NationStates Jolt Archive

It does not officialy exist, in fact, one might say it doesnt. It has no weight, and so far it has had no effect on anything, nobody has seen, heard, or smelt it. What 'it' is has yet to be established.
It will.

There is a small village, it doesnt show up on any maps, in fact, it barely shows up on the map of the village. It is one of those places that merely exists for people to come from. The Universe is littered with them, tiny towns hidden in valleys, windswept cottages on mountainsides. Their only purpose in the scheme of things is to be perfectly ordinary places where something extraordinary happens.
Often the only evidence of this is a plaque that indicates, against all gynicalogical evidence, that somebody was born halfway up a wall.

The Universe as most people see it consists of two 'states'. Energy and matter, matter and energy. Simple, boring, matter and energy.
So, when a town suddenly began to experience...changes, people began to wonder what was going on.
Most of the changes were good things. A man would come home and find his house spotless, though it had been crowded with the detritus of life for weeks, a woman would find her garden watered, fertilized and generaly in great condition once and a while.
But...there were other Things. People would glimpse horrible shapes in the night, black Things with more tentacles than eyes, more mouthes than fingers and more teeth than anything else. After a month or so a coarse buzzing began to fill the town, at first only at night, then, growing louder and louder, it began to come in daylight.
Soon thereafter people began to vanish. A man walking their dog one night would never come home, and the wife would not dare go looking for him lest the Things take her, or her children while she was away.
The local religions (Mostly Islamic and Christain sects) urged people towards prayer, but this didnt seem to help.
Then the priests dissapeared, one by one.
Possibly the most terrifying aspect of the whole affair was the total lack of screams, blood and gore. People vanished, plain and simple. The local wildlife had gone as well, taken or fleeing, or both.
The Things spread, soon neighboring towns began to see Them, and They took them as well.
The Things moved on.

---

In G'oaway, Capitol of the Empire of Dontgonearthere, there is a castle. Its not a nice castle, nor is it particularly evil. It is simply a big, thick-walled, modernized monolith to defence.
Don'tgonearthe Castle was quite large, at their highest the walls reached two hundred feet, and were of huge thickness. Even modern scientists could not conclude what kept the stones at the bottom together, the weight should have reduced them to rubble and brought the whole thing down.
Of course, these days not much goes on in the Castle.
Most of it was moved underground.
If the Bunker was moved to the surface it would have reached above and beyond the Castle on top, it would have spread over the cities entire industrial sector, and it most likely would STILL be able to take a direct hit from an atomic bomb.

In his office (Nobody knew if he ever left) President 47, Emperor of Dontgonearthere, watched the city through a window. It was not technically a REAL window, since the office was underground.
It was though, a close copy of the original office. The room was relocated after one of the Emperors had his brains blown out by a sniper during the Big War, and Mr 47 had seen no reason to move them again.
He had, however, had the bullet hole recreated, it was within sight of the desk and a constant reminder that people dont like people in power.

Beep

47 stretched, and selected the Mail button on the screen of his desk, a message appeared in the window.

String of dissapearances in Northern Provinces, no obvious forign action. No letters to families, no claims. Sightings of creatures dismissed as paranoia. Military innefective and INS has no idea.
Course of action?

This was the writing of the Intelligence Minister. The man had a habit of writing as if the messages were in code or something.
It was rather annoying.

But...this message was interesting, people usualy dissapeared because HE had ordered it, but Mr 47 did not recall any 'appointments' in the area.
This would bear watching...

tag it

This time there WERE screams.
From above, one would note the large circle of fire, a real holocaust, a number of houses had caught fire, or melted, or both. Also visble are hundreds of tiny dots, fleeing in all directions from the massive blaze, a few dont make it.
Whats even stranger is that some of them dont seem to be dead from fire. Whats stranger yet, is that some dont appear to be human anymore. Judging from the number of random items strewn about the street something very odd is going on.
Back to the fire.
In the middle, is a tiny circle of black, like the pupil of an eye with a flashlight shining into it. Closer inspection shows that there is a bundle of clothes, and the sound of sobbing.
From inside the circle, the Things taunt the figure. There are no words, but the constant buzzing, and a sort of chuckle. One gets the feeling that this would not be quite so hard if it was a laugh, especially an impressive demonic laugh, but this is just a horrible giggle, the sort that grates on the nerves and makes you want to hit people. If you can call it people.
Reality is showing some serious scars at this point, bits of houses are curled into the sidewalk like strange modern art, a few clouds have solidified and fallen out of the sky, embedding themselves in the concrete.
There are many types of wizard in legends. There are jolly fat ones, evil thin ones with little black goatees, scrawny ones with glassess and impressive demi-gods in pointy hats. There are many, many more.
However, not many visualize a wizard as a four foot tall child clutching a stick.

If you have yet to figure this out yet, this is a story about magic. Or magik, majik, mashique, or whatever you call it.
The application is based on the Prattchet theory.
Our 'reality' is basicaly a tiny circle of firelight in a huge sea of un-realness, outside are the Things. They have no shape or life, but they constantly seek for it. They are just intelligent enough to hate those in the World for being alive. And They constantly seek for a way in, warming themselves around the light. This is similar to an ocean attempting to warm itself around a candle, but They do not care.
Magic acts in a similar way to gravity, too much of it in one spot puts strain on the fabric of reality, and the Things see it. They will immidiatly seek the source and try to find a way in. If the strain becomes too great 'holes' form, allowing the Things in.
Sometimes They manifest directly, taking a sort of polyspecies form of something large and unpleasant, usualy with lots of tentacles and teeth.
The more dangerous sort steal into a mind, taking control of the body and trying to allow more of Them in.

---

"Sir! Sir! We have reports of an attack in Bad Ass!"
The chair remained facing the artificial window, Mr 47's voice came from behind it.
"Bad Ass...the rather amusingly named village, I recall. No doubt there is a story behind it, but it will have to wait. What is this about an attack?"
The breathless courier spoke again, "Sir, half the place has burnt down, its the same spot as the dissapearances..."
"Could it be the Kyrr? No...they dont really go for burning things...another state attacking us?"
"We dont know, sir. Sensor operators didnt pick up anything except a sudden burst of heat, then the satilites showed the fire. Last reports were that it had covered about five miles, its remarkably even though, the inside is the same temperature as the outside, and it hasnt started a firestorm, the winds are calm. The only problem is that theres a ten mile high column of boiling air. Oh...and the officer reporting turned into a cat halfway through the transmission."
"Really? What sort? No...never mind. Send a team to check it out, full NBC gear with all the sensing equipment they can find."

---

About an hour later five Valkyrie landing craft burst from the side of the castle, streaking off into the darkness of the night. On the ground, Things watched.

As rumors begin to filter out of don't go near there, a lady makes a few private inquiries with the Lord Minister of State, with travelers, with anyone she can find. If possible, she wishes to travel there, though not as a representative of the Empire nor in any official capacity. She doesn't want to be conspicuous but she doesn't see many ways around it. She's hardly human and she doubts she could pass for one. Still, a tourist can't be that big of a deal, even a sidhe tourist. She patiently awaits the responses to her inquiries, packing her bags and hoping there's a simple, legal, and easy way into the Empire.

OOC:
Sorry for the slowness, Im feeling a bit uncreative :)

[OOC - I would like to join in this, if you can get me into it, and of course, tagged.]

OOC:
Sure, umm...p'raps you could suddenly develope magic as well :)
It would require a little re-working of the RP, but nothing too difficult.

If you accept me being here.....otherwise The Tower will just shrug and go on about its business. *wanders off*

The Tower was once a simple affair, with four-dozen wizards told to do something useful or get disemboweled. Simple was no longer a way to describe The Tower, and anyone threatening to behead an alchemist would have found himself lacking the necessary appendages to perform such a feat. The spire that was The Tower rose so high above the rest of the metropolis of Wye that it risked casting a shadow upon the sacred Mt. Weyr, although Alchemists would have probably just shrugged at the wrath of the Gods, and set them aflame, too. Alchemists were keen on setting things on fire. Arson, some said, was the mark of an alchemist.

A bored alchemist sat in his chair, somewhere in the depths of The Tower, reading a magazine that he hurriedly would put away whenever a superior would pass by. He was not the alchemist of legends, with white beard and bald head, with back stooped over a cauldron exhuming chocking odors. The alchemist in question had violet hair, the color of which was perfectly natural; and pointy ears that would have put any elf to shame.

"You have a call on line three," a perfectly happy voice said from between the purple-haired man's ears. This is a perfectly accurate description, since the origin of the 'sound' was a tiny crystal implanted right between the man's ears, a bit above the brain.

"Shush," the alchemist thought, shutting his magazine loudly and incinerating it. "Line three?"

"Yep." Once again, the alchemist 'saw' lines of code stream across his vision. Something about a bend in reality. "Send it to the magi'i," he commanded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Magi'i were located in the basement of The Tower. A magus, with a head full of thick, acid-green hair tied back into a short plait, scanned the printout. He sighed -- such things had a tendency of happening to him.

Time should be taken to describe Weyreans, lest they be confused with elves, or humans. Colorful hair, strangely colored eyes, and extremely long ears that stick out sideways are the trademarks of a Weyrean. That, and a habit of carrying four different weapons, is the trademarks of any Weyrean.

The magus sighed, striding down the corridor to the lifts. Wizards and other people fiddled with thaumaturgic plates and lifts. Weyreans simply used the mechanical version -- it caused fewer headaches for housekeeping when they did not have to clean up splattered creatures every few hours.

The Cheka were a very efficient intelligence service, well efficient was probably the wrong word. It implied they did a lot of work. None of them did much work at all. The thing was there were so damned many of them that they ended up doing more work than most other intelligence agencies.

Dontgonearthere was a new State in the Federation of Klatch and as such hadn't had time to aquire the vast armies of Cheka agents the inhabited the rest of it, but even so rumours filtered out. Something is rotten in the state of Dontgonearthere...

OOC:
Ill take one more participant, then this will be closed.

OOC: So can I pose as a tourist or not?

OOC:
Sure.
Still room for one more.

Father Cornelius Amadeus Christof sat in the pub at the bar and stared at his drink. His aged hands griped the glass tightly and his eyes seemed mesmerised by the slight ripples in the brown liquid. His full head of white hair was hidden undernieth the brown hood of the tattered cloak he wore on his back, patched together from odd pieces of garment he managed to beg from kind travelers. The only thing that stood out on the cloak was the large image on the back of a triangle with an upside down triangle inside of it and a sun inside of that. The symbol seemed like it was branded on the back of the cloak, and was one of the only remaining pieces of Cornelius' original cloak from back when he joined the order. Idiotic, idealistic fool. Cornelius thought as he remembered his youth. He downed the remaining rum in the glass in one gulp and raised his hand for another.

"Dont you think thats enough padre?" The bartender looked at him with a raised eyebrow, this was deffinetly not the usual cleric or preacher.

Cornelius raised his head and fixed an icy glare at the younger man, "Fill the glass before I damn you to hell."

His glass refilled Cornelius returned to his fixed hunched posture. Twenty more minutes and three more drinks passed by, Cornelius shifted his wieght on the barstool everynow and then, the edges of his cloak rose up revealing the tip of a crossbow that he kept on his right side, his bible beat up and torn on his left. The door to the bar opened up, and a harsh light filtered in from the outside world into the dank darkness, ruining the ambience of the bar. Cornelius ignored it and scrached the rough layer of white hair on his chin and cheeks.

"Father Christof there you are, I have arranged our transportation we must be going." Young Matthias Pentecot ran into the bar and shook his mentors shoulder. Like Cornelius, Matthias wore a brown cloak with the emblem of their organisation, the holy order of (something something, I need to think of a good name), on the back though his hood was off reveling a head of dark brown hair with a large bald spot on the back. "I have taken the liberty of purchasing all the necessary supplies for the trip to the town but we must leave now."

Cornelius grumbled deeply, it wasnt that he disliked Matthias it was just that his charge was so damned idealistic; just like him in his youth. Reaching deep inside the cloak Cornelius fished around a bit and droped several coins on the bar, his right hand moved swiftly however, the bartender caught a glimpse of a tattoo on the palm of the hand; the same as on the back of the cloak. Without much effort Cornelius got up and walked past the younger order member and out of the bar.


ooc: they belong to a secret society of a church, set up to investigate what the church deems the occult and to take the necessary measures to eliminate it. If they dont fit into this than ignore....I will reveal more about the pair later.

OOC: All righty, let us BEGIN!
For all those arriving via regular channels, DGNT security is pretty tight. The state is a sort of benevolent dictatorship. The people have freedom of speech and all that, but wrong moves result in unpleasantness, the same goes for forigners, though usualy theyre just sent home in cuffs on old airplanes.
Spies are typically shot and hung outside the cities with signs reading 'Do you recognize this man? If so, please report to INS Office to claim your corpse.' hung around their necks.


IC:
"Val two to Val three, visual contact with landing site. Looks pretty bad down there."
"Aye, set down just to the left of the radio tower, that area looks pretty good. Val one, come in?"
...
"Val one?"
...
"Valkyrie one, report in."
...
"Val two, do you have contact with Val one?"
"Negative, there appears to be some interferance..."
Suddenly the air around Valkyrie two darkened, the craft twirled in upon itself then silently grew to five times its former size, and turned into a duck.
It flew off.
The pilot of Valkyrie three stared in shock.
"Err...HQ, we have a duck."
"What?"
"A duck. Sir, I must report that Valkyrie two has turned into a duck."
"A duck?"
"Yessir."
"A duck?"
"Yessir."
"A duck?"
"Sir, a duck. Possibly some other waterfowl, but it looks like a duck."
"Listen, multimillion dollar landing craft do not turn into ducks. Its called reality and it doesnt change quite so easily."
"I can give you a visual feed."
"Right, lets see your so called 'duck'."
"Patching you through now sir. Sensor readings as well."
"...its...a duck."
"Yessir."
"Damn."
"Were going to land sir, maybe this...oddness is less dense near the ground."
The craft circled, then landed.
The crew got out just before it turned into three small doves and a bowling ball.

The ground was glassified, in the most literal sense. There was no radiation though, just lots of blackened glass. There were a number of ruined buildings with smoothed rippled sides. A few people hadnt been quick enough and had left hollows in the glass.
"Bugger..." A marine whispered.
It started raining fish.

...

Dame Sanyk arrives as any tourist of her station would, dressed in fine crimson leggings and a golden tunic with black lining. The pointed ears appearing from beneath her brown hair and her supernatural beauty make her stand out in any crowd, as do the two boggan servants carrying her baggage but she doesn't worry much about the attention. She has little to fear from security because she has committed no crime nor does she plan to. Her only weaponry is an ornate and largely ornamental broadsword carried in her luggage, not on her person. She checks into a bed and breakfast near the strangeness and unpacks a few things before dozing off, planning to begin investigating when she awakens.

Claudius Truffle had been attempting to transport himself back to Dyelli Beybi, usually he would fade out of where he was, then immediately fade back into existence elsewhere. It was a very useful trick, practiced by very few Dyellian Occultists, but got a bit weird if someone tried to poke something through you at the same time...

This time though, things went horribly wrong, it was as if he'd been sucked into a whirlpool in reality, spinning him off somewhere near it's centre, but rather than arriving as he normally did, fading very slowly into existence, he appeared all in a rush with a great 'pop'. Unfortunately for Claudius he also appeared moving very fast.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit... there wasn't much time to focus on where he was or what had happened, for right at that moment something large and hard collided with his head, knocking him out cold.

