PHASE 5: A BLACK AND STORMY NIGHT
Rolls to dodge are
here.
I grimaced in pain from the wound in my gut. I didn't think I'd be able to heal from that all the way without assistance. Fortunately, my assembler and refinery were back up and running, so I should be able to fix the medical bay before things got much worse. I ordered up the parts I needed from the assembler, wrapping my torso in a tourniquet as I waited for the machine to complete its task.
When it had completed the necessary components, I got to work. The medical bay was soon repaired, and I stepped into the pod for it to fix me up. I'd also repaired the mind-state cloning part of it, so if I got killed, the machine should automatically resurrect me. Idly, I contemplated what I could do next. I really needed to figure out how this reality warping worked so I could develop countermeasures.
The repairs go as swiftly as possible, given your wounded state, and before long, you're stepping into the medical pod.
In a flash of light, your wound is healed!
You hear thunder off in the distance. You look up to see a huge storm brewing, and streaks of black light arcing across the sky. Oh, what
now?
After being crushed by breadsticks, Dinac sits on a rock in the afterlife, shocked by what had happened. He couldn't have died! It was just not POSSIBLE! He was going to become a dragon! The only good thing was, he could resurrect himself. Still, he had to take the time to do it. So, sighing in how he had to do things like this for himself instead of having other people do them for him, he began to bring himself back to life.
You concentrate for a bit, and then realize... how do you bring yourself back to life? You've never done it before. And it's not like there's a manual or anything... Actually, there doesn't seem to be much of anything, aside from
a whole bunch of floating rocks.
Dang it. This would be a lot easier if you had something to focus your mind. Technically, you can do anything, but it's a lot easier if you can picture how it would be done...
Suddenly, you feel a sharp pain on your middle finger. You look down at your finger and see
a shadow, like a ring, around your finger...
Sharp Spear was dead, Sharp Spear was dead the man couldn't believe it. He really didn't know the pony that much meting him less than 10 minutes ago but now it was dead.
The man wanted to blame himself but that wasn't fair, he had tried to escape the planet many times at the end was fault of bad luck.
The other thing in his mind was his Stand originally Route 66 was supposed to teleport anywhere but the version he possessed, could be blocked. Honestly that made sense and was less broken so he didn't complained.
The man looked down toward the pony corpse maybe not the only the only corpse, he had a idea "Just this once, after this no more playing to God and I will continue using my powers for small stuff" He said to himself before proclaming "Everyone that died by fault of the bread-sticks RISE"
You hear whispers. Soft at first, but slowly growing in volume. You hear something else, too. Like the buzzing of insects.
A streak of black suddenly arcs from the sky, hovering over Sharp Spear. And at that point, you can tell
what the whispers are saying:
"The Blackest Night falls from the skies."
You look up to see more streams of black flitting across the sky, with a huge storm brewing as well. As if the universe was conspiring to make everything as ominous as possible.
"The darkness grows as all light dies."
You take a closer look at the streak of black above Sharp Spear, and see that it's actually a ring, glowing black.
"We crave your hearts and your demise."
The ring darts onto Sharp Spear's hoof.
"Sharp Spear of Equestria. RISE."
Sharp Spear gets up, a zombie wearing a black version of his previous armor, a silver hand symbol emblazoned on his chest. He leers at you and finishes the oath:
"By my black hoof, THE DEAD SHALL RISE!"
And with that, he lunges at you, black energy forming into a spear and stabbing you in the thigh before you can react.
ziizo is Wounded.
"You let me die," Black Lantern Sharp Spear whispers with a manic grin.
"Allow me to return the favor!"
Somehow, despite the momentary pain of getting skewered by dozens of breadsticks, the only thing that I could remember saying before blacking out was "Of course they miss the stinkin' pirates..."
When I recovered, I found myself in a rather murky expanse. For some reason, I was able to instinctively recognize it as the afterlife. "Well," I said to myself, "at least this isn't the bad place. It's a start."
It looked like my body wasn't going to be much use to him even if I was willing to take a gamble at re-inhabiting it. Best to just start from scratch, and hope nothing gets too broken.
Well, I was dead right? Which made me a ghost. So, logically, I should be on a ghost ship. Let's start there, and see how I do.
Then, I'll have to track down whoever was responsible for my untimely demise.
Where's that music coming from?
You look up to see a giant ghostly ship, floating in on what looks like liquid ectoplasm. It appears to be fully-crewed by... huh. Those look like ghostly Marines. Not any you recognize, thank goodness.
The boat tosses you a rope, and you climb up. "Where to, Captain?" one of the ghosts asks, throwing a sharp salute.
+1 to your next roll involving sailing. You may name your ship as a free action.
Before you can answer, a painful pressure squeezes your middle finger. You look down at your hand to see
the shadow of some kind of ring on your finger...
After I thought of a personal force field, and somehow tried to will it to exist, I felt... different. Not sure how to describe it, but it was a feeling of comfort and security.
...It was a good decision, for I was suddenly pelted with high speed breadsticks...
And hardly felt anything. The projectiles were stopped just before they could hit me, like I had an invisible deflector shield covering me. I felt invulnerable at that moment, like Superman.
