Homebound: Rage of the Condesce

[pankrationResolution]

Earth

September 17th, 2401

The planet lies in ruination, a hundred years after the war with the Her Imperial Condescension. A lopsided conflict begun by a powerful cheap shot, Condesce's brutal assault left half of the planet flooded, with the other half a crystaline, deserted wasteland. In the sky, five satillites loom. The most familiar, Luna, sits in the center, flanked by the Galilean Moons, Io, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. Their combined gravitational pull brought Earth's ocean to one side, flooding most developed nations.

Human beings, drastically reduced in number, toil under the watchful eye of the Condesce, and her faithful lacky, the Gleefull Organick Mechanik, a powerful and brutal Subjuggulator. Imperial Drones fly from place to place, hunting down, slaughtering, and capturing any with the courage to rise up.

However, there is hope, riding on the shoulders of several of Earth's children, who live on various corners of the Earth, biding their time until the Trolls of the past come through.

The planet is doomed, but there is a chance to restart.

---

Alternia

Days before total planetary extinction

This world isn't doing much better. Revolution abound, Her Imperial Condescension, thousands of years in the past, has crossed the line, and trolls, high and low blooded alike, are uprising against her powerful forces. As war machines battle in the sky, explosions ring out in the low atmosphere. Debris rains against hives, ripping holes in tents and killing anyone dumb enough to get caught in the crossfire. On the surface, adolescent trolls battle by land and sea, some hoping to gain favor with the brutal monarch, and some vying to overthrow her, her Subjuggulators, and her loyal sea dwellers.

It is a pointless gesture, and a forgone conclusion. The Condesce alone is far too powerful for any one troll to defeat, and her armies have a technological advantage. Soon, the entire planet will be under her heel.

However, this will never come to be. Alternia will be destroyed by the reckoning before she gets a chance to rule. A small group of trolls prepare to play the ultimate game in order to prevent the Condesce from taking their world, even if it means the planet's devastation. But, they'll never win the session without aid. With temporal chat software, they've contacted another, younger species on a distant world; the humans.

Beginning this session will doom Alternia, and set the Condesce on a path to invade Earth.

It will also secure a new universe free of her control for both humans and trolls.

A fair trade.

[pankrationResolution]

==> Jomm, worry.

On his bobbing house boat, Jommn Bison, the Heir of Heart, sat with his legs folded as he stared down into the clear water. Buildings loomed below, shards of glass floating and reflecting brilliant light. Strange fish swam from place to place.

Jomm clicked a tiny button on the top of his glasses, and began dictating a message.

pankrationResolution [PR] has opened a Memo.

PR: Gettin' pretty sick of waiting.
PR: I've listened reports from resistance fighters in Colorado on my CB radio.
PR: It was mostly screaming, so I'm guessing Condy has my scent.
PR: Her drones might be here in hours. Not that I mind a dust-up with the rust buckets.
PR: I'd just like some assurance that I'm even a part of this game. Kyle's dead already, and he helped me set this up for weeks.
PR: I know this game "cares nothing for the laws of chronology," and the peeps who will play are already fated to or something, but we're cutting it VERY close.

[temporaryAbsent]

==> Tiamat, work out some shit

Tiamat Asiiaq sat in her hive, before her husktop, getting on the new chatlog which was secured to communicate with the other race, the humans.
She was not hiding, because she was tired of the fighting, she was doing important work to start the game! And she wasn’t telling this to herself in the past night.

Now, respond to PR’s memo.

Chatlog wrote:

[Alice Rapture]

Troppo Fagott, the Bard of Life, was playing a classical Alternian melody on his cello -- one of the many MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS littered around his respiteblock -- when his husktop beeped from its place on his sylladex, signalizing a new message.

He smiled to himself and played the melody necessary to retireve the object. His Melody Modus answered accordingly and his husktop popped on the ground the moment the song was over.

Troppo put the cello back in its place and quickly read the memo.

Pestertlog wrote:

Troppo closed his husktop and went downstairs to get himself a snack. He liked the humans. They had good music and most of them were not half bad company. Some part of him made a mental note to actually play Kyle a requiem, the guy deserved some sort of recognition for helping Jomm.

He could barely wait to meet Jomm, the boy had told him that his lusus taught him how to fight and Troppo had been dreaming of dueling a human ever since.

