bitch. I was already in combat, so they can't get ambush advantage. 0>: