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Shimmer, Glimmer, & Gleam - A Quest of Loss & Gain

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Y'all coulda gone and met the invisible people and their animal friends! It was on the table! Foolishly I assumed folks would see the wing evolution and go for it on that basis alone if nothing else but instead, like Harry Houdini mixed with a rope sub, y'all insisted on being locked up.
 
[X] ...There might be something here worth saving
[X] What's left of the element of surprise
[X] Any chance that the prison could be converted to a different use
[X] A pound of flesh
 
[X] ...There might be something here worth saving
[X] What's left of the element of surprise
[X] Any chance that the prison could be converted to a different use
[X] One Gift

Offense gift time. Fuck it we ball

Edit: Forgot there was an option to destroy this entire place, ok maybe also forgot we dont need stealth if we are going all out
 
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So about those guards...
[ ] Don't risk it; no quarter
[x] ...There might be something here worth saving

My personal instincts are screaming ACAB, but my less instinctual thoughts are considering that it is plausible that not all of these guards were part of the system before Impact, and wondering whether the beautiful new world has the population to spare, and reminding me that the opportunity for forgiveness and change is a beautiful part of the wholesome parts of humanity. Plus, the Captain will execute them without hesitation if that turns out to be necessary.

Lose 3
[ ] Your okay health
[x] What's left of the element of surprise
[ ] The lives of some Inmates
[ ] Any chance that the prison could be converted to a different use
[ ] All idea of where Marie got to or what she's doing
[ ] A pound of flesh
[x] One Gift
[x] Your veneer of stability
 
I really don't think combining losing a pound of flesh, and okay health is a good idea. Like, okay health is already a weakened version, and taking injury twice?

[X] Don't risk it; no quarter

[X] What's left of the element of surprise
[X] Any chance that the prison could be converted to a different use
[X] All idea of where Marie got to or what she's doing
[x] Your veneer of stability
 
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[x] ...There might be something here worth saving
[x] Your okay health
[x] Any chance that the prison could be converted to a different use
[x] One Gift

Use the gift, relocate the guards, and abandon this whole joint.
 
WayWard_Animal said:
People like danger. Questors like action scenes.
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I also like action scenes! I dare to say I'm good at them, though that is of course up to y'all's judgement as it is with all the writing being decent or not. But I also get folks asking about character scenes and time with the community and...

Well. It might be nice to do something calmer from my end too. Not that I'm going to tell y'all what to do outside of reaffirming that I'm quite willing to let y'all run Orchid into the ground and destroy it through overwork or other strains. I kinda grew up in old-school RPGs, I can't feel like the stakes are real unless I can eat shit and die; I bring that energy from this side of the screen too.
 
[x] ...There might be something here worth saving

Mercy... for now.

[x] What's left of the element of surprise
[x] Any chance that the prison could be converted to a different use
[x] One Gift

Our element of Surprise is already nearly gone, not sure how much use the last bit will be here. As for any other use of the prison... we don't need to try and make this a fortress later, let it crumble and burn as a monument to its sins
 
I would like to point out, to everyone involved that

A) Losing okay health puts Orchid straight back at the mortal danger level
B) Orchid is currently in a prison, away from any semblance of a support network, which is what saved it the last time it pulled this trick
C) The QM just posted about how they're willing to apply actual stakes.

Morrowlark said:
Well. It might be nice to do something calmer from my end too. Not that I'm going to tell y'all what to do outside of reaffirming that I'm quite willing to let y'all run Orchid into the ground and destroy it through overwork or other strains. I kinda grew up in old-school RPGs, I can't feel like the stakes are real unless I can eat shit and die; I bring that energy from this side of the screen too.
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Death is an option here.

Like, as far as I can tell this is just the first step in breaking the prison. This whole story isn't going to be over in a single exchange. What are people's plans afterward?
 
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Alright party people I'm going to try and go back to bed. I'll call a warning later, hopefully after some decent fucking sleep.

This is your reminder that you should feel free and empowered to change your votes should you so choose. Do try to keep the discussion civil, we're all friends here, aye?

This is also me yet again requesting your thoughts or wishes for what we might focus on going forward. Now I must go to my tomb in the raveyard where the flashing lights will lull me into my healing rest.
 
[x] ...There might be something here worth saving
[x] Your okay health
[x] Any chance that the prison could be converted to a different use
[x] One Gift
 
As for after this bit, I would love to reconsider some of those pastoral scenes. We have seen a variety of animal life from a distance, I'd like to get up close to some. My suggestions are
- the farms
- the invisible people
- the zoo
 
[X] ...There might be something here worth saving
[X] Your veneer of stability
[X] What's left of the element of surprise
[X] One Gift
 
Alright party people, let's drop the bass
Scheduled vote count started by Morrowlark on Jan 4, 2025 at 11:57 AM, finished with 25 posts and 13 votes.
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The Law of the Long Arm 11: Liege of the Axe New
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    • Hopefully your new community can come to your rescue. Hopefully the inmates will side with you and not turn against each other. But if you're going to hold out long enough for anyone to come, it's time to drop heavy.

    You have zero Gifts remaining.