(OOC: I thought throwing in a Dyellian style wizard would be sort of funny...this guy is a little more of a wizzard though, at least where his bravery comes in...)

The green-haired magus spent a few boring hours in customs, then an uneventful trip that somehow got him as close as possible to the strangeness. The driver turned around and sped away from the vicinity, muttering something about elvish foreigners, whch made the magus grin. Weyreans got mistaken for elves all too often -- perhaps it was because of the ears.

The magus made his way to the local place where visitors normally lodged for the night, dumped his pack onto the floor, and fell asleep, pausing only to pull off his well-worn boots and toss his wide-brimmed hat and patched grey cloak onto the dresser.

OOC:
Sorry, forum logged me out and ate my post >_<

Anyway, some DGNT scientists argued over what exactly happened, a guy from the Elven Rights Leauge gave a pamphlet to the Weyrian.
The remainder of the squad found that most of their technology had failed and are now using their knives.
They also found the Dyellian and kicked him until he woke up, then asked who he was and what he was doing there.

Sorry...I had a longer post.
*curses Jolt and all NS servers*

Claudius woke with a start, there were strange people asking who he was, "I'M A BLOODY MINISTER" he shouted, he found shouting helped when people were asking questions.

"Here, I have papers." from somewhere in his back pocket he pulled out a thick wodge of Dyellian identity papers, indeed his occupation on the papers was stated as, "Government Minister."

"DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?" he yelled in a loud voice at the nearest person. He seemed to be one of those people who believe they can get any message across to ignorant foreigners if they yell it loud enough, he also seemed to have forgotten that a few moments ago the other people were speaking perfectly good English, "WHERE AM I?"

Somewhere in the bulk of The Tower, possibly in the basement, a small sprite scanned the printout:
I'll be back in a few days from Dontgonearthere. Touch my stash and die.
~Magus Chak

----------------------

Magus Chak briefly scanned the pamphlet, while walking in the general direction of the strangeness. He sighed, kicked a rock off the path. Down the road, the person handing out the Elven Rights League leaflets turned into a pumpkin.

"Er...can someone move me into the shade?" the pumpkin asked. The sound seemed to come from the inside, since the vegetable had no visible mouth.A crow looked at it with curiosity. "Awww...bugger it."

Bad Ass, Chak mused, who would name a town Bad Ass? Things watched the figure in the gray trench coat as it walked uphill.

Most of the squad stared at the man, then one spoke up:
"All right, who kicked him inna head? Was it you, Madison? I know you." Another man quickly shook his head.
The first man sighed, then turned to the slightly stunned looking man, "Look, we speaka joo English fine, and it doesnt matter that your a minister, your in the middle of a bloody bomb zone with what appears to be part of a paperweight stuck in the back of your head. And your wearing a dress. Now," He said in the voice reserved for mental patients and small children, "Can my medic here take a look at you, or would you like to carry that bit of tasteless false ruby in the back of your head for the rest of your life?"

Clop...click...clop...click...clop...click...

The monotonous drone went on and on as the old horse lazily walked along the dry cracked road. It made no effort to speed up its pace despite its drivers constant urging with the reins, after each little tug 'old thunder' would just shake its head and continue on pulling the rickety carriage: Clop...click...clop...click...clop...click....

"Come on, one two one two lets go." Matthias urged on as he shook the reins, growing frustrated over the lack of cooperation from the animal; he always believed that animals were easier to deal with than people but this horse apparently had the mentality of a person he decided.

In the back of the carriage Father Cornelius sat with his eyes closed under the shade of an umbrellia, he fanned himself with his old black wide brimmed hat (the padre style hat) given to him by his long departed mentor Father Julius. Damned heat, he thought to himself. The people at the town had advised them against traveling over the land, rather fly over the portion of desert however, Cornelius had already had his fill of flying on this trip already having to fly into the nation and from there to another town via a smaller local flying apparatus. Cornelius detested flying and was much more willing to spend several days in the grueling weather than brave another flight.

Besides they were now nearly to Bad Ass, or as Cornelius thought of it nearer to a bar.