While absently adjusting his left earbud, Troppo opened his fridge -- his highblood education and conversation with humans kept him from saying "thermal hull" even after many sweeps dealing with lowbloods -- and grabbed some leftovers.

He'd check his husktop later. Now was time to eat.

[timesrowKilling]

==> Joan introduce yourself
You are Joan Smith... Yes that is your real name! You are the Rogue of Time. Currently you are twirling your trusty ice pick in your right hand and sitting ontop of what used to be the Empire State Building. Two years ago your father left you here by yourself. Thank god he left you with a computer, through this device you were able to get in touch with other humans and some aliens from the past.
Looks like there is a memo.

Memo log :

You quickly close your laptop and enter the building topmost floors. You go down three floors and then into the closet you have renovated to be a makeshift base of operations. Thank goodness you made it before the drones noticed you.

[temporaryAbsent]

==> Tiamat, respond

Tiamat thought about it for a few seconds, than decided, that she won’t. At least not until she gets somewhere more comfortable.
She had sore muscles from the fights, and being thrown to rocks by one of the loyalist purple bloods didn’t help. She was already healing, but it still hurts.
She capchaloged her husktop, climbed the small staircase to her respiteblock and fell face first into her pile.
Deciding she was comfortable, Tiamat decapcaloged her husktop.

Chatlog wrote:

[pankrationResolution]

PR: Just try to lay low, Joan. If we get this thing up and running, we won't have to worry about 'em, hopefully.
PR: As for the server client chain, I've been working on something to circumvent that.
PR: Or rather, Kyle was. It's kinda his legacy, and I'm working on completing it.
PR: Your condolences are appreciated, Troppo, but soon, you'll be able to tell 'em yourself.
PR: Dude programmed robots, and his father was working on mapping the human brain. Once I get his software running, we'll have an A.I. capable of chaining our sessions, and running the worldbuilding aspects of the game.
PR: And we'll have a working copy of Kyle's brain on our team, albeit confined to a laptop computer.
PR: And thanks, T-Met. Nice to know I'm not gonna die. I don't exactly have the redundancy K-Man had. Not sure how he's gonna feel about being dead, but...we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

With that, Jomm dashed off to the galley of the boat. Inside, there was a colossal server that touched the ceiling, hooked up to a monitor. Unfortunately, the software wasn't as complete as Jomm liked; on the contrary, it was like a bundle of wires, and the young Heir lacked the patience for such delicate work. But, this was one of his best shots.

As he worked, he heard footsteps. His father started the boat, setting it on autopilot. Under the glass floor, Jomm could see buildings passing.

"time's up, but we're not losing here. jomm. mind the boat." Bido Bison's intimidating voice boomed the words, and the boat suddenly rocked hard. Jomm's Dad had just strongjumped into the distance, and the force nearly tipped over the server. 

"Whoa whoa WHOA!" Jomm caught the tipping server tower, and walked onto the deck. "The hell's gotten into him?" 

The answer became clear with one look; there was a horde of drones, and a large Imperial assault craft, slowly sailing across the horizon, bearing the Condesce's markings. Mr. Bison had flung himself into the fray. Knowing the importance of the game, Jomm's Dad intended to buy his son all the time he could. "...Be careful dad." Jomm went back to work, reading walkthroughs and programming the startup function for Kyle's soul-program.

PR: Okay. Is anyone else in huge trouble? Because I'm in huge trouble.
PR: Drones are right on top of me. Dad's buying time, but I can't exactly hide from 'em on this barnacle-ass boat.
PR: Whoever has the sgrub copies, start sending 'em out, and load up the game.

[timesrowKilling]

==>Worry
You look up at a monitor screen and see that multiple cameras that you have set up have been destroyed and now you can't monitor the progress on the drones as proficiently. Then you look at the only camera linked to the outside and begin to worry even more. Standing above what used to be New York City is one of the many battleships used by the Condy's fleet. Red and imposing adorned with the symbols of the imperial bitch. Looks like time is up for you too and no chance of escape.

Memo log:

You stand up and set the computer down then get out your icepick and chain. Good you hear a few explosions and some gun fire. Looks like the traps you set are working. But for how long...

