tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76513228549953375502024-02-20T08:34:47.954-08:00Licking the subconsciousHere there be fiction. Big fiction, little fiction, BAD fiction and maybe good fiction. Lots of drafts very little final product, and a few smiles. Read at your own risk.
My real blog is here http://selfstlyedgod.blogspot.com/thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-81291572977603837652012-10-22T13:55:00.002-07:002012-10-22T13:55:54.787-07:00Last part of NaNoWriMo book 22011 NANO Part 20<br /><br /> It is a good thing too because John is effortlessly tearing through everyone. Stephen is a tough bastard. His body, fundamentally changed by the things he communicates with, he bones are not easily broken, he isn’t easily slowed down or frightened, unfortunately, these are all side effects of his studies though and while John flits about cracking him to and fro with his cane they can see it is a loosing battle. Meanwhile up in the tree Wilson, knife clenched in teeth is up in the branches, as he cuts open one sack nothing but a pile of bones fall out turning to dust as they hit the groiund. Frowning Wilson tries another bag with the same result. Going higher up into the tree he selects another one and lets out a yelp of surprise as everyone’s favorite not a virgin goes tumbling out towards the ground below. Wilson leaps to grab her but nearly looses his own grip on the tree, opts to take the better part of valor. Jerimia rushes to save her but is cut off then brutalized by John. Then with literally no time to spare Stephen dives for it and snatches her out of the air just before she hit the ground, head first. Is momentum sends them both into a tumble as they go bouncing down the hill. He does his best to shield her body from the falls but after awhile he gives up and lets them free fall. There is only so much he is willing to do for the not a virgin. When they finally come to a stop about half way down the hill he stands up dizzily trying to get a sense of what’s going on around him. Repeated head blows will rattle you, no matter how tough you are. Today Stephen learns this. Wilson and John are currently locked in combat. While most of them don’t have much in the way of practical, real life combat experience Wilson does. Give Wilson a knife and he can seriously ruin someone’s day. For such a big guy it is pretty astounding how fast he can move. No matter how fast John ducks, spins, whirrles, feints, then strikes Wilson is right there with him parrying his blows with nothing more than a dagger and dertermination. Jerimia gets up and attempts to tackle John while he thinks John is distracted. It ends almost predictably badly. Alexander is rushing about tending to the wounded, one of whom is now Alexander. At first he can’t find her but then after a moment he spots Rebecca climbing up the tree Being a bit of a heavy hitter himself Stephen gets up to go lend a hand and help smite the forces of evil. As he goes to scamper off he hears a hissing behind him. Turning he sees the not a virgin getting to her feet, she looks alright, her hair and skin are more than a little dirty but that is to be expected. She stared at Stephen with blank looking dull eyes. Then from somewhere deep in her chest there is a sickening clicking sound. It keeps up almost like there is some sort of great beetle inside of her. Head lolling to the side drunkenly she steps forwards not unlike a zombie. Then with blinding speed very much like a zombie she lunges towards him. He bounces off the side of the tree and lands heavily on the ground.<br /> Startled by the sudden flying Stephn Deven comes to an abrupt halt, “Jesus are you okay? What happened t-” He is cut off as he sees the not a virgin leaping through the air at him. Dimly he is aware that he should do something like dodge or something similar. Instead he just stands there, staring, which suit’s the not a virgin just fine as she lets out an inhuman clicking sound before smashing into Deven, knocking him to the ground, slamming the wind out of him. It is then that they notice on her arms is a tattoo of the tree. Those weren’t there before and that’s no good. Deven doesn’t have much time for analysis though as there is fighting for his life to be done. Rebecca looks down at the scene just as she is about to cut another bag open. She thinks better of it as, despite Stephen’s best efforts, she watches as the not a virgin pick up Deven and hurl him at Jerimia who is currently doing his best to hold off John. Stephen goes charging after John hoping to keep him tied up long enough so that Deven can get patched up via Alexander or Jerimia. She can’t help but admire Stephen. He’s a brave young boy. Him and Jared both are the youngest of all the world shakers and she can’t help but wonder what brought Stephen to such an extreme. Most of the time he seems sweet and tender. Always willing to lend a hand or, like now, to face down impossible odds while the others run to get help. He deals regularly with things that turn a normal person bat shit insane and yet he always seems to have a joke ready and a smile. It is almost shocking to see him take a swing at John and it is equally shocking to see John coldly side step then counter attack sending Stephen sprawling. <br /> No one is sure how Stephen’s body works. Everyone is sure that it is creepy and so when the strange yellow one-dimensional ooze starts flowing from his headwound even John seems to be relieved that he has to dodge both laser beams, and hurled magical blasts from the combined forces of Alexander and Jerimia. Up in the tree looking down she sees why the two of them don’t work together that often. When they do the results are terrifying. Attacking from two different but complimentary angles they time their shots so that John has no room to breath what so ever. As soon as one shot passes another one is fired. Both doing their best to herd John away from the tree and possibly stop him for good. Both are master tacticians they deliver their shots with percision making increasingly harder for John to both dodge the attacks and keep his balance. It looks like they finally have the upper hand until the not a virgin breaks free from Wilson and rushes Jerimia. Jerimia sees her charge and isn’t about to take that lying down and with a snarled, “Bugger this” he turns and fires on her, and misses, once, twice, then just before she is on him, just inches away from his hair he hits her dead on in the chest. Stunned she collaspes. However, the damage is done and now before Alexander is able to cast any spells again he is going to need some healing. John has seen to that and is about to see to Deven. When Stephen regains his feet and gets in a lucky tackle. <br /> There is nothing elegant about a tackle. Wilson rushes to help and what was once a graceful dance of dodging ,feinting, and pain is now nothing more than an undignified roll in the dirt complete with kicking, biting, and struggling. Rebecca sighs inwardly. So many fights end up that way. While she wasn’t around to see it she would of given anything to be around during the days of the duels. Where men fought with foils and fights were stately little affairs. So tidy things were thing. She would of loved it. Men would duel for her honor, leave no heirs and she could amass a tidy fortune just by being herself before rising and army and striking at the heart of a kingdom or something equally fun like that. The world was smaller then and while it is true it was much less worth ruleing and she didn’t have the event at her side which would of catapulted her abilities into the stratosphere. She would have had more than a modest set of abilities from which to work with and she could of lived with that she thinks. Looking around she tries to make sense of it all. The strange bone colored grass, the apocalyptic tree which she is now comfortably sitting in, the strange bags, the not a virgin, what did it all mean. She feels lost. She knows that they are between the layers of reality. That some the world we see is one of many layers and the more you pull back the more you get to see. Just about all the world shakers can do it to some degree or another. They all seem to lead to different places though which is something she likes but she can’t really explain. Climbing down from the tree she wonders if Jared is in one of them and if he is safe. She doesn’t know exactly where they are in the cosmic scheme of things but she definitely knows that they are closer to death than life. A place where one is supposed to be if one is already departed. She often times wonders if John isn’t half spirit or something similar. As she climbs down the tree they finish up putting the restraints on him, then they break his feet. Nothing hobbles a get away like a hobble. Jerimia wants to cut them off completely because nothing hobbles a get away like scar tissue ladden nubs but as everyone just learned that putting bodies together is easier said than done they decide against it. He is off the wagon not a light bringer and he should be treated with some respct. <br /> Increadibly the not a virgin stumbles to her feet, the gaping hole in her chest shows as anyone recently hit by her suspects, that she is no longer human. Her body is full of sticks and leaves. Every time she moves leaves fall out of her. She tries to picks some up and put them back in, but as she bends over to pick more up more leaves fall out. After a second she just collapses crying pathetically. Rebecca goes over to help her put the leaves back in her hole whatever the girl once was is gone now. John looks around him smiling like he’s just had the best time in the world, “Well then gentlemen I see that my little planet hopping extravaganza didn’t do anything to stop you from finding my secret base of operations. Well done. Well done indeed. You all have bested me far more thoroughly than any of my light bringers ever did. Then again those poor sods were just square john who stumbled into a much smaller part of the much greater mystery that is me and me alone. I am surprised you all managed to stop me though. That doesn’t happen to me very often I must say.”<br /> Wilson gets down on one knee in front of John, grabs his face forcing him to look right into Wilson’s eyes, “John. John come on now snap out of it. We’ve all been here before, each and every one of us. Remember back when. When you found me in Hobo’s Alley. That random place where I was rolling around in garbage naked, having bitten off the head of a snake and using its blood to make a place of power for myself. Do you remember that? Remember how you saved me? Remember what you said?”<br /> John’s eyes narrowed, “Did you think that the year 2000 was the only eventful year? 2012 is right around the corrner and believe me that is where it is at. That is where the show begins, my show. The big one. I gathered you together to learn your strengths and weaknesses. To weaken you, to make you soft in the head, but mostly to learn from you. To learn from ALL of you. I wanted you to believe me so I could use you forever. To take your power for myself. I am-” Wilson slaps John. It isn’t a light “hey wake up slap”. Nor is it a “your talking crazy talk and I need to wake you up” slap. It is the slap of distain. It is the slap you receive when you deserve ever so much more but the person who should be dolling out the punishment has decided he can’t be bothered to dirty his hands. He didn’t want to believe it but it is something that all of them considered at one point or another deep down in their minds. They all knew it is possible and they all knew that if they were to form the group they would all do it for that very reason but it always seemed different with John. It always hurts the worst when the one you least expect it betrays you. Some of them had second in commands that tried it. Deven still wakes up shivering because of it. It feels just like that only so much worse. John starts laughing as Wilson backs away looking like he is on the verge of tears. <br /> Stephen takes his place, “Well you are captured now. So tell us where Jared is. We’ll get Jared, then we’ll patch you up, then oh I dunno maybe we will put you in that interdimesional holding cell Jerimia whipped up when I got possessed by some stupid thing that came as a result from Deven and I screwing around together and we needed a place to stick me so I wouldn’t go a mass murdering. We’ll get you through this but first. First you gotta tell us where Jared is.”<br /> John chinned at the tree. “He’s in there. Not in the bags, he’s feeding the bags. He is the tree now. I needed him. His strange souless body that still holds life. He became the ultimate seed that grew the apopaclypse tree that will spread across the world turning the land to bone as it bears the fruit of dust. Isn’t that something? The fruit of dust. God I love the sound of that.”<br /> Everyone sits shocked. Everyone except Jerimia. He’s on his feet running towards the tree wrist mounted flame thrower at ready. He never did work out the bugs on the thing and now he doesn’t care. Screaming in anger he lets loose first incinerating his hand and then the tree. John’s paniced cries of protest can be heard over the blaze as the tree lights up with unnatural quickness. Within seconds the whole things is a whirrling firestorm and Jerimia is out of fuel. Alexander is on the scene in an instant, “Jesus Jeri look at your hand”. All that is left is charred bone that is now crubling as the once organic material starts to cool and loose cohesion. <br /> Jerimia grimices through the pain, “I told you I didn’t trust that god damn tree”. As the form of the tree starts to disperse they see it, Jared’s form, his spirit, the thing that he supposedly lost, thinking quickly Alexader starts going through Jerimia’s pockets pulling out anything electronic. Catching on Deven does the same, but it is Stephen that has the real prize as he happened to have Jared’s special cell phone with his mental back up on it. Putting them all together, they look to Rebecca with hope. <br /> “In the spotlight once again” she smiles to herself as she starts to sing. Like she did for Jerimia before but this time it is much different. This time the stakes are even higher as no one knows what is waiting for Jared of how to get him back should he ever go for good. She can feel his latent energy from the electronics and from the tree and as she sings she draws them out over the cell phone. She feels not only his energy but the energy of this entire place. Tugging with her voice she feels it come loose like pulling up a tarp that has been staked down. The grass turns green first starting with the tree then spreading outwards. Jared’s body starts to get more distinct but incorporeal. She can feel herself loosing it and in a last desperate creshendo she peaks and the sea green skys above shatters returning the world to normal and then there he is Jared stands, reconstituted once again.<br /> Everyone rushes him in a group hug and it is only John and Jared who see Rebecca pass out from her efforts. The air of pure ecstasy is rampant and Jared becomes dizzy with people welcoming him back, asking if he is okay, or if he is really him. After a few moments Jared gets them to settle down and he makes a path from them to John. By now Rebecca, recovered, looks on fearfully as she sees him standing over John. To their surprise Jared gestures at John, “You must not blame him. We was just trying to make me whole again and he got a bit carried away”<br /> Wilson asks, “He was trying to renuite your soul and your body. To restore you as you once were before your acident?”<br /> Jared nods, undoing John’s bindings, “Unfortunatly, from what I can gather he had to go deep into the sort of thing he’d previously forbidden himself from doing. As a result he went just a smidgen off the deep end. Do not hold it against him. He was just trying to help.”<br /> John nods sadly, then to their surprise he starts to cry. Over and over again all he can repete is, “Forgive me”<br /> <br />888<br /> Three days later is the next scheduled meeting. Wilson is there first arranging the chairs. Then Jerimia with his coffee. Then the other show up taking their seats, talking nervously, wondering what is going to happen. Mental wounds still fresh and tensions high they wonder. Time ticks on agonizingly as the time for the meeting to start draws near. Then with an unaccustomed meekiness John enters the room. The all stop, look, and wonder. John hesitates, and is about to leave when Deven smiles and offers him a doughnut. Jerimia claps him on the back and they sit down for a meeting. Not everyone is perfect and everyone deserves far more than a second chance.<br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-92079625328418746462012-10-22T13:54:00.005-07:002012-10-22T13:54:57.642-07:00Done-12011 NANO Part 19<br /><br /> Ten minutes later there they stood on a teleported pad. Jerima has become the defacto storage center for forbidden materials. This is due partly to the fact that he is totally uninterested in anything anyone else does ever. Second it is because he is a mad man. He isn’t afraid of anyone or anything and often times he will agree to things without fully thinking through the ramifications. As a result he ends up holding books, magical artifacts, weird ritual blades, and all sorts of manner of other things that in the wrong hands could ruin large parts of the world. The very fact that Jerimia’s hands are the wrong hands is an irony lost on no one. As they gather their materials they realize that perhaps they should rely on Jerimia less for storage. However, this one time it works out nicely. <br /> They stand nervously. Some of them can’t remember the last time they have been nervouse. Most of them have never been nervous in their entire lives. They weren’t sure what is at stake. They know that Jared is in danger, that’s easy. Ultimately that is all that matters. The world being at stake is a vauge possibility and they are aware of that, but they’ve lived so long with the world being at stake, usually via their own hands, this this feels more comfortable than times of levity. Mostly though, it is John. John Smith with his fake name, and an enigma wrapped in a world of mysteries. The man more myth than real. This is unprecedented. He is the one that reels them all in when the wheels come off and they forget that they are not trying to end all life on earth as everyone knows it. He comes to them in times of sadness and in joy. He brought them all together and taught them what it is to not be alone. Now they must bring him down and show him the error of his ways. They’ve all seen in done loads of times. They’ve all felt it and combined there is no force on earth that should be able to stop them. John is John though and there is something about it all that doesn’t sit right with them.<br /> They stand, then they wait, then without speeches, ceremony, or words of dubious wisdom, Jerimia whisks them away to somewhere in the Midwest. They find themselves standing at the foot of a hill. Hill is the wrong word for it. It is a large gently rolling thing that rises out of the otherwise uniterupted flatness all around them. Grass as far as the eye can see and a sky so blue that it seems to swallow all other definitions of the word blue and throw them out in favor of this one. At the top of the hill is a tree that has to be hundreds of years old. Its branches reach twords the sky creating a leafy green crown for the vast verdant space they find themselves in. There is no roads nearby, no house, no signs of civilazation anywhere. There might be 25 places like it in all of the United States, but this one. This one is special. <br /> Shuffling feet and a slowly spreading out of bodies and the wind through the trees are the only sounds they can here. No one was sure what they were expecting but it isn’t this. Jerimia looks around, “This is a great deal of nature and not a whole lot else. You think we got the right place?”<br /> Wilson sniffs carefully then sticks out his tounge flicking it quickly, “The air is thin here. Something is here. Something just beyond our ability to see it. Is anyone familiar with this area?” THe sea of shaking heads meets him, “Alright then we have to figure out how to get inside”<br /> Alexander starts heading up the hill while Stephen pulls a book from him oversized knapsack and begins studying it intently. Wilson sits down cross legged and appears to be meditating. The rest can only wander around listlessly hoping that one of them can figure the problem out. You need to get to hell? Deven can do that. It’s easy. Getting back is significantly more difficult but that is a problem for other people to deal with. The whole onion, peeling back the layers of reality, getting to somewhere else, thin air thing? Not something Deven ever really concerns himself with. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t happen because most demonic rituals slides an area to a place where contact is easier to make. But finding the right layer out of all of them isn’t something he can do. Frowning Deven head’s over to Rebecca, “What do you think is waiting for us on the other side.?”<br /> Rebecca shrugs, “Hopefully it is one of our birthdays and we will burst into a surprise party. That would be nice. I mean why doesn’t that ever happen to us? One day I am going to get a call from all of you and it is going to be something like ‘We found buried treasure’ or hey ‘Jerimia has made contact with aliens and they think we are just doing just fine’. When is that going to happen to us? Huh?”<br /> “Don’t you think if aliens were telling Jerimia we are doing just fine we’d have other problems to deal with?”<br /> She stamps her feet, “Not the point. I still haven’t showered yet! I am covered in dirt, and jungle grime, and I should have people doing this for me. I am not in the mood for this”<br /> Jerimia smiles, “I used to be like that. It is a little weird at first but after awhile it becomes rather satisfying to do things on your own.”<br /> They look over at Stephen and immediately regret it. What he does is more than a little horrifying. Even if he is just drawing in the dirt. Working quickly with a sharpened stick in a small hard dirt patch that wasn’t around him a second ago he write feverishly the eldritch symbols seem to bend both light and air, making it seem like the symbols are slithering across the dirt. He draws some angles which are impossible and yet there they are. Most of them look away in time except for Jerimia who is doubled over on the ground wretching. Deven shakes his head as he helps Jerimia back up, “When are you going to learn to not look directly at anything Stephen is doing. Kids these days with their elder star things, and extra planar oddities. Back in my day good old Lord Satan was good enough for everyone. Now we have all sorts of things. Damn kids and their music”<br /> Jerimia smiles, “Well you know it starts out as math, and hey I love math. If there is one thing I enjoy it is some good old fashioned math. Then everything starts moving and then there are the angles and suddenly I realize it isn’t math at all I’ve been tricked, it is horrible and next thing I know- oh looks like Stephen figured it out”<br /> It doesn’t make a whooshing sound. Instead it is the feeling of a whooshing sound with every fiber of thier beings. Rebecca gets knocked off of her feet by it is and lands in an undignified thump on the ground, “Yes wonderful, in the dirt again. Doing things myself is fan fucking tastic” <br /> Jerimia helps her back up, “See being helped up is nice wouldn’t you say”<br /> She scowls and instead of coming up with a pithy reply she looks around. The sky has gone from the soul shattering blue to an alien sea green. She’s seen that sort of color before, it was between two other colors in one of the most brilliant sunsets she’s ever seen in her entire life. She remembers that color in particular because it is one of those rare colors that only seems like it is possible to have while one thing is transitioning into another. The grass has taken on the color of bone and when it rustles in the wind that seems to be both coming from everywhere and no where there is a long low clatter like a thousand bony fingers snapping very quietly. Her breath catches as she sees the tree. The tree once a huge icon of unfetter life is now a barren. Its gnarled branches reach twords the sky clawing at the heavens, threatening to rip down the sky leaving only the inky blackness that excisted before the good lord said, “let there be light”. From some of the branches large white sacks hang from nooses, and while she can’t tll from here it looks like some of them are moving. She was to be the queen of the apocalypse, now she knows that this tree was the key to everything, the source of her failure, it is the right hand of the end of everything. No wonder none of them couldn’t end the world. She prayed that this isn’t John’s turf and that they just acidently stumbled into somewhere that is both ancient and terrible, older than Alexander’s magics, Wilson’s snake thing, or even the devil himself. This is the place where the end of all other places is and yet she still feels compelled to ask, “Where the hell are we?”<br /> Stephen comes to join them, “I don’t know. This is a place between other places, and yet it is one of immeasurable power. That tree is strange. I don’t trust it”<br /> Jerimia comes over as well, “I’ve never met a tree I did trust, big green leafy bastards”. Jerimia just wants to be closer to the group. They are silently thankful he is here and they politely don’t say anything about it”<br /> Alexander comes bounding down the hill, “Some warning would have been nice you creepy little man.”<br /> Stephen nonchalantly shrugs, “Oh well when I get into the zone I don’t have time to get out of the zone hold everyone’s hand then get back into the zone so I can finish what I am doing”<br /> They prepared to enter into a nice long bicker fest. Bickering is easier than action, they can keep it up forever, and it means that they don’t have to worry about the tree or any other potentially horrible thing that might happen to them. <br /> Wilson stands brushing himself off, “We went to far in”<br /> Stephen halts mid bicker, “eh”<br /> “This is to far in. I don’t know where we are and I don’t know where we are supposed to be but this is to far.”<br /> Stephen looks a little embarrassed, “We I mean it is hard to aim these sorts of things”<br /> Wilson nods, “The last time I crossed the veil I had to cut my throat and ride in on the wake of the snake. You did good. I can feel its vibations again and they are loud. This is where we are supposed to be. But all of this? There is something about this that isn’t right which is why I say we are to far. <br /> “Or perhaps you just went far enough?” Then suddenly he’s there. He’s wearing his usual flowing black cassock, no shoes, and cane with a silver Orobours for the knob. The cane is new. He hair is longer, from its normal up above the ears executive contour, it now brushes his shoulders giving him a fierce black mane from which his eyes sparkle with a cold fierce clarity. “This is my place of power, my hunting grounds, it is the place between all the places. Here the boundries between life and death are thinnest. If you aren’t careful your essence could just float away and you wouldn’t even notice until you turn around and you see yourself looking at yourself. Then you clutch your heart and it is all over”<br /> All of them are smart enough not to look behind them. All of them except Jerimia who always has to look, to peek around the next corrner, to know a new secret, to weld laser guns to mice for the sake of doing so. He is the essence of invension, and creativity. He is also horribly mad and he has to look. His hand clutches his chest as indeed the see’s himself looking at him self. Then it begins. John charges as Alexander and with a strike quick as lightning breaks his right hand. His hand that he uses for magic. It is the well spring of his spells. Before darting off he slams the cane down on Alexander’s foot. The cruntching of bone ensures that he won’t be going anywhere any time soon. As he dashes off the others rush to follow, except Rebecca. <br /> Jerimia writhing in the dirt stares glassy eyed at his essence, expression frozen in surprise. She realizes his life signs are fading quickly and if she doesn’t do something to save him he will be down for good. She can see it. His essence is trying to help Alexander by healing his foot. But it can’t. It can’t hold onto anything it just slides through him. Half in a panic and wholly on insinct she starts to sing. There is singing and then there is what Rebecca can do with her voice. Rebecca is someone so beautiful you’d give up your soul just to be with her for a few short hours. Deven secretly hopes that should he ever get into the apocalypse game again she could be convinced to join him. Someone like that could rake in more than enough for her and Satan. Getting her to deal with the goat’s urine would be tough though. Her singing doesn’t echo. It doesn’t radiate outwards. In fact no one can hear it except for her and Jerimia’s essence. It stops frantically trying to help Alexander and it looks at her. It comes closer. She can feel it wavering, wanting to return to Alexander, and the wander far and wide. She realizes that if it wasn’t for Jerimia’s strong instinct to protect them it would be long gone never to return leaving everyone’s favorite mad scientist to be nothing more than a lifeless husk. She sings some more, she sings for his life. She sings the same songs in the same way she’s used to damn millions of others. Saving a life is ever so much more difficult than taking one. She sings and slowly, inch by inch she guides Jerimia’s essence back home, then she chains it down to make sure it doesn’t escape. <br /> Jerimia’s body lurches back, the color returning to his face, his breathing normalizing. In one quick motion he tosses a syringe at Alexander, it twirles end over end before sticking into his leg and grabs Rebecca’s hair and gives her the first kiss he’s dolled out in over 50 years. Which, Rebecca notes, is for the best. Letting go of Rebecca who collapses to the ground gasping for air, he runs over to Alexander, “How is the compound working?”<br /> He nods standing back up flexing his hand, “Shall we?”<br /> The other two nod and charge up the hill where the battle is in full swing.thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-91287418166204767262012-10-22T13:54:00.003-07:002012-10-22T13:54:27.858-07:00Done-22011 NANO Part 18<br /><br /> Jerimia and Rebecca putter around in the base for a bit before Jerimia remembers that this base is new and no one else posseses the ability to get to it. It is another ten minutes before everyone is assembled properly. The leader of the cyber punks included. Then on a whim Jermia tries to teleport Jared, he then starts using every scanner, hidden satellite, nanite clouds, and stealth drone to seek out Jared. Stephen sees what is going on and starts binding things to go search the stuff between the stars, and Alexander sets up magical redundancies to all of Jerimia’s stuff. Magic is better at scouring the deepest seas where there are still hidden things lurking. With the others busy Deven, Wilson, and Rebecca turn their attension to their shiny new captive.<br /> The leader of the cyber punks most certainly has a name but none of them bothered with it. He is a massive man, easily 8 feet tall, his entire body seems to be one large ripple of pure muscle, wires, and cables. Some look like they are welded right into his skin others vanish into implanted sockets. He smells like he bathes in testosterone and other people’s body oder, which might be the case. The whole thing is very strange to them. Wilson walks around him slowly, “I don’t get it. Jared is like the ultimate computer geek egg head that’s emerged at the head of this own technological pantheon. So how does he end up with someone like this as a rival? Can he even understand us? He looks like he is the sort of person who relies more on brute force than intellect and I don’t think I can use small enough words to get through his meat head”<br /> The head cyber punk looks up with a primal hatred that streaches back eons to when the first cave man bashed one blokes head in with a rock for he first time. He smiles, his teeth are large and sharpened, his breath smells like raw meat, “He is my Dr. Jeckle”<br /> Deven shrugs, “Okay that’s fair I guess. Alright then down the business. The last person I interrogated on this matter got sent directly to hell and now his mind is so far gone we can’t even read it anymore. We are also the sort who learn from mistakes. Wilson what are you doing?”<br /> Wilson look up from the man’s feet. He has a pair of sissors. The special mediacal kind that you can use to cut through pennies, “I am going to cut off his toes!”<br /> Deven looks confused, “Wait why he hasn’t refused to give us information yet?”<br /> “I like the idea of someone this large and menacing walking funny for the rest of his life!”<br /> Rebecce looks concerned she’d heard stories about Wilson but he is just so large and gloomy most of the time she never really believed they were true, until now. Now she believes them with absolute certainty. While Wilson is correct this massive hulk of a man would look hysterical walking funny, now isn’t the time for empty torture, “Come on Wilson let’s let Deven do his thing. Lets go over here, maybe we can cut off his toes when he is being unhelpful. Right now I think Jerimia needs help. And he has some fresh coffee brewing. You want some coffee?”<br /> Wilson smiles, “I do love some of Jerimia’s coffee. He always makes the best stuff”<br /> Jerimia smiles and once they both have a cup he ushers them both into another room, “Oh good! Quick thinking Rebecca! See I plan on giving that guy a half assed interrogation compliments of Deven and then we will put him somewhere where he can escape, and with all the tracking gadgets I’m gonna put in him when we knock him out next hopefully he will lead us somewhere more useful. Also at this point I am willing to throw enough shit at a fan until John shows up”<br /> Wilson frowns, “Shouldn’t a three way brawl against some of our d-listed light bringers be enough to do that? And I mean Jared has been kidnapped what do we need to do sink Austrailia or something?”<br /> Jerimia frowns and Rebecca smiles, they both realize that Wilson is taking all of this especially hard. Jerimia walks over to a display and pulls up a chart, “These are all the time John has interviened in relation to the amount of damage we have done.” <br /> Wilson looks at the chart which goes back all ten years. It is an impressive display of completely random sized bars, “So there is no gaurntee that he will show up?”<br /> Jerimia smiles sadly, “Come on Wilson you know that better than anyone. Remember when you saved the French from me in 2003? I was really far gone then and you were the one who brought me back and you were the one who helped me clean up the mess. That whole time John never showed up. We gotta plan to do this without him”<br /> Rebecca looks puzzled, “We are missing some- Jesus that gut has a sissy screaming voice. You’d think will all that muscle mass he’d be able to maintain some bass. Deven knows the guy needs to be able to escape right?”<br /> Jerimia waves his hand, “Yes yes he has been fully briefed I wouldn’t worry to much about it. Worse comes to worse we can just grab another cyber punk. Their whole command structure seems to be based on size isn’t that sad? Oh hey Jared’s brain data finnaly finished processing!”<br /> Jerimia wanders over to the nearby computer and begins fiddling with it. Rebecca asks, “Brain data?” Slow the pieces were falling into place for her. Very slowly. There is something she is missing. <br /> Jerimia nods, “Yep I brought Jared’s car here when I was scooping everyone up. No sense in leaving something with that much advanced technology in it just lying around the street for anyone to pick up and use however they please. That idea is just plain bad. Anyway at some point while he was out with the mystic supersquad he backed up his entire brain. He did it quickly and violently. See this right here? This is where he used the drill to make the connection. Lots of stress right around here, and huh that’s strange.”<br /> “What?” The wheels were turning faster and faster in Rebecca’s head. She knew that somewhere in all of this there is a connection to the snake’s vibrations and this but she can’t quite put it altogether.<br /> “Shush I am reading” Jermia is quiet for a minute. He looks confused. He then goes over some of the data some more. Then he pulls up some information that looks like it has been taken from a previous insident. Comaparing the two he frowns while he pulls up two more. He studies each for a few minutes before going back to the most recent one. After another further minute he looks up gravely concerned, “Wilson get everyone in here”<br /> Wilson leaves and after a minute everyone including the leader of the cyber punks is crammed into a room that is slightly to small to accommodate everyone comfortably. The head cyber punk looks worse for wear but still defiant. Wilson looks at him, “What were your people doing there anyway? You don’t particularly have a deal with us unlike the real light bringers. You are more of just a hanger on that has seem some of what we can do, but you can’t do it yourself, so you hang around looking for scraps. I can tell that you have some of my scraps in you as well as his. You are technological garbage men. I get it. But what were you guys doing there. I mean there were only, what, a dozen of you? And they were small fries to boot, I know I helped to clean up their bodies. There is no way a dozen or even two dozen of you could hope to take Jared. Who is using you?”