173 lines
7.0 KiB
Markdown
173 lines
7.0 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: 00035
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created: Wed, 09 Nov 2022 12:34:03 -0700
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updated: Thu, 10 Nov 2022 21:49:20 -0700
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public: yes
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syndicated: yes
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---
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### 00035 {#00035}
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> Shouting in the direction of the grampus "Yo! That dude is
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> definitely going to forget us. We're almost the definition of
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> forgettable, I mean it's not like we're some kind of murderous
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> hobos or something!"
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>
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> While shouting Corraidhin takes aim, and slings his magic missing
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> at the figure, aiming for a kill. (Meta: I'd like to spend that xp
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> now, lets take this sucker down).
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>
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> After the missile flies loose the skeleton begins to pull
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> Corraidhin back into the hull of the ship, he kicks desperately at
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> the boney clutches desperately trying to break free.
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>
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> "I always knew I'd go out fighting some undead spooky thing. If you
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> don't become a necromancer, you end up some necromancers thrall."
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> at least, that's what Kevin used to tell me. I always thought he
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> was being melodramatic.
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>
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> As the skeleton drags Corraidhin back through the hatch he grabs
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> the dagger, in a vein attempt to ready himself.
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>
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> "I guess this is it my Stabby friend, time to show these Skeletons
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> what happens when you back a Sysorceor into a corner"
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>
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> And with that Corraidhin activates his fork bomb.
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~
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> While feeding their jellyfish bites of wasabi pear and watching the
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> sysorcerer investigate the hull, Inky eventually notices movement
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> in the direction of the ship's deck in the form of a figure
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> crawling out of the hatch with a bundle. Inky squints at the
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> retreating form. Could it be another retrieval team, or a rogue
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> agent? Master Corraidhín would probably not be pleased if the
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> crystal melon were to fall into unknown hands, never mind of those
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> whose names don't start with the letter "B" and end in the letter
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> "r".
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>
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> Sparing a brief second to lament the waste of a perfectly good
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> snack, Inky reaches into their bag and lobs a spiky chestnut
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> cluster at the figure's breathing bell from the opening of their
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> bubblebee, followed by a glass bottle of blahoblin shoe polish. The
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> glass shatters on impact, sending the dark, sticky and somewhat
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> pungent substance all over the figure's (punctured) breathing bell
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> and face.
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>
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> As Inky's bubblebee floats up a little closer to the figure, Inky
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> tosses a smaller bottle at the figure, this time of some synthetic
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> blood from another brick that Inky had set aside for experiments of
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> a different sort. At the last moment the thruster accelerates, Inky
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> throws their paring knife at the bundle where the cord hugged the
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> figure's waist, before veering away just as quickly as the
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> horkosgrampus nearby catch a whiff of the blood.
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**RETCON**: It has been brought to our attention that the `scp` spell
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does not *move* an entity, but merely copies it from one location to
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another. As such, the original merbear and tardigrade are still on
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the deck of the SS RSS. Their facsimiles are present near where Inky
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used to be.
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Okay so two extremely interesting and complicated things happen all
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at once and in quick succession. It's very chaotic and explosive and
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cinematic.
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THING THE FIRST
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Corraidhín aims his shootin' finger---the one that resolutely,
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emphatically mashes the Enter key when deploying to production---at
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the floaty thief. The very same second he fires off the magic
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missile, he sees the figure jerk as a small projectile first
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punctures its jellyfish helmet and then coats its entire cranial area
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in black ink.
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It screams, "Aw, fuck!"
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The breathing bell is having none of this shit, thank you very much,
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and detaches itself from the figure's head and starts to propel
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itself away. As such, the figure no longer has access to breathable
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air.
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It screams, "No, wait!"
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And then a fine blade juts out from the bubblebee severing the cord
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connecting the floating bundle to the would-be thief. The blade
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scoops out a hunk of flesh from the thief's hip in the process.
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It screams, "Ouch! Stop, I wasn't going to..."
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The horkosgrampus---kind of lazily drifting about thus far---stir
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from complacency at the first scent of blood. But they snap to
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ravenous attention at the first utterance of a possible lie.
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Finally (an instant later) the magic missile strikes its target and
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the thief splatters like a wet paper bag full of soup hitting the
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ground.
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It sputters and coughs and screams, "I wasn't going to! Please, you
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can have it! I wasn't going to take it! I don't even want it! It's
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yours!"
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And the horkosgrampus fucking lose their minds. They stop being mere
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toothy scavenger whales, and instead become the ravenous, wrathful
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instruments of the god of oaths and promises. They descend upon the
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liar in a fury of teeth and tusks. First Mate "Lucky" Three-Fingered
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Gerald cackles with depraved, unhinged mirth as he is torn to shreds.
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In the end a single golden orb---his false eye---is all that is left of
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the would-be thief of the second Ginnarak Crystal.
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The eye and the crystal slowly emerge from the horkosgrampus frenzy,
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hovering suspended above the harrowkrake trench.
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THING THE SECOND
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Remember there are two extremely interesting and complicated things
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happening all at once?
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The second thing is this.
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First, Corraidhín lets loose his magic missile at Three-Fingered
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Gerald. Then, as he is being pulled down by the undead pirate
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skeleton, he lets loose a fork bomb.
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The fork bomb is also known as a 'rabbit attack' because the rapidity
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with which it spawns new processes resembles the fecundity of
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breeding rabbits.
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So here's what it looks like. The skeleton pulls Corraidhín downward.
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Corraidhín points and clicks. Pew, pew. A single small sea bunny slug
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wriggles its way between the skeleton's fingers where it has a hold
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of the sysorcerer's ankle. Another two wriggle out. Then four, eight,
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sixteen. In an instant there are dozens, hundreds, thousands,
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millions of the tiny slugs in the hold of the ship.
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Everything, every living entity, every process, light and sound and
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thought itself, it all grinds to a halt as the sea bunnies continue
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to multiply until billions and trillions of them squeeze and burrow
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their way amongst molecules, betwixt atoms, and into the quantum foam
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between subatomic particles.
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The ship and everything on it and inside it---including the original
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merbear and tardigrade---collapse into a singularity. It continues to
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exist in this moment in space and time but only as a static snapshot
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of the moment that its operating system crashed. It is a mirage, a
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core memory dump, a segmentation fault, a flickering feedback loop,
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the same two to three seconds endlessly repeating: Corraidhín backed
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into a corner, and pointing a finger at a skeleton, and then BANG!
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over and over and over again.
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Corraidhín, you can continue to act and move, but your have become
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unhinged and unattached from this moment in space and time. You can
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interact with entities inside the ship, but will struggle mightily to
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comprehend and interact with entities outside the fork bomb.
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Outside observers see the SS RSS become paper thin and translucent as
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it starts to lose its footing in this plane of reality.
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WHAT DO YOU DO
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[www](https://framalistes.org/sympa/arc/tildepals/2022-11/msg00080.html)
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