[Alice Rapture]

==> Troppo, play inspiring music

Troppo had finished his snack and was once again sitting in front of his husktop. He had already installed Sgrub a few hours ago, so now all he could do was read his friends' messages and hope they survived.

Pesterlog Wrote:

This time, Troppo left his husktop open, so the others could connect with him. He then picked up a stray violin and decided to pass the time by opening up some space for the in-game objects, like the... alchemiter, was it? Alchemizer? Something to do with alchemy... whatrever.

He aimed at his piano. His Melody Modus promptly gave him the necessary music sheet to captchalogue the huge instrument.

And so, while waiting for news of his friends, he played the violin and hoped for the best.

[temporaryAbsent]

===> Tiamat, wait

Chatlog wrote:


With that, Tiamat closed and captchaloged her husktop, climbed out pf the pile, and climbed down the stairs. She walked out of her hive to the cave which it was built.
Her lusus was in the cove, happily swimming around. In the fights, Tiamat fed her well with the dead trolls’ lusi.
The troll sat at the side of the cove, and Octomom swam to her.

‘You can’t enter the game, but 1 promise, we will meet. Until then, eat as many as you can, but preferably from the Condescension’s army. And don’t die. And have a bite out of the Condy herself if you can!!!!!!! Now, could you find me something to prototype? Whatever it means.’

The lusus dropped a shiny stone and a squid in front of her. Tiamat accepted them, with little thought. She decapchaloged her husktop again.

[graphiteGunaydin]

===> New Troll: Appear.

THe scene quite suddenly switches into your hive. Like most trolls, the interior is a blend of grey and black, with few colors spread about. You have a few of your notebooks stacked neatly on every flat surface, and piles of disorganized colored pencils scattered on the brown carpet of your respiteblock. Your windows are tinted green to discourage dangerous sunlight from entering your room, and a neat closet full of clean clothes. But enough description, what is your name?

===> Dumb Bitch

How fucking rude!!

===> Atgeva Unukal

That seems about right.

((sorry i missed a thing???????????

[temporaryAbsent]

==> Tiamat, be nervous

She already was nervous enough, because any time the loyalists could find her. She was really set to start the game.

Chatlog wrote:


She hoped Atgeva gets the messages.
After directing some lines at the other troll, Tiamat saw her lusus getting nervous, and swimming out of the cave. She left her husktop behind and went after the giant octopus. As she surfaced outside the cave, she saw big ships with the symbol of the Condescension painted on the sides and it showed on the flags too.
She swiftly swam back to the cave alone, after her lusus turned against the vessels.



(OOC: @GG: Not really, the characters haven't entered the Medium yet, but they should soon as we went with PR's and TK's posts. (Drones going for their characters.))

[timesrowKilling]

==> Retreat
What, no. No, not yet... There are only a few left that weren't destroyed by the traps on the top two floors. So you start to stab and if that doesn't work then you begin to wrap your chain around the drones and begin breaking different parts off. You spend a few more minutes finishing up the first round of survivors. Now time to retreat.
You quickly run back to the closet and captchalog your laptop. It is placed in your jail cell modus and now you'll need to pick the lock on it if you want it back. You'll deal with that later, now is the time to run.

While running deeper into the building you begin hearing more explosions and gunfire... Wait all of your traps have been disarmed. Looks like dads home, after two years. And looks like he dealt with the second wave with being outnumbered at least 1:1000. "Hey there kiddo. Sorry I'm late."

[Alice Rapture]

OOC: Okay, since this session seems to be "stuck" since yesterday, is everyone (or at least a two thrids majority) fine with me iniciating the "get everyone into the game" part and make up a random personality to Kyle (the robot who's gonna connect everyone and do most of the server work)?

Whoever agrees with that idea please say "yes", "yay", or whatever synonym you can think of.

[timesrowKilling]

(I agree )

[graphiteGunaydin]

((ya ok

[Alice Rapture]

OOC: Okay, here are the results of the voting,

Fine with me taking over: timesrowKilling, graphiteGunaydin, and myself.

Did not vote: temporaryAbsent and pankrationResolution.

Since there has been only five of us rp-ing until this point, our two thirds majority has been reached.

The RP shall be continued shortly.