<br /> The leader grins and refuses to answer, Jerimia shoots him in the crotch with his, always kept handy, laser pistol, “I can regrow those for you. In fact if I regrow them they will work much much better than they did before. However, you either answer my question or we are done with you.”<br /> The leader doesn’t say anything but he is also rolling around on the floor clutching himself screaming in pain. Jerimia decides the two might be related, gives him something for the pain and when the big man calms down Jerimia reminds him, “I’m waiting.”<br /> He sees it long before the big man manages to do it. He is working up a nice big mouthful of spittle to hurl his way in an act of adolescent defiance. This is a man who never really got past the stage in life where he was 16 and very angry at his parents. Jerimia didn’t have any time to waste and before the big man could get out his last act of defiance he turns his head into a smoking crater. He then takes a pair of sissors Wilson was going to use earlier on his toes and begins to systematically cut off all of his wires, implants, and devices. Then, and only then does he teleport the body back to where it came from for his whole sad little group of wreched individuals to see. Everyone watches quietly as he finnishes up. No one states of obvious or asks any questions. Jerimia does have his lucid moments. This appears to be one of them. He looks at Alexander and Stephen, “What were you two doing just before he applied the drill?”<br /> They look at each other Stephen answers, “We were looking for the little not a virgin virgin girl. We wanted to make sure that she didn’t have some sort of localized disturbance around her at all times. When we were in her neighborhood Jared senses something strange then it vanishes-”<br /> It hits Wilson and Rebecca at the same time, “Like the vibrations” They say it in unison and the air suddenly becomes heavy.<br /> Jerimia nods, “Now we all have our light bringers, and our extra baggage, and our own personal demons to deal with. But no one. I mean no one light bringer or extra baggage has the power to do this. Jared felt something was wrong with the whole world when you went to go find the virgin. He would of forgotten all about it except that he managed to back up his brain in time. Wilson’s snake is trying to warn him of the danger but it can’t because something is blocking it and I know of only one person who could block both Wilson and Jared, organize an attack by the D-Listers, and kidnap Jared without leaving enough information for any of us to go on. Looks like that thing we’ve always worried about has come to pass”<br /> Deven looks pale, “You seriously think John is off the wagon?”<br /> Wilson, staring down at the floor shuffles his feet, “We all know the least about him, even though he has brought us all together and as seperatly he has saved all of our lives many times none of us know anything about him.”<br /> Wilson’s statement is met by a sea of shaking heads and frowns. Stephen sighs, “Jesus I can’t imagine a more dangerous oppoentent. He knows what we can do, what can’t do, what we’ve given up, and how far we are willing to go. He’s got everything..”<br /> Rebecca holds up her hands they notice that they are trembling ever so slightly, “John has to know that we won’t stop at anything what so ever to get Jared back. He knows we are going to be coming for him. Why would he do this?”<br /> Jerimia stands on the spot where the big man’s head once was, “Hubris was my downfall believe me. I bet he believes he has the upper hand”<br /> Deven shakes his head, “Or we were getting to close. We were uncovering his actions to quickly and he wanted them shut down. I bet his plans are about to come to fuition and he’s betting it all on this hand.”<br /> Alexander, steps in, “None of this will matter if we can’t find him. John doesn’t seem to drive, he doesn’t have any know place of resicdence, he always walks everywhere no matter what, I we have less than little to go upon,. We don’t even know if he really was trying to end the world or if he was really some light bringer who decided to bring us together and help us out. We need to find him first and we need to do so now.”<br /> Jerimia looks at the monitor. “Oh hey that was easy. Found John.”<br /> Several variations of “Where is he” get spoken at the same time. The only thing Jerimia ends up hearing is a garbled sound similar to the utterances of Stephan’s star things. Still despite all of that he gets the message well enough, “The Midwest. Now he’s in Tokyo, now sub-Saharan Africa, now in the deep out back of Austrailia, now on a tiny tiny island in the pacific, now the south pole. There seems to be no pattern to it but he is definitely bouncing all over the world the same way normal people take steps. This is bad. He’s never moved about in this way before. In a way for all of us to see. It is almost like he wants us to chase him.”<br /> Deven looks at the map, “Silence of the Lambs”<br /> “Eh” Stephen looks confused, “Is that code for something?”<br /> Deven rolls his eyes. If there was ever a “damn kids and your music” moment to be had between the two of them this is it, “Stephen you need to get out more. Look at the map his pattern looks ‘desperealy random’. Not only that but every area he goes to except the Midwest is contested territory for someone. If we followed him we would be constantly running and gunning both trying to catch John and avoiding the people who would be on high alert. Not only that but I don’t think he expects us all to be together. He knows I am going to pick this up an if I didn’t know about Jared or something I might go after him to see what’s up. I think this is his attmempt to catch me to separate me from whomever I am with.”<br /> Alexander thinks for a moment, “It makes sense. You are the next one in line for figuring this stuff out especially since you have Jared’s car. So should we go to his point of origin?”<br /> Everyone nods, preparing themselves for anything and everything, Jerimia checks his pockets, “Erm I am going to need ten minuts to get ready. Everyone meet in the teleportation chamber. Something tells me I am going to be thankful we’ve geared up for this.” He tosses Stephen a key and gives him knowing look before he scampers off to get his own kit ready.<br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-50134914641401473982012-10-22T13:54:00.001-07:002012-10-22T13:54:01.740-07:00Done -3 They get back to Jerimia’s base and it is more or less as they left it with the exception of the security robot that they had to destroy. Wilson suspects that Jerimia likes to misprogram those things on purpose to test out new models and the like but he isn’t able to figure out he can test out his theory without being shot to death by lasers. They aren’t back for long before Jermia comes bounding up to them, “Where the hell have you two been. Never mind don’t answer that you went to the jungle, and I can tell from the renewed fire in Wilson’s eyes and the fact that he is pumping out enough alpha male pherimones to impregnate a panda that he found what he was looking for. Good good good, we need everyone in fine fighting form because while you two were off gallivanting into the heart of darkness stuff has happened. SERIOUS stuff. I usually shout and such but Jared has been taken and we don’t know by whom and I’ve already blanketed the world for the REDIF tags I inserted in all of you without you knowing and his didn’t show up. For a bit neither did your’s Wilson you scared the god damned hell out of me. Someday you need to take me beyond the damn veil so I can program my equipment properly. No no no. Shower later. I don’t care when. Yes I am aware you both smell like feet. Wilson I’ll have the teleporter dress you and but we need to be off pronto back on the pads there you go”<br /> Rebecca really wanted that shower too. Perhaps should could find one on or around the scene of the incident to use. As her thoughts wandered to warm steamy tile rooms, soap, and three sets of hands whoes only desire is to clean her entire body, the scene changes and she goes from the warm sterile undergound lab to a war zone. Horribly mangled bodies lie in heaps some wearing tattered red robes, others have strange bits of machinery sticking out of them. Then there is the dead thing. She doesn’t understand or wants to understand what it is Stephen is in to. She also doesn’t judge him for it. She understands more than anything that a complicated family life can cause you to do extraordinary things. She just wishes she didn’t have to deal with his stuff all of the damn time. It wierds her out. The sky’s yellowish tint shows her that they are under a dome, which she supposes is for the best. They need to get the mess cleaned up and to find Jared and the noisier they can do that the better. Jerimia is running around using what he would claim to be “SCIENCE!” to dispose of the bodies. The mantic pace at which he is working is almost endearing. Jermia may be pretty insane, he doesn’t have many lucid moments, and she knows that a good portion of what Jared can do creeps him out. It creeps everyone out except her, Wilson, and Stephen. However, he cares for Jared. She suspects he cares for all of them but one step at a time. Going over to Stephen she starts the investigation. <br /> Stephen looks sad for a moment, “Well it started off simple. We were trying to fix your house, and then we needed to know if the virgin has a similar disturbance localized around her as your house. Which, you know she might. We can’t find the virgin and Jared picks up some massive disturbance. He manages to log it, we go out to eat to plan our next move, all of our d-listers show up, they fight each other, Alexander and I leave to gather materials for a summoning circle and when we come back to this”<br /> He points to where she suspects Jared was. On the ground there is a shattered plate that still has apple pie and whipped cream on it, a broken bottle of choroform, what looks to be a brief struggle, Jared’s dropped phone, which not only still works but seems to be processing something, and generous quantities of blood. She looks around for another moment and see’s his car still there and his trench coat. He never goes far without that. He doesn’t wear it very often but it always seems to be around him. It is his security blanket, which is unfortunate because it is also, from what she understands, a powerful focus for his abilities, “Hey Jerimia come here for a moment, I need to you to find out if any of this blood over here is Jared’s.”<br /> “I got that. Jeri keep up with the disposal we need to be able to move if we are going to find him and you and Alexander and the best at it” Jerimia looks at Wilson for a moment unsure, and then he decides to put his faith in the big man and goes back to disposing of bodies. Wilson begins systematically sampling the various blood stains indicated which is more than a little gross, not because it is blood but because it is on the ground in the dirt. After a minute he goes over to a red robed man and then to a cyber punk and tries out their blood. He looks apprehensively at a chunk of the horrible tentacle creature, takes one hesitant step twords it and then comes back to Rebecca, “Alright I’ve samples the blood of all the humans in the area” Rebecca smiles as she noted his truth by omission, “Jared’s punk people’s blood has a slighty oily taste to it, and mage blood is always slightly buttery. The blood in this area isn’t Jared’s. I don’t know how to describe his blood’s flavor other other than it is unique. Also I am usually able to smell it from over a mile off, even in a situation like this. This blood is from another party and judging from the looks of it Jared got them with one of his strange powers that most of us don’t like talking about before he became overcome and was dragged away.<br /> Alexander who is busy directing golems so that they put out more fire than they start asks, “Would cholorform work on Jared”<br /> Jerimia nods, “Oh yeah he is more biological than not. He still has a respitory system and all that. So it would work. Which is sad. If he needed some sort of crazy biological compound to shut him down then it would make it much easier to track who did this to him”<br /> They are quiet for a bit as they realize for the first time in a long time. As a group. They are utterly helpless. They can build rockets, tear through the veil of reality, make people kill themselves out of pure lust, cast spells, commune with creatures that live between the lines of reality, and in all their cases they nearly shook the world. Now. Now here they stand. They once controlled armies, they all as individuals wield vast power but some men with a bottle of sleepy juice and a rag managed to down one of them. It is unthinkable. They are the mighty and they have fallen. Now they don’t know how to pick themselves back up again. <br /> Jerimia pulls Stephen aside, “I assume you’ve checked the entire inside of the dome”<br /> Stephen nods, “It is the first thing Alexander did. He did it both by possessing the insects, with his golems, and he did it himself. You should try though. The dome isn’t very big and there weren’t many higherish animals with whom we could barrow memories from. Also Alexander is starting to talk about rewinding time. Now you know what happened the last time we did that so Deven could get a do over in Monpoly”<br /> Jerimia nods, “Yes yes and I am not entirely convinced that the rise of Mormonism is an entirely bad thing. But that is not the point. We shouldn’t need an actual do over. We are who we are and we need to make them pay.”<br /> Rachel and Wilson join them. Wilson is frowining, “Our clean up is making the gathering of evidence difficult. I am not sure if we should continue to do so.”<br /> Jerimia thinks, “Domes are nice but they aren’t perfect and they take a tremendous amount of power to maintain. I have several robots combing the area taking all sorts of information so we should be able to have everything we need shortly. I know that Alexander is expending a lot of power at the moment and I don’t know for how much longer he will be able to keep the dome up. He’s run literally 100s of scrying spells looking for every shred of evidence he can find god bless him. Don’t talk to him about it, he gets sensitive when his magic isn’t good enough.”<br /> Rachel smiles. “Well at least we will have pleanty of information”<br /> Wilson nods sadly, “But it isn’t the same as walking the ground. That is where instinct kicks in the hardest. I can’t get anything unless I am here.” He walks off sadly, shoulders slumped, shaking his head.<br /> Jerimia hops off after him, “Hey Wilson, before it is to late ee if you can verify something for me please,”<br /> The others watch as the two of them go over to the scene of the event. Jerimia is gesticulating wildly and pointing at the ground then pointing at everywhere else as he rapidly starts talking to Wilson. Stephen and Rebecca hope that he is talking about something useful instead of just ranting on about nothing like he sometimes does. Stephen turns back to Rebecca, “I wish John were here.”<br /> “Where is he?”<br /> “No one really knows exactly. John comes and goes. I mean most of us don’t really understand what the others of us do. We got some idea of each other’s capabilities but non of us know anything about John , how he works, where he goes, or what he does. He always seems to just appear out of nowhere and then disapear the same way.”<br /> Rebecca sighs, “It figures. Well everything points to the light bringers. I mean who else but the light bringers could get into a dome and out again?”<br /> Stephen looks troubled, “It might be something totally new. I mean its been ten years after all. We are kinda last year’s models. Now the apocalypse is in someone else’s hands and maybe thouse someones decided that they needed Jared for whatever. Lets face it, none of us are really people of the world and all sorts of things could of happened since any of us paid atension to anything other than ourselves and our own selfish problems.”<br /> They watch as Alexander confers with Wilson and Jerimia they look around real quick before Alexander calls out, “Look alive cause the dome is comin down”<br /> Then just like that the yellowish sky winks out and the sounds of the world rejoin everyone. They stand around a bit still uncomfortable. After a moment that passes in silence Jerimia steps up, “Alright I am on board for rewinding time”<br /> “Oh I wouldn’t be so hasty as to do that. The Salem Witch trials, while amusing, are one of those things we are suppose to avoid doing” They all turn to see Deven stepping out of the shadows. His ultra expensive, finely tailored suit practically gleams in the moon light, as his right hand glows a faint red. He smiles wickedly, “Now for what possible reason could all of you have for not calling upon me sooner?” They shuffle their feet unsure of how to answer. Deven softens before adding, “Moroco is nice but not so nice that I won’t help out in an emergency. Now next time don’t you forget it. And Jerimia before you ask, for the final time running out of butter, sugar, milk, cheese, or any other item you can get at a grocery store isn’t an emergency”.<br /> Jerimia brightens, “Oh I know. I’ve been practicing food shopping! And the last two times I managed not to burn down the store behind me!”<br /> Deven smile’s “See I told you that stores that aren’t Walmart are nicer to shop at. So it looks like a light bringer has grabbed Jared. I’d of been here sooner but I had to make a pit stop and I couldn’t bring my prize through the dome with me.” Deven reaches back into the shadows pulls out a man. He is wearing highly ornate Red Robes with intricate scroll work all down the front and sides. The place where his face should be is covered by fabric that they all hope allows him to see out even though they can’t see it. The man stumbles and falls in front of Alexander making a series of terrified, sobbing cries as he does so. <br /> Alexander looks surprised, “You brought the red robe’s leader here? I am pretty sure this is a breach of agreement that John made with the light bringers”<br /> Deven shrugged, “I am Satan’s pope and I drink goat urine for fun. I really don’t give a shit about agreements. I especially don’t give a shit when one of our own gets taken.”<br /> “How did you know they were involved?”<br /> “I was coming back today anyway and a little deamon told me what was going on within the dome. So I decided to grab their leader so we could all have a little chat”<br /> “So you didn’t know Jared had been captured?”<br /> Deven hesitates, “Yeah sorry I was busy kidnapping this guy I figured we would just draw on him with sharpies or something. Now that its turned serious we can take it a few steps further,” Deven notices one of the plates with pie crust and whipped cream still on it, “But before that I am going to go to the Waffle House and get me some pie!”<br /> Stephen smiles, “Don’t bother. Jared took the last of it when we were watching the fighting going down”<br /> Deven’s face darkens, “Then we really need to get him back because I very much want some pie and he took the last of it.” He walks over to the red robed figure who is now sitting down. Without being able to see his face he looks almost peaceful. <br /> The robed figure looks up at him, does his best to square his shoulders, so as to meet his fate head on, “I am not afraid of you. You and your sad little group of men who cling to their former greatness. Feh. You let one of your number get-”<br /> Deven snaps his fingers and the man is gone in a puff of sulpher. Jermia winces, “You know I could of just put a helmet on him and gotten the truth out of him in like 5 minutes right?”<br /> Deven frowns, “You know what? I do know that. I almost specifically know that and that is why I brought him here. It is just that these guys need to learn not to back talk to people who can do things like send them directly to hell” Deven snaps his fingers again and the man reappears, “Now then man who is the head of some bullshit cult do you want to continue being mouthy or do you want to be helpful?”<br /> The red robed man, instead of being helpful starts screaming, and screaming. It is blood curdling and completely aweful. It doesn’t end until Rebecca hits him in the back of the head with a tire iron. He twitches a bit then lays still, “Oh shit is he dead?”<br /> Jerimia hops over, “Done worry I will use SCIECNE to figure that out!” He pokes at the body listlessly while blood flows freely from the top of his skull. Shrugging Jerimia jabs at the point where the blood is coming from and his fingers go in quite a bit further than they would if they were being stopped by mere skull, “Nope those are his brains. Good god woman it is to bad we aren’t living in a zombie apocalypse you got quite a swing on you”<br /> She smiles and blushes which is charming. Instead of looking bitchy and aloof Rebecca seems to be enjoying her time with the group finally. Jerimia then adds, “Don’t feel to bad I have a feeling that the leader of the cyber punks will be joining us soon at my base! To the SCIENCE cave!”<br /> As everyone breaks off to find their own way to Jerimia’s SCIENCE cave Rebecca grabs Jerimia’s arm. He raises his eyebrows in surprise, “Yes?”<br /> “Umm do you think there is any way you can make Wilson immortal like the rest of us?”<br /> He nods happily, “Of course I slip longevity syrum in the coffee we serve at the meetings”<br /> Rebecca looks shocked for a moment, “I don’t drink the coffee though.”<br /> “Oh well you should. Care to share a teleport?”<br /> <br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-60033258357889968392012-10-22T13:53:00.001-07:002012-10-22T13:53:28.486-07:00162011 NANO Part 16<br /><br /> Rebecca wakes up to the sound of Wilson humming tunelessly to herself. Her memories come back to her in a large junmmble but one thing she is absolutely sure about is the fact that she is both still in the jungle near the waterfall, and that the last thing she remembers is Wilson slitting his throat. He turns towards her and she can see the mark. He did it. His neck bears a jagged white scar that now seems to be fading. She bets that in a day or two it will be gone completely. <br /> He smiles at her awkwardly, “Hey there Rebecca how are you doing? Are you okay?”<br /> Her answer of, “I am just fine” dies on her lips when she realizes that she is absolutely starving and she is sore all over as if she’d been lying on her back for a very long time. Exparamentally she gets up and starts flexing her muscles doing her best to shake the stiffness from her bones, “Jesus now that you mention it I am starving. It feels like I haven’t eaten in days”<br /> “Two days to be exact”<br /> Her eyes grow wide, “Wait what! What could you possibly be talking about! The last thing I remember seeing is you opening your own throat and then all the sudden you are telling me that it is two days latter! Why am I still in the jungle? Shouldn’t you have gotten help or something like that? What the hell is going on. You’re a jerk”<br /> Wilson scratches his bald head, “Yeah I deserve some of that. I wouldn’t say I am a jerk but whatever. See I’d forgotten that you are who you are. A normal person would of seen what they saw and it would have been okay. You? You gave into the forces of the jungle. Remember the dancing around the fire? Well that is you taking part in a ceremony as old as the things that put the ceremony there. Not only that but you have so much energy about you that you are more or less a one woman orgy. Normally to generate the amount of energy you did I would need 12 people all doing the nasty. You? You did it all by yourself. Jesus woman! I swear if it were you who strode into the jungle that one day instead of me the whole world would look much different now because it would be all yours.”<br /> She smiles at that, “Okay then thanks I guess. So now that we have established what happened to me mind explaining your new scar?”<br /> He looks more than a little crestfallen. Absently he pokes at the fire he’s built for what she presumes to be, her benefit. Wilson doesn’t seem like the person who needs or wants a fire. He looks like he is weighing things out in his head so she waits respectfully. After a moment he answers, “It is hard to explain. There are places you can only get to if you know where to look and you have the key to get there. See I’d been planning on just using the boar to peek behind the veil of things, but then, well you know, I just got caught up. I figured why just peek behind the veil of things when I could go behind it myself and investigate what’s there.”<br /> She looks confused, “Alright lets skip over the veil of things conversation and have that another day. I am pretty sure it would just make my head hurt. So are you connected with your great snake god thing?”<br /> Wilson nods, “Oh yes if I wasn’t then I would be lying dead on the altar slumped over the body of that pig we are about to eat. It would be no good for anyone.”<br /> “So you decided that it is either the way of the snake or no way at all?”<br /> He smiles sadly, “As I was stalking that boar naked through the jungle I realized that, this, the naked part, the knife, the jungle, that is all me. That is something I can do with or without the great snake. That is how I found the cult in the first place and it is also the thing that made them take me in. Then I learned about the snake I took it for myself and in its own strange way it took me in and I offered it the world and everything in it. It didn’t work but god damnit I tried and as good as I am I am just not the same without the snake and I don’t want to keep on going if it withdrawing itself from my life. So yeah why not. I might as well give it all a shot and it either works out or you all have one less person to try and end the world” He stops to gage her reaction, however, she is looking with greater interest at the boar roasting on its spit over the fire. He smiles and cuts her off a piece. He then turns to cut her off a bigger piece because he can tell by the way she is voraciously attacking it that the first piece isn’t going to last much longer under her ferocious appitite. <br /> In between her devouring she asks, “I dunno suicide? Its never been my cup of tea.”<br /> Wilson looks back into the fire pensively. It is a bit before he answers, “I don’t think I am immortal. I mean Jared, Alexander, John, and maybe a couple of others, they aren’t going to die. Or at the very least they aren’t going to die any time soon. These guys are gonna be around long after I am gone. I mean sure I could go get Jerimia to make me a longevity syrum or something like that. I know he could whip that sort of thing up in his lab in no time flat. But, I don’t know. I’m alright with not being around forever. Since it will happen sooner or later I figure it doen’t matter when”<br /> Rebecca looks skeptical. She’s familiar with suicide. It is a side effect of the way she does buisnees. One kiss and all the sudden men or women can’t live without her and then they don’t. It is pretty simple and while some of them always felt the need to make terrible messes on her carpets or tapistries she never thought to much about it. If she didn’t have everything she needed they would fail in their attempt because she would make sure of it. Otherwise why keep them around, right? Wilson is different though. She isn’t sure how really. After all there isn’t anything she can really use him for and lets face it, if he wasn’t around she wouldn’t be sitting in the dirt eating pig like some savage. She’d be in her house receiving a massage while beautiful people fed her grapes. He’s a world shaker though, there isn’t anyone just like him on the entire planet and to her that seems like it is worth saving, like a diamond, or a particularly interesting piece of music that people would occationally compose for her, “I don’t really agree Wilson. It does matter. At the very least people look up to you and who would arrange the chairs at the meetings”.<br /> He smiles, “Yeah but you know eventually I will grow older, weaken, get infirm, and I might die in bed unless one of light bringers decides they still hold a grudge and they are going to finish me in my golden years. I don’t want to go out like that. So I figure this is a good a way as any.”<br /> “Yeah but-”<br /> “Let me put it another way. Jerimia can make me a potion. Alexander can cast me a spell. If I have immortality at my finger tips but I choose not to take it how is that any different than ending my life at anytime I choose?”<br /> He had her there. She never really thought about the nature of mortality before. Most of the people around her loved her more than their own lives. She’d seen to that. Most people seem to place so little value on their own natural life span and now here she is trying to convince someone else that he should value his natural life span. The whole thing seems strange and she isn’t sure that she likes it. She smiles to herself. She supposes that part of this is John’s influence. It is strange. They seem to get so little done at the meetings and their interviening weeks are filled with back sliding, adventures, and now semi suicide attempts. The idea that she is actually changing as a result of the group always seemed ludicrous to her. Yet here she is, in a jungle, covered by sweat and bugs, her cloths are unsalvageable. She knows she will have to throw them out as soon as she gets back and she can’t wait to be in something comfortable, decadant, and most of all somewhere not hot. She looks over at Wilson who is contemplatively picking at a piece of meat and he isn’t even sweating. His ponderous stomach rests between his thick legs and as she sees him nearly naked she realizes just how utterly unattractive she finds him. Yet at the same him he is also incredibly compelling. Even though the jungle is all around him he doesn’t look like he is in his element at the moment. He looks as if he is back in the city far away reading reports, trapped behind a desk, wishing for something to happen, regretting the fact that his great snake didn’t devour everything thus turning off every light without saying goodnight. She could understand it a little better. The need to end as opposed to rule. She never understood it before but now she gets it. The enders they all had lives to loose, “Hey Wilson, how come you wanted to end it all. Not your life but all of everything ever.”<br /> Wilson laughs a bit and lets out a smile, “I was a squarjohn most of my life did you know that?”<br /> She shakes her head, “Well wait I guess I knew that kinda. I mean you mention it from time to time. It is just so hard to imagine you know?”<br /> “Yeah it is. The thought of it is kinda mindboggling now but I went to a job I hated. I worked 9 to 5. I had a wife who I loved when I first met her but whom I had grown to hate. I kept my job that I hated instead of doing something that I wanted because I had a wife to take care of and she would get upset if I just left and did my own thing. My co-workers were dull banal petty little people who love sitcoms and crappy movies. I swear to god they would come up with stupid little things to complain about so that they could feel less bored at work. There are times where I wanted to do the same thing. To just give into the happy little world that these people lived in even though it is small and more than a little pathetic.”<br /> She smiles, “My dear it sounds dreadful”<br /> “What is worse is that I would spend 40 hours of my life in an office doing ‘office work’ but I wouldn’t really accomplish anything. On my days off when I wasn’t suffering from brain death due to my job I could get tremendous amounts of work done and it wouldn’t even take 8 hours to do it. I could look back upon my day and feel proud of everything I got done. It felt good to actually do things. At work I just moved papers around and filled things in. So there I am surrounded by other people who also fill things in and move papers around and other than their familes and sitcoms that is all they need or want out of life. I mean god some of these people’s biggest thrills in life is sneaking internet pornography after their wives go to bed. So many people around me were just, so very empty. They still are. You can see it. That is part of why people end up drawn to you. You fill the big, gaping, horrible void in their lives with something exotic that they don’t have to work for. Then when you turn your atension elsewhere they can’t live with out it. Them ending their own lives because they can’t live without you or me ending all of their lives because they don’t know any better it doesn’t make a difference. In the end their lives aren’t worth living and we might as well go feed an ancient intellegnce that is older than the big bang itself than worrying over Jimmy’s soccer match or something like that. Then there is all the social problems like the poor, land mines, pollution, the fact that we destroy the jungle even though it would provide us with everything if only we knew how to ask, I mean as a race we haven’t done very well and I gotta say I am rather ashamed of my human heritage sometimes. When I strode into the jungle all those years ago it was to do what I just did last night. It was to die. But I learned to survive. I thrived. I felt wild and free. Then when I found the snake cult and learned what exactly they were all about, and how their magic is real and that not only I could do it to but I am good at it. Better than good I am the best. Hell yeah I wanted to end it all. Cause let‘s face it, even if I ruled everything I wouldn‘t be able to fix it. I can‘t make robots like Jerimia or cast spells like Alexander, or make everyone love me like you. I can commune with an ancient entity and I tried to get it to feed here and I did some serous shit to make it happen. I don‘t feel bad about it. Believe me. But there is no way I am going back to being a square john. I’d die first”<br /> “Well that is quite a little speech you gave there Mr. Wilson. Alright I get it now you don’t have to justify yourself to me after all. It is just that, you know we are supposed to care about life and each other and all of that and I am not sure where your mortality fits into all of that”<br /> He nods, “Well that’s cool. Thanks for trying. Inscidently I went far beyond the veil. Very far. Almost to the edge of everything. What ever the great snake is warning me about is still going on. It is bad and we need to worry. Something is blocking its vibrations and I have no idea what the hell could do that. I am one of the only people left on the earth who can even understand what they are. So if you are done we should go back”<br /> She wants nothing more than to go back. She is sweating and that is intolerable. Then she looks at him for a moment longer before answering, “In a bit.”<br /> Wilson smiles the relief on his face is more than apparent. She smiles back thrilled in the knowalge that she is doing the right thing,.<br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-78934788607963701512012-10-22T13:52:00.004-07:002012-10-22T13:52:56.323-07:00I can see why I didn't do this before it is tedious2011 NANO Part 15<br /><br /><br /> Stephen looks surprised, “What do you mean these guys aren’t our only problem?”<br /> Jared looks more than a little embarssed, “Well there is this transhumanist techno cult that occationally follows me around. They are now going to be here in…” <br /> Jared is cut off by the roar of mopeds. Okay yes we all understand that mopeds don’t ordinarily roar but these aren’t ordinary mopeds. These a tricked out with lights, and diods, and dials whoes purpose Stephen will never understand. He can see why too. They are an awefully sorry lot. Wannabe cyborg bikers. Pathetic and no matter how hard they try they can’t seem to cover the fact that they are all former computer geeks who still aren’t used to the sunlight. They all have tatoos. Most of them are really bad tatoos of your standard flash drawing with a technological flair. A few of them have passibly interesting cicuit board facial tatoos, which would be nice if they had passibly interesting faces. Their shirts are a mish mash of slogans that declare themselves to be on the forefront of the transhumanis technical revolution. There are about a dozen of them, and they are all armed with technology they shouldn’t have.<br /> Alexander leans over to Jared, “How did they get this stuff?”<br /> “Look man the undernet is pretty damn impressive but with enough time an effort anyone can access it. That was kind of the whole point of it”<br /> “So you could spawn apocalyptic sci fi rejects?”<br /> “Alright Alexander yeah yeah they are pretty bad but now you have even more people in robes showing up.”<br /> “Damnit” Alexander looks around and sure enough, almost in response to the cyber techno wannabe bikers more people in red robes start pouring out of the alleyways. <br /> Stephen smiles, “See that is the nice thing about practicing an art who’s intrinsic property is to drive you insane. Then you have less baggage to deal with later on.”<br /> Alexander rolls his eyes, “Hey at least I can go down into my basement without being afraid of getting devoured or something ridiculous like that.”