Clop...click...clop...click...clop...click...

A short way away from the two priests something watched.
It wasnt a Thing, it was just a thing.
Its easy to confuse the two.
This thing was actually very easy to confuse with a Thing. It was a rough blobl shape, and had lots of tentacles, most of its internal organs were pretty visible, including the foot long teeth and poison sacs.
A few bloodshot, wrinkled eyes focused on the cart. The thing burbled something best not translated, then lept.
It landed in the 'road', pulled its suddenly well-spaced bits back together and turned on the horses, siezing one, breaking it in half and swallowing it whole.
Then it looked at the priests...
Because its the way things are, a small sign reading 'There is a G50 fine for feeding the wildlife' could be seen off to the left of the road.

OOC:
You have just been introduced to the Horribly Mutated Thing, Dontgoneartheres national animal.
Other than that...explosives.

Little history of Bad Ass, for those non-Discworldians:
Basicaly it was a nameless trading post, then a priest came along on a donkey, the donkey wouldnt cross the river no matter how much the people urged it on.
Hence, Bad Ass.
Thats about all thats happened there till now.

Some people are so well grounded in their version of reality that everything else does not exist to them. Magus Chak had the opposite problem -- he bounced between worlds like something...very bouncy. He had tried herbs, medicines, exorcisms, even dried frog pills, but none of them seemed to work. People said he would vanish some day, to become the leader of demons and nasty things.

A fish landed into the wide brim of Chak's gray hat. More rained down in a light shower. The magus considered the fish pulled from atop his hat for a moment, decided that it was a tuna.

Crunching thoughtfully on a crisped, he wondered when the town would finally show up in front of him.

A ways away on the coast something odd was happening.
In a country renowned for its huge and empty deserts...a plant was growing.

It is true that many years ago Dontgonearthere was quite lush, but a thosand years of war, through any number of epochs, really screws up the environment. Most agree that it was the fourth round of nuclear weapons that did it. It usualy is.

Suddenly there was a forest from North to South, the entire Eastern coast was covered in greenery. Species of trees that went extinct two hundred years ago suddenly towered above the soil, which was feeling alot more cheerful and full of nutrition that it had in a long time.
Other things were happening as well...the river along Bad Ass was alot more muddy, there were fish in it (Not just the ones falling out of the sky).

OOC:
More later.

Most of the squad stared at the man, then one spoke up:
"All right, who kicked him inna head? Was it you, Madison? I know you." Another man quickly shook his head.
The first man sighed, then turned to the slightly stunned looking man, "Look, we speaka joo English fine, and it doesnt matter that your a minister, your in the middle of a bloody bomb zone with what appears to be part of a paperweight stuck in the back of your head. And your wearing a dress. Now," He said in the voice reserved for mental patients and small children, "Can my medic here take a look at you, or would you like to carry that bit of tasteless false ruby in the back of your head for the rest of your life?"

Claudius was looking more than a little bit confused, "Umm yes, OK."

He wasn't entirely certain why he was wearing a robe now. He was sure 5 minutes ago he'd been wearing a slightly tattered grey suite, but what was more concerning was the fact that he was in a bomb zone. A bomb zone was never a good place to be. "Who's bombing this place? Where am I, and why is it raining fish?"

At this point his headache was made substantially worse by a particularly large sturgeon.

OOC:
Sorry about that, like I said, I was assuming the traditional wizarding garb :)

IC:
The medic sighs and removes the fish from the mans head, then sets to work removing the bits of paste-jewl.

OOC:If I can, I would like to get involved, i would appreciate it. (Even though this is my first post on this name here, i have been rping for a long time. I am quite good, my old Nation was The Last Anarchy Order...)

Lady Sanyk blinks a little, rising and seeing the great jungle outside her bed and breakfast. She slips out the door, examining the vegetation more closely.

OOC:
Sorry, the RP is closed, I want to keep the number of people low enough that its managable. Again, sorry, maybe next time, eh?
Ill do a bigger post sometime later...