[Alice Rapture]

==> Talk to Kyle

The moment his piano was safely captchalogued, a cruxtruder was dropped on the now empty spot and his husktop beeped. Troppo went over to check the message.

Pesterlog Wrote:

Troppo sighed and walked towards his cruxtruder. He summoned his lutekind specibus and hit the thing open. A kernelsprite and a cruxite dowel were expelled. The countdown gave him solid seven minutes.

Without muttering a word, Trop grabbed the dowel, rushed downstairs, grabbed a radio, threw the radio at the kernelsprite, grabbed the pre-punched card, used the Totem Lathe to carve his dowel, and then rushed to the Alchemiter.

The Alchemiter produced a guitar. Troppo Fagott picked the instrument up and stared at the Alchemiter in disbelief.

"Wal7z 7he Highway 7o Hell am I supposed 7o do?"

Suddenly, a melody started to play from nowhere in particular, but it was all around his hive.

"Now 7ha7 more like i7!!!!!!!"

He smirked and started to play the song in the cruxite guitar. It sounded divine, better than any regular instrument ever would.

When the song reached its end, Troppo was transported into the Medium with time almost a whole minute to spare.

(OOC: unless said otherwise, everyone's allowed to write Kyle's dialogue the way they see fit, just try to keep his personality more or less constant. His hexcode is #ffff00 and his chumhandle is "renaissanceExpatriate [RE]")

[temporaryAbsent]

(OOC: Sorry, school took a bit too much from my personal time. Anyway, I’d had voted with yes. Thanks Alice!)

==> Talk to the AI

Tiamat’s husktop signaled that she got a message.

Chatlog wrote:


Suddenly, a cruxtruder appeared out of nowhere and dropped in the middle of the troll’s block. She summoned her spear and hit the machine with it. A kernelsprite fly out and a cruxite dowel was excelled, also a countdown started from seven minutes.
She ran out of her hive, grabbed the squid and tossed it into the kernelsprite.

‘Okay, this is ready.’ Tiamat said to herself as she returned to her hive. She realized that more things appeared, while some of her belongings were missing. She grabbed the pre-punched card, carved her dowel with the Totem Lathe and ran to the Alchemiter.
She got some kind of platform, with forms on it, but the circles seemed to be in disorder. She turned the circles around until she got the picture of a ship straight.

She still had fifteen seconds to spare when she entered the Medium.

[timesrowKilling]

==> Get to the lowest level
You continue to run even if your dad is coming to you. You have a game to play after all! "Kiddo, why aren't you answering me? Fine if you are just going hide I'll continue destroying these drones. Ya know this would be amazing father daughter bonding time! " he stops speaking waiting for your response but he doesn't get one.
He begins to yell at you for not getting a response then gunfire continues. Good thing you are on the last set of stairs before the flooded floors. Enough space for you to get the laptop out and get into the game. You quickly pick the lock and the laptop drops into your hands.
Seems like you got a few messages from a dead man...

Pester log:

Kyle begins placing down the different machine and you get moving. First you pry off the top of the cruxtruder with your icepick and then take out a red looking cylinder. As the kernelsprite flies out and floats around you. You quickly pick the lock on the card holding your copy of Metal Clancy : splinter mech and throw it into the sprite.
After prototyping the sprite you continue to follow the instructions that you remembered and you are on the final step. You quickly place the cylinder onto the totem lathe with the card and carve it. Then you run to the alchemizer and place it on. You get a large red box with a chess set ontop and there were four pieces left :two kings, one bishop, and one rook. So you attempted to capture the king and succeed.
You enter the medium with 7 seconds to spare.

[Alice Rapture]

==> Kill the imps. All of them.

Troppo was not happy. Not at all.

The first thing that happened when he reached the Medium was a bunch of imps invading his home and messing with his instruments. That left him very, very angry.

"I'm giving you 7o 7he coun7 of 7hree 7o leave mi hive in one piece," he growled at the imps. "'Cause i7's one, i7's one, one for 7he money."

The imps spared him a glance before going back to messing with his stuff.

"7wo, i7's 7wo, 'cause 7wo is for 7he show."

He summoned his lutekind and held it with enough strenght to break a lowblood's bones.

"7hree, i7's 7hree, 7hree ge7 ready."

Now the imps were paying attention to him. They started to realize their mistake and tried to flee.