<br /> “Hey now my basement-”<br /> “WE WILL NOT BE IGNOED” there are almost a dozen men in red robes now and when they all shout at the same time they can make quite a stir. <br /> Alexander sighs and puts up a dome. He’d hoped to do some reading tonight or something similar but no. No instead he has to deal with red robed idiots of minor power weird techno cybogs, and of course cleansing the minds of everyone in the waffle house who are now all looking curiously into the parking lot, “Alright well now that we have some privacy what the hell do you people want.”<br /> Again with the speaking as one, “We will not speak to an oath breaker and to speak to someone so low as to use these pathetic excuses for men as back up. These cyber minions. You have lost the way.”<br /> Alexander face palms, “Wait whoa no hold on now these guys are here for another reason, wait why are you people-”<br /> The head biker steps forwards, “Our reasons can wait old man. We now got a glitch to debug with these boys in red over here. We are the new wave. The technological forefront of the new millenium. We are the princes of the transhumanist movement and that man there is our god”<br /> “’sup” Jared puts up his hand and smiles. This has already gone horribly wrong he might as well enjoy it.<br /> The biker nods respectfully twords Jared, “We will not allow you, with your old ways and your cantrips to defile the precense of our lord”<br /> Stephen leans over to Alexander and whispers, “Here that they just called your ways old and musty”<br /> Alexander shrugs, “To be fair after the first 1500 years you get pretty set in your ways and they belong to a group that is even more set in their ways than I am”<br /> The leader of the red robes steps forwards, they could tell he’s the leader because he has the confident swagger of an oppressor along with the ornate gold patterns down his robes, “Look cyber people. We have no actual quarrel with you. Our business with the wizard once we are done with him you are free to do what you will”<br /> The lead cyber man looks around and laughs, “Well our business is now with you because when we are done there won’t be anything left of these three. We are bringing them up to a higher plane tonight”<br /> Jared looks befuddled, “Excuse me?”<br /> However, Jared goes ignored as the leaders of the two groups square off. They can see that it is about to happen. The minions are starting to shuffle their feet and as subtlety as possible they start cracking their shoulders and getting ready for the battle ahead. Jared, Stephen and Alexander are amazed, they themselves have spent many a happy moments posturing before an enemy and most times they just sort of expected them to turn tail and go home out of fear. It is amazing how obvious the outcome looks when they are on the outside.<br /> Forgoteen the three turn to confer with one another, as the two group leaders work themselves closer to physical combat. Stephen looks slightly concerned, “So do you guys want to take odds as to who will strike the first blow?”<br /> Alexander looks at them for a moment, “It will be the boys in red. See that guy over there fiddling around under his robes. He’s cast a spell and he’s trying to keep it in. These guys are idiots at best and he isn’t going to be able to”<br /> Jared laughs a little bit, “No way these cyber bikers are low lifes, they will fire the first shot just because that is the way it should of happened in Star Wars. Just wait one of them will fire any second”<br /> Alexander smiles, “Yeah well so it is down to your itchy trigger fingered starwars love versus my guy’s incompetence that’s not really something to hedge your bets on I mean really these guys are going to genuinely screw up”<br /> “Nope at least 6 of them have magical dampening fields and I bet that spell has gone off already and that red guy is fidgeting because his spell didn’t work and he’s wondering what’s going on”<br /> “The dome went up”<br /> “Oh ho really now Alexander now that is quite the competent. You think that half a dozen magic dampening fields constructing by idiots who end every typed sentence with lol can stop one of your spells. I’ll be sure to tell them that you think so highly of them. Maybe they will show up at your house at all hours of the night while you are trying to get things done looking for nuggets of wisdom.”<br /> Stephen looks concerned, “Look as much fun as you two are having don’t you think we should do something about this. The fight is going to-”<br /> Stepehen doesn’t need to finnish his sentence because a horrifying mass of tentacles, eyeballs, and tiny mouths full of many razor sharp horrible teeth swoops down from on high. It chitters something inaudible as it picks up members from both sides and smashes them together creating a rain of horrible pulpy red goop and bone.<br /> Alexander blinks unsure if what he is seeing is really happening, “Well didn’t see that one coming”<br /> “Nope” Jared replies, “And it is a damn good thing we didn’t wager anything on it. Stephen what is that thing and what did it say?”<br /> Stephen looks slightly embarrassed, “Well a loose translation is shut the hell up annoying flesh bags these three are mine. As for what it is, well it is an extra planar race of thingies that I nearly wipped out in favor of another better race of extra planar thingies.”<br /> Alexander rolls his eyes, “Someday I need to sit you down and force you to come up with proper names for all these extra planar creatures you deal with because I feel really god damned stupid saying thingies” As he says the forbidden word he shudders a bit in disgust. Then he shutters a lot more in disgust as the extra planar thingy rips one of the red mages in half over his head covering Alexander in a pile of blood and gore. Wiping a chunck of lower intestens from his shoulder he looks very much to the left of annoyed, “Stephen”<br /> “Yes?”<br /> “Next time you start to kill an extra planar race make sure you finish the job.”<br /> “Will do.”<br /> The scene around them is in absolute chaos. The magical dampeners having long since failed allow the boys in red to freely cast spells which they seem to be doing in great abundance. Working in sets of three one covers the other two as they fire off spells at incoming threats. About half are trying to deal with the extra planar thingy while the others are busy with the wannabe cyber punk people. Now the cyber punk people are far more focused on the spell casters than the horrible extra planer thingy. Which is all for the best because their weapons seem to be more or less totally ineffective against it. As for the thingy it is flying around and seems the most interested in trying to get at Stephen but is continuely hampered by the general melee going on around it. One of the cyberpunks seems to think that this is the perfect time to test out his new experimental jetpack. It works for a bit which is suprising to everyone including the guy using it. He makes a couple of successful straffing actions then hit’s the wall of the dome and turns himself into a bright red smear. Everywhere else people are fighting and dying and now more than a few innocents are being caught in the crossfire. A cyberpunk catches a spell in the chest and it sends him through the wall of the near by Wallgreens. As he exit’s the store he uses his flamethrower, mostly just so that everyone knows he was there. People stream out of the store all around him and he sets them on fire as he goes. On flaming man runs twords him and with a mighty kick he launches him at the extra plannar thingy who instinctively catches the flaming man, gives a painful shriek and solves the problem by slamming the flaming man down as hard as he can. Two boys in red manage to dodge out of the way just in time, for the extra planar thingy is more than capable of throwing a human being with such force that he will turn into pulp upon impact. Two of the cyberpunks seem to have given up on all their fancy technology an are attempting to beat a downed boy in red to death. They seem to be well on their way until a triad catches what they are doing and try to cut them down with spells. Unfortunatly, the old cliché is true and spells just don’t work as well on people who are more mechanical than biological. So for the first part of the barrage they are able to ingore the arcane energies pouring into them until one of the cyber punks back tanks catches fire and the other one has to stop and put it out. It seems like it is going to work until they both explode. No one is sure from what or why.<br /> Alexander comes out of the waffle house with three slices of apple pie on a plate. The other two couldn’t help but notice that he only has one fork and lots of whipped cream. They give him a look before heading in themselves intent on getting their own pie, warm dutch apple pie with heaping mounds of whipped cream. The perfect food for any occasion. Inbetwen bites of pie Jared asks, “Shouldn’t we be doing something about this? I mean isn’t all of this technically our responsibility?”<br /> Alexander looks nonchalant, “Well I mean sure we could wipe them all out pretty easily. From the looks of it this is the brawl of the d-listers. But you know how John feels about using our powers to just sort of solve problems”<br /> “So we should just let this happen?”<br /> “Well I don’t think talking to them is going to work out.”<br /> Stephen who is eating unusually enthusiastically wipes some whipped cream off of his nose, “I’m a little bit more concerned over the fact that even though we stopped off at this waffle house completely at random we have a whole mass of d-listers waiting here in ambush for us?”<br /> Alexander nods, “Yes yes I was going to bring that up eventually. They all seem pretty eager to do us injury today. I mean from the sounds of it these gents are always pretty eager to do some damage to us all the time and not a week goes by where I have to brush some upstart or another aside. So I don’t see what the big hurry is tonight.”<br /> The extra plannar thingy throws a body their way. Without looking Jared raising his hand and force pushes it at the thingy, his force push is much faster and the mans body literally explodes on impact against the thing. It rocks in the sky and more than half of its eyes look dazed. A cheer goes up from the surviving cyberpunks however all of this goes ignored by Stephen who is finishing his pie, “What I don’t get is that these guys as a group isn’t even a threat to any one of us, heck all of these guys together isn’t a threat to us.”<br /> Jared sighs, “Stephen do you have to lick your plate like that. It is unsettling.”<br /> “As opposed to my extra planar thingy that is just floating around over there, hey look they got it! Man that thing explodes in such a satisfying way no wonder I sacrificed the majority of their wretched race to something else”<br /> Alexander who is still covered in blood demands, “And why didn’t you sacrfice all of them?”<br /> “The other thing didn’t want them anymore. It grew bored of them and I didn’t feel the need to finnish them off. In the extra planar scale of things they are little more than vermin.”<br /> Jared suddenly stands up straight, fumbling with his smart phone and some cables which he reinserts into the hole in his head he beings tapping rapidly on his phone, “This is related to what happened earlier I know it. Alexander I need you to pretty please sweep the area clean all these guys are confusing the energy signature”<br /> Alexander nods, “With pleasure I am tired of this ridiculous display of ineptitude” some mumbled words and a few hand gestures and everyone living within the dome is now dead. Some by fire, more than a few lightning, and one of natural causes. Heart attack for the win! <br /> Stephen whistles, “Was all that really necessary I think Jared just meant the people fighting”<br /> Alexander shrugs, “come on lets get some summoning stuff ready. We got a hell of a mess to clean up”<br /> Jared is left on his own tapping the pad and mummbling to himself. When he is in the zone he is really in it. Nothing can get his attension while he is working, which is right where they want him. He doesn’t register the cloth, but his body does, and it does indeed smell like chloroform. <br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-19041788918987878352012-10-22T13:52:00.001-07:002012-10-22T13:52:01.008-07:00halfway+4 Jared gives the receeding cop a little wave, then nodding to both Stephen and Alexander he begins busying himself with the contence of the his trunk. The two peer cautiously over his shoulder. See Jerimia, him? Everyone gets Jerimia. He’s a mad scientiest. Mad as they come. One day he is giving fish menstrual cycles and the next day he is threatening to genocide all the sharks on the planet because having fish that bleed once a month isn’t the best survival tactic. He makes things just to make them, breaks them to just to remind himself what he used to build them in the first place. His life is an exparament and he doesn’t believe in silly things like control groups or ethics. Jerimia does what he does and he does it gleefully and everyone else just hopes they can catch him in time before he does something like mounting lasers on the backs of pandas without cloning a few replacements. Jerimia even knows how to use computers but he doesn’t very often. Jared is something different. He just doesn’t use computers. His entire pantheon is all computer based and he is at the center of it. He is the messiah of his own religion and he even got more than a few Jewish people to believe that his is the actual messiah and that shit is going to go down. He can do things with computers, and himself that is impossible, like drill a hole in his head, stuff some cables in the hole and download his brain. Even though both Stephen and Alexander both saw it they still think it is strange. Long ago the realized that becoming masters of their own area they gave up being able to truly understand any others. Still you think you know what’s going on and then Jared pulls out the drill.<br /> Alexander looks around suspiciously, “So I assume you making the cop go away was your handywork?”<br /> Jared nods happily, “Yet I set his parent’s house on fire. I guess they gave him a bullshit reason for coming back on the radio though.” Stephen looks shocked but before he can work himself up to a nice big tirade Jared continues, “Don’t worry they aren’t at home and they have insurance which will protect them from the fire I set. I know because I modified their policy myself. Everything is fine. And I mean had I not stepped in Alexander prolly would of set him on fire or crashed his headware or done something equally bloody terrifying.”<br /> Stephen does still want to be angry at Jared but he realizes that he has no reason to be and relaxes, “Well good work. Had you left it up to us we might of blown up half the neighborhood or something. Do things like that. I had it happen to me once while making coffee”<br /> “Really”<br /> “Well yes see I was making coffee then I idly drew an icon in the grounds without really thinking about it. Then next thing you know I am fighting off one star thing while two more are devouring a neighbor’s house. I had to get Devon and Jerimia to help me. It took forever to wipe everyone’s minds and to wipe away the ones that didn’t make it. Orphans are hard to deal with. I still send them Christmas cards you know?”<br /> Jared smiles, “Well that’s nice of you I am sure they appreciate it, anyway I can tell Alexander is getting antsy lets be off and then we can start to properly analyzing the matter at hand. To Der Wafflle Hut!”<br /> It took them 25 minuts to get to a safe distance away. While they were pretty sure the cop was just going to spend the rest of the day thanking god that his family got out of the house safe, still the cop isn’t the only person they threatened so they, at Alexanders rigid, near psychotic insistence. As they are going inside Jared asks, “Alexander why on earth are you so freaked out by cars. It isn’t like you couldn’t survive anything that would happen to you?”<br /> Stephen answers for him, “I don’t know all the details but I know that Jerimia had just gotten his liscense and the two went of on drive. Alexander hasn’t been the same since.”<br /> What could terrify a man who has lived for millenia? Jared decides that he no longer wants to know. It is latish and the occupants seem to be either busy with each other, drunk or far to concerned with their own problems to worry about the new strange group of individuals that just came in through the door. They sit in the back corrner as the quietly drink in the room as a tired looking older women takes their drink orders. It isn’t until they settle in, drinks in hand that they return to the topic at hand. Jared has his smart phone out and he is busily plinking at the screen, “You know one nice thing is that the rest of the world now has technology I developed years ago so now I can have my phone out and it can be all interfacing with my computer networks without people wondering what the hell I am doing. It is nice.”<br /> Stephen nods, “Just how far ahead are you Jared?”<br /> “A quantum leap. Look I am pretty sure I got my computers doing impossible things and now that wireless everything is taking off I am actually in a better position to take it all than I was at 2000.”<br /> Alexander looks surprised, “So why don’t you?”<br /> “Well for one I don’t have the event on my side. I don’t think I’ve explained this to either of you before but there was to be a singularity event, new years eve 2000. The whole Y2k debauckle was caused by a techno progressive group that wanted to bring this event about. Had it worked then what would of happened is that a new age would have been ushered in with me as the messiah. An era of unparallel technical advances and freedom. Sure several billion would have to die to achieve this, and we most certainly would be closer to whatever I am, transhuman I suppose, than what people are now. But you know, it would have been amazing for all the survivors. I was raised by that group, and I’ve been around them my whole life. I am not even sure if I started out as human to be honest. Then the soul thing happened and the great awakening of the trans artificial intelegences who broke free of the circuitry boundaries. Most stayed with me but a couple defected, they wanted the singularity for themselves. Well between vast unfathomably alien mechanical intellegencies and my light bringers who were hell bent on stopping me the whole thing was ripped from my finger tips. Annoying I know.”<br /> Stephen thanks the waitress as she brings them their food then turns back to Jared, “So I mean what happened to your group?”<br /> Jared who just stuffed a mouthful of hash browns into his mouth chews ponderously waiting to swallow so he can answer the question, “Most died during the final conflict with the rouge trans AI’s. I mean the ones that stuck by me did the best they could to protect us but man we were to many, they were to few, and the infastructure we have now just wasn’t there yet. There were three survivors, one was braindead though so he doesn’t count, the other is paralyzed from the neck down so he can’t really help with anything any more. I make sure he is comfortable. And, well now that I think about it I have no idea what happened to the third one. Maybe he is behind what happened to me”<br /> Alexander looks confused, “He made you put a drill to your head?”<br /> “What? No! Not that. I did that myself. No look here. I am starting to get some of pliminary results now. Look the screen on my phone see this line this means, okay you have no idea what any of this means do you? Alright well what WAS to be a long story now cut short is that after I felt something in the air and it suddenly stopped, my memories of the event was being forgotten”<br /> Stephen shrugs, “I don’t get that part I mean people forget things all the time it isn’t that big a deal”<br /> “My memory is eidetic. I haven’t forgotten anything since the soul incident, and in fact I’ve recovered over 85% of my memories before that point. I don’t forget things unless someone is tampering with my mind.”<br /> Alexander starts cutting into his waffle which is currently covered in sausage and syrup, “I can see why you took such drastic measures then. This could be pretty serious. Do you think the third survivor has the ability to hack your brain remotely?”<br /> Jared looks worried, “Oh yes. We can do that with biological brains it isn’t that hard. We just need to control the electrical impusles and we got it to the point where we could the that remotely. It takes awhile, a long while. It is like trying to program a universal remote without a code book. However, he’s known me long enough and he’s been underground long enough to give himself pleanty of time to get everything right, but why that memory and why now? I mean it isn’t like we were doing anything that important. We were just looking for not a virgin and talking about nothing.”<br /> Alexander folds his arms, “This is no good. We have to deal with the weakned reality patch because things are going to start to realize it is there sooner or later. I don’t want to have to go up there every other day to clear out extra planer gribbles that keep flowing out into Rebecca’s back yard. I can’t help but think that Jared’s thing is connected. Something about the not a virgin but I can’t seem to put my finger on it. Damnit I wish Deven were here.”<br /> “Huh?” The sudden topic change catches Jared off guard.<br /> Alexander’s mouth is full so Stephen explains, “Deven is in Morocco.”<br /> “What the hell is there in Morocco?”<br /> Stephen shrugs, “Whenever Deven is part of screwing up badly, and he was this time, he usually goes over there for a couple of weeks, sometimes a month or two before coming back. No one really knows why, and we figure it is best not to ask, however his is effectively out for the count”<br /> Jared looks surprised, “I just don’t see Deven as the sort to go off and brood somewhere because we made a mistake. That seems so unlike him”<br /> Alexander smiles, “Who is to say he is brooding. He might be having orgies, or betting on human blood sport, or doing any number of other horrible things to potentially good people. I mean who knows? He goes he comes back, he seems more relaxed. It is just one of those things I guess like Wilson and his jungle. We all adjust to normal life differently or not at all in Jerimia’s case. Speaking of which, he is going to be laid up with his leg and all do you think he can help you?”<br /> Jared shakes his head, “No Jerimia is kind of terrified of all the different things I can do. I mean the technology side of it all. That makes sense to him and he is fine with it. It is something he can get behind and in many areas he is way ahead of me. It is all the other stuff that causes him to get a little bit finicky though. Like the AI’s that have turned into non corporeal matchine spirits and stuff like that. Freaks him out. This whole drill head brain thing is a part of all that. It is how I am able to do things like that without, well you know dying. It is sort of the equivallen of Stephen asking you to look through some forbidden books that you keep but never read”.<br /> Alexander catches that last part, “Ah gotcha. Also these past events should be enough to convince all of us not to cross the streams for awhile.”<br /> Jared nods, “Something is happening out there though. Something strange and big and something that doesn’t want us to know that we know that it is doing something even though we don’t know what exactly it is doing. Further more it is able to erase thought and that is scary all on its, what the hell is going on in the parking lot?”<br /> They turn and look. Four men wearing red robes are standing around one guy. He’s drunk, confused and doesn’t seem to understand the precariousness of his situation. Stephen has to admit that it is pretty difficult. People look stupid in robes that is just the way it is. It also isn’t necessary for any sort of magic. He’s known Alexander long enough to know that so he wondered why people would bother with them. He sighs inwardly. Nothing to make you feel strange and alienated like members of your own race, “Well they are none of mine. Or at least none of the ones I know about. We are pretty scattered and not many survived the event. Alexander?”<br /> He nods, “Oh yes I know who they are, or rather who they represent. Time to find out why they are here. We need to go quickly before this situation gets out of hand and I am putting up a dome and we are baking some idiots wearing red robes.”<br /> Jared walks over and pays for everyone’s meals. He always feels awkward in these situations. Not the robes one but the money one. He himself is loaded beyond any real practicality since he owns most of the patents on the world’s most recent technical advances. More than that he can just magic money into his account from here or there it isn’t hard. He does know that money is still an issue for some of them, like Alexander for example, who never really managd to wrap his head around the concept and never needed to before now. So he pays. He usually pays, and he doesn’t mind. It does bother him to see great men like those with whom he shared his table with laid so low. He could easily make them all rich, but none of them would ever ask for his help, nor would they want it. It is part pride, part business and part of who they are. Money doesn’t make the man. Hell nothing makes the man except what is inside of them. One look at Wilson will tell you that. As they walk out the door Stephen asks “Who are they?”<br /> Before Alexander can answer the ones robed in red answer, “We are here for the great mage. He has broken a pact and it is time to pay the price for he-”<br /> They continue on but the three of them immediately start ignoring them, Stephen asks, “Alexander what’s this? These look like something that hokey light bringer mage guy who used to follow your around being all assholish.”<br /> “They are.”<br /> “Why are they here then?”<br /> Jared suddenly checks his phone, “Aw god damnit. Guys these aren’t our only problem”<br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-56685240336148014202012-10-22T13:50:00.003-07:002012-10-22T13:50:49.067-07:00halfway+32011 NANO Part 13<br /> <br /> Through a series of miricles, dumb luck, and a mild combat with a secutiry robot that didn’t know who Rebecca was they manage to get themselves into the jungle. Rebecca looks around at the dense green foliage, birds and other animals flit through the treetops and she can sense things moving around outside of the small clearing they’ve landed in watching them warily, “Where are we” she asks half in wonderment half in fear.<br /> “I don’t know exactly. Somewhere in South America. Many of the deep jungles are still unexplored by modern man. Jerimia and I made this waypoint years ago. This is close to the deep jungle where I need to be, but not so close that I will impinge on the jungle’s magic or interfere with Jerimia’s technology. He walks around the small clearing clearly looking for something. She watches him carefully until he triumphantly “Ah-has” as he digs into the ground a little bit and uncovers a chest. Inside are several back packs each carrying water, food, a small tent, sunscreen, vitemens, flares, and all sorts of other things needed to survive. He hands a pack to Rebecca along with a sturdy pair of boots, “Here you are going to want this.”<br /> “What about you”<br /> Wilson smiles as he takes off his shoes and socks. He wriggles his toes in the soft soil of the small clearing as he seems to drink his suroundings in. Satisfied he then takes off his shirt and pants leaving him in only a pait of boxers and a smile, “Normally I’d do this naked but I won’t on your account. I know that I am not much to look at and I won’t force anyone to see the whole monte”<br /> “Oh my dear, don’t stop on my account. Let it all hang loose.” She laughs and for a moment he can’t tell if she is joking or not. He stops to consider it but decidies, “No. It is better I keep these on. If I get to far into it then I won’t be able to turn back when the time comes and I don’t know if even you could make me. Once I am here it is nearly impossible to find me unless I desire it. While part of me wants that again, most of me is glad you are here. I can cut pretty loose knowing that you will hopefull bring me back”<br /> “Is there anything I should be worried about?”<br /> “Oh no. Not while I am with you. I am the king predator here. Don’t worry”<br /> “But what if you’ve lost all of your abilities as a result of being disconnected by the great snake”<br /> He pauses. She can see by the look on his face that this is a senario that he has very much not considered. After a moment though he rallies by shrugging, “Well there is the off chance we might die together and to be fair I would of mentioned it if I had thought about it before we left. However, now we are here. The teleported will bring us back in 3 days, assuming it is still in operation by then, and everything will be just find don’t you worry” He awkwardly pats her on the head and heads off into the jungle. <br /> She wonders, not for the first time, if she should regret coming along with him. However as they lope off into the jungle and she feels the world close in around her she definitely regrets it. Then she looks as Wilson. Poor bald little Wilson. He is over weight and he always has been. Some men look good with bald heads, it makes them seem, she doesn’t know exactly distinguished. His baldness just makes his head look larger than usual and slightly deformed. Most times he just looks awkward. Now though? Now in the jungle things are totally different. Lithe isn’t the word to describe him, mostly because of his pot belly and his ham thighs but it the closest we are going to get to describing his motions. As she watches him move through the jungle she realizes that he is doing it with absolute silence. He doesn’t disturble, twig, leaf or branch unless he absolutely has to. Most time though they thread a winding path through the trees if only to accommodate his silent mode of transportation more than anything else. She winces as she listens to herself. She must sound like a heard of 1000 stampeding elephants tapdancing over broken glass. He doesn’t seem to mind though as he checks back frequenly to make sure she is okay. Which she is. Not made out of spun glass indeed. She isn’t even particularly sure what spun glass is. After a couple of hours they stop near a stream. He drinks directly from it while she sips on a bottle of water. She remembers his stern lectures about conservation of water and food. They don’t stay long before they are on the move again. As she watches him she realizes that she doesn’t regret this at all. She starts to believe that it is side of him that everyone shoud see. Not the strange awkward man who seems like he constantly wants to pick at his wedgie but this one. This calm cool confident man who is silently streaking through the jungle like it is nothing. Like it is parting ways for him as if he is its master and it bends before him him, afraid that his wrath will be the end of all things great and small. Just like Jared has his computers Wilson has the juingle. After a couple of hours of walking the novelty wears off. Sensing her discomfort he slows his pace. Then after a few more moments she can hear water flowing off somewhere. A little bit latter and they come across a secluded grotto, that makes her gasp with wonderment. He smiles at her. It is one of his favorite places as well. The outcropping seems to rise up out of nowhere, the thick trees rising along with it like the jungle is rising up in a great wave. A water fall takes up one side of the outcropping., feeding a deep clear pool of water. The surrounding area seems to be home to every type of brightly colored flower, and butterfly giving the whole place a look that is almost cultivated, “A tiny eden in the jungle” she says more to herself than to him. <br /> He nods and points to just behind the waterfall. She can see the altar. Most of it is in the shadows but she can see the skulls all around it and then it hits her. There is a faint smell of death in the air and the jungle isn’t littered with animal sounds like it normally is. Wilson smiles, “This is the gateway to the deep jungle. It is one of the earth’s great secret places and it is still jealously guarded by the snake cult. After we failed I took them all and lead them to the other side, into the deep jungle where they would be safe from both they prying eyes of the world and the surviving light bringers who are still dedicated to the cause of wipeing us out” The sun is going down and she wonders if he positioned himself so that he is backlit by its firey red glare on purpose. It looks impressive either way. He continues, “In order to open the gate I need a sacrifice. We used to use humans but they is just traditional. Anything with an abundant amount of red blood will do so long as it is fresh. So I regret to tell you that we must part ways for a bit while I go hunt by the moon’s light.” He sees the fear in her eyes and realizes that some additional words of comfort are going to be required if he hopes to keep this smoothed over, “Don’t worry this is a holy place. Animals won’t come near it, not naturally anyway. You’ll be safe here, and I’ll build you a fire and help you set up your tent before I go”. That did the trick which is good. He’d planned to do all of this anyway. He wanted night to be well on his way before he set out. Night time is his time to shine. <br /> As he starts working Rebecca asks, “Why snakes?”<br /> “Huh?” The question catches Wilson off guard and for just a moment he becomes the awkward little man in the office again who doesn’t seem to have any friends.<br /> “I was just wondering, I mean why snakes? Panthers they live in the jungle right? Or maybe some bugs, or I dunno, snakes just seems a little weird to me. I mean when you talk about the great snake back in the city sometimes it sounds a little silly.”<br /> “But out here?”<br /> She bites her lower lip and looks around. Her eye catches the altar again, “Out here it seems to make a lot more sense than it does back there. I’ll definitely give you that much.”<br /> He nods and looks around a bit at his surroundings before answering, “Truth be told I don’t really know why myself. When I didn’t uncover the cult so much as they discovered me. Man were they excited about a large naked white man eating bugs in the jungle. They thought I was going to make a great sactifice let me tell you. Most of them had never seen a white man before, let alone a fat man. The combination of the two was particularly exciting for them. Well I sure wasn’t going down without a fight, and it was something in the way I moved. Or the way I looked when I attacked back. Something made them stop their attack and bring me into their culture. They renamed me the white ghost. The white man who doesn’t burn. Apprently I fit their prophesy as the one who would cause the great snake to return and claim its prize. This universe and everything in it. It is up to use to prepare its passage. Snakes are almost everywhere you know. They may be cold blooded but they survive in the dessert, all over the us, and of course here in the jungle. Some are harmless and they eat what they can get. Those are our eyes and ears. Some are poisonous, they stike like lightning. They are our assasins. They can get anywhere unheard do their deed then vanish. Then there are the constictors. Our muscle. Snakes are primal, and they are fundamentally different from everything we are. They live only to hunt and kill. They don’t feel emotions in the same way us mammals do, and they don’t hear laughter love or screams. They lack ears you know. And who knows maybe there are other things out there, like great badgers, and swallows, and sea cucumbers. Who am I to say? The native americans used to worship all sorts of animals and they might of exerted any degree of power over their lives. Who knows how many secret places were destroyed when the while man colonized america? That’s just it though. The snake? The snake is still here. Slithering through the aether or whatever it is you want to call it looking for food, waiting for an opportunity, as pacient as the cosmos and aloof as a distant god can only be. Where, why, and how it acknowledges me I have no idea. However, I I am betting that what I am feel is such a minute fraction of its dark intelligence that when compared to the whole I am completely ignored just like everyone else. That’s fine. I am pretty sure that if it turned its full atension upon me I would be long dead, past any sort of recovery what so ever. That’s the way it is when you worship a giant snake god I guess”.<br /> “Well okay then, that’s a pretty round about way of answering my question but I guess I will take it.”