Unfortunately, after the rain of breadsticks dissipated, I saw that my shield generators didn't survive. Perhaps I should have all of them repaired and fortified first. Who knows what else may happen next?
You wave your hand, and
the shield generator near you repairs itself. After a moment, you notice the force field regenerating itself above you. Guess you must have fixed the others as well.
+1 to your next roll involving repairing something.
Thunder rumbles. A storm is brewing, interspersed with streaks of darkness across the sky. Wonder what
that's about.
"Who. Dares!" I bellowed.
A rain cloud DARED to soak me.
A SENTIENT rain cloud.
"Disperse. From here on now, you shall serve me." I declared to the cloud.
"Make a storm for all to witness!"
The cloud blinks, processing that idea. Then it grins wickedly. "As you command, master." With a thunderous laugh, the cloud begins to rise into the air, expanding as it goes.
Lightning strikes, and thunder booms. The rain begins to fall, and the storm can be seen for miles around.
And you are responsible. You and your new minion, whom you may name as a free action.
Hmm? What are those? Streams of darkness across the sky, buzzing like insects...
Another would-be overlord? Well,
that won't do. That won't do at
all.
If nothing else, I was quite relieved to see the breadsticks had disappeared. On the other hand, this cloud was getting rather annoying.
So I naturally took the only appropriate step to ensuring my security.
That being to blast the cloud with the hyper beam I hoped this suit had.
You charge up the power beam and...
Your suit sparks, and before you have time to abort the blast,
your suit is enveloped in an explosion. Roll to dodge at -1.
Your suit sputters, damaged from the explosion.
Silvan Eldar is Wounded. On the plus side, the cloud seems singed as well, and decides that it has better things to do than to bother the person with the exploding suit. It floats away, leaving you with a damaged suit.
Just then, you hear a rumble. You look off in the distance and see a major storm brewing. Looks like that cloud has a big brother... one that has lines of darkness criss-crossing it.
"Yay!" Kintsugi smiled, her lips peeling back to show off an unnerving number of pointed teeth. "The bread's all gone~" She sang as she twirled in a circle, arms outstretched.
Then she stopped. "Bear?" Kintsugi asked, disbelieving. She flailed at said bear. "Why bear?" She flailed harder, her feathers clinking together with little chimes. "Please leave. It's not that I don't like bears, but." There was more clinking. "Please leave."
The bear stands up and looks like he's about to roar, but then
vanishes... and then reappears about twenty feet away. Hey, you never said where he should leave
to...
Thunder rumbles. From your height, you can see below you a rapidly-expanding thunderstorm. Might want to get out of the-
Wha-?! Something black just zoomed past your face, narrowly missing you. What was
that?
OHSHITOHSHITPANICPANIC
ITHURTSIT'SNOTADREAMOHMYFUCKINGGODAAAAAAAAGH
Ok. Ok, calm down. What have I got to work with?
...My first wish is still in full effect.
I turn and wink at the robot and the, ah, cloud.
"Afternoon, gentlemen. My name is..." fakenamefakenamefakename "...Handsome Joe."
I pose for my attackers.
"It's because I'm so handsome."
Man I hope robots and death clouds are shallow.
It seems so, because
your pose stops both robot and cloud in their tracks. You think the cloud is actually
drooling... or maybe that's just rain. Hard to tell.
The robot wanders off, but the cloud seems to be following you around now. It seems you have a groupie. +1 to your next roll involving your groupie cloud, who you can name as a free action.
Thunder rumbles off in the distance, and you see a massive storm brewing in the distance. Streaks of black criss-cross the sky as well.
Something's going on, and whatever it is, it can't be good.
Mostly because there aren't any breadsticks involved.
"What the..." I stop my sentence before looking around. "Well I'm not stupid, so I'm gonna take this slowly". I try to rationalises this situation but it's not doing so well. "If this suppose 'goddess' said I can do anything than" I shall enact the dream I had since I was a child.
Summon a magical staff.
A staff appears in your hands. It doesn't look like much. Just a long, sturdy stick. But information floods through your mind, and you somehow know that this is the most potent magical staff in existence, capable of casting virtually any spell.
You look around and, finding no one watching,
reenact that one scene. Because everyone with a magic staff should do that at least once.
+1 to all rolls involving using a spell.
As you slam the staff down on the ground, thunder rumbles in the distance. A massive storm is brewing in the distance, and... what are those? Arcing beams of black light, flitting through the sky...
Well that was close...
"Captain, get all hands to action stations, we're going to find who turned those breadsticks into fatal projectiles, I know there are more humans here with similar powers and they may be hostile."
And with that the ship burst to life as crew members began to move to their stations and such.
"Take us to the air cap'n" I shout out.
The captain salutes and walks off, barking orders at the crew. And soon, the ship begins to rise, powering on with a satisfying hum.
After about five minutes, the captain reports to you.
"We are at optimal atmospheric cruising height, sir! Lookouts have spied a major storm brewing to the south, sir, as well as several lines of darkness zooming around! What are your orders?"
+1 to all rolls involving flying in your frigate.