"Are you ready, mo7herfuckers? Are you ready? Le7's go!"

With that, he rushed towards the nearest imp and smashed its skull with his lutekind, killing it. Forty-five minutes later everything was covered in ink, his hive was in lockdown, his place on the echeladder had skyrocketed, and Troppo had alchemized his husktop and his earbuds together.

Trop used his new husktop-earbuds hybrids -- eartops? huskbuds? earhusks? -- to communicate with his friends.

Pesterlog wrote:

Trop took a quick shower, changed into clean clothes, and... was kept from going outside by his sprite.

Spritelog Wrote:

With a heavy sigh, Troppo sat down on a chair and listened as Radiosprite went on a long rant about abandonment issues because apparently radios can have that sort of problem, who knew? Not Troppo, that's for sure.

It was somewhat amusing since the sprite could only speak by bursting out random song lyrics without context.

[temporaryAbsent]

==> Tiamat, rage

When Tiamat entered the Medium, first she saw nothing out of order. Then she saw one of this little black things waltzing around with a piece of her treasure, a necklace. She immediately attacked the little fucker. She noticed that there were more of them, so she hunted them one by one, at a point, finding a bigger thing near to her Alchemiter.

After taking revenge on the imps and the ogre, alchemizing some awesome and practical stuff, with some useless items which she would not talk about, she used her husklet – combination of her husktop and a bracelet she found in her treasure pile – to check on the others.

Chatlog wrote:
irregularWave [IW] responded to memo 'Homebound'


With that, Tiamat, and her Squidsprite was off.

[graphiteGunaydin]

==> Enter.

You toss your lusus's enormous head into the kernelsprite at the last second before emerging in the complex world of the medium. Your brand new Sprite, which you immediately dubbed 'Snakemumsprite', floats after you, hissing happily.

Atgeva: Respond to meme-o.

Memolog :

You capchalogue your KUNZITE DISCS in your JIGSAW MODUS. They fit, barely. You didn't gather much grist, but you did get to practice you communing with the simple creatures, safely of course. A few shiny snake consorts are hanging out around your alchemizer. You gaze down from your now-enormous hive to your land. It's quite beautiful, you think. Pink and purple grass is aesthetically pleasing to you, even though you'd never outright admit it. The pink part, you mean. Condy pretty much ruined that for you.

[Breeso]

==> Lars Bragston, put on your clothes.

Lars, the Bard of Mind, shaked his head and sighed. He just went out of his prolonged shower and quickly changed his fedora for a new one. His new fedora happily fell on his head and Lars now struggled with putting on his shirt. He always forgets to put on clothes before putting on the fedora. He'd want to change, but it's just an instinct, he can't help it. Finally, his pants, t-shirt and jacket are on him and he smiles, proud of his "getting dressed" accomplishment. Wait, someone is going crazy on pesterlog.

Lars, respond.

Memolog:

[Alice Rapture]

==> Troppo, multitask

While his sprite kept on babbling, Trop sneakly checked his new messages. It seemed that Kyle was panicking.

Pesterlog wrote:

Troppo Fagott looked at his sprite, who had just finished its rant and was looking at him expectantly.

When he opened his mouth to say something, an annoying and extremely cheesy song was heard coming from the second floor.

"No7e ano7her squid findie..." Troppo sighed and went upstairs, his lutekind already in hand. "Are you ready 7o face 7he music, imp?" he barked as he stepped on his respiteblock.

A lonely imp stared at him and laughed, it was holding... Troppo's dead lusus.

His lusus was a regular-sized nightingale; a strange choice for a highblood, but an excellent guardian none the less. It had died last perigree of natural causes and since then its stuffed corpse had been left on its perch.

Rage once more filled Trop. He was starting to really hate those imps!

As he rushed foward -- no doubt intending to beat the fiend with his lute until it was just a bunch of grist -- two things happened.

First, the imp threw the stuffed nightingale at Troppo. It missed by a wide margin, but ended up hitting Radiosprite. And that was how Radiogalesprite was created; a nightingale with a speaker coming out of its belly.

Second and most important, Troppo suddenly slept mid-run. He fell face-first on the floor and stayed there, already deep in slumber.

His sprite quickly killed off the imp and proceeded to guard its charge.

Pesterlog wrote:

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