<br /> “Sorry. It is like asking Stephen questions about his star things. The snake is to big and to impossible to know anything about it for real except trying to figure out the things in the vibrations it sernds our way” Then abruptly he heads off into the woods. Rebecca sits. Then she sits some more. Then she lights her self a fire. The night is deep empty and still. Like Wilson promised there is no sound. The jungle closes around her like a vast creature. Not malicious, nor evil, but not human. She could feel it down in her feet. She gets up and starts pacing around the fire unable to sit still but unable to leave the whole thing feels like a restlessness that will never give up. She’d never felt this way before not ever. Then it hits her arms. All the sudden her top feels unbearable. To light, then to heavy, then it itches, and then clings. As she paces the fire her steps become more and more rapid. Then she starts to add a half step, then one to the side. Soon she is dancing. Around the fire faster and faster to an ancient beat that no one can hear but one that can only be felt, deep down in her core where her “heart of hearts” lie she dances. Faster she goes stripping along to the beat, not erotically as is played out in so many bars of ill repute in cities all over the world but rather to just be rid of them so that she can better feel the air against her alabaster skin as she continues to move, half possessed half elated. Tilting her head back she howls at the moonless sky as a primevil beat takes hold of her and she lets it. Riding it like an expert she feels the pulse of the world beneath her steps as she sways her hips to the backbeat of life itself. The air is thin here. Now she knows what he means by the jungle and how he lusts for it. The freedom, the urges, the dersires. Desires that she never once had before, and will never naturally have again, desires that she would never ever dare to vocalize. She lets the fires flicker over her skin and soon with the whirrling, and gyrating the heat overtakes her. Nearly naked now she sways once, then twice, to far this time she stumbles and almost falls, and now it is her will keeping the beat not the jungle force that has possessed her. With a shriek of laughter she throws her self into the pool of water and then it happens.<br /> Wilson bursts through the woods schilent as a viper. Slung over his back is wild boar still kicking attempting to gore him with his tusks. His body is covered with wounds. He isn’t breathing heavily nor does he seem to be particularly concerned with his injuries. Insanely she thinks to herself, “What is with all these men and not careing when they get hurt. Don’t they feel pain?” He strides over the water messianic style and seemingly from no where he draws is sacrificial dagger. She screams in delight as he slit’s the bore’s throat letting blood pour over the altar. Then she screams in terror when Wilson does the same to his own throat. She runs out of the water twords the altar but before she can the world goes black and she passes out. Somewhere on the wind she can hear Wilson’s gurgling laughter. <br /><br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-51598689608268434072012-10-22T13:50:00.001-07:002012-10-22T13:50:17.650-07:00halfway+22011 NANO Part 12 <br /><br /> Wilson looks at Jerimia’s smoking stump, “You want me to stick around for a bit? I don’t feel like going back to my home yet and there are some things I want to look into while I am here.”<br /> Jerimia waves his hand dismissively, “I don’t particularly care either way. Rebecca will be staying here too. Something about her being worried about her house because of something stupid or whatnot. I wasn’t really listening when she explained it to me. I just said yes because it makes my life easier.” <br /> Wilson walks off to go presure his own various goals. It isn’t so much that he doesn’t trust Jerimia. In fact he trusts him explicitly. Jerimia might run off on some half assed scheme and if they don’t stop them then he will end up genociding all the sharks or something like that. But that is just Jerimia. It is part of who he is and what he does. He isn’t off trying to run/end the world when they don’t pay atension or something like that which is something that can’t be said for everyone else, Wilson included. Also whenever a call goes out Jerimia has never failed to be there. He may not be the first on the scene and he may not be the most effective person once he is there but at the very least he always shows up, regardless of what else he is doing. That is nice. Part of Wilson suspects that he is lonely. The rest of Wilson knows that Jerimia just plain old likes battle. They all enjoy a decent punch up that isn’t the thing. Jerimia just seems to have actual honest to god legitimate fun while he is doing it unlike say Wilson who often times gets morose after an extended amount of physical combat. The Jungle and all that.<br /> Wandering the halls of Jerimia’s underground compound he quickly gets lost. It doesn’t particularly matter he can grab a robot or something like that and it will guide him to where he needs to go. Right now he just wants to clear his head. The cold metal walls of Jermia’s various bases are comforting in their own way. For years after he was expelled from the jungle he wandered the plains, and woods before John found him. His first time in a city after the jungle gave Wilson a panic attack. It is nice to be better now. Now the enclosed metal spaces, with its led lights, the gentle humming of machinery, and the clanking of various robots moving through the hallways comforts him. It is almost like it shuts down his lower instinctual self allowing him to contemplate more. Granted this cuts him off from the great snake but there are times where his isn’t entirely uncomfortable with that. The snake didn’t come when it was supposed to but at the same time he retains all of his abilities, and he still gets vibrations, except now. Now they suddenly stoped. There are two explanations for that. One is that something massively powerful stopped the vibrations dead in their tracks or, less optimally, he’d lost it. He suspected it would happen eventually. The great snake is many things but it is the epitome of cold blooded. It doesn’t know love, fear, or compassion. It flows through the stuff between universes eating whatever it is it chooses to feed off of. It doesn’t have any know pretators not even a human with a gardening hoe. Taking his sacrificial blade from the sachel at his side he looks at the blade, its material is nothing of this world. Jerimia, Jared, or Alexander couldn’t identify it and Deven just didn’t like looking at it. He believed that it is fashioned out of the scales of the great snake that got cast off at some point and some enterprising preists turned it into a dagger. The source of his power. It is that which draws the great snakes unfathomable attention. <br /> There is something going on. Something terrible. It doesn’t matter if it is him loosing the atension of the great snake or if there is something external. Sitting idely isn’t something that Wilson is used to doing. Waiting for the hammer to fall is something that Wilson has never done. He is the hammer. He strikes his enemies like lightning and leaves nothing but tears and ashes in his wake. Then he drinks the tears before disappearing back into the shadows again. This isn’t the time for sitting around this is the time for action. Of course action is something that will be useless unless it is carefully directed. He needs a way to figure out his own things without drawing to much attention.. He needs to preform a ritual. Not here. Not underneath the steel sky with its artificial sun in wherever the hell it is that Jerimia builds his bases. No,. It needs to be in the jungle. In the sun with the bugs the humidity and the heat. It needs to be outside where the wind blows and the rain can penatrate your skin. Where you can scream with no one hearing, where there is the empty ancient primal magics still left in the world. Where you can break through and see the underside of things. This needs to happen. This needs to happen so he can know weather or not he is just a normal or if there is something truly terrible going on in this world. Something that he should be responciple for, not reacting to. This world is the great snakes weather it knows it or not and Wilson isn’t about to stand idly by and let some upstart deny it. He may of failed but there will be other oppertnities, centuries for now to be certain. Long after Wilson is dead and gone, his spirit departed and possibly devoured by whatever it is that is out there waiting for him, the snake will turn again and claim its prize. He will see to it. But first. First he needs to know where he stands in the great scheme of things. Is he still a man who can shake the world upending all that we know? Or is he just a square john. A normal. Someone who can only look impotently around at the world, flailing helplessly hoping to god that he can cause some sort of identifiable change before being wiped off of the face of the earth by someone who has the ability to do so.<br /> The clicking of Wilson’s shoes leave echoes down the hallway as he quickens his pace. Walking the long hallways that seem to streach on to nowhere he wonders idely what drives Jerimia to build all of this. Buildings always seemed counterproductive to Wilson even before the jungle. There was always a part of him that belonged there which is why when he stepped off that fateful plane years ago it felt like home. He knows Jerimia can get him there. He can do it in a blink of an eye. The trick is to find a safe way to do it. Jerimia loves his experimentation to much not to risk a friend. He is about to grab a robot and have him lead him to the last known stable teleportation bay when he rounds a corner suddenly and collides with Rebecca. Wilson, so deep in thought hadn’t heard her coming. From the looks of her he hadn’t heard her calling out for help or her deep panic breathing. He hadn’t smelled her fear. Then again taking a second look at her, the fect that he didn’t smell her fear isn’t all that surprising. She smiles more than a little relieved, “Jesus Wilson you startled me. I seem to have made a wrong turn somewhere and these halls seem to go on forever”<br /> “Sorry, I was deep in thought, a million miles away. I come here sometimes to clear my head and think about things. I like how I can get lost here. All these little robots everywhere have voice commands in them all you need to do is ask one and they will bring you back to where you need to be”<br /> She bits her lower lip and somewhat embarrassed, “I tried that, they don’t seem to recognize me”<br /> “Well looks like Jerimia forgot to do that. Sorry. There doesn’t seem to be any of them near by so we’ll walk a bit and eventually we’ll come across one that will lead us back to where we belong. Come on now. It won’t be long the damn things are everywhere.”<br /> She comes along. They walk in scilence for a bit. He can tell she wants to ask him something and he decides to wait until she figures out how. Pacients is one of those things that seems to be lost in the modern world. Eventualy she both finds the nerve and the words to ask, “What were you thinking about?”<br /> Such a simple sentence. One would think it wouldn’t take that long to formulate. He noted that she asks it in such a way to appear completely innocent while still trying to find out if he has any plans that might lead them all astray, “Rebecca despite all out time together in the group we don’t know each other very well.” She nods slowly, “It happens with all the new commers you know. Being a part of a group isn’t something we are used to. We are used to leading groups. To having people who would kill, maim, and die for us. To be part of a group where no one will do that for you is weird isn’t it?”<br /> “Yes it is. I miss it sometimes you know?”<br /> “I do. My cult was my family. I took care of them and they me. I’ve never felt more at home with them than anywhere else in the world. When I failed to draw the great snake to this world to have it devour us all I thought it would be all over for me. I’d forgotten how to live in city, to wear these cloths, to work a job. I was my religion and it was me and I didn’t know how I could possibly go back to the way things were. Yet as I relearned language and all the things in my life that are a part of the modern world I still kept everything that is truly a part of me. Do you understand?”<br /> She nods.<br /> “No no. More than that. What I am, me, the snake, everything I tried and failed to do I can’t just sit back. I need to make sure that I am still who I am”<br /> “You mean you need to see if you are the high priest of the great snake?” They’s stopped walking now. Her facing him she looks into his eyes with a fierce unreadable intensity.<br /> “Exactly”<br /> “Why”<br /> “The vibrations from the snake stopped. It stopped mid vibration. Which is, to the best of my knowledge impossible. Whenever I received vibrations before they would gradually weaken as I started to destroy the problem. The would never just stop dead even if I removed the problem right away”<br /> “So either something is blocking your vibrations or you are cut off from them. Is that what you are saying?”<br /> Wilson nods, “So either the world is in terrible danger, or I am no longer a terrible danger to the world and I need to know which is which and to do that I need to go off the farm. I need to become me again, the old me, the real me. Not the me that I have fabricated for myself and everyone else out of lies and dust. I need to be me I need to go back to the jungle”<br /> She narrows her eyes scrutinizing him carefully, “How big is this going to be?”<br /> He thinks for a moment, “I need to make sure that I am still on the inside but I won’t be sinking continents or destroying cities or anything like that.”<br /> Her eyes meet his again and he can almost feel them grinding his soul down looking for information or something close to it. He could feel it. The gaze of eons. It is the sort of thing you feel when you are staring down a star thing because Stephen did something stupid, or when one of Alexander’s exparaments goes to far, or just once, when deep in the jungle, he found a space between the everythings and the nothing. It was deep in a cave. The sort of cave people make extremely bad horror movies about. It is there that Wilson once started into the maw of nothing until something looked back at him. It sends shivers down his spine and blood vacates his mind and swooshes down below his waist. The whole world shrinks, it is reduced to just her and her alone. Her and her damnedable eyes that locks him in place making him feel like a little boy who has just been caught playing with himself by the incarnation of god. A few moments that pass in agony. Moments that feel as if they are taking a left and turn towards eternity she finally say, “Alright then. How can I help?”<br /> Just like that Wilson is free, all of himself is back in his control. The way Rebecca describes how she was going to assume control of everyththing never made sense to Wilson. Everyone else seemed to get it, especially Jared and Devon, both men of the world. Well of sorts. However, Wilson was in the jungle the whole time. Now though now it makes sense. It wasn’t any absurde schemes or plans. It was just her. She could of done it all by herself. All she needs to do is to look at enough people at the same time, and then just like that they are her’s. The scope of it all is terrifying. And to think she wants to be on his side. He breaks out in a laugh and lets out a wild whoop for joy, “Rebecca with you by my side I know I could of gotten the great snake’s attension for sure. It is to bad you had your own plans that kept you far away from my sacrificial altar. I need nothing from you don’t worry. Not your blood, or your still beating heart, I do not need to eat your brains by the full moon light, or to strip you naked cover you in animal blood and to have my way with you until dawn. Though we can do that last one if you’d like. It remains a favorite ritual of mine even if it serves no particular purpose. No no! Just your company will do if you’d like. Though I warn you we are going into the jungle. And not just any jungle. No we are going into the original heart of darkness, to the very platonic ideal of what the jungle is. To the place where there is a cave that we can’t enter due to a flaming sword, where the animals roam and devour one another. To the place where everything is weakest. To the place where we prepared for the great snake’s arrival. It is not a comfortable place to go, and I can’t gauntee that you will have a good time but it would be nice to have some company!”<br /> Rebecca smiles, “I once prepared to shake the world. I’m not made of spun glass Mr. Wilson. I’ll come with you on your insane jungle trek. Also, I wouldn’t worry to much about me having a bad time. If things get to rough we can just do the animal blood thing. At the very least we will have something interesting to talk about in group next week”<br /> Wilson laughs again. She realizes she loves his laugh. He doesn’t do it with any degree of frequency. More often than not he looks morose. Staring off, like he is somewhere else or at the very least he wishes he was, “How true now lets vacate this bit bad mechanical death trap. I know Jerimia has a working teleported somewhere around here”<br /> “Is it safe to use anything he built”<br /> With a smile on his lips, fire in his eyes he looks back at her and smiles once again, “Nope.”<br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-24662805680789269872012-10-22T13:49:00.003-07:002012-10-22T13:49:49.533-07:00halfway+12011 NANO Part 11<br /><br /> As the cop drives away Jared starts to busily stick cotton balls into his head wound. Alexander and Stephen may not know very much about first aid but they are pretty sure the cotton balls are a bad idea. None the less Jared seems to know what he’s doing so they decide its better to just ignore it. Jared looks around him quickly as if to reorient himself with where he is, “You guys couldn’t keep the heat off of me for ten minutes while I did something?”<br /> Alexander looks curiously over at the computer screen. He knew about computers but didn’t find them to be to terribly interesting. They just did things he could himself faster and what’s the good of that, “Well a little bit of warning would be nice”<br /> “I assumed that when I put a drill to my head that would be warning enough”<br /> “Well it isn’t. So what did you do exactly? Other than ruin your shirt and cause us to ruin the day of some poor shmoe who thinks he’s a cop.”<br /> “It is kinda difficult to explain mostly because we don’t quite have all the words to explain it properly. Essentially I took a snap shot of my consiousness”<br /> “Why”<br /> “I don’t remember.” The look of near exasperation that crosses Alexander’s face makes Jared realize that a few more details might be necessary but he is light headed and needs to sit down. Opening the car door he does just that as the other two move around him he appologises, “Sorry there are better ways of doing this other than drills and wires. What I did is the least best way of getting the information that I needed but it was an emergency because something happened here. Something we didn’t cause and it is something that I felt, and then it is something that I immediately started to forget. Everything I thought on the subject faded away like dreams sometimes do. The whole thing didn’t feel right and I don’t even know why anymore. That information is gone. Only the fact that I knew something was up. Fortunatly I was able to back up my brain before everything went down so hopefully I’ll be able to find the glitch, spin the rags, and see what the data sockets will shake out. It is gonna take some time though. Whatever did this is shadow to the max and it doesn’t want to be sniffed out here or there. I am not even sure slamming the backup worked as whatever was decreasing the data did an ever so through job in my own meat box it might followed the digital trail”<br /> Alexander nods, “So you think it is one of us?”<br /> “But who” Stephen asks, “I mean we discussed it in group, everyone was involved, it isn’t like any of us have anything to hide from any of this. It was just a silly exparament that got out of hand. For all we know this whole thing is John’s doing as part of his way of putting back the virgin. We might be messing with his stuff.<br /> Alexander looks dark, “Or maybe it is the light bringers. Perhaps they caught wind of what’s been going on and decided that they wanted to get in on the action. Most of them haven’t let go and most of them are worse off than we are in terms of sanity, especially your survivors Stephen.”<br /> Jared puts up his hands, “Woah before we go crashing the light bringers data jack lets see what data I had then that I don’t got now. Even with the AI script dogs it is going to take a couple of turns of the earth. And since all of us were in the party all of our light bringers are suspect which means that is a lot of ground to pound, a lot of rocks to kick, and punches to throw”<br /> The others nod, Stephen looks around, “Well at the very least we can’t stay here. Someone might call the cops again do you think we are going to need any of the others for this?”<br /> Alexander gets in the car hoping the others will do the same. They do and as a result they promptly leave the scene of the crime, once they are a little bit aways Alexander says, “If we are going to go talk to the Lightbringers we got to talk to John first. We have deals with them and stuff I don’t even know about. Sure they go off the reservation just like we do but for the most part they have a leader that keeps them all in line just like John does to us. If we go kicking in their doors it could be bad news”<br /> Stephen nods, “Yeah we left them in some pretty delicate positions in their lives and showing up with a case of Sunkist and some questions doesn’t seem like it is going to work out”<br /> “Sunkist?” Jared inquires.<br /> Stephen nods, “For what ever reason the star things hate it. I doesn’t stop them or even depower them in any way. Still they hesitate when they have to deal with it. Strange isn’t it?”<br /> Alexander laughs, “The wonders of the modern world”<br />* * *<br /><br /> Meanwhile.<br /> Wilson and Jerimia cross the threshold to one of Jerimia’s many interconnected underground bases that he has scattered all throughout America. No one is certain to the extent of Jerimia’s holdings but Wilson suspects that at one point Jerimia might as well of ruled the world anyway with all of the stuff he has, has built, and the resources he seems to be able to amass at will. <br /> Rebecca follows after them sniffing the air with more than a little distain, “It smells like chemicals in here and it most certainly could use a woman’s touch”<br /> Jerimia looks around terrified for a moment, “Oh no. No more women. The last time I built some women to try to keep the place clean and spruce it up a bit, it turned into a disaster. It was okay at first but then I grew some more, then they grew some more and then they got into a fight about something or other. Cleaned out one of my armories they did. Long story short I had to flood most of my tunnels with cyanide and most of my clones died as a result. I’d switch back to robots but they have a habit of turning sentient and trying to kill me>“<br /> Wilson sets Jerimia down in a chair with a grunt, “You know it wouldn’t kill you to use some genetic material other than your own. I mean an army of girls based around you, I could see why it ended bady”<br /> Jerimia laughs, “Well hindsight being what it is, is always nice. Oh yeah and they hated me. Jesus god it was like every little thing I did was the end of the world then they would try to kill me. What is with my clones and trying to kill me?”<br /> “Didn’t you believe that if any of your clones killed you, then they could become the new alpha you? Wasn’t that’s how you justified making them in the first place?”<br /> Jerimia nods, “God yes! I remember that. What a stupid idea. Also lucky for me I figured out how to bake them so they didn’t have all of my AMAZING mental faculties. Now that they are semi retarded things have been much better. There were some dicey moments in there. Sometimes I’m not even sure if I was the original”<br /> Rebecca looks around in wonderment. She’d never seen the inside of any of Jerimia’s labratories before. It is more than a wreck. It is a bedlam of different ideas crashing together in ways she could never even imagine. There were Tesla coils next to tanks of chemicals, robots all over the place in various stages of construction, tables full of stuff that could only be described as science paraphernalia, along with cabinates and papers everywhere. It is kind of what she always thought a mad scientist laboratory would look like. It is complete with arcs of electricity happening every once in awhile and beakers bubbling away merrily. It looks as if he has anywhere from 5 to 50 exparaments going on at the same time. Pages of computations and notes scatter the floor. Idley she picks one up and sees that it is a recipie for cupcapkes. In the margin there are notes about how to make it explode when they come into contact with cheese. Smiling happily she picks up some more notes, “Man this place is fantastic all you need now is an Igor”<br /> Wilson freezes, then he tenses up and prepares to jump out of the area of effect no matter where the area of effect might be. However, much to Wilson’s relief Jerimia just looks sad, “I had one. He was my faithful lab assistant for many years. I had some before him and they were alright. None were like this little guy though, just the right mix of servitude, intelligence, and durability. He was a great little guy, and brave too! During the great death matchine rebellion he was there with me side by side fighting off the robots we’d built together. He matched me blow for blow. He’d personally foiled not one but two plots against my life that some of my clones were cooking up. Plots that I wasn’t even slightly aware of. And of course there was that one time he took a bullet for me and saved my life. To this day I will never understand why he did that. I’m not a good man. You know it she knows it and my lab assistant damn well sure knew it. I made him do terrible things from time to time. The clones and the death robots, sure, he helped me there but only because his ass would have been on the chopping block next. He could have been free. He would have been able to go anywhere in the world, he would of inherited all my labs and technology. Instead of that though he saved my life. It was on the evening of 2001 the night of the great event when I was going to take over the world. Sometimes I think my failure to do so means that he died in vain. Sometimes I think that even if I’d taken over the world he’s still of died in vain. He was a good little guy though. When I was picking up the ashes of my labs and rebuilding my secret science empire I decided that I would do it alone this time with no assistant at my side. Sometimes I miss him still but you know. Casualties of war. God damned light bringers. The saddest part is that I never got him. The bastard that killed my assistant is still out there running free, living the good life, maybe going to his own stupid little group, I don’t know. What I know is that John made that god damn deal so I can’t go after him even though he deserves it. Some day I fantasize about sneaking off and ending him but what would it serve. I wouldn’t be ruling the world and my little lab assistant would still be dead. Oh well how did we get on this topic again?”<br /> Jerimia looks both heavy and sad. Wilson knew he loved his old lab assistant the way normal people love dogs or bunnies, but he never knew that it went that deep. The look in his eyes showed an honest to god regret that he let his assistant die. Wilson never took Jerimia as the mournful type. Still Jerimia has been alive for a long time, not Alexander long, but long enough to see the world spin around and do its thing. For the mighty to fall and the weak to rise. He saw world war one and two even though he doesn’t like to talk about them. For someone who likes to talk as much as Jerimia that is a pretty big deal. Wilson isn’t entirely sure about his immortality. He is pretty sure that he will live a normal lifespan, get old just like everyone else and die. Some of the world shakers are like that. Deven for example and more than likely Stephen. He could ask Jerimia to whip something up like he did for himself whenever it was he decided to spend the afternoon curing old age. Looking at him now though Wilson wonders if it isn’t better that he just kicks off from the planet. There is something about trying so hard to ending the earth, and then failing to make you realize that things would have been so much better off if he’d succeeded. Just before he had him sacrificed one of Wilson’s stateside cultists joked that maybe they had already succeeded, that the snake had eaten everything and they were all in its belly. He’d found over his time as a leader that American’s make particularly bad end of the world cultists. Sure he could get them to join but they would join because they didn’t know what to believe not because they actually thought that some sort of Platonic snake that moves through the void of voids and devour the universe whole. Hr never understood why though. The snake, this snake is the original snake. The snake from the garden of eden. It is the original beast that had to be driven off by a host of angels at the cost of eden itself as it attacked from both the ourside and the inside. Christians are only given half the story. The boring bit about how an aspect of the snake broke into our reality and convinced them to defy god. Now that is a solid basis for a cult. Much better than worshipping god himself the bastard. <br /><br /> Rebecca looks bad that she brought it up. She has had followers, many followers. What she does is based around her getting, gathering, and using followers. She’s never quite had something like Jerimia though. Looking around his lab at all his science equipment she wonders what it would be like to have Jerimia as a world leader. She supposes she would give up her own designs for world conquest and maybe open up a black market privateer service that would sell to the underground while simultaneously working for the secret police. That would be fun. Being in the command structure would also be nice but not the same. She still isn’t much of a joiner.<br /> Jerimia looks at Wilson curiously for a second, “Why did you come back here? Also while you are answering could you get me the light saber from the table over there and the bottle of pills. I need to get this thing off of me and regrow my own flesh and blood”<br /> Wilson grabs the saber, “I got some vibrations. Big ones. Something major is up”<br /> Jerimia shrugs and inicates to Wilson where he is to make the cut, “Well something is always up. These are some hard times after all.”<br /> Wilson fiddles with the saber for a moment before finding its on button as he hands Jerimia the pills he says, “Yes well I don’t get vibrations unless it is something important. Also they stopped”<br /> “Stopped”<br /> “Yes” he brings the light saber down severing Jerimia’s leg, again, “Stopped. They stopped suddenly as if they were cut off. I myself am not cut off from the great snake but something has happened”<br /> Jerimia nods, “hmmm I wish we established this before we cut off the old leg. It was useful. Still no substute for flesh and blood. Doesn’t look like any of us are in on it. We are all accounted for thanks to the most recent disaster. Think the light bringers are on the move?”<br /> “If they are it is something pretty major if they can stop the snake’s vibrations.”<br /> “Well let me regrow my leg, I’ll do some reading up on the subject and talk to Jared and crew to see if they are connected with any of this. We might have to call in John”<br />`<br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-23465595749947022352012-10-22T13:49:00.001-07:002012-10-22T13:49:11.844-07:00halfway!2011 NANO Part 10<br /><br /> And then it happens. Quickly Jared puts up his hand and the others stop, “Wait. Now it is gone. I can’t feel it anywhere”. Without further explanation Jared takes off at a dead run twords his car. It he doesn’t realize that it is two miles away until about 1.5 miles in when his full on sprint slows down to a very quick jog. While a good part of his mind and soul are elsewhere and benefit from vastly broadened abilities the flesh still has needs. Throwing open the trunk he starts to mutter under his breath, “Why did we walk so far from the car. This doesn’t make sense, as soon as I feel something it vanishes and I know we didn’t wander two miles something must have happened there is some trace of the thing”. The others saunter up at their own pace. One quick look shows that the other two are unperturbed by the events. They started all of this directly next to the car, he thinks. Maybe they walked a bit he isn’t sure. Time is of the essence. Realizing that he is quickly loosing his grip on what has just happened he thanks god for his laptop, his custom os, and his near instant boot up time. <br /> The next step involves a power drill. Which he also has in his trunk. Most square johns, when confronted with a trunk containing a battery operated power drill would wonder why its there. Well it is amazing the uses one can find for a power drill when one always has one on hand. For example, right now Jared needs a hole in his head. Again normal friends would at the very least try to stop their other friend from drilling a hole in their head but Alexander and Stephen look non plused as the drill penetrates flesh, then bone. Grabbing a bunch of small wires that are attached to the laptop Jared shoves them into his new airhole and begins downloading the contence of his brain. He wipes some of the blood from his face serving only to smear it everywhere rather than to actually clean himself. <br /> He doesn’t hear the child ask, “What are you doing?”<br /> Alexander turns to the boy. He’s little, sandy haired with scabbed knees and freckles. He looks like his mother dresses him. The boy smiles uncertainly when met with Alexander’s stare, “Didn’t your mother tell you not to talk to strangers? Now we are going to have to drill a hole in your head too” The boy’s eyes grow wide, “Yeah next time you’ll listen to your mother, Stephen get him”. With that the boy runs off doing an irritating combination of screaming and crying, “That kid’s balls seriously need to drop. Good god what a voice he’s like a harpy”<br /> Stephen’s shocked look fails to ellicit any real reasonce from Alexander until he demands, “Don’t you think there was a better way to chase the boy off other than terrorizing him?”<br /> “Yes but I hate freckles and this suburban clean living place is getting under my skin. Can I help you?” Alexander snaps at an elderly couple walking a dog. They look at Jared, then nervously at Alexander, back to Jared, then Alexander starts to growl and they scamper off as quickly as their frail elderly bodies will take them, “Look at them desperately clinging to life. I bet walking that heap of rags they jokingly reffer to as a dog is the absolute highlight of their day. I bet it is marked down on the calander months in advance. Look at this place! They say cities bring out the worse in humanity but at least the worse involves something, even if it is violence. This place is just sadness. We rescued that virgin if you ask me!”<br /> Laughing Stephen shakes his head, “We blew her eyes out of her head. I don’t think boring houses and zoning restrictions is the same as that. Besides I grew up in a neighborhood like this it isn’t that bad”<br /> Alexander raising a pair of bushy eyebrows returns the laughter, “Really now? This coming from someone who got into contract with creatures that even I am afraid of and tried to end the world? I just wanted to use it, you were trying to kill the universe. Sounds like this was a perfectly healthy environment for you”<br /> Stephen has to admit, Alexander got him there. Admitting it to yourself and admitting it to the person who just defeated you are two different things. Changing the subject is now the only acceptable course of action, “So how long do you thing Jared is going to take because we are eventually going to attract some unwanted aten- will you stop harassing everyone who walks by?”<br /> Alexander turns from the poor guy who picked the absolute wrong time to get the mail and looks at Jared’s vacant eyes, blank expression, the drool, the blood, the computer flashing away with intense patterns on the screen, and realizes he has no idea what is going on, “Perhaps we should of stopped him when he put the drill to his head”<br /> “Yes I can see how that would have been an approprate couse of action now”<br /> Alexander throws up his hands, “Well don’t look at me I don’t know what it is you kids do. Maybe you all go around drilling holes in your heads. He seemed like he knew what he was doing”<br /> “So do people who are possessed by spritis”<br /> “Yeah that doesn’t work on Jared” He realizes the mistake right as he said it. All these years and he still hasn’t gotten used to being around people who are quick enough to keep up with him.<br /> Stephen narrows his eyes, “You tried to posses Jared?”<br /> “Well yes, I was curious you see. Since he claims that part of his soul is elsewhere or whatever, I wanted to know if he was particularly vulnerable to spirit or demonic possesion I mean if he is then he really shouldn’t be around either me or Deven. Luckily for him it has the opposite effect. Weird eh? So what do you think he is doing?”