The being winced as he crashed to the ground beneath him, the shock and pain distracting him from flight.
That had hurt. That had really hurt.
But through the pain, there was a vision. A vision of light, light which could be used to heal.
If that light could be used...
Then the angel would bring it into the world.
Mentally tugging on that distant power, he reached to embrace it, and spoke the first words he had in this new world.
"Heal us. Cura!"
You reach for the light, and the light responds. But something doesn't quite seem right; it's not coming through as fast as you had hoped.
Still,
you cast your spell, seeing most of your injuries disappear. You have gone from
Wounded to having -1 on your next roll.
A streak of black flits past you. You look up to see more blackness, backlit by a swiftly-growing storm. It seems that for all the light you bring into the world, darkness repeats and surpasses the feat...
The girl blinked. That had been fast.
She was dead... but somehow she could still see and think? She hadn't quite expected the afterlife to be like this. Come to think of it, how was Nim still on her?
Well, the hologram
had said anything could happen. It seemed like bad form to complain. Besides, it looked like she was a ghost now. She could still do stuff as a ghost...
But why be just
a ghost? I could do better than that.
Like resurrecting partially, keeping some of the traits and abilities of a ghost such as being able to float through things, or move stuff with her mind. And if she looked translucent or glowy, she didn't really care.
She crossed her fingers, just in case it would help, and clapped her hands.
And just as you clap your hands, you feel something shift, and you find yourself back in your old body, but with the changes you specified. Nim seems to have picked up those traits as well.
Above you, you see a black ring hovering in midair, shrouded in blackness and backlit by a major storm.
"Whisper1 of Earth. Ri-. Whisper1 not found. Whisper1 of Earth. Ri-. Whisper1 not found."
...huh?
I look at my wife, Yuki. A Japanese woman of twenty-nine years, we met at the local Comic-Con a few years ago. It was a very interesting story that would have to be told later.
Mainly because of all the chaos that was happening.
"You know, maybe we should find a place to experiment with this new randomness. Away from... here" Yuki suggests.
I think about it for a second, and agree. This power we've been granted seems to be random and possibly dangerous enough without the madhouse this world is quickly turning into.
"Alright. Let's try it out." I breathe deeply, before making my wish upon the world.
"I want a place for me and my wife to go that is safe for us. A beautiful place, if it can be arranged."
A door opens in the air, revealing a small room that looks... frankly, like a doctor's waiting room. It's not much, and you're not sure if it's any safer, but at least you have a place now?
Thunder rumbles in the distance. You and Yuki look up to see a massive storm brewing, with streaks of darkness flying across the sky.
The bear had never encountered such a confusing creature before but humans, smelling of metal or not, never managed to dissuade it before. And the thing was close, much too close for the bear's comfort and for it to notice how off the human was. First that human-which-was-nothing and now this? Well it was having none of it. None of it! None!
Standing up on its stout hindlegs, the bear unfurled its not inconsiderable height and roared.
You stand up and take in breath to roar, but then...
Huh? She's farther away now. How'd
that happen?
Oh well. You'll roar anyway. You draw in breath... and then thunder rumbles, startling you. And then huge black flies everywhere! What is going on???
Lord Imperious Devastator XII, Tyrant of All He Surveys, Devourer of Lessers, known to his slaves and followers as Mr. Fluffybottoms, stared grandiously at the strange facsimile of one of the servant race. It made those strange, wheezing noises that the stupid animals made when seeking attention and then disappeared.
How rude! The craven creature did not even give an offering of food or scratchies. If the abominable illusion had the nerve to appear before His Inestimable Grace again, He would be most stringent in providing punishment!
Now, as the God of this pitiful place, how shall He make his will known? That great contraption seems to be making quite the ruckus! No, dispatching such a hooligan is beneath one such as He. Should he hunt? No, soon the toll of the electric can opener will sound as it always does and Mr. Fluffybottoms will fall upon the wet food with a Fury and aVengeance!
With great deliberation and utter decisiveness, Mr. Fluffybottoms attempted to go to sleep.
You settle down and try to sleep...
but thunder rumbles, and you leap up, ready to teach the storm who's boss... but then you decide that such is for lesser beings, and lie back down again.
Hrmph. Why... can't... you... fall... asleep?!
-1 to all rolls involving sleep.
EVENT: BREADSTICK KILLBOT
I Just Write has created a Killbot who is hunting down Shard and Silvan Eldar. (It was hunting RadioactiveSpoon as well, but got seduced into leaving him alone, and has not yet had time to find any of the others.) At the end of each phase after this, the killbot will attack one of the two, selected at random, trying to forcibly extract information on how they managed to warp reality.
EVENT: I'M JUST A LITTLE BLACK RAIN CLOUD
Shard has conscripted the sentient cloud that was trying to drown him, and now it is brewing up a truly magnificent storm. If it goes unchecked, it may well flood the world...
EVENT: BLACKEST NIGHT
All of the dead on this planet have risen as Black Lanterns. At the end of each round after this, a randomly-chosen player will be attacked by one of these Black Lanterns for each dead creature on the planet. Note that Sharp Spear will be focused on ziizo until one or the other is dead.