    There's been blood spilled already. There will be more blood spilled before this is over. Maybe the guards have something in them that can be salvaged; maybe some of the inmates really are awful people who need...stern guidance. But that's not for you to judge, not here and now, not amongst them and of them. This blood is on your hands too.

    Which means it's time to go all-out.

    You can feel the light of the Panopticon focused on the door to the Chapel. You lay your hand against the steel and close your eyes, and just breathe. You can hear, faintly, the sounds of people setting up on the other side, the rattle of rifles and armor, calling orders. Yes...someone else with your face and name would have done the same thing, once upon a time. Make a shooting gallery and just unload. It's smart. But they don't know you or what you're capable of. You call the glass dust from the lining of your jumpsuit and crouch down, touching a jagged crack in the floor from which sharp glass growths are further splitting the concrete, and you really focus on it for the first time.

    And you know. You know it like you know where your feet are under you; this is a broken fragment of the world behind the mirrors, a world that is gone now just as Domus is gone now because they are the same world. Something new, made of things that are old...your new home...

    The guards are reflected, and refracted, and distorted, in the glass, light carrying them to your eyes. And the hall they're set up in has not been properly cleaned of these growths in ages, has it? The man from Threshold had described attempting to fix his hard walls into something more suited for the 'car crash' of the world's soul, and you think you know what he meant. The prison, and probably other important places given how fast he must have had to work, got adjusted to survive Impact, to not be too badly refracted, but that's not an active defense, just...something to take the hit. The manifestation was supposed to keep you under control, and now you're free, and you can see your enemy. They'd best be grateful.

    You concentrate, and spines of glass thrust into the formation of the guards, lancing into shoulders and torsos, piercing them in places where they will only bleed instead of dying. But that's not blood once it touches the glass, and enters your power, is it? It's a sedative. They barely have time to understand what hit them before they're out like lights.

    Evolved synergy expressed: Mime's Decree
    ​
    The wave of hunger that hits you makes you dizzy; you rapidly unlock the door and go tearing through the pockets of your victims. Each one has a combat knife, so you steal a belt - and there goes the pants, okay (why does it have hearts on its underwear?) - and tuck nearly fifteen of the things on said belt one-handed while you keep rifling through pockets. Pepper spray, okay, you don't need their radio - SNACKS! You tear open granola bars and candies and packets of jerky and just stuff your mouth while you're chewing, swallowing whatever's chewed enough before cramming something new in there. The result is A Flavor, and it is not pleasant, nor is it identifiable, but you know what it is? Immediate fucking energy. Boots are hitting the ground and trying that trick again might just knock you the fuck out until you digest some of this, for lack of a better word, food. You suck air between your teeth, five years of memories clashing with pure righteous rage. This is the nightmare scenario, a manhunt Inside, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nowhere -

    Your hand strays to your breast, and the warmth of the glass that encases your heart, putting it on display for anyone you trust enough to show it to. That's right, isn't it? You're not the only thing in Durance-on-Bay that had two natures.

    When the mirror speaks...

    (...The light of the Panopticon sweeps back towards you; the eye is torn between everything it must watch, knows that the Law will be broken in its prison if it does not keep its attention on the Convicts, but there is blood on the floors now and you are racing towards the guards and it doesn't know, does not know, that you are on the verge of being spent of that trick already. So it does the smart thing, and sweeps through your body, and you refract its light because...)

    ...The reflection lies.

    It's easy, once you know how. You were a reflection, once. You know this now. You can't not know it. It's clear in your mind and in the moment of understanding there is also acceptance; you aren't that any more, you're not sure where the other reflections of the world come from or what they might be, who they might be, but you were one of them, and now you are not. But you can remember what it was like, and simply stop being a real thing in a real world that has to be in a real body. The light of the Panopticon sweeps into you, attempting to assert its dominion, and you simply scatter back into something that lives in the lenses of eyes, that moves through bent glass and polished steel, a thing from the other side of the mirrors.

    There is a third prison here, scrunched and warped, seen from inside glass and from out of riot visors, a funhouse version of itself that is broken into shards. Each piece is only as far from you as a single step, and you simply walk until you see Nattie backing away from a trio of guards. You take in a ragged breath, run your tongue over your lips, and taste her blood there, coppery and sharp and lingering with her kiss and - focus there's killing to do.

    You slip out of a riot visor and sweep a hand behind yourself, drawing a knife with the same motion. Flesh parts with a sound like crisp melon, and two guards watch one of their own die, gurgling and choking, spraying its life all over the floor and your jumpsuit and onto your face as a constellation of droplets, for the first time since they arrived Inside. The fear in their eyes is extremely satisfying.

    You ignore Nattie as she's drawing a pair of knives from your belt, and instead feint at the guards. They flinch backwards, shrieking, scrambling, and you slap your hand down on a thin line of glass in the cracked floor, forcing it to extrude truncheons for the other Inmates in the room.

    Deep breath in.

    "WE'RE SMASHING THAT FUCKING PANOPTICON! TAKE 'EM DOWN!"

    Choose 1
    [ ] Take Nattie to find Marie while the Inmates provide a distraction
    [ ] Attempt to lead this whole-ass riot from the front
     
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