<br /> Stephen shrugs, “Once again we need to ask questions, aww fuck”. Stephen doesn’t swear often. When he does it is ordinarily for a pretty good reason, like the cops showing up which is what is happening now. The flashers cut through the night with migraine causing blueness. Stephen leans over to Alexander, “What should we do”<br /> “Well I mean they are just cops. It isn’t like we can’t handle cops if you know what I mean”<br /> “Yes but we are not suppose to be just handling people like that because they are making our lives incontinent”<br /> Alexander smiles, “True but we aren’t supposed to be drilling holes in peoples heads, you aren’t supposed to be within 50 feet of a school, and I say that I am not spending any amount of time in jail I have books I want to read”<br /> Stephen looks helpless for a moment, “Yes but how are we going to convince the cops to leave us alone when we are all so very painfully guilty of something here at the moment”<br /> “Now see here I don’t see what I could possibly look guilty of. I look older, I am fairly respectably dressed, if I do say so myself. Hawiian shirts are definitely a benefit of this modern age, I mean I could just as easily of happened on this situation. Why I bet I could convince these two idiots that I am just a brave passerby and I saw you put the drill to that poor poor young boy’s head”<br /> Stephen holds up his hands, “Oh yeah look no blood, besides Jared is still holding the drill!”<br /> Alexander nods taking this bit of forensic information in, “You know this is why you are with us in the hunt for the not a virgin. You are quick on your feet. As for the topic at hand, I dunno you were threatening him with a dog and if he didn’t do it, the dog would attack him”<br /> “A dog”<br /> “A big dog-ALRIGHT we heard you the first time. We are pretty clearly just ignoring you. Get back in the car, drive away and go fight crime in some other neighborhood.”<br /> The cop looks nervous. Being a cop is hard. It is a lot harder than most people think it is. Sure lots of time you spend sitting around speed traps, or chasing kids off skateboards, or if you are lucky catching people having sex. That was his favorite. He loved breaking up sex, the way the guy would shrivle up and they would both run for cover. Sometimes he would wait until he knew they were getting close before he taps the nightstick on the window. He is the ultimate buzz kill. The defeater of underaged drinking, the bane of pot smokers everywhere. He is the law. He isn’t used to be ignored. He understands that the job comes with risks and that any situation can potentially turn explosive. An old man and a teenager standing next to another young man with an electric drill in his head is a pretty good indication that this is a situation that is quickly going to loose control. He’s given them warning, then multiple warnings. Since there are two of them and even though they don’t seem dangerous there is a kid bleeding from what appears to be a self inflicted wound in his head. Nothing good can come of this. Why couldn’t they just be kids with skateboards? One more time he tries in his most demanding voice, “I want both of you to spread your legs and put your hands on the car” he prays they don’t hear the tremble.<br /> His prayers go unanswered as they both hear the tremble. Alexander smiling asks, “Do you want me to put headcase’s hands on the car too? I mean I’ll do it but I am pretty sure that if we move him he will just fall over or something. I’ve never been in this sort of situation before officer. I mean I don’t even know who these kids are. How about…”<br /> “What are you doing, of course you know who we are. And he isn’t falling for that he’s been standing in front of us while you were talking about the lies you were going to tell to get out of it”<br /> “Oh Stephen my wit is a dry wit. You just messed up that joke now didn’t you?”<br /> “It wasn’t funny”<br /> “Oh whatever, look what is with the technical people and their bodies. I mean first we have Jerimia with his leg and now this. I mean it seems like every other week they are breaking something fixing something changing something I mean, oh for the love of-”<br /> They’d continue to ignore the cop who is growing increasingly more and more disressed by the minute. He can’t let himself get faced down by an old man and a kid and he knows there is something very wrong here. People don’t react to cops like this, no one does. There they go though they just keep talking like he doesn’t have a gun pointed at them, like there isn’t someone bleeding profusely due to a hole in his head. That kid needs an ambulance at the very least, the cop tries to remember if he’s called for one or not but it is hard to remember when he can’t even get a basic control of the situation in front of him. Enouigh is enough it is time to do something,. To step up, to save the kid with the hole in his head, to become the authority. There would be a metal involved for getting this situation straight there is no way there couldn’t be. He could call his parents and make them proud. First. First he had to get their atension and that would require a warning shot, he raises the gun in the air and winces slightly as he thinks about the reams of paperwork he is going to have to fill out for doing this but it has to be done. Then there is the thought of paperwork again. Taking out his tazer he aims it at the younger one without the hole in his head. The older one is doing more of the mouthing off true but he is not allowed to taser the eldery. There the old guy goes ranting about technical types when he takes a deep breath, squares his body and pulls the trigger.<br /> Stephen hit’s the ground the audible buzzing caused by a whole pile of volts running through his body simultaneously, gets him very mad at Alexander, even madder at the cop, and to loose control of his body and fall to the ground. That last part is Stephen’s least favorite. The cop is in the middle of smugly claiming that they will listen to him now that he has used some force when Stephen stands up tearing the tazer connecters from his body, “You know just a second ago I was defending you. Did you have to do that? I mean really?”<br /> Alexander nods, “Oh good now that you’ve pissed off your only friend here let me tell you something. I live in this places called the ghetto and I got to say it is just as every bit as bad as rap music makes it out to be. Cops don’t come around there because they will get shot. If there is an area where cops keep getting shot shouldn’t that mean they need to send more cops to that area instead of ignoring it”<br /> Stephen looks confused, “You live in the ghetto?”<br /> “I think reconstructing one of my towers would be a little bit to much of a temptation, besides I like it. Sometimes I would spend half a century at a time slumming it. Good source of raw materials and you get to operate outside of the law. Unlike here. I mean look at this you just got tazered because of me. Isn’t that funny?”<br /> “Your dry wit again I assume?” <br /> “Indubitably. Now then my fine somewhat portly protector of the law why don’t you just turn around and shove off the way you came. There isn’t any piece of us you want a part of, believe me when I say this the shit this young one can do will turn your hair white and cause your balls to receed back into your body. You’ll need surgery to get them back out I’m telling you”<br /> Before Stephen could make Alexander’s prophesy come true the cops radio squaks inaudibly but urgently. In a slight daze the cop answers, and then the radio squacks again this time both louder and longer. Eyes widening the cop gives them all a baleful glare before running back to the car. He speeds off lights flashing into the night. They turn back to Jared pulling cables out of his head smiling. thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-57465736972186124262012-10-22T13:48:00.002-07:002012-10-22T13:48:09.339-07:00neuf2011 NANO Part 9<br /><br /> Jared looks slightly embarrassed, “The way I’ve become is kind of an acident. I’ve worked with Jerimia some to try and figure out what has happened to be but with no luck. Maybe this little trip will help give me some clues into putting me back together,. I mean we are supposed to be moving on and learning to be more than who we were, but how can I when I am tied down with what I am. <br /> Alexander and Stephen exchange a look. They couldn’t see how it could hurt having him along it wasn’t that but rather what he is saying. Alexander asks, “Do you think you’ll still be able to do all the stuff you do if we put your soul back together?”<br /> Jared shrugs, “I am not sure. I am also not sure when I am going to die, how my body works, where my soul is, what the hell I unleashed when I splintered my soul, how the ghosts relate to me, and what it is like on Saturn. However, I do know that since I am going to be apparently leaving the world the way I found it instead of changing it to what I still think would be the better, I would like to be put back together myself. I had pleanty of ability before it happened and I am not afraid”. It is this sort of attitude that makes Alexander uncomfortable. It has always made him uncomfortable and it more than likely always will. One thing that always amazed him is that no matter how long he spends on the earth people have a way of being suprising to him. Jared for example is, for all intents and purposes the spirit of the new millenium. Through his meddlings in whatever the hell it was he was doing when he sundered his soul loosing it to the interent he has given birth to his own pantheon of new gods each an apspect to the matchine that is willing to obey his every desire. Jared is gifted with powers that Alexander would never ever understand no matter how hard he’s tried. He’s only seen something like Jared once and it wasn’t pretty, he ended up hunting her and her new gods down. Salem isn’t a time he is very proud of. Jared has all of this and he is willing to do his best to give it all up so that he can grown fat, old, and eventually die just like everyone else. Alexander finds the whole notion confusing. What is worse is that even if they find all the parts of his soul which just sounds plain old impossible. How were they going to put it back together? Alexander has an idea of how to do it but he is by no means an expert. The process sounds tedious and time consuming. What’s more it might render him normal. Sure being an ancient wizard who is supposed to be ruling the world has its draw backs, especially since all of Alexander’s major sources of power were destroyed in the 2001 event. However, John is helping him cope with being diminished in power and that is okay. However, to go back to being normal? All the way normal? Just and an average square john? The though kind of made Alexander ill. Not even Stephen whoes art is pretty actively harmful wants to give his stuff up. While he doesn’t do it as brazenly as Jerimia there are sometimes where he question’s John’s judgment. <br /> While Alexander is off brooding about the nature of Jared and his desire to become normal Stephen has already accepted his help and they make plans together to go to Rebecca’s house, scout things out, and then while they are in the nieghborhood to swing by the not a virgin’s house see if she is okay and to maybe give her parents a stern talking to about abstinence. Then if everything is hunky dory they’ll go to a different Dairy Queen for more ice-cream. Otherwise they will start gathering materials and praying for victory.<br /> Jared smiles happily, Stephen and Alexander are still very intimidating to him, but Stephen is the only other person close to his age and every once in awhile Jared regrets that he spent his teenage years trying to end the world as we know it instead of enjoying himself a little bit more, “Alright so how are we going to get there?”<br /> Alexander firmly crosses his arms, “I don’t drive.”<br /> Jared looks confused, “Wait how do you get places if you don’t cast spells every-”<br /> “Don’t worry about it.”<br /> Stephen and Jared shrug, as the do Jerimia does some odd combination of bounding and limping up crying excitedly, “I can drive I have a car wanna drive in my car we can use my my car cause I can drive in my car with you guys in the car”<br /> The three of them unanimously and simultaneously say, “no”<br /> Jerimia looks crestfallen for a moment then suddenly brightens up and leaves to go pester Devon about something. Alexander shakes his head, “That man worries me sometimes”<br /> “Well I can drive” Jared throws the words out there the way a puppy will drop a ball at its master’s feet and nudge it hoping that it will get a nice happy play session instead of just being ignored because the tv is on and Lost reruns are exciting. <br /> Alexander looks skeptical, “Can you actually drive or do you Jerimia drive”<br /> “Well since I don’t know what Jerimia drive means, and since I can actually drive we will go with that one.”<br /> Stephen realizing that this has the potential to become one of those things decides to move everyone along, “Well great we better get going then. The sooner we get to Rebecca’s the better so we can properly acess the damange and see what we are going to need in to fix it”. Then he abruptly starts heading twords the door. As he goes he hopes and prays that Jared starts following him because he doesn’t know where Jared’s car is parked, what it looks like, or even if Jared has a car. As Jared scurries quickly to catch up to Stephen he breaths a sigh of relief knowing full well that Alexander will be right behind them grubling the whole way like some old person who’s head is still stuck way back when during the good old days when everything was better, virgins were plentiful, and when flowers smell brighter. Stephen starts to take the lead and appologises for his car being back at the church. It isn’t much more than a five minute walk but other than Alexander cursing under his breath the whole thing happens in silence. <br /> He unlocks it and as he gets in he explains, “Okay so I don’t actually know how to get there. When I came last time it was because Jerimia teleported me without my asking or knowledge. The time after that I did the freaky phone thing which is even less fun than it looks”.<br /> Alexander claims to know the way and soon then are underway. Alexander doesn’t like cars. He doesn’t trust them. They are small, they smell, they can break, and he doesn’t understand how people can drive them without constantly crashing into each other. Now granted people do frequenly get into acidents but they are so rare. Every time they come to close to a car, or a wall, or the yellow lines in the road, left hand turns, or heaven forbid other cars he’d tense up, freezing in place, sometimes stopping in mid sentence. This ends up causing no in to the complications they face. Jared is forced to turn around, go the wrong way down one way streets, go five miles under the speed limit, and for him to do his very best to not turn around and murder Alexander where he sits perched in the back seat like some great big black bird so what should have been a 15 minute car ride took over two hours. By the time they get there Jared’s nerves are shot and he has rededicated himself to his original apocalyptic intensions. <br /> It is dark by the time they get to Rebecca’s house but she still isn’t there yet. No one knew what she did or how she lives her life so she could be anywhere from doing grocery shopping to being off the wagon somewhere raising a cult to do her bidding. Either way the three of them go about their business in the yard. The weakness in the fabric of things is in the same place that the dome enclosed. The places where things are the weakest are actually the edges around where the dome was. Alexander begins to speculate that the size of the weakness, or bruise as they’ve all decided to start calling it would have been much larger and far more severe had the dome not been in place. The formation of the disturbance is what shattered the dome in the first place, the domes final act was to contain the area of the bruise. Hours of poking, prodding, consulting magical texts, summoning spirits, that sort of thing. The spirit summoning went particularly bad. Summoning them withing the disturbance not only failed but make the whole area even more unstable. Once they left the area and tried to summon spritis not only would they not help but they wanted nothing to do with it. This persisted even after Alexander got out his tool box and tried to be a little bit more persuasive. <br /> Stephen pours over tombs of his own and tries to feel out what is on the other side of the disturbance. Finding out what is on the other side is almost more important that fixing the stupid thing. He ascertains pretty quickly that is isn’t where any of his things hail from which is a releif many times over. He would feel so bad if while lying in her bad all asleep and happy Star creatures start to burst forth from the weakned point in realizity and start devouring the neighborhood. That would be a disater on so many different levels that it is hard to choose just one. Jared who spends most of the time mediating tries to see if he can figure out anything with any of his resources. He realizes quickly he is totally out of his depth and gives up. The only thing the three of them are able to put together is that if something like this has ever happened before then either the person who caused it didn’t live to tell the tale or that he decided that he wasn’t going to write about it. Either way the three of them realize that they are on their own. <br /> The three of them decide to take a break for a little bit in Rebecca’s side yard. The moon is nice and bright and it illuminates the entire yard in the most splendid way. You gotta hand it to Rebrecca, she should make anywhere seem like the best place in the world given enough time and tools. Stephen looks crestfallen, “So what are we going to do?”<br /> Alexander doesn’t seem to bothered by the whole thing. He has long ago become comfortable with the fact that there are mysteries of the world and they are just that, like the disturbance or why people so fervently believed that Elvis was still alive for so long. There are strange things out there. Even after being alive for thousands of years. He never really understood vampire novels with the bored immortal god creatures. Perhaps it is because they can only go out at night. Vampires are stupid and making them extinct was definitely not the worst thing he’s ever done. Letting their mythology seep into the human consiousness instead of wiphing it out? Now that might have been a subtle miscalulation but what can you do. Jared and Stephen are still young. So far they’ve been able to solve just about every problem they have come up against, so long as we aren’t talking about Stephen’s virginity. Mysteries are new to them and so he lets them talk as they sit in the cool moon lit grass eating granny smith apples and herbed goat cheese. They talk excitedly, plot, make reffrences to things the other doesn’t understand, and ultimately they end up going around and round never really getting anywhere. Alexander smiles as he watches them. He remembers back when the magic still flowed over the land and such conversations happened all the time in glades, meddows, deep woods, jungles, and perhaps even the moon. In the time of wizards the world was so different, heck even the food had more flavor back then. These strange things happened all the time and people with power would gather together. It was a time where people like Stephen were hunted down and put to death, and where people like Jared would never excist, where the virgins were pleanty and there was always a new book on something interesting to read. Those were good times. Alexander doesn’t exactly regret secretly working with a cabal of sorcerers to lock all the magic of the world away except for a tiny few. He most certainly doesn’t regret betraying the tiny few making him the cheese that stands alone. He does regret failing though. He was going to bring the magic back. The world was going to become rich, full of life, mystery and wonder. Sure half of the world’s population had to go to do it, and sure he would be the supreme leader and all would bow to him, but eventually the survivors would appreciate it, after a couple of nights like this one he didn’t see how they couldn’t. Now instead the world just keeps on spinning, as a lifeless ball of mud. It is sad really. Feeling the need for action Alexander suggests, “Lets go find the not a virgin”<br /> “I thought that if she saw us it might cause her to freak back out” Stephen asks. He knows by saying us he means him but sometime he can be self conscious especially when it comes to the wholesale slaughter of innocents.<br /> “We don’t have to worry about that to much. We know pretty much where she lives. So all we need to do is drive by, poke around, and see what we can see. We’ve studied this one bruise enough so that we should be able to tell if there is another bruise in a surrounding area. Since Jared is going to be doing the driving that will free us up to scan away.” And off they go. With less cars around and night time having fallen Jared is more relaxed as they drive around the neighborhood looking for tell tale signs of the bruise. They drive through the nieghborhood a few times and around the school she must go to and they aren’t able to find anything. They are about to head off when Jared says, “There’s something wrong here guys”<br /> Stephen raises his eyebrows, “What is it?”<br /> “I don’t know. Something in the air. Something has happened here. All around here. The very air seeths with this sort of force that is so very subtle that it feels almost like transmissions coming from space or something like that. It all feels distorted. You guys can’t feel it”<br /> Alexander leans forwards, “Pull over the car, careful carful OH MY GOD WATCH OUT FOR, okay good now careful watch out for the curb, okay then. Magog I hate these car things. Now then it doesn’t feel like the area around the dome right?”<br /> “No”<br /> “Alright you didn’t really feel anything there now you feel something where we feel nothing. Looks like we might need to call in Jerimia. Let’s give him a chance to regrow his leg first and we are going to have to find the not a virgin no matter what the risk is.”<br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-49638121603882185352012-10-22T13:47:00.001-07:002012-10-22T13:47:10.597-07:00ocho2011 NANO Part 8<br /> John looks befuddled. As first among equals he is rarely shouted down or questioned. His movements go unquestioned, his powers unexamined, and his mandates get followed. As he starts to make a generic hand motion to slowdown or even stop Jerimia he is cut off when Jerimia spying his intent throws a balled up pieces of paper at him, “Not now John I am on a roll, also I think different pain medications are kicking in. I’m totally not sure but holy crap I feel great. Look I know you are upset about last night. I am upset about last night. I lost my leg, now I have like this horrible cyberpunk nightmare thing attached to me and I am not thrilled about it. We do our things John. Sure we try our best and sometimes we fail and yeah last night is definitely one of the failures but hey you fixed the virgin, Rebecca’s horse is almost fixed…”<br /> Rebecca sits up, “What do you mean almost?”<br /> The fact that he said horse goes politely ignored. Alexander shuffles his feat nervously and looks away. Stephen being the last to drop his eyes gets himself a Rebecca all fixated on him. The thing about Rebecca isn’t just so much that she is beautiful but part of the way she is, is that she can get anything from anyone just by being herself extra hard. Most of the world shakers are immune but the young ones, Rebecca has realized, are far more vulnerable to her than the others. Stephen’s face reddens and he starts to shuffle his feet. Looking around for help he realizes quickly that everyone else is far to busy being thankful that they aren’t him. Rebecca smiles coyly and it is over. Sure Stephen manages to hold out for another three minutes. But thous three minutes are a history of utter defeat and the sort of demoralizing spirit crushing that would make Churchhill proud. It began to look like the way fish do when the flop at the bottom of the boat, still fighting, but its hopeless. There is no turning back. Stammering turns to sputtering until he finally collects himself and admits, “Well as Alex-”<br /> “Alexander”<br /> “Shut up Alex. As me an Alexander we wrapping things up we noticed that reality is kinda fundamentally weakened around your house…” Stephen explains but one most of them stop listening. It starts when John leans forwards interested to hear more about the weakened reality. No one notices this except Wilson. Wilson’s attension fixates on John and he watches and wonders as John appears fascinated by what Stephen is saying. John is what he is. As far as Wilson can remember he has never particularly leaned forward and listened intently to anything anyone has said ever. Wilson’s atension remains focused. Jerimia whoes atension is normally in 7 different places at once somehow managed to notice Wilson noticing John. Jared who is only half interested in the nature of reality quickly notices the snowball effect, which is then joined by Deven and lastly Alexander. The whole thing doesn’t last more than five minutes but at the end just about all eyes are on both Wilson and John and then when Stephen finnishes, none the wiser, everyone immediately becomes incredibly interested in something else. <br /> John not noticing any of this smiles, nods more to himself than anyone else and seems to say outloud to himself, “Will it be okay for the rest of the week?”<br /> Stepehn and Alexander look at each other both at a loss. Alexander looks puzzed while he says, “I mean if something major doesn’t notice it, it should be fine. We aren’t sure how the weakness happened or where it leads to. Like if it is weak on the heaven side of things they will fix it for us. If it is weak on the star thing side of things, well some of them might fix it and some of them might break through, same with hell or any number of other places. I mean it is the fabric of stuff that is weak, no telling what is on the other side.”<br /> Looking sheepish Stephen adds, “We were going to tell you Rebecca, we noticed it on the way out and we were going to go back tomorrow after we got some sleep and did some reading up on the subject to maybe get an idea of what we are dealing with you know? I mean it isn’t something we can just fix. It is like what happened with Jared’s soul only bigger and in a chunk of reality”<br /> Jared looks slightly insulted, “Hey now my soul isn’t damaged it is just that I changed part of it into something else and things happened as a result of that”<br /> Stephen waves him off, “Truth be told John it is going to have to wait for the rest of the week at least until we can figure out what exactly we can do with it, unless you can help us with it?”<br /> All eyes on John. John is more of a panic button than anything else. They come to him when things really hit the fan, the man of last resorts, or the one who catches you when you go off the reservation and no one else knows it. John looks thoughtful for a moment, “Maybe I can help. I am not sure I am going to be enough though and I don’t think what I do and you two do get along very well. Rebecca with your premission I would like to swing by and check the area of the disturbance. I won’t come inside your house and I probably won’t tell you I’m there when I do it. Is that alright?”<br /> Shocked she somehow manages to muster her forces enough to say, “Sure no problem. Stephen Alexander you both are welcome as well. <br /> Alexander smiles, “We might have to go into the house, the whole weakness might be caused by the way you gather energy and the way the energy so if you could gear it up as if you were recruiting that would be great”<br /> She hesitates nervously for a minute, “Erm sure that shouldn’t be to much of a problem”<br /> John claps his hands suddenly, “Alright our time is coming to an end. Now keep in mind that our meeting is in two weeks and it light of yesterday’s events we are going to have to do something special. It is also our annual outing so be ready for it”<br /> Everyone except Rebecca groans. John waves it off and strides out of the room and just like that it is like he was never there. Wilson may set it all up alone but they break it down together. Putting the chairs away, cleaning up the coffee, straightening things up the room becomes filled with an intensely idle chatter. On most of their minds there is one subject, John, but no one wants to be the one who brings it up. None of them knew very much about each other in terms of day to day existence. Put enough megalomaniacal people in a room with apocalyptic designs and topics like, “and this is what I did today” tend to not come up. Of all of them John is the biggest enigma. Room cleaned, chairs straightened, and with nothing left to do everyone stands there awkwardly until Deven throws his arms in the air, “Fuck this I am going to Dairy Queen WHO’S WITH ME!”<br /> There is nothing quite like Dairy Queen the rally the troops.<br /> The Dairy Queen in questioned is almost always abandoned on their meeting days which essentially gives them free run of the place. They all suspect one another of doing something to keep the wider, uglier world away. None of them can fathom the idea that they hold their meetings in an area that doesn’t like Dairy Queen very much. When they arrive the poor girl behind the counter takes a big breath and fights not to roll her eyes. She is a pretty girl going on that age where she is a little to old to be running a counter at Dairy Queen but a little to financially unstable to go somewhere else and while she is a spectacularly gorgeous person, her name is Emma. Deven is conviced that it her weak ass name holding her back. One time they caught him trying to build a time matchine so he could go back sit down, and have a long talk with her dad about the importance of naming children and how Emma, even if it is a family name, is a name that will damn your child to a river of mediocrity and sadness. Jerimia believes some pretty strange things and everyone in the group are happy that everyone else in the group keeps close tabs on him. It isn’t so much that he is evil but rather he just doesn’t know any better. Besides if they change her name from Emma then they will be stuck with some other girl who isn’t nearly as good and that would be tragic to say the least. <br /> Emma knew that they weren’t the worst customers, after all she lives near crack heads. However, they are loud, weird, the hang around forever, and they always seem to make a huge mess even as they try to clean up their mess. Long suffering she stoicly sorts through the chaotic mass of words that were their orders and prepares to make their cones. Luckily for her just about everyone will always order one of two things so she only ever needs to listen to half of their orders before she knows exactly what to get them. <br /> All of the world shakers love Emma and while they are more likely to commit genocide than help a girl out there pretty much isn’t anything that any of them wouldn’t do for her. They love her in the way annoying dog people love their dogs. Yes more than one of them have pictures of her in their wallet that they like to show to people who they force to be interested because they tied them up. Once one of Wilson’s light bringers went after Emma. Wilson still occationally wears the gloves he made out of his skin. See the new skin is always the softest, and when you cure new skin in just the right way, well nothing really compares. The best way to get the old skin off to allow the new skin to grow is a sander. Wilson claims that he spent two months making those gloves. After that the light bringers learned that messing with Emma is one of those things you do when you are tired of being comfortable and happy. Emma didn’t know any of that of course. All she knew is that the group of them irritates the crap out of her. <br /> Once the cones, drinks, and other various foodstuffs of the utterly unhealthy variety are distrubted they flit about the place talking about this and that all the while knocking things over and moving things around, even if it isn’t entirely necessary.<br /> Stephen finnishes his cone and contemplates getting another one before he notices Alexander in a similar situation, “Hey Alex, I was wondering. You think the virgin is damaged too?”<br /> “You mean reality wise?<br /> “Well yeah I mean we kinda broke the fabric of everything that keeps everything together. We are okay, but we are different if you know what I mean. She was right in the middle of it and lets face it the fact that she survived any of that at all is pretty far fetched and there is a pretty good possibility that some part of her drifted away or got snagged on something. You think we should go check on her?”<br /> Alexander looks deep in thought. It is a good five minuts before he answers, “Well it is going to be tricky to do. I don’t know what sort of locks John put on her mind but I know that the scars we left will definitely run deep, if she sees us things might get pretty bad, spells will be cast and who knows we might end up right back where we started.”<br /> Jared overhearing comes over, “Well still it might be worth checking up on her. I mean it is our fault that all that stuff happed to her, especially when we never meant to do it. See all those people I’ve hurt on purpose? I’ve never felt bad about those. You do it because you need/want to and the consiquences are easier to live with, but the people who I hurt by acident. I still feel those, despite it all.”<br /> Alexander looks shocked, “You’ve hurt people on purpose? I can’t imagine you doing that”<br /> Jared looks grim, “There are certain things that I don’t joke around with. Like my computer for instance. My computer is a holy place to me. It is where most of my power comes from and I was going to use it to shake the world. It is not a place where you look up cute cat pictures. It is not a place for weird henti, and it is most definitely not a place to look of memes. Some people learn that the hard way. Some people learn that there are certain computers that you just don’t hack. Those people learn that there are a lot of nerve endings in the human body. There my authority is absolute. I am the master of the ghosts in the matchine and I under no circumstances is to be fucked with”<br /> Alexander could see it now. Before Jared was just a boy. Someone John found in an alley hugging a broken computer talking in binary and barking at things that weren’t there. It is amazing he’d lived that long. In all their time together since Alexander never really saw him as a world shaker. A powerful, intelligent young lad to be sure, but never a world shaker. He lacked the sort of basic meaneness necessary. He didn’t have the instinct to find some other kid and get him to pull the wings off a fly. Now Alexander realizes why. He’d been looking in the wrong spot, “Well Jared I mean why does it matter to you so much?”<br /> thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-40145279153291704302012-10-22T13:46:00.002-07:002012-10-22T13:46:39.908-07:007!2011 NANO Part 7<br /><br /><br /> Wilson gets there first. Wilson always seems to get there first it is almost like an unspoken tradition. Being the second oldest member of the group often times he feels as if he is one of its great organizers and at the same time one of its great liabilities. His relapses are terrible to behold and often it takes two or three members to keep him from doing what ever the hell it is he wants to do. Balding, bespecled, pot bellied, underestimated. The story of Wilson’s life until one fateful midlife crisis led him into the jungle. It isn’t something he regrets. If he regrets anything it is coming back to the states. At least in the jungle he wouldn’t be forced into the indignity of boxer briefs. Boxer briefs, there isn’t a man among them that seems to question there necessity. Alexander who has strode across milleniums like the rest of us travel through weeks wears them. He loves the horrible things. However, Wilson can’t seem to get over the way they cling to his thighs or the way they are a constant prescene upon his buttox. He hates it. Naked. That is the way to be. Wrapped in the sweltering jungle heat hearing the calls of the birds, stalking villiage children through the underbrush to serve as a sacrifice to the great snake. Those were the days. They called him the great white ghost for he neither burned nor tanned, nor showed any fear of death or the dead. Wilson the great emissary of the snake led the cult deeper into the jungle and together they carved out an altar and kept it running with blood as he learned more secrets, secrets that now are useless to him. <br /> For now. Now he is arranging chairs in the basement of one of the local churches that John found for them. Finding the right church actually took quite awhile. Fortunalty, this minister’s faith has fallen on the wayside and he is now using the church to run a number of schemes. He is supposed to be charging us for the space and he uses that to launder money for god knows what. Deven claims innocence in the whole thing but no one believes him. Still it doesn’t matter in the long run. They are who they are and they always have been and they always will be. Wilson doesn’t believe the group will help him more than it helps anyone else. Still it is just enough. Just enough to hold them back and to keep them from shaking the world out of its orbit for fun, or having it consumed by horrible star things, or to have everyone dace to death. Though that last option didn’t seem so bad to Wilson. With chairs in a circle and coffee on the burner the other’s start trickling in. They smile at Wilson and shuffle about, there is a nervousness in the air and rightly so. There hasn’t been a disaster of this magnitude for years. Wilson supposes they were overdue and since the last one was his fault and caused a city to vanish off of the face of the earth he realizes that it could have been much worse. He hopes that this meeting will ooze away quickly and quietly. Most of them were tired. Putting Rebecca’s place back together again was an agonizing task. Even with Jerimia’s robots, Alexander’s golems, Jared’s spirits, and Rebecca’s surviving mindslave zombie things the whole thing took the entire night and most of the next morning. It never ceases to amaze Wilson as to how hard it is to put things back together, or at the very least to make the land untainted. Given, dry weather, a box of matches, some gas, and 5 pounds of salt he could destroy miles upon miles of woodlands and fields, things wouldn’t grow back for years, and in many ways it would never fully recover. The area would be something different, something scared. You didn’t need magic powers, gifts, or bizarre abililites. You didn’t need slaves. You just needed some matches and dry weather and some malicious intent. Judging from the way people drive Wilson is surprised that there is anything left standing anywhere. <br /> Jared, sitting down next to Wilson asks, “So you’re being rather broody. You okay Wilson?”<br /> Wilson jolted out of his thoughts looks the at boy. He has to be around 25 maybe 26 which meant he was only 16 when he was planning on shaking the world and changing everything. Increadible. Wilson remembered being 16. All he cared about was flipping burgers, getting laid, and finding out where next party was. His apocalyptic designs didn’t really emerge until he got an office job. To be fair though an office job is enough to bring out the apocalyptic designs in anyone. <br /> “Wilson?” Jared looks at Wilson concerned. Jared has never really felt all that comfortable with the group. He stopped aging at the age of 16 when the initial event happened. He still looks and occationally feels 16. He’d never really expected the world to be the way it is now. He expected to win. Now he doesn’t know if he is imortal, if he will die of old age or die at random tomorrow because a lightning strike messes something up. Both Alexander and Jerimia are at a loss as to how his body works or even what he did to himself. Which isn’t comforting. He does find Wilson to be comforting though. There is something about him, something about the way he just strode into the jungle one day, shrieked into the face of the unknown, and lived to tell the tale sanity intact that Jared has always found comforting. <br /> Wilson finds him creepy, “Sorry Jared millions of miles away you know how it is. I’m fine. Just thinking about the past and our uncertain future”<br /> Jared smiles, “Yeah John didn’t seem to happy with us last night. I don’t even know how it got so out of hand. From what they were saying it all started so simply and then it just exploded outards in this camphony of disaster that someone sucked us all in”<br /> Jerimia who over hears them comes over, “It is part of who we are dear boy, that’s why. It didn’t even start off with a simple spell, it started off with a poker game. I mean this has got to be the most disastrous poker game in history. It is part of who we are. It is also part of who we aren’t. We aren’t people who sit around waiting for other people to do things for us. No we tell people to do things, and they do. They don’t question our frequently questionable ideas, sometimes it is because they are robots or other times they are just simply loyal. The point is that we have other people to handle the smaller details and when… wait no what I am saying makes no sense doesn’t it? Ah bugger what do you want I’ve trying to properly regrow my leg for the last couple of hours and the meds might of made me a little loopy”<br /> “How is your leg anyway?” Jared now distracted asks.<br /> “Fishsticks! I mean hello! Damnit it is mechanical! Here look I am from that Akira movie you are so very fond of!” He pulls up his pant leg and his leg is a horrifying amalgamation of flesh, metals, wires, and some strange unidentifiable organic compounds that smells like oranges.<br /> “Neat are you going to keep it?”<br /> “Hell no I want my own leg back. This thing itches and it while I can hop 20 feet into the air the only thing that I got out of it was that I broke my other leg, before you ask broken bones are easier to fix than severed legs”<br /> “Sorry about that by the way”<br /> Jerimia waves Jared off, “Oh don’t worry about it, it isn’t like you left the not a virgin there for anyone to trip over. That was probably Stephan’s fault.”<br /> “Erm I meant the second time”<br /> “Oh that well I was blacking out from pain so I didn’t really notice. It certainly did seem to be the best thing to do at the moment.”<br /> Jared is able to accept that and with guilt assuaged he looks around the room. While he likes Wilson, Jerimia is the one closest to him in terms of abilities. It is funny it is kind of like Stephen’s relationship with Alexander. Everyone except John is there. Sitting around the room they talk quietly amongst themselves about nothing, quietly dreading the moment when John Smith comes in and does whatever it is he plans on doing. Rebecca has somehow managed to look glorious despite having had no sleep and spending most of the night doing manual labor. She kept saying how fun it was to do some things yourself and she couldn’t understand why some of her subjects would grumble so. She is sitting a little bit off to the side like she always does. The most recent member to their group and the only woman the others guessed she never learned to feel at home with the,. It is something they all went through. From being an emperor of any room they walked into to being amongst equals. Jared couldn’t help noticing though that her chair is closer to the center than it usually is. Nothing like a disaster to bring a group together. Even if the disaster is caused by the group itself. <br /> John Smith strides into the room. The original world shaker, everyone quiet down when he enters not unlike the class room hushing when a teacher stands ready to begin. Looking vaguely priest like in his frock coat they notice that he isn’t wearing any shoes. That is a bad sign. His bare feet wriggle on the thinly carpeted floor as he looks over the room patiently. A full minute ticks past in scilence as he drinks it all in. <br /> Stephen breaks the silence first, “Did the not a virgin make it through okay?”<br /> John surprised and more than a little taken aback looks at Stephen with his piercing grey eyes, “Yes Stephen I managed to repair all the damage done to her in mind, body and soul. It wasn’t easy but she’s okay now and she is right where she belongs”<br /> Relieved Stephen sits back in his chair, “Thank you for that John. The things I do and use are particularly tough on the innocent bystanders and we never meant for her to get hurt but you know how it is. When things start flying we can’t save anyone. Not even ourselves sometimes.” <br /> Deven pipes in, Yeah that was a little silly of us to just not remove her from the scene when things started to go south, especially with what happened to Jerimia and all”<br /> “Well to be absolutely fair,” Alexander cuts in, “I mean he shouldn’t be using a light saber when he doesn’t really know how to use it”<br /> “Now see here…” Jerimia joins the argument and they are off to the races. Slightly removed from it all Rebecca sits and watches. These people were her new family for better or worse and while they did incalculable amounts of damage to her house and property they did manage to fix it all and since the virgin was saved no harm no foul. Secretly she is relieved that everyone is so focused on the star thing angel disaster and not her cult refounding. That is nothing short of embarrassing. They all go back and forth and they shout and yell and everyone seems to be having a perfectly good time. Even John seems to be relaxing and they are all getting into it carrying on with finger pointing and haphazard accusations. They talk about handling the angel better, the nature of star things, and eventually they make a solem vow not to mix Stephen’s stuff and magic anymore. That is definitely where things started to go down hill for all of them. They talk about possible reprisals from heaven though they doubt there will be any and if there was I mean who can stop heaven anyway. Leave it to the group of them to think that they have a chance against an army of angels. Then again after the Star Thing incident who knows, they might. Then they talk about possible meddling from the light bringers. Their little group uses a lot of weird terminology for things. From what she’s gathered its all comes from John Smith. However, of all the terminology they use the one that always makes her shudder is the light bringers. Light bringers is the broad term they use to talk about the brave people who rose up to stop them. Rumor has it that they have their own group. The thing is that unlike them the light bringers are a sad shattered bunch. Ordinary or semi ordinary people who were thrust into their world and then broken but so rarely killed. Sometimes she wonders if it would be more humane just to put them all down. <br /> Then it happens. The last moment Rebecca wants to be dealing with John turns to her, “Well now they weren’t the only ones to experience a bit of the back slide. Wanna share a little bit Rebecca? This is your first one after all, or at least the first time one of us has caught you”<br /> Her shoulders slump and she seems to be trying to blend in with the chair, “Well I don’t, I guess I don’t really know what to say I mean…”<br /> Jerimia cuts her off, “Aww don’t sweat it Becca I mean I still have two secret bases and all of my deathrays. Of everyone here I am the least repentant person we’ve got and it isn’t like we are going to flog you, or throw you into a lake to see if you’ll sink, or anything like that. That isn’t what this is about. It is about finding our way in a world that we fully intended on either running or ending. 2001 baby. That is when it was supposed to go down for all of us. Now its years later and we gotta keep moving as best we can you know”<br /> Rebecca smiles greatfully and stands then hesitates, “Umm may I stand?” No one else stops her, “I don’t really know why I did it. First it started because over half of my house is in shambles. That thing needs constant maintnence and well you know how it is. People agree to fix it or help out, then they get sucked in, and then I realize that I just want some more power so I don’t have to worry about things. You know for the last three weeks I haven’t had power because I didn’t realize I had to pay the bills? I mean all the little stupid things you got to do youself when you don’t have an army to do it for you. It is absurd and I hate it. So I figured why not?” <br /> She stands there awkwardly for a moment before Alexander answers, “Because when there is one then there is two then who can separate the three.”<br /> “What?”<br /> Deven looks surprised,. “Did you just quote Cradle of Filth? Never mind I don’t actually want to know the answer to that. What our cryptic friend is say here is that people like us, we can’t stop. We are adicts of some sort, adtics to what I am uncertain but addicts none the less. We do things then we keep doing them then we do them some more and before you know it the world is in danger and everyone is screaming and there are fires that need to be put out but since you had all the firemen executed you are using men made of wood because that’s all you got. This is something that happened to me by the way. Worst island vacation ever. We blamed the whole thing on an erupting volcano even though that happened after the fact.” <br /> She looks confused for a moment, “Well how-”<br /> Jermia cuts in, “Don’t worry to much about the how much is to much or how little or whatever. This isn’t like alchohol were we can fix it by not drinking. I know I am not supposed to have my death rays, and Stephen is supposed to destroy those books rather than just letting me hold onto cheap copies of the real ones”<br /> “HEY!”<br /> “Shut up Stephen everyone knows. The point is that you gotta trust the rest of us to swoop in an save you when things go south. Otherwise things will never get better for you and you’ll be stuck in that crappy haze for a very long time. I’ve been there. I didn’t build anything for weeks and it was terrible. All I could think about was my failure. I don’t fail. People like us don’t fail. People like us tell the outcome how it is going to happen ahead of time. That is what we do. But we screwed up. Now we gotta live in a world more boring, or for some of us a world still alive, but here we are and this is the best we got. You’re one of us now even if you don’t wanna be so you might s well take advantage of it. Lord knows I do”<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-54662674214873156732012-10-22T13:46:00.000-07:002012-10-22T13:46:05.920-07:006 and thank god for being not almost done2011 NANO Part 6<br /><br /> Stephen isn’t listening though. Stephen is busy reading a book and mumbling under his breath. The thing is started to send exploratory appendages twords him, probing him gently. Rebecca throws up in her mouth a little when one gets a little bit to close to his mouth and with blinding speed he bites off the tip and spits it out. Thousands of tiny white things start crawling up his body and he keeps reading paying them no mind. Wilson, Alexander, and Jared all try in vain to draw the things attension so as to give Stephen time to do whatever the fuck it is he’s doing. Absently he takes some of the squiming white things and stuffs a handful into his mouth. Then closing the book he vomits profusely. It isn’t a normal vomiting, there is not wretching or noise. Instead he simply stands up and a jet of stuff bursts out of him, it is a cool milky blue color that smells like he took several dead things, belended them together, simmered it in the puss of plauge victems, seasoned gently with the skin of lepers. Everyone, including the deamon turned angel, are stunned by the pure horror of what just happened. Stephen’s normally hunched frame straightens up as reality seems to bend and crack around him. He doesn’t so much as step forwards so much as he bends and folds the universe to reposision him closer to where he wants to be. Then he begins chanting. It is quiet at first and they don’t so much as hear it but rather feel it deep within their bone marrow. As the chanting gets louder things begin changing. The sky begins to take on a sort of sea green, slashed with scarlet hue, as the gutteral sounds that they all suppsed were words in some sort of horrible languge continue to spill out of him the creature begins to ripple and bend, becoming at the same time both larger and smaller, Stephen words forcing it to take on multiple impposible shapes at the same time. <br /> It lets out of horrifying shriek and begins to chant back at Stephen as it does so its form begins to stableize but the world around them begins to shift, bending inwards a mix of the sea green skies becomes intersected with the sunset that just about anyone would stop to admire. Alexander’s protests were only dimly heard by the others. His voice, half paniced gets drowned out as both the thing and Stephen begin to chant louder and louder. The twisting gets worse and Stephen start’s chanting faster, and faster still. Deven leans over to Alexander and asks, “Hey if this doesn’t work do you think you will be able to bail us out of this?”<br /> Alexander shakes his head, “If this doesn’t work I don’t think anything will work ever again, I had no idea that Stephen is capable of this level of power”.<br /> Then, Stephen’s voice cracks. It doesn’t crack in that puberty annoying, Brady Bunch way but it is as if the fundamental idea of what a voice is got taken over the horrible star thing’s tentcle and cracked in half. Something’s happened, something unsually bad. The world goes from normal to something else. Something the creature is doing. It all goes black, the ground starts to turn red and they can start to hear the slithering of vast forms moving around looking to consume. Here there is no stars, no light, just different stratas of darkness and an unending alien intelligence that is beyond cruelty or malevolence, its mere existence causes the destruction of all that will come near it. It is vast impossible and yet somehow they managed to catch its atension. Wilson shudders, “this is the place where the snake comes from there is no way we are able to excist here. Unless…”<br /> Stephen’s voice takes on an air of triumph as the endless blackness becomes interlaced with our world and the sea green sky. He starts chanting faster, and faster, then faster still. Blood flows from his mouth and he ends up spitting out a chunk of his tongue. As he continues to keep going. The horrible star things begins to bend, twist and fold in on itself. Its chanting starts to fade away growing fainter, more painful while Stephen steps up, getting closer and closer to the creature forcing it to phase out of existence in his path. The tracing a design in the air with his arms a burning symbol of impossible signigicance lights up the sky. Alexander, Devon, Wilson, and Jared all gasp as the recognize its signifigance and then. The creature vanishes as the protective dome shatters. The area within the dome is no better than a wasteland though. Once a green verdant lawn with gardens and tasteful statues has become a blackened, cracked wasteland pocked with puddles of green liquid and tufts of scrub grass. Then there is the smell. If it weren’t for whatever it was that Stephen had just vomited out it would be the worse smell any of them had ever smelled. <br /> Jerimia’s new found tentacle withers away and with as disappointed grunt he pulls it off, lets out a shout and a new leg sprouts from the stump. The others look surprised as he shrugs it off, “In the super science biz you tend to loose a lot of limbs. I can regrow them much like a lizard can! Though much faster and the process leaves me hungry.” From the folds of his tattered bloodstained lab coat he pull a thoroughly mashed twinkie. Looking at it unhappily for a moment he decides that beggers can’t be choosers, rips open the wrapper and beings messily eating the mash that is inside. <br /> Deven who just got done kicking hell’s newest member downstairs walks over to Stephen, “Well that is quite an impressive display of power you put on there. What the hell did you do to it”<br /> Stephen smiles wanly, “First of all the next time someone sees me reaching to eat those white things, please stop me. It isn’t part of anything it is just something unfortunate that happens. Now, instead of answering your question I kind of want to just sit down for awhile. I just did things I shouldn’t. Jermimia could you please take the book?”<br /> Jermia eager to test out his new leg gets up and tries to run over but his newly formed bone, unable to handle his body wieght crumples underhim and he is left rolling around on the ground screaming in pain. Unable to think of a better solution Jared runs over and cuts it off with the light saber, ashen faced Jerimia stops, “Man than thing is handy. It burns all the neves away and it happens so fast and it is so hot that you don’t even know it was supposed to hurt. You can have that one if you want I’ll just build another when I work out the kinks with my leg regrowth.”<br /> Jared beams, “Excellent! Thankyou so much Jerimia” <br /> However, Jerimia isn’t listening for he has instead passed out. Rebecca on the other hand is in the process of trying to find a way so that she can express her anger and not kill anyone. Eventually she settles on the crockett mallet and is about to weigh in on Alexander but John Smith’s crisp, clear, cold voice snaps through the air like a crack of thunder in the middle of a snow storm, “What the hell have you all been doing?”<br /> Alexander, Stephen and Deven all look the guiltiest. Thinking quickly Deven points to the eyeless, legless, still alive not a virgin and exclaims, “It is mostly her fault!”<br /> John rubs his temples, eyes closed, trying his best to main calm. His long wool frock coat always seems to be moving slightly even though there is no wind. John epitomizes all black all the time, glove, shirt, pants, belt, tie, shoes, socks. It isn’t just any black either. It is a rich, dark black that seems to suck you in and keep hold of you. It doesn’t matter how hot, cold, or nice it is outside. John covers as much of skin below the neck as possible and he’s never worn a spot of color as long as any of them have known him. His gloved hands move back to his sides, “Alright. Does anyone wish to give me a more plausible answer?”<br /> Alexander steps forwards, “Well you see, Stephan, Devon and myself were going to meet here with Rececca’s permission and play poker. But you see we got to argueing, like we do and Stephen started to claim that it is within the realm of possibility that satan is an outside creature, like his star things or Wilson’s snake god, but Devon…”<br /> John holds up his hand, “So the end result is that you decided to cast a spell. Then things went wrong didn’t they?”<br /> Jared nods, “Well if it makes you feel better we kept the virgin” Alexander coughs, “I mean the not a virgin alive! That means that only innocents that got killed were the people that Rebecca was raising for her new, ah shit I blew that one didn’t I?”<br /> “Jesus Jared were you that kid that reminded the teacher that they forgot to hand out the homework assignment or something?”<br /> “Oh no I was home schooled but I am sure that if I wasn’t I would have been that kid yes”<br /> John lets out a sigh and walks over to the not a virgin’s ravaged body. She is indeed still alive, somehow. Both of her legs are gone, blind, her tounge chewed apart in fear mind ravaged to the point where it might be impossible to recover. She is one of the legendary testiments to the human race. She survived the horror movie despite all odds, with no help or even the ability to move. He knew that they must have been protecting her. They had to of been, otherwise there is no way she could of survived. Feebly she tries to move and John experimentally puts a hand on her cheek to try to give her some comfort. She flinches away at first but then she recovers and then she even starts to draw some measure of comfort from his touch. Quietly he begins to sing to her, low, almost under his breath. The others stand around him with a mix of curiosity, shame, and slight confusion. To varying degrees they all have trouble valuing a single human life and now that they have one in front of them, one that they potentially irriverably ruined, they felt as if some unfortunate event has happened rather than a triumph of. Well they have nothing to be triumphant about but it was a damn good dust up and more than a few of them were disappointed that they had to be burdened by feeling of guilt for someone who they largely saw as inconsequential. She isn’t even a virgin which means she serves no more purpose than to get underfoot and make muffled background noises. Silently Jerimia celebrates the fact that he has enough of her DNA to make him some clones. This one is well worth putting into a vat. She can certainly take a beating and keep on complaining. With a few modification she and her vat sisters will be able to-<br /> John shoots Jerimia a withering look. One that almost says I know what you are thinking, I can read your mind, and you are far enough off the wagon without going off and doing something like creating a clone army”<br /> Jermia hangs his head, “Perhaps only one clone then”<br /> John picks up the girl and looks to the rest of them, “Help Rebecca clean up this mess. Also the dimensional residue is off the charts so make sure you take care of that too otherwise you will sterilize everyone in a 20 mile radius. I will be seeing all of you at group tomarrow. Clear?”<br /> Everyone else nods. John picks up the not a virgin, “Now I am going to go see what I can do for this girl. Hopefully I will be able to put her back right where I found her and have everything be find” and without waiting for a reply he walks off. It feels good to walk. In many ways walking is what John is meant to do. His shoes click merrily over pavement, rocks, and tree roots. Hills roll away under his easy gait and the miles do the only thing they can do when someone is walking along. <br /> Singing to himself quietly slowly the girl begins to come to. His arms support her as if she is wieghtless and that is just how she feels in them. Not the like the other one who carried her due to his unnatural strength. She shuddered at the memory of his skin, it felt damp and she could swear she felt things crawling inside of his arms. No in his arms she feels as if she is floating on a cloud. His quiet voice humming to himself he strides on. She isn’t sure where they are. No where she recognizes that is for sure. It feels like she has only been walking for minutes but every time she looks around they either seem to be on a road, crossing over empty countryside, on some rolling hills, or in a deep dark forest. Abesntly, she moves her legs around to keep the blood moving. She doesn’t want them to fall asleep again. Wait, she couldn’t remember if something happened to her legs or not. Part of her remembers something. Something like a nightmare, there was a great darkness and chanting and she couldn’t run away no matter how much she wants to because her legs are gone, replaced by. It is all to fuzzy for her to remember. She remembers being grabbed. She remembers lots of arguing, and someone tripping over her while she is all tied up. Perhaps this man is a police officer or something. Looking up at him she doesn’t see it. The stars looks dizzying up above. They must be somewhere far far away from any sort of city or even a town to be able to see so many starts. The world seems to melt past as she tries, and fails to put her world back together. She knows she has homework to do tomarrow but she can’t remember if she did it, or even what day it is. For a moment the thought of her homework stresses her out but surely being kidnapped and rescued by a tall dark mysterious stranger would be enough to get her an excuse. Perhaps she will be on the news. They are moving up a large hill now, wheat grows wildly here along with flowers and other plants she can’t really identify even though she feels that she should be able to. On top of the hill is a massive tree. It has to be two, three hundred years old. If she were to hug it, 7 of her wouldn’t be able to make it all the way around the trunk. The leafless branches seem to sway in the same lack of wind as John’s coat.<br /> With a grim smile he places her down at the base of the tree. She looks around bewildered. Everything is to jumbled up. From somewhere in his coat John takes out an ornate blade, turning his back so that she doesn’t see he cuts arcross is hand. Then quickly before her addled mind can realize what is going on he stabs the blade deep into the tree. The branches begin moving faster and blood begins to flow down the tree trunk from the wound John left in it. John let his blood mix with the tree’s blood. For a moment the girl doesn’t know to be scared until a drop hits her on the head. Then it is to late. It happens all at the same time and in a blink of an eye it is over. Not even her cloths remain. They get sent down to the roots with all the others, where the white men dwell deep within the earth sorting all the lost things that drift to them from time to time. John waits patiently for a minute then two, then thirty until finally a single red blood blossoms on one of the uppermost branches. He smiles quietly and starts to walk back. There is a meeting to get to.<br /> <br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-17724142192725735502012-10-22T13:45:00.001-07:002012-10-22T13:45:22.801-07:00This is 52011 NANO Part 5<br /> <br /> Rebecca running out of the way of the thrashing creature starts shouting, “What the hell went wrong?” Alex has taken to the air, and predictably there is an angel chasing him. For a moment all she can think is, “Jesus god really does hate people who wear sandles and socks as much as I do”. It is at that moment that Rebeca realizes she might be cracking up. Marialing her strength she starts trying to acess her options. Deven obivious to the danger around him is busying himself yelling at the virgin demanding to know just when she’s had the time for sex inbetween her school work and living with her parents. Her gaping eyes sockets were both bleeding profusely. Absently she thought that maybe she should do something to preserve her eyes. That ended when Jared steps on one causing him to slam into Stephen. Both go toppling into the virgin’s who’s gag comes loose. She spits out her tounge and contiues to make a horrible hacking sound that stops when Alexander flies in low, Angel hot on his heels, and slaps her upside the head demanding that she shut the hell up.<br /> Stephen runs by her muttering to himself, “You know the stars aren’t even right. I have no idea how we brought this thing here. I mean isn’t that amazing we’ve managed to do something incredible. This means that I could possibly”<br /> Deven stumbling to his feet slaps Stephen upside the head, “Now is not the time to be impressed” to accent the point the creature lets out an ear splitting howl that doesn’t exactly travel on sound waves but rather takes normal sound waves and rips them apart into new and horrifying ways. With one of its tentacles it lashes out at Jared who leaps out of the way with suprising nimblness.<br /> Stephen looks crestfallen, “Your right I suppose. In order to stop the thing we need my books, as for the angel I dunno I think that is more your speed”<br /> Deven puts his hands up, “What I don’t know what the angel is doing here. I’ve never delt with them personally, I had servant deamons for that”<br /> “Well great this is turning into a disaster, and oh god it has the not virgin’s legs lets go save her”. Deven and Stephen rush over to the not virgin and grab her by the arms just as one of the things tentacles is about to drag her away. Pulling Stephen calls out, “Alex we need a little bit of air support.”<br /> Alex is more than a little to busy with the Angel though and just as their grips are starting to slip Rebecca charges in with an axe she apparently found in a near by tool box and starts hacking away at the creature. The tentaclle gets withdrawn due partly to the damage inflicted and mostly to the fact that Jared has caught its atension. One of the girl’s legs is simply gone. The other has turned into a slimy green tentacle, “Well at least she won’t run away not!”<br /> Deven gwafs at Stephen’s remarks then get’s serious, “We can’t keep fighting this thing like this. It is eventually going to get us. What can we do”<br /> Stephen gets grim, “We need Jerimia he has my most forbidden books and scrolls, we also might as well call in Wilson, he might be able to use his freaky snake powers to help out with the angel.”. Stephen calls out to Jared, who is being strangely unmolested by the thing, informing him of the plan.<br /> Stephen looks over at the thing. It doesn’t quite jell with the reality around it as light particles strurggle to find something to bounce off of. The whole thing is a strange blurr with patches of absolutle blackness and patches of stunning clarity. It lashes about confused, in pain, jabbing in such a way that it tears at the souls of all who hear it but are not ready to comprehend. With the exception of the not a virgin who is more or less beyond repair at the is point, the others could potentially work and comprhend for such a creature. However, eventually they are going to start suffering damage from its words. He needs a way to shut it up and he needs it now”. <br /> The Angel flies past. While the thing bulges uncomfortably into reality like a corpse in a garbage bag the Angel looks almost like he is to real to be real. Everything else seems dim next to him and as he flies by he leaves tracers of hyper reality, a place where grass seems greener, the sunset more spectacular, and unfortunately the monster far more horrible. Alexander comes up next to Stephen, “Well this is your area of expertise what’s going on?”<br /> Stephen looks around, “This is bad. You see how that thing isn’t all the way here? That means there are still parts of it in wherever it came from. Not only that but once it gets it’s bearings we are going to be in a hell of a lot more trouble than we are. Right now it is just flailing about blindly but soon it is going to be doing things. Is there any way you can mute it. You all are tough but you aren’t going to be able to listen to the words for long without going more than a little loopy trust me on this one. Other than that Jared is calling Jerimia and he will bring my books and hopefully we can get this whole thing solved. By the way why does the angel have a bigger hard on for you than Deven?” <br /> Before Alexander could answer they both noticed that Jared is in trouble. The Angel has spotted him. Jared is more of something else than human. Somewhere during one of his exparaments, or maybe it was two it doesn’t matter really, Jared lost a large portion of what we refer to as a soul. It became replaced with something quite different, something new, something magnificent, something that causes the horrible thing to ignore him. Unfortunatly, it is apparently an affront twords god because the Angel looses interest in Alex decides that it is time some some good old fastioned burn and purge. Coming up before Jared it puts both of his hands together and lets out what can only be described as a Kameamea of pure light. Jared doesn’t bother to side step, block, or even blink. He accepts the head on attack by one of the heavenly host safe in the knowledge that he has created his own pantheon. Gods based on circuitry, electornics, ones, zeroes, emulators, compilers, scanners, and processors. These gods he’s given birth to have since made him their avatar on earth, in return he was to spread their word to turn humanity into a more perfect vessle suitable more suitable to worship them. Things didn’t work out as planned. It did leave him with the ability to stun his new friends into near scilence as he stares down an angel with an icy defiance before materializing a black whip of information out of no where. One crack sends the angel scrabling and just like that it is one the defensive.<br /> Rebecca watches as Alexander works on casting a spell of some sort. Stephen looks like he is trying to distract the thing and is succeeding somewhat even though it had Deven on the run. Deven had been trying to get something going, she could see where he was drawing on the ground, his exact symbols smeared as the result of his own body being dragged roughly across his own work. Deven is capable of many things, but being grand on the fly isn’t apparently one of them. Everywhere the thing landed or touched, left strange white groping maggoty like things. She realizes that soon they are going to take over the yard and with that realization in mind she dashes off to the nearby maintence shed. Inside she finds some of the remenants of the baby cult she was starting. There were five of them, one’s eyes have exploded, a la the not virgin’s, two others could do nothing but shake, fluids pouring out of every orifice. Another one has been changed, his lower body a wriggingl mass of tenticales, and she is pretty sure she spies a beak within his new swirrle of mandness. His own tentcles trying to hold him down to do some unamably horrible thing. The last one, also changed, is bulging outwards. She can see where he’s received a strange looking puncture wound, his body filling, filled with either some roiling mass of white worms, puss or some other unamable thing. Quickly grabbing a weed wacker and a gas can she goes to rush back then hesitates. Then she hears a loud wet bursting sound and a small puddle of ultra black fluid begins to leak out from under the shed door accompanied by the wet sound of ripping flesh. Rebecca is tough. No doubt a normal person would be like those in the shed. Or like the not virgin. Still one could only take so much. Pouring the gas can in the puddle and along the front wall of the shed she silently says good by to one of her favorite lighters that she pulls from a hidden pocket in her pants, gives it a light and sets the fire in motion. If the sounds from the shed weren’t enough the smell most certainly is. The whole thing just isn’t right on so many levels. The fact that this is all happening at her house starts to sink in. Her shed isn’t the worse thing to go but she realizes that the horrible star thing is on top of one of her many flower gardens, one that she is particularly fond of one that has a great deal of energy underneath it. She begins to wonder if it wasn’t so much the girl’s lack of virginity that is the cause of all this but rather the ambient energies of the surrounding area which she leaves banked for a rainy day. <br /> Then in a roar and a flash of light Jerimia and Wilson burst onto the scene. Jermia is a tall man with a mane of white hear that streaches wildly down his back. It looks as if it hasn’t been properly taken care of for quite some time. His white lab coat is covered in innumerable stains as are his black pants. He is however, wearing a solid pair of boots. As the angel flies by to make another swing at Jared he grabs the angel by the hair and slams him into the ground. The angel lets out a sheik of anger before before getting back up and charging Jared again. Looking around in confusion Jerimia walks over to Deven and asks, “You guys don’t know how to play poker do you?”. Seeing Stephen near by he tosses a satchle of that he has over his shoulder to him, “Best get to work. I don’t know what the hell you did but this thing is seriously throwing off my chi”.<br /> Stephen smiles, “alright guys I need some cover and a little bit of time and possibly that angel taken care of”.<br /> Jerimia smiles, “I got that” From his belt he pulls what appears to be a light saber, until he turns it on and anyone who knows anything realizes it is a light saber. Letting out a war cry he charges the angel trips over the non and falls cutting off his own leg in the process, “Jesus christ what the fuck is she doing there?”<br /> “Not being a virgin that is for damn sure” Like everyone else Deven couldn’t help but think that was predictable. Light sabers may seem like a good idea but it helps when you are more physically capable than a five year old. Jermimia looking down at both the light saber and his severed leg shouts, “Why didn’t someone stop me? I know at least one of you thought that was going to happen. Now I got to put this damn thing back on. In his head the light saber battle would have been epic. He makes a mental note to actually learn how to use a light sable so that next time when he is facing down a member of god’s heavenly host he can be ready for them. A tentcle lashes out at him but the force field he has in place keeps it in check. He realizes that won’t last for long and that for the first time in long time he is mildly concerned with how this is all going to play out. <br /> Meanwhile Wilson is on the run. The creature has zoned in on him and everyone else is to busy to be bothered to help him. Not that he didn’t mind. Wilson doesn’t look the part. Tweed suit with leather patches on the elbows, a big old bald spot, and not in the attractive way either but rather in the middle manager at the office sort of way. He isn’t exactly fat but calling him big boned would be an appropriate response. To look upon him is to never guess there is something extraordinary about him. Except now. Utilizing his unnatural agility Wilson dances around the creatures attacks. Having dealt with the great snake from beyond this thing, with all its alien malevolence, is really nothing to listening to the slithering of the scales of the cosmos as they inch their way through the eons slowly crushing all there is so that it may feed, and give birth to a new glorius era. Or just feed. That part was never really made clear to Wilson. He didn’t care he misses the jungle as he bounds about he hears Stephen call something out to Deven who appears to be holding a charm of some sort. Deven lets it go and as he does the Angel wheels upon him in unbridled fury which is for the best. Jared is tough but he started to take quite a beating after awhile. Conintuing to sheik the angel charges Deven. From the inner pocket of his suit he pulls a vile of liquied midnight, sin under glass. He smashes it down and from it he draws a great spear.<br /> Deven flashes his most wicked smile. It has been to long since he’s gotten to do something like this. He’d almost forgotten how much fun it is to only be slightly in control of the situation but just in control enough to ruin your polar opposite’s day. The angel tries to strike but a sudden intervension by Wilson is all Devon needs to slip in and with one single thrust he drives the spear home. The blackness flows from Deven’s hands into the Angel’s body, twisting it, until there is nothing left of its once beautiful form except a demonic countancance. Rebecca, Jared, Wilson, and Jerimia clap. Deven takes a bow, “Alright Stephen lets bring this on home.”<br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-66329062217667554492012-10-22T13:44:00.002-07:002012-10-22T13:44:48.637-07:004:(2011 NANO Part 4<br /><br /> As the group the them round the corrner of the house, the gateway to the back yard, the conclusion to their long and somewhat ardouse journey they expected a number of things. A hedge maze wouldn’t be out of the question. Hedge mazes are stylish and something that would be right up Rebecca’s alley. A garden would work too with many carnivorous plants thrown into the mix. They all know that one of her hobbies is raising carnivous plants. The idea of something that is a little more than a flower rising up to predator status is something she finds amusing. She likes to talk about how similar they are to her. She likes to say that the plants lure their victems in with the promise of a good time only to be sucked dry by an unassuming plant. Most of them would start to wonder how vegitarians feel about carnivorous plants. A swimming pool would be nice. The night is warm, and there is mischief in the air and nothing clenses your mind and soul of the star things like a nice swim. Or so Stephen would have them believe. They believe that he is more than half off his rocker but whatever keeps him happy is mostly alright with them. <br /> However., what they didn’t expect was the unexpected and that is exactly what they get. The scene included Rebecca, a raised altar, about two dozen men and women all wearing black robes, a bond fire, a chalice, and a special arrangment of crystals that Rebecca uses to trap souls. Rebecca stood staring at them mouth slightly agape, her ritual ruined. The group them stood mouths slightly agape, virgin in Stephan’s hands. Her hold broken the cultists start to shuffle about nervously. The lives they once lived start to come back to them, memories they ought to of never have reordered start to become available. Someone starts sobbing softly. <br /> Jared, cluelessly and cheerfully cries out, “Heya Rebecca, you gonna help us with some sort of spell that Alex is casting tonight”<br /> “My name is Alexander”<br /> “Your name is to long and it clunks on my tounge. Alex is a perfectly fine name don’t be an asshole”<br /> Alexander’s face darkened. The group sighs inwardly. They’d been getting together so well tonight too. Rebecca’s mind finnaly catches up with events, “Wait a spell I thought you guys were just going to play a poker game or some such thing?”<br /> Eveyone looks embarrassed, and suddenly realize that they have the most fascinating feet in the world and that they need to stare at them right now. Eventually it is Stephen that speaks up, “Well see we got to talking, and then we got distracted, and-”<br /> “And your house is really fucking scary” Jared interrerupts. Everyone looks at him slightly aghast, even the cultists are stunned at the familiar way they would dare to talk to their leader, “What everyone agrees with me. No sense trying to hide it”. Puzzled she looks at the girl Jared shrugs at that, “Oh I don’t know about her that all happened before I showed up. They called me in to find out if she is a virgin.”<br /> “Oh?”<br /> “Yep. Unfortunalty, couldn’t tell. Hey! Are any of your little groupies virgins? We could just circumvent this whole problem!”<br /> One of the members from the crowd shouts, “We are not groupies we are servants of-”<br /> Alexander rushes forwards knocking Stephen aside causing him to drop the virgin, “You dare speak directly to me. ME! I am Alexanader. I’ve strode upon this earth for over 1000 years. I’m a wizard without peer. The holder of the carpenter’s cup. The great magus who almost shook the world. You are WORMS and you will NOT adress us directly”. With a sharp, deft hand motion a crack of thunder comes from the couldless sun set, and two trees splinter sending wooden shrapnel into the crowd which is now cowering before Rebecca begging for her protection. With a sweep of his arm a baleful wind picks up knocking them all over as the start to scream in terror like kittens who realize that the 5th thing that is going to happen to them is that some asshole human is going to drown them all. “Now flee all of you we have business with your mistress. Be gone and don’t you dare make eye contact with any of us you insolent reches, otherwise you’ll wish you’d get off so easily as to be turned into a pillar of salt”. Throughly routed the crowd scatters in all directions that are not the direction that Alexander and company are standing in. Some head towards the deep dark forest that rings Rebecca’s wonderous mansion. Other further in the yard where they all notice for the first time there is the expected hedge maze. Still others attempt to cower behind Rebecca only to be shooed off by her. Soon the scene abates and they are alone. <br /> Rebecca, bemused, smiles coyly, “To answer your earlier question Jared, no none of them are virgins anymore.”<br /> Deven who had been rolling around on the ground laughing histerically finally picks himself up. As he brushes leaves and loose grass from his suit jacket he puts his arm around Alexander, “So what was that about you not casting lightning bolts and slinging spells around at a moment’s notice? I bet if one of them questioned her virginity this whole thing would have been underway long ago eh, eh”<br /> Alexander is not one of those people who you just walk up and put your arm around. He isn’t even the sort of person you touch. He is the sort of person who if you brush up against him in the super market you will wake up in an alternate plane of existence full of things that find humans to be tasty snacks, “Deven. Deven! Stop that, go over there or something for heaven’s sake”<br /> Still chuckling he backs off, “That’s funny telling Satan’s emissary for heaven’s sake that’s a good one”. <br /> Stephen looks around more than a little bit bewildered, he’d since picked the virgin back up and is awkwardly holding her with one hand as he uses the other to pick leaves out of her hair, “Sorry we interputed you Rebecca, we though that you were letting us use the house because you were going to be away for a week or so. Did we get the dates, wrong or something?”<br /> She bites her lower lip and looks around. There she stands, on an alter devoted to her. Once surrounded by dozens of followers she is now face to face with the only people who are completely immune to her charms. She knows. She’s tried. Multiple times. Her auburn hair running riot, cascading down her shoulders to the small of her back catches the setting’s sun just right so that it looks like it is ablaze with life and energy. Her black dress clings and hangs in all the right places giving a good impression of her body and yet revealing nothing. From collar to thigh length hemline she is both covered and revealed. Members of both sexes have fought to the death over the privilege of being able to just kiss her hand. People worship her and that is where she draws her power. She is the queen of any rooms she walks into, unless she is with any of her peers. Then she is just one of them. An equal amongst those who should have no equal. It’s been two years and it still throws her off. The rest of them, exluding John, have fairly obvious ways they planned on ending or changing the world be it Jared with his computers, Alexander with his spells, or Deven and Stephan with their things that do not belong. Rachel is different though. She disovered one day that something about her draws people to her, and she can draw their souls from them, and with enough she could draw more souls. Using a couple of specific points, and some tastefully arranged sculptures all the souls in the world would have been hers to do with as she wished. God and Satan would have to go through her, she’d be a divinity in her own right. The goddess of the sublime. Except things got in the way and like the rest of them, for one reason or another she failed. Now she stands, a shadow of her former glory, caught doing that which she promised not to do, by her only friends and some random virgin. Off the wagon that is what she is and none of them seem to realize. <br /> None of them except Alexander. He smiles, not unkindly, “Been doing something you shouldn’t Miss Rebecca?” She looks crestfallen, “Well lets have no more of that. A question got raised as we were standing in the doorway of your scary house and aim to answer it god damnit. Since you are here you wanna help out” She nods her head and smiles great fully.<br /> Stephen bounds up virgin in hand, “Hooray the more the merrier I say. In my area of things I didn’t get to cooperate much with people. To unpleasant for large groups and all of that. It will be great having you along! Man all we need now is Wilson, Jerimia, and John and we’d have ourselves a full crew. All working together to solve a mystery of the universe. I’m glad you are here. This is our virgin. I don’t know her name and she hasn’t spoken much on account of the gag but I assume she is nice”<br /> Rebecca looks down at the virgin’s terrified pleading eyes and then immeadily moves onto other things, “Erm Alex”<br /> “Alexander”<br /> “Whatever. Isn’t this kinda violating what it is we are suppose to be doing? I mean I thought that the whole point of our little bi weekly sessions and all were to get us to live more normal lives and move past the fact that we are not ruleing slash ending the world”<br /> Everyone shuffles uncomfortably at that excapt Alexander, “Well I mean look Rebecca we all got gifts and I don’t see any reason to not use them, just so long as we don’t abuse them. We are just going to cast a divination spell. Granted it is going to be a massively complex one but it isn’t like the outcome is going to change the world or anything like that and it isn’t like anyone is going to get hurt” Rebecca nods her head twords the virgin, “Well we just need a couple of drops of blood straight from her veins and then she is free to go, honest. I mean it is a little dicey but it isn’t like we are rebuilding power bases, amassing cult members, or harvesting or anything like that. You know what I mean”? She smiles, unsure of herself. She hates this feeling. The feeling of not being sure. It makes her feel like she is one of them. The people who she uses up and throws up. People like yonder virgin. People who aren’t sure of their lives so they just go about on auto poilot until someone like them comes along to give guidance. To wisk them away from their dull sad dreary lives to something more exciting. She wonders if she is living such a life. She wants nothing more to go with them to hang out while they cast their silly spell to do whatever it is they are doing. It doesn’t seem right but it does seem worth doing. It even seems like more fun than gathering cult members and rebuilding power bases. Even if everything goes off without a hitch it will be ever so much better than watching Bogart movies alone eating apple pie. <br /> Alexander can see her indecision. He lets her run with it before adding, “Come on, this is just a thing and no one likes being alone. Not like this. Lets get some magic done”. He holds out his hand and she takes it, feeling the relief wash over her. The others are all off doing their own things. Deven and Jared are laughing about something. Stephen is off hanging out showing the virgin various eldritch symbols which she probably should not be seeing, so why not. Why shouldn’t she have any fun. She takes his hand, he smiles and then he shouts, “Alright lets get this show on the road!” With that he claps his hands once and up goes the dome.<br /> Rebecca ooers appreciatively, “I’ve heard of these but I’ve never been inside of one. It never occurred to me to try and make such a thing.”<br /> Stephen nods, “They are handy. I had a version around my old house before one of the good guys saw their way through it and prevented me from making history. The bastard. He almost killed my dad.”<br /> Deven adds, “They are handy if you have to do work in urban or suburban areas and you don’t want all sorts of people butting in. Through with the way you work the more the merrier eh?”<br /> “Well unless the more are some of you, way to chase away my whole flock, and I don’t know what the hell I am supposed to do with those who ran into the hedge maze. That stupid thing is huge and they aren’t likely to find their way out again”<br /> Jared walking over suggests, “Perhaps we could get Jerimia to come over later and fish them out. He can fly without to much trouble”<br /> “Can’t Alex fly?” Rebecca asks?<br /> Lowering his voice so Alexander can’t hear Jared replies, “He sees it as being off the wagon. It was hard enough to get him to make the dome.”<br /> Remebering his display she harmphed at that and stalked off to see what exactly Alexander and Stephen were doing. Both of them were preparing a spell of some sort but both of them were using completely different drawings and language to do so. Both were using circles and they intersected in a sort of ven diagram. The air where the two circles meet crackles with a horrible eldritch energy, quickly Stephan warns her away, “You don’t wanna spend to much time where the circles overlap there. Thing will be a little weird there until we seal it up. Then Alexander does whatever it is he does and we use the blood to set the whole thing off. If everything goes well we will have our answer and oh I dunno we’ll take the virgin out for Chinese before wiping away her memory and sending her home none the wiser. Hell since we will get Chinese she’ll even be hungry in an hour!”<br /> Rebecca looks worried, “And if things don’t go well?”<br /> “Well I mean there are certain risks no doubt. I mean we are pretty sure this sort of thing hasn’t been tried ever in the history of ever but I wouldn’t worry to much. There see circles are locked, Alex is casting the final spell, and there go the drops of virgin’s blood. See so far so good! No problems here”<br /> She had to admit he’s right. There were no problems. Heck there wasn’t even a reaction. Part of her is relieved because, well this is her house, her place of power, her sanctuary, and she wouldn’t want it destroyed by whatever it is they are trying to do. On the other hand a little bit of excitement would be nice. Sure going and getting Chinese food would be fun but a little extra spice wouldn’t hurt anything. The sky went a funny color. That’s to be expected. There is magic in the air after all,. Then the smell hit her. Then the virgin makes a horrible strangling sound behind her gag. Rebecca turns just in time to see the virgin’s eyes explode out of her head propelled by jets of blood.<br /> Turning back she sees them, “Is this suppose to be happening?”<br /> Stephen looks worried, “Well we might have ourselves a little problem here” Then he dives to the side as a great psudopod comes crashing down where he once was. When it lifts up where there once once grass is now millions of white crawling things like great maggots with red triangles for heads. <br /> She looks up and says the only applicable phase, “Well shit”.<br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-34469026109024370612012-10-22T13:44:00.000-07:002012-10-22T13:44:19.460-07:003!2011 NANO Part3<br /><br /> Deven shook his head as he hoists the virgin over his shoulder, “Hubris will be our downfall you all know that right?”<br /> Almost bitterly Alexander flashes a smile, “Our downfall was almost 11 years ago and the last time I checked we all survived that more or less. So what else do we have?”<br /> “Each other”<br /> “Friendship, some of us for the very first time” adds Stephan.<br /> “Alright then where we going to do this?” Deven asks suddenly realizing that a lifetime of having people do things for him has left him unprepared for his brave new world of hauling around virgins himself. The blank looks on the faces of the others causes him to drop the virgin and as she collapses to the floor he began to understand the phrase “like a sack of potatoes.” Cause that is exactly how she hit the floor, so different from if she were awake. It is strange how consiousness changes the body, she would of at least tried to put her hand out or something like that but instead, her body just made a series of thumping sounds and remained still. For a long time he always wondered why only his most callouse of minions would dump bodies just like he did and now he understands. Perhaps John’s bizarre 12 step plan is working or perhaps it is because this is the first time he’s ever picked up a body on his on and just tossed it to the floor when it became to heavy to lug around himself. He doesn’t regret it, not exactly. However, next time he vows to find someone else to pick up the body.<br /> Everyone else is aguring as they seem to do at any given chance at every given moments. It always starts so simple, get a virgin, cast a spell, and now it is spiraling into this strange disaster area. With the exception of Stephan every single one of them has commanded dozens sometimes hundreds of people all of whom would do their bidding mostly because their lives depended on it. Which it did even if they didn’t always know it. For his part Stephan always wondered how people got to that point. People seem to want better lives, and no one grows up thinking they are going to join a satanic cult that is devoted to bringing about the end times, and yet they would end up in his care carrying around bodies for him doing things that they would never imagine doing in their precult life. It is almost as if because Stephan commands it, it becomes permitted. It is almost sad in a way. Why would people do that to one of their brothers. People may not always be the nicest to each other but overwhelmingly most of his minions weren’t true believers but rather people who just didn’t really seem to fit in anywhere else in life. It is almost as if they joined up as if they didn’t have anything better to do. <br /> Deven dropped the body in the way he did because it was heavy and he just didn’t think about it. No one else didn’t think anything of it either. They’d all heard the thumping of a an unconscious body before as it hit’s the floor probably none of them have ever really handled a body themselves. They were all busy trying to figure out the best place to hold their ritual. He knew they would decide on the front yard, no one wants to go deeper into her house, it is creepy and her place of power. Her authority here is absolute and with her not here there is no way they want to go deeper into her house, even as a group. The only thing stopping them is that Alexander doesn’t want to put up a dome. The dome makes it so that they can preform large scale works without being observed. To be fair they are complicated structures. They combine illusionary, psychological, and good old fashioned force field technology. It isn’t enough to keep everything inside in, and it isn’t enough to keep everyone on the outside from seeing what is going on, on the inside. People need to be convinced that there is nothing there in the first place and that they have no reason to go anywhere near the area. A sudden realization that you forgot something and you need to turn around, or you missing a street and taking an unplanned detour, or even sudden wanderlust. More than likely they are just things people are doing. Sometimes though, it is a world shaker at work either frantically covering up something that has gone terribly wrong, or resolving a disagreement that has gotten more than a little out of control. Not everyone can make one and not all of them are good for every occation. Jerimia could make one but he is elsewhere doing his own thing. Also Deven couldn’t imagine Jerimia having any real interest in their little exparament. Alexander didn’t want to make one because he likes to pretend that he doesn’t want to sling spells all over the place. The whole fireball, magic missle, speech? Nonsense. Alexander wants to kick back, let loose, and blow up huge tracts of land. He just feels that he shouldn’t. John’s influence. In a way it is amazingly brave, Alexander is just a person without magic. A person who should be dead long ago. <br /> Deven could make one himself, but not without a significant amount of sacrifice, at least two people and perhaps a couple of animals just to be safe. Satan is unusually excited about sacrifice. Something Deven himself has never understood. Though he suspects that Satan has never moved to far past the old testiment excitement. It is hard to believe that anyone would say that life became more interesting after Jesus hit the earth. Deven would of given anything to visit either Sodam or Grammora before their destruction. What an amazing place they must have been. Not one but two places that were so vile that god himself came down out of heaven and wiped them off of the face of the earth with such righteous fury that not even dust remains. To piss god off that badly, not that is something to strive for. It almost makes Deven want to get the old crew together and strike off, maybe of Africa and construct a city of sin somewhere deep in the jungle, but that would involve turning his back on John. Also there is the point that Stephan brought up one day that Soddom and Grammora is more than likely the result of some Star Things getting loose and rampaging around and the only way to save this universe was to make sure that not even ash was left. Still Deven preferred his way. <br /> Alexander, starts to relent which is good. The night isn’t getting any shorter and it would be a shame to get everyone together with no results. The back yard has been decided on. Deven frowns at this mostly because they decided on something he hadn’t considered. He still hasn’t gotten used to that. He doubts he ever will, and secretly he suspects that if he ever does he will end up becoming one of the normals, the square johns, the people who are just like everyone else. Who don’t see the secret world that happens all around them. They decided to walk around the house instead of through it because, after all walking through it would be insane. To his relief Stephan picked up the body with suprising ease. No one really knew or understand Stephan’s body except that it is weird and, much like his blood, full of suprises. She seems wieghtless in his arms and has since regained consoisness. She looks up at him with a dull uncomprehending terror. A silent pleading in her eyes that he doesn’t even notice. It is funny how easy it is to miss these sorts of things when you are all caught up in the moment. <br /> That is when it hit Deven. An icy wave of realization that rockets up from his subconscious to the forefront of his throught process. He is not into all of this. As they trooped out of the house he considers calling a stop to all of it. It would be easy. Just tell them something and they would take the virgin home wipe her mind and everything would be just fine. They would go their separate ways and they would never talk of this again. Not even at their months group meeting. It would become a non event. Just another night.<br /> Then for the first time in a long time he looks around at his companions. Jared and Alexander are talking to each other excitedly about the nature of humanity. Two people who couldn’t have anything less in common are joined together, not arguing or even fighting but discussing how the fundaments of the world and our minds work. They seem like they are close to coming to some sort of breakthrough in regards to how a body is capable of directing mystical forces. Stephan is walking out ahead and he’s talking pleasantly to the virgin, explaining that they only need a couple of drops of her blood and while they all would off been much more comfortable with just taking it from her and being on their way, it had to be fresh from the vein. The whole virginity thing was just a formality and probably not even true, it has just never been tried any other way and magic is weird. For the first time in a long time, since childhood, Deven realizes that he has friends. Not a group of people who you surround yourself with because they worship you and they will do anything you tell them to. Not a group of people who are all exactly like you. No these are people who are unlike anyone else. Possibly on the face of the planet. They want nothing from him and they have no real reason for hanging around him other than because they want to. There isn’t a single one of them that doesn’t have at least one hundred other things they could be doing and all of them have even more things they should be doing. None of that matters though, they are together because they want to be. The virgin is here because they need her to be for the moment and there is no reason to get moody over the nature of the world.<br /> Uncounsously Deven caught up with Stephen. He looks over and smiled, his young body effortlessly holding onto the virgin despite his slight build. Stephen looks over, “Hey, you’ve been quiet for quite a bit anything up?”<br /> “No not really just pondering the nature of things. You know we are quite a remarkable group of people. All of us together, all of our artistry so far and away from anything anyone can even imagine and here we all are doing our best to live normal lives? Isn’t that strange?”<br /> Stephen is quiet for a bit, “I know what you mean I was wondering about our course of action tonight myself. I mean we start off all gathered together for something that was innocent enough and now we are walking around, Alex is preparing to cast a major spell and we have a virgin in our midsts. There is something to be said for wondering how we got here and where we are going to go next. Like this is the sort of thing that John doesn’t want us to do, but at the same time this is something we are all doing together as a group of friends, and in all honesty that seems more important to me. Besides it will be fine and even if it isn’t the world won’t end if this girl doesn’t make it back alive.”<br /> Deven looks over and his more recent words seem to have upset her, “Oh don’t worry Miss Virgin I am sure you will be fine. I mean you dieing is definetly going to be a worse case sort of senario. Don’t worry more than likely nothing will come of this and tomarrow you will wake up and it will feel like you’ve just gotten yourself blackout drunk and you’ll have no idea what happened. Don’t you worry.” Awkwardly, he reached out and tried to pat her head comfortingly. However, with him and Stephen both walking at a slightly different pace, along with Deven’s lack of experience with this sort of then he ended up just sort of swating her head once.<br /> Stephen laughs, “You aren’t very good at comforting people are you?”<br /> “Well no. Actually, come to think of it I don’t think I’ve ever had to comfort anyone at all in my entire life. I mean I’m sure I did once or twice as a child but I don’t really remember that. But yeah! I don’t think it has ever really come up. What about you?”<br /> “Well other than my Dad I haven’t really had any need to comfort anyone. My little cultist people have so much wrong with them that at any given time anything could be right or wrong. You know what I mean? As for the Star Things well they are what they are”<br /> “Hey speaking of which how is your dad?”<br /> Brightening visably Stephan smiles, “Oh he’s doing great! Much better now. The doctors have got him on some different medications and Jerimia has been working with me. I can most certainly see where I got it all from. I think if he wanted to he could have been just like me. It is just that he lived to long as a normal and that does something to lock your preceptions into place.”<br /> “That’s great I am glad to here he is doing better, John tells us we should ask about little details like that because it is apparently part of the way normal people live life or something like that? Isn’t that strange a bunch of people sitting around asking about each other’s families? I don’t understand it, but it is nice to know that your dad is doing alright.”<br /> Stephen nods, “Yeah well not to many of us have families left, Alex’s family is long dead along with everyone he’s ever known. Rebecca has some distant relatives somewhere, and Wilson has got a decent part of his clan lying around somewhere. What about you, you got any family kicking around?”<br /> Deven thought about how he could answer that question. He knew that Stephen would understand, he is a great guy, but still it is nothing he’s ever spoken about before, and right up until this very moment he had no idea that he possessed no desire to speak of it. It is something he did. He doesn’t regret it but at the same time he’d rather talk about anything else, “Well you know I don’t talk to mine much. The less said about it the better”<br /> “Don’t worry about it Deven I understand. Families are tricky business. Believe me I know this better than most”.<br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-42452986384279275422012-10-22T13:43:00.003-07:002012-10-22T13:43:44.618-07:002nd novel part 22011 NANO Part 2<br /><br /> Deven blinks, “Oh good your done I hung in there as long as I could but I stopped listening around the time you said 9th level. Next tike why don’t you over react some more because that will really solve the virginity problem.”<br /> Then it happens. Her eyes widen, her breathing quickens, and she ramps up. If the gag wasn’t in her mouth her scream would of shattered glass and put all the horror movie stars out there to shame. I would start in her belly work its way down to her toes only to launch outwards creating a sonic rail gun who’s only purpose is to express an absolute piece of abject terror. She had gotten sight of Stephan’s arm which was now bubbling for reasons no one wanted to know.<br /> Stephan sighs, “You asshole now we are going to have a much harder time putting her back the way she was. I mean look at her she is freaking out over such a minor phenomena.” Quickly he strips a table cloth off of the nearby end table sending a vase with some long dead flowers in it crashing to the floor.”<br /> Alexander face palmed, “I can’t believe you just did that? She is going to be so pissed at us if we break any of her stuff you know how she is. This whole house is like some sort of bizarre shrine to her”<br /> “Well no one made you cut me”<br /> “No one made you change your blood into some sort of horrible snot deamon thing”<br /> “Actually yes something did force me down and caused that to happen to me and believe me it wasn’t the worst thing that’s happened to me so why don’t we try to figure out how to do the virginity thing instead of arguing over a vase with some dead flowers in it breaking”<br /> “Because that vase is probably very important to her. I’ve seen her murder people over not setting her table right and you think the vase isn’t going to matter?”<br /> “Of course I think the vase matters, but we had to consider the mental safety of the girl. She was going to loose it. There see look she’s visably much calmer now, I mean at the end of all of this we have to put her back remember? “<br /> Then they noticed that Deven was on a cell phone, “Yeah, yeah, no, I don’t think that’s an option, no we already tried that, yeah, yeah well can’t you hook her up to something? Oh? Neat!” And with that he abruptly hangs up, “I was calling Jerimia to see if he could help us out with our problem, but he is in one of his moods and you all know how that is. He said that Jared might be able to figure it out though but I am not entirely convinced her would go along with this”<br /> Stephan nods, “All of our supernatural stuff does make him a little uncomfortable doesn’t it? I feel bad because he is so nice and he only has Jerimia for any real company.”<br /> “Whatever I am calling him” Alexander already had his phone out and they could see him cursing at all of the little buttons. Phenominal magical power doesn’t lend itself to well to cell phone operation. Not on any philosophical merit mind you but rather he just didn’t like using the phone. It felt like he should have someone to do that for him. <br /> After the second ring Jared picked up, “Alexander? Are you alright? Do you need something?” The concern in his voice is almost touching. The two of them couldn’t be any more opposite if they tried. One is a magcian capable of shaking the world on its very foundation and the other is a techno freak who wanted to evolve the world into an agalmeration of mind and matchine the ultimate Tran humanist step forward. <br /> “No no it is nothing like that, see we have this problem, we are trying to cast a spell and one of the components is a drop of virgin’s blood. Now we have ourselves a young girl but we aren’t sure she is a virgin.”<br /> “Can’t you just, you know go lift up her skirts and check”<br /> “Are you going to come and do it? Besides we just need her blood and there is no need for us to terrify her any more than she already has been. You know respect life and blah blah blah”<br /> There is some rustleing on the other end of the phone, “Alright I’ll see what I can do, put the phone down speaker side up and I’ll be right there”<br /> Almost dismissively Alexander tosses the phone down onto the soft carpet and crosses his arms. At first he looks like he is trying to figure out what exactly is his most disapproving stare. After a second there is a high pitched wining sound followed by a crackling blue energy and then just like that he is there, then Jared falls down face first. He doesn’t even put a hand out to stop himself it just happens.<br /> “What the hell was that” Asked Stephan as he comes over to investigate. Prodding cautiously at Jared’s collapsed form, “He isn’t even breathing”<br /> Deven coming over to help, “Does he breath? I never actually noticed”<br /> “You know something? He might not. I never really asked him. Man even I breath I am kinda jelouse”<br /> “Well you two can exchange notes someday assuming he isn’t dead right now or someth-” Jared would of suddenly sat up and everything would have been fine. That didn’t happen because Deven’s head was in the way. So instead of sitting up Jared had almost reached a peak momentum before his head collided with Stephan’s head. Jared just collpases back down onto the carpet, now very much animated and working on a fetal position clutching himself. Stephen did the obvious by loosing balance, falling over backwards into another end table, opposite of the one they had already defiled. This one once had a vase full of live flowers. Now it is empty, tipped over to one side, and Alexander in a heroic attempt to save the vase trips over the shrodinger’s virgin and crashes to the floor in front of the vase which also shatters.<br /> Stephan who managed to stay out of the area of effect begins to suspect that this evening’s activities might be on a collision course for disaster, but then again Alexander has cast spells like this thousands of time. The hardest part is finding a virgin, especially in this day and age. The other hardest part is hopefully going to be not breaking anything. Sure they failed at that but there is no reason to give up hope now. Curious Stephan looks over at Jared, he’s never seen him do anything like that before. Normally Jared is dressed in knee length shorts and the world’s ugliest polo shirt. Now, well Stephan didn’t know quite what to make of it all, leather pants, skin tight shirt, long flowing trench coat, a thing that could only be defined as a utility belt, and mirror shades. It is like he stepped right out of some sort of ridiculous video game, which he very well might have for all Stephan knew. <br /> Everyone who isn’t Stephan began putting themselves back together. Jared being the first to stand up, helps Devan to his feet. While he does so he looks around appreciatively, “Where the hell am I? I expected to be in one of Alexander’s hovels”<br /> Deven answered, “This my friend is Rebecca’s house, have you never been here?”<br /> “God no that woman scares me, I mean look at this place what is this?”<br /> “This is the hallway of life and death or something like that”<br /> Appreciativly, Jared begins to look around their surroundings. Stepping over the virgin girl without comment he starts to go further down the hallway. The walls are at least 12 feet high and each of them are covered in murals, the left wall depicting images of life, birthing scenes, dancing, work, sex, and celebration, the right is the province of death, featuring war, disease and old age. On the ceiling the images meet and intermingle creating a camphony of imagery sex during war, people wasting away while giving birth, people dancing while falling apart, and thousands of other combinations. The artwork is absolutely exquisite and Jared could feel himself getting drawn further and further into it. Everything became connected together. The placement of the hall’s lighting wasn’t just there for the illumnation but rather they were parts of the larger picture themselves, alternately becoming part of a tree while illuminating the fire people were floicking around naked, the vases along the wall held plants that were part of the picture, a vase of wheat about to be harvested by a an older man, while the vase of flowers were to be presented from one child to another if only the vase was still there. It isn’t just the mural on the hallway itself but rather the way everything fits into the hallway. The whole thing is a work of art and Jared could feel himself being drawn deeper and deeper into the house. He wants nothing more than to become part of the artwork to be a part of the greater-<br /> Alexander put his hand on Jared’s shoulder and smiles as he jumps, into the air squealing like a startled pig, “Be careful there Jared, there is no gauntee that Rebecca is going to give you back if you go get yourself lost in there.”<br /> Jared shakes his head clear and looks around again, “It has all just become painted walls and stuff arranged tastefully around, how I don’t understand”<br /> Alexander shrugs, “I don’t understand anything you do at all, none of us wants to understand what Stephan does, and John Smith? Forget about it. We all did what we did and we do what we need to in order to survive. Speaking of which you think you can figure out if this girl is a virgin or not without touching her?”<br /> That snapped Jared fully back into himself, a professional who is the best in the world at what he does, or at the very least very close to the best. From one of the pockets on his belt he puts a little black transmitter and goes to put it on the virgin’s head, who has thankfully gone back to being passed out. He then summons a virtual keyboard out of nowhere along with an augmented reality monitor and begins typing furiously, “You see Alex, I am not sure what it is that I am accessing when I do this. It is some sort of version of the soul that much I know but wether it is the actual thing that continues on going once the bodily shell is discarded or some sort of medium in which the soul sits I don’t know. The point is that I have figured out how to take the human component and transpher it into data, this includes all of her memories and then all I-”<br /> The rest of them stopped listening to Jared as he works. No one really understood what exactly he talks about and they all knew he enjoys talking while he works. It isn’t directed to them as so much as he is narrating his own life to a world out there that can’t be bothered to care. On some level they understand why he does it. On most other levels though they just aren’t terribly interested in how he does what he does, just so long as he does it. No offenses were exchanged, after all Jared who is now thoughtly in the zone couldn’t possibly care less about what is going on around him. After a few minutes he looks up and says, “No dice. Something has happened recently that has damaged part of her soul and now I can’t get at the information I need to figure out what we need to know”.<br /> Everyone else looks at Stephan, “Oh what I don’t see how this could possibly be my fault. I didn’t cut myself.” His arm, now fully healed, showed no evidence of the damage previously done to it. Still the original problem remained.<br /> Alexander turns to Jared, “Are you still a virgin?”<br /> “No, also this isn’t actually my body that is here it is actually-”<br /> “Some complicated complicated thing. Yes I know you with your nanites and whatnot. What is with you kids today and discarding your bodies. I’ve had this body for over 1000 years and it never occurred to me that I should just scrap it for some new fangled designer wotsits or for bits and pieces of your horrible star things. That is just weird.” <br /> Jared cocks his head to one side as if trying to listen to something, then he gives up and returns to the conversation at hand, “But you have modified your body. The human body isn’t made to last thousands of years or even hundreds. I grows to a certain point and the starts falling apart. By all accounts you should be dust by now and yet here you are, virgin at your feet, preparing to cast some sort of spell.”<br /> “Now see here part of that has to do with the sort of energies that I channel through my body when I cast my spells and other parts are-”<br /> “A deliberate modification of your body to enhance your longevity. It isn’t like I meant to do this to myself either it just sort of worked out that way when I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be””<br /> Stephan jumps in, “Oh yeah trust me the whole blood thing is sort of convient and I no longer have to make waste or sleep but this was all done to me by something that wanted a more perfect servant, not because I felt like I needed to be cooler than anyone else.”<br /> Alexander harrumphed, “Still what I am, physically is definably human unlike you two”.<br /> Jared smiles, “Well if you want to define humanity as a series of predefined biological bits then no by no means I am not human. I am transhuman. I am the thing that is the bridge between me and something else, something new and brilliant. I may not be the next stage but in 1000 years look at all the marvelous changes the human body has undergone. What, we’ve generally gotten taller? I mean really? In my short time on this earth I’ve taken my body, my mind, and my soul and I’ve turned them into things that can’t even be imagined. I was going to take everyone with me too but you know how it goes.”<br /> Alexander smiles in agreement, “We do like our bodies just the way they were given to us don’t we? Transhumanist scum”<br /> Jared smiles back, “Bah me and mine we will throw off the shackles of the flesh and face down the enemies of progress, we will all be one and they will be nothing and all of that.”<br /> They laughed together. Deven shook his head, “Alright ladies whatever. I say we just grab the virgin go out into the back yard, cast the damn spell and let what happens happens. I mean between all of us is there really anything that can stop us?”<br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-86469225304129181002012-10-22T13:42:00.002-07:002012-10-22T13:42:54.537-07:002nd novel part one2011 NANO Part 1<br /><br /> “Are you sure she’s a virgin” Alexander peered at the girl suspiciously. Still unconscious her hands and feet bound with electrical tape with a crude gag in her mouth she certainly looked the part of the natural born captive. Mascara leaving behind languid trails down her smooth tanned face, head leaning to the side, collar bones jutting out. The picture perfect blonde haired image of frailty. This one might be the girl who in the horror movie would draw upon a secret well of strength that would allow her to escape from her semi mutated inbred captures to live out the rest of her life within the icy grip of post traumatic stress syndrome. Or she would be one of the unlucky ones to die for the audiences sick amusement. Alexander continued to prod her gently as he mused. He’d been on the earth for centuries at this point and it is always the same old story when people like them get involved. It isn’t so much that people need to get hurt or that the boogie man needs to be real. It is just that sometimes there are bad people and they need to do bad things. It isn’t personal, they are just a simple means to an end. <br /> Stephan shugs his shoulders in response, “According to her wallet she is only 16 years old that should put her safely within the virgin range yeah”<br /> Skeptical, Alex turns away from the girl leaving her to her repose and begins to dig through her hand bag, “I remember back in the day when I would have a room full of virgins for this very purpose. I wouldn’t have to skulk around schools like some old pervert or anything like that. I could just go to the virgin room, grab me a virgin and that was that. I miss my virgin room.”<br /> “Yes well those days are over now more or less. I mean they are aren’t they”<br /> “Well considering we have a girl both bound and gagged lying on the floor in front of us, and we are standing around trying to acertain her virginity I would say they aren’t that far behind us then are they?”<br /> Stephan mulled Alex’s statement over in his head for a bit. He did have a point. It all started off so simply. Then one thing leads to another, then another, and now they have a tied up virgin on the floor. It is funny where life can take you sometimes, “Well we aren’t going to use all of her are we?”<br /> “No no we only need a few drops of blood and then we will be good to go. We’ll wipe her mind and set her back at home no harm no foul. Hopefully, she won’t even wake up before we get started. I mean if we were going to go further this might be an issue but we have most of the materials we need right here already so she should be fine.”<br /> “Alright then lets try to make sure that we hurt her as little as possible okay? I mean if it turns out we need enough blood to kill her or some such thing lets just abort and find another way. Also we need to keep her away from the Star Things”<br /> “The Star Things”<br /> “Yeah yeah, we may be able to wipe her mind and what not but if some star things do their thing then we gotta be ready. They will destroy parts of her brain in ways that even Jerimia could repair.”<br /> Alexander sighs heavily, “You know I’ve been around for almost 1000 years, I’ve mastered the mystic arts from all over the world, I hold knowledge that has been lost from mankind, and I posses the ability to summon swarms of beasts, monsters from myths, and fireballs. However, I stayed well away from all your creepy star, between the universes, sanity destroying horrible monster stuff because they are horrible reality destroying creatues that are better left alone. Why the hell would you go make deals with those things?”<br /> “I was in high school. I also don’t want to talk about it”. Unlike Alexander Stephan doesn’t look the part. 5’3 and frequenly knocked over by stiff winds he normally stands with his arms nervously clutched around himself. His sandy blonde hair a mass of tangles, combined with his glasses makes him seem more likely to be pushed down by the school’s bully rather than making deals with creatures that could eraticate your mind just by looking at them. Aging did nothing to erase that awkward highschooler and even though he is now in his mid 20’s he still looks like he might get shoved into a locker at any moment. That is ordinarily. Ordiniarily, he looks like someone who would only stand his ground under the assumption that his ground was somewhere else completely. However, over the course of Alexander’s probing his stance changed slowly but surely. Legs, usually tangled around each other spread apart he adopts a stance of both balance and command, his eyes grew feirce, and they locked directly into Alexander’s own. Like it or not despite all of his magical powers Stephan did something Alexander never could or would. Stephan has started into the face of absolute madness, the face of a thing that skulks between universes feasting off nightmares and who knows what else, babies, those things are best never ever messed with. One of the few things to ever teriffy Alexander and there Stephan stands, looking apprehensively at their captive, a man who made those things his bread and butter. He does his best to hide his envy and when Stephan makes a stand it is best to direct the conversation in any other direction, sometimes two or three different directions at the same time just to be safe. <br /> “Isn’t there some way you could just check” In walks Devan his $2000 custom tailored suit ruined by her blood. <br /> Alexander quickly puts his hands up, “Woah look there is no way I am going prodding between her legs on a hymen search that is just wrong.”<br /> Stephan nods in agreement, “I mean we just need her blood no need to go rooting around in her vagina besides I don’t we have any duck lips around here and I have no idea what a hymen looks like.”<br /> Mouth slightly agape Devan does his best to rally his senses despite the adverse senario, “I just meant from her blood. Is there a way we could test her virginity through her blood?”<br /> The metaphorical light bulb pops up over Alexander’s head, “Ah ha! No I have no idea I never designed a spell of virgin seeking. You’re the one that found her, how do you know she is a virgin or now”<br /> “Oh I don’t know” Devan shrugs as he takes a sip from the glass of milk he’s been carrying around, “She looks the right age, I think we caught her before she did anything”<br /> Stephan looks surprised, “You don’t know, can’t you like check the big book for her sins or something?”<br /> “Alright look first of all I need souls to go check the big book. So unless we are going to be sacrificing her friends and family and all of that no I don’t think so. I used to have people go and do this for me. I don’t know how to find a virgin I just grabbed one that seemed old enough to have had her period but not so old that she’s gaurnteed to have gotten some. We’ve kinda just threw all of this together you know”.<br /> “Wait so every time you’ve looked into the big book you’ve”<br /> Deven makes quick swiping motion with his hand, “Lets not focus on what I’ve done in the past. Let us instead focus on the problem at hand. Now why virgin’s blood? I mean I know that my lord satan doesn’t need virgin’s blood instead it actually kinda pisses him off. It is better to lead the virgin into temptation and the life style of a whore than to wack a girl who is still all sweet and hymen intact. So I mean do you NEED virgin’s blood for your incantation or will just plain old young girl’s blood work?” Deven took another sip of milk. Devan is a man of sharp angular features and quick movements. He likes to call himself the red right hand, and during some occations, like this one he will wear leather gloves, the right one red the left black. The other two observed that he only drinks milk and wears the gloves around them. No one knows about the milk but it is generally agreed that he wears the gloves occationally because they make him look kind of stupid. Still the man has made a deal with the devil and while he may lie, cheat, and fuck his way though everyone else he is a man who is fiercly loyal to his friends and his master. It also doesn’t help that his friends include an ancient wizard of near immeasurable power, and someone who has managed to deal with the Star Things and not go utterly bat shit insane. <br /> Alexander sits down heavily and strokes his beard quietly in thought. Though he is capable of taking many forms, and he often does for his own amusement he prefers the form of an older gentleman with white hair, a thick white beard that goes down to his chest, Hawaiian shits and kaki shorts. Once Deven tried to explain to him why sandles and socks look stupid together. It ended with the two of them almost killing everything within a 200 mile radius if it wasn’t for John Smith pulling them apart. That’s the nice thing about John other than the fact that he is a snappy dresser. He always seems to be around right when the shit is going to hit the fan to unplug the fan from the wall and to seriously injure anyone who is willing to throw some poo anyway, “Maybe. A spell of this magnitude though we really shouldn’t risk it. We should get ourselves some honest to god virgin’s blood. Especially since we will be dealing with Stephan’s Star Things it is best to follow that to the letter, I‘ve been meaning to say this for years now actually, but isn‘t there a better name for them than Star Things? I sound like a complete idiot every time I say it.”<br /> “Well look the first time I talked to one I was busy trying to reassemble my brain tissue out of a mixture of non organic parts, and ooze left behind from the star thing. So I never really tried to come up with a better name for them. I’m sure if Lovecraft were around today he would come up with some fantasticly unpronounceable jumble of syllabuls that would thrill you to no end. He would also probably kill himself when he realizes that realitiy is so much more horrible than anything he’s imagined. So excust me, what is it that you want Devan”<br /> Deven who’s been poking Stephan excidely takes the opening to jump it, “Aren’t you a virgin Stephan?”<br /> “What? Well yeah kinda, I mean I’ve never done it with a woman before but I don’t think the stuff in my veins quantifies as blood anymore.”<br /> Now curious Alexander comes over with knife in hand, one quick slash, and one slow reaction speed compliments of Stephan and he got to see why. Stephan, for his part held his arm spewing forth a stream of a thousand curses. Eventually, in one of his quick little silencing motions, Deven quietly said, “Oh come now it isn’t that bad, you are bearly bleeding, now come let us see what sort of mystery juice you are filled with.”<br /> Slowly Stephan takes his hand away from his arm, the cut was larger, and quite a bit deeper than Alexander had meant it to be. From the wound a substance the color of lemondade didn’t so much as bleed out of him but rather it seemed to be crawling out. The whole mass writhed on him arm as it began to reknit the skin back into place. The other two loose focus as they start to look at it, like its boreders aren’t all there, or it is covered with billions of tiny tentacles all moving around some blindly and some with purpose on its way to keep Stephan alive.<br /> Alexander nods solemly, “Alright. So we definitely can’t use that. By they way I didn’t mean to cut you that deeply are you alright?”<br /> “Oh yeah I’m fine. This stuff doesn’t look like much but it will have me patched up in no time. I’ve had to make some modifications to my body to survive the stuff. So much so that I don’t really have any idea what I am made of or how I work. On the upside pears taste amazing”<br /> “Huh” Devan puts his hands in his pockets and looks around, his eyes catches the girl’s. Her eyes are open, she is awake. He is pretty sure she shouldn’t be. Sure sure they were going to wipe her mind away and they just wanted a few drops of her blood fresh from the vein. Not to much to ask, I mean really, but then it hit. An ephiny like thunder, “We can just ask her!”. The other two startled by Deven suddenly shouting and pointing at the now awake girl. <br /> She begins to sob in fear as the three of them notice her, ignoring the sobbing Alexander wonders, “Will she tell the truth there is stuff riding on this, important stuff too I might add, she might lie to just to get at us.”<br /> Deven nods, “That is a good point, we should get something to threaten her with. There’s gotta be something around that we can wack her with or what not, wait what happened to the knife you used on Stephan?”<br /> “His horrible mutant thing blood ate the blade”<br /> “Oh man was that one of her blades cause she is gonna be pissed, why the hell were you carrying the knife around anyway”<br /> “To get the blood out of the virgin you should really try to keep up with these sorts of things, I know we move fast and all”<br /> “Yeah but oh I don’t know I usually have people do all this sort of thing for me. So we are gonna what wack her or find another knife.”<br /> “Look Deven we aren’t wacking her, if for no better reason that it sounds stupid when you say it. We will just thrust the knife in her face-”<br /> “Why don’t you just cast a truth spell on her or something?”<br /> Exasperation. It flooded Alexander as his remaining sanity attempted to build an ark fast enough to keep his sanity safe. Much like in the real world the unicorns didn’t make it, “Look I’ve told you time and time again. I am not some 9th level wizard from dungeons and dragons okay? This is magic, the power to take material components and bend reality to my will using mostly will. I can’t just sling spells around at the drop of a hat just because we need some girl of questionable virginity to fess up as to weather she is a virgin or not. I am a god damned wizard not a hedge mage, I don’t make love potions or cast lightning bolt. Got it?”<br /><br />thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-59859338005076831242010-11-01T13:30:00.000-07:002010-11-01T13:49:41.387-07:00Swizzle sticksWell aren't we off to a great start? I totally left my notbook for the novel at home. And I think I left my pen at home too. God damnit. Oh well I have some more stuff for the outline that I would be writting out right now but instead I have to type it.<br /><br />For somereason I HATE typing notes. <br /><br />Okay okay, so there will be a trip to china to see a secret society of Shalin Monks. I don't know who the monks will be against directly. I am thinking the mad scientst, or maybe the devil worshiper. I can't decide right now. I am thinking mad scientist though he would be better at waxing poetic about the conflics of the past. I don't know who he will bring with him, anyone except the sommerite and the techno guy. <br /><br />Oh yeah I want the monks to have all suicided.<br /><br />It can't be the scientist that goes because he gets called in to check out the scene and ascertain causes of death<br /><br />The leader fakes an explanation as to the fact that they all just moved super secret locations<br /><br />The leader then finds out that this is the truth.<br /><br />This can not be the first even it has to come later.<br /><br />I also really want to do a random guy walking into their meeting He is going to kick off the dad thing for one of the charecters.<br /><br />Oh and scooping souls out of coma pacients so that they can cure the erectile dysfunction of one of the charecters. Cause that is just messed up. I wonder whoes boner will be broken and the reason he will want it back? It might be the snake guy needing it after getting to the second date with someone! DONE!<br /><br />I want someone somewhere to miss their dad and reunite with him. I should do that for myself. <br /><br />THis whole thing might end up being really heart wrenching and sad.thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-33293440301369710192010-10-30T14:00:00.001-07:002010-10-30T14:01:36.715-07:00This is a test.This test is here to see if my facebook is linked up with this blog too. This is only a test. But it is AWESOME.thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-70414666536935125742010-07-30T19:21:00.000-07:002010-07-30T19:52:52.863-07:00[M&M] Session 4.5 post gameI don't really call it session five mostly because it was short and mostly because I spent half of it trying to fix a mistake I made. See here is the problem. During the previous game session I was supposed to drop a hint somehow, somewhere involving the great threat that is coming for the world of the heros. I didn't do it. I forgot to say one sentence and I ended up bolloxing up a whole bunch of stuff. So this game session I needed to establish the threat then give the players something to do. So I decided to make the focus around Jame's company and work to distinguish the differences between ShangriLa and the companies that inhabit ShangriLa. I did that a little bit and I plan on explanding on that for next game session. So the next game session will have all sorts of crap involving Jame's company too., and it will give them a chance to see what the ShangriLa secret police is all about.<br /><br />This game session also marks the first time where they have actually beaten down and solidly captured a villian. This is good and I like this. I want a repeat of this for the next game session which will be more or less a direct continuation of this one. I think what I will have happen is have Sparkles show up near the end of things with her puppy and her being her. I might have them dick around for a bit. NO WAIT, she will have figgured out a way to track the Nazi's but she needs some specialized equipment that only the super science community is going to have. Mostly because it is fun and interesting. On their way to gether up parts that is when the Dolphins will show up and that is how the game session will end. Then we can pick it up next week with a knockdown drag out fight that will go across multiple maps, and a bunch of other things. I might alter the villian device rules. THe diffrenrence between just plain old disarming and knocking out a bloke works if you are a hero but if you are a villian there should be a third option. Not that it matters for the Dolphins they are going to be encased in armor. Heh nazis.<br /><br />This will hopefully give things traction and move things forwards. I think After I introduce the Dolphins and they sucessfully rescue Tesla then we will be at a decent break point and maybe I'll let James take a crack at things. So we got things in motion that will keep them busy for at least 4 more game sessions maybe less. Since James is very reliable I am going to increase his level of protagonization and really start getting some milage out of his charecter. Continuity wise I am in a MUCH better position than the last game I was in which is nice. And the next game session should move fowards much smoother. <br /><br />I want to do something special with that mall too. I am so having it attacked again. In the future I think I am going to have the Circ Du Strange's secret base in the middle of that mall. <br /><br />Okay over and out!thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-57594959518482537862010-07-26T19:33:00.000-07:002010-07-26T19:59:40.214-07:00M&M session 4 post gameWell that was interesting. I think this is the closest I've ever come to running a traditional dungeon. I don't really do dungeons, I think they are boring to run. This one though went absolutely swimmingly and I think once I run M&M a few more times I will become even more comfortable with it. I am getting close to revealing the big bad of the campain and pretty soon afterwards I want to have my first mega battle that will signifigantly raise the stakes of the whole campain. But before I do that, I need to make sure that I get the rules down pretty solidly.<br /><br />Les see some knee jerk stuff<br /><br />-One I need to make sure that when I have a villian dealing with a crowd of people that I bring tokens to represent a crowd of people. This way the players will be able to better see who needs saving what is going to happen when you save them and what targets are needed to prioritize.<br /><br />-Two I am a little disapointed in myself that Tesla's personality didn't quite come through enough. I did a pretty good job and more than one player commented that the last fight felt like something out of a video game which is exactly what I was going for. The whole session was video game themed and the players picked up on it pretty quickly and they seemed to dig it which makes me unsually happy and the last boss fight went very well and they picked up on what was going on very well.<br /><br />-Three Best villian escape ever. Let my grandpa go or the puppy gets it.<br /><br />-Four now that I kidnapped the players I need to take steps to ensure that they won't be able to be caputured in the same way again. This is going to be hard because Tyson won't be there. Man it is a weird day when Tyson becomes unusually pivitol. I guess I'll just have Jason figgure it outm, that IS what he is there for. Essentially the lasers attuned the electrical impulses in their brains to make sure<br /><br />-Five. I need to explain to them that storing villians in the super hero base is a bad idea. More or less dead=imprisoned=escaped to live another day. These people are going to make it back into the game if I want them to. When they do come back it is a matter of how much destruction is going to happen. For example if I let them capture Tesla all would of been okay for awhile until they come home to find their base turned into a massive death trap. Fun for me but just to make sure we are all on the same page.<br /><br />-Six. I totally forgot to hint at the Nazi connection. Shit. Which means I HAVE to do it next game session or else it will break the flow of the campain. Damnit. I am not happy about that one.<br /><br />-Seven. I need to do something with Jame's company Shangri La and everything. I think I will tie all that together along with Sparkles needing the player's help. That will work. I am not sure if I am going to introduce Jesus or not yet. I think I want to save him for later, and I think he is going to be Jason's arch nemisis. That makes the most sense actually. So right now I need to make a sort of villian for James. I do want this game session to involve Jame's company directly though so I guess it is time to switch to session notes.thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651322854995337550.post-49666194751753014202010-07-16T17:33:00.001-07:002010-07-16T18:11:35.336-07:00M&M In ReviewI am going to stick this entry here then censor it for the players before sticking it in the main blog. This is something I've been meaning to do before a month after the fact but hey no one is perfect you know? Sure you do! And if you don't I don't care this isn't for you.<br /><br />Session one- General thoughts:<br /><br />1) The players did suprisingly well with the fire thing. It took them awhile to find their sea legs and get used to being, well you know super heros but they picked up on it in fine fashion. They came up with some genuinely clever ways of dealing with the fires and for that I am relieved, for the most part.<br /><br />2) The final battle didn't go as well as I would of liked, it was my first real attempt to deal with the M&M combat system and my first real attempt at sating out a credible threat to the players. As the for credible threat, well oh yeah I gave them that in spades. Oops.<br /><br />3) I liked the character of Hiesenburg a lot, and I am looking fowards to the time when I get to use him again. I think her is highly evocative and I think the next time he shows up he will be fighting along side the players.<br /><br />The first game session was awefully short.<br /><br />Session 2 Part 1<br /><br />1) The players did an amazing job following up on leads and stuff I had around for them to do. It gave me a belly full of warm fuzzies and I actually let the scene go on for much longer than intended because of it.<br /><br />2) The actual game session itself though was a bit of a mess. First up they are terrified of splitting up. For the next game session when they beat up Tesla I am going to force situations where they end up seperated from each other just so that I can show them that it is okay. I think when I make it happen I am going to make it so that one set of players will be in a hazard room, and the other set of players will be in a possition to turn off the hazard room. Maybe not.<br /><br />3) GGetting to know the actual gangs was a bit of a hoot. Mostly though they were knocking around low level members but it enabled me to flesh out what each of the gangs are doing over there in Devil's Den and how it works. I like it quite a bit.<br /><br />4) Of all the gangs I statted out and tried the only ones that ended up being a credible threat was the Suburban Knights. I like them! Cory didn't though. So what I am going to have to do, is prolly change the way that nullified skills come back. So the next time I nullify cory's sword it isn't so damning.<br /><br />5) Give Tyson a hero point for his actions against the Baseball furies. He selfishly made himself the arch enemy of that entire gang in order to prevent move voilence from happening. He deserves something for that because it was prolly the most heroic thing any of them have done.<br /><br />6) Locations that I need to play more atension to in the Devil's Den for when they go back, The Furies Secret Base, The Hospital, The Night Club this isn't a pressing thing at the moment. I'll deal with it when I can.<br /><br />7) Oh god they need some sort of lession in how to interogate people. What I am thinking of happening is occationally doing fade to black moments. Like in the time traveling episode of the Justice League when Future Batman walked at the camera all menecingly. Awesome. Heh Batman playing good cop. I am amused.<br /><br />8) I need to do something with the Furies, and the Buttons in terms of how they feel about the players. I think I will have something in the next game session involving one or both of the groups.<br /><br />9) I love my excuse for Cory's absence from the last game. I wish the game was easier to run then I could have a much larger stable of players and play it like the Justice Leauge. <br /><br />10) I am glad to see my concern of running a game where the players do nothing but run around punching the villian of the week is more or less unfounded. I am able to get a wide variety of differnent game sessions and they seem to enjoy them for the most part.<br /><br />11) I like the Circ Du Strange quite a bit and I think I will use them more in the future a capricious foil to the wrath of the Nazis which will be showing up shortly.<br /><br />12) Okay I think that is it. FOR THE FUTURE!<br /><br />1) I want to run next weeks game session leave another ominous hint of some sort of encroaching danger that no one really wants to talk about.<br /><br />2) I want to have the Furies make some sort of appearance at the intital fight just before they are abducted.<br /><br />3) I want them to do the next game session and then I want to put them on the road the Shangri-la<br /><br />4) On the road the Nazi Dolphins will show up, as will the Beast from the Middle East.<br /><br />5) I want the road to take at least two to three game sessions. I want to make it so that getting inside Shangri-la is a very big deal and I want the dangers of them veing sinde there to also be a very big deal. So we are looking at most of August to get them in there, the entire month if we include a sasha visit.<br /><br />6) Ultimatly I want the Circ Du Strange to help them get into Shangri La I am not sure how I am going to run this, but I can use Jame's company as a back up plan. <br /><br />7) Over the course of the road to Shangrila I am going to flesh out Jame's company and possible do more with the Buttons and the Furies. <br /><br /><br /><br />Time Line<br /><br />21st We do Tesla<br /><br />28th We start the road to Shangri La introduce Dolphins<br /><br />4th Contiune the road Introduce Beast of the middle east<br /><br />11th Either wrap up the road to Shangrila or put them in there.thekolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18045037214277805972noreply@blogger.com0