DeviousMe

The mathematics complex really was very university-like. Vern would have loved to just roam around and look at absolutely everything.

Sigh...well, guess that's what I get for going into this line of work, hehe.

He led the group through a few bereft hallways and corridors. Not badly-kept, in fact they were very well-maintained, just bereft of people at the moment, which was actually quite good.

He stopped by a random door. It looked very ordinary and didn't have a window. Indeed, it had all the indications of just a regular supply closet.

"Alright guys, time to make a choice." Vern turned to the group, stretching out his senses to make doubly sure no one was approaching. If someone came, it was nearly impossible that vern wouldn't know ahead of time.

"The base is stil there because of one simple reason: it's bonded to the planet. Now when I take you in there, several things might or night not happen because of this - you might stay just the way you are, you might revert to te way I know you as, you might die, or worse..."

He paused.

"...you might just plain old cease to exist. The odds for those last two are really really low, but I really have no idea what's going to happen to you once we cross the planet's threshold..."

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

Acid semed to know exactly where he wante to go an how o get there: the Edge of the World. Gate by gate they passed, moving ever closer to the government complex of the World Empire.

"I've got everything sorted out." SENECA reported through the car's interor speaker system, "The rig's as good as it's gonna get. You should be able to make it inside without any difficulties unless they try to scan your souls or something."

"Good." Acid nodded, "And the real Blood Roller?"

"Taken care of." SENECA giggled, "We won't have any problems with conflicting reports."

"Nice to know." Acid chuckled as he drove up to one of themany heavily secured entrance gates of Archlich's complex.

He really hoped they'd be let in. After all, he really just wanted to talk with the lich, and he didn't feel like causing a mess today...

Vern didn't even get mentioned. He is so sad.

And so am I.

But great work!

Vern wasn't exactly disappointed - he was downright amazed! A university! And one of magic and science to boot! This was fantastic!

He read the signs on the buildings one after another. Applied evocation laboratory, theoretical sciences complex, summoning ritual tower, engineering building, library...!

Focus, you idiot! You're not here to read, you've got a job to do!!!

Right, job to do. Alright, so if this had been there and was now here...the crater was at the magical end of campus, which had been the center of the court...that meant the mathematics section held what he was looking for now, specifically the building labeled 'Center of Applied Differential Methods'.

He smiled. This wasn't going according to plan, but working wonderfully anyway. Midas played along perfectly, and even the normally naive Essex had gotten wise and quickly adapted to the situation.

"Let's go, guys." Vern urged them towards the building in the same whispered tone, making sure none but the team heard him, "This way..."

((Nice description, Khell. I need just one more thing...))

Vern grinned in a hidden manner. This was going better than he'd hoped. Maybe there wasn't any need to make a mess of things.

"Just play along for now." he whispered to the others, quietly enough so the dig staff couldn't hear but the group all would.

The excavation didn't bother him much. It seemed they were looking for remains of the communcitions tower, and this was excellent.

They wouldn't find any. The entire thing had been rigged with a disintegration function. What the attack hadn't vaporized the rig had take care of.

It took Vern no more than half a second to take in the entire site. All they needed now was an out-of-the-way spot so he could signal SENECA to transport Hallucinogen to them. But were the Portal Corporation buildings still standing? Did PC even exist in Archlich's world...?

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

The mirored windows of the car were truly excellent, and with the speaker system off, the soldier wouldn't be able to see or hear what went on inside...hopefully.

Whatever the man's motivations were, however, the auomated ID system of the gate accepted the identification marks on the license plates, spitting out an all clear.

Then again, maybe that wasn't enough.

"I think he'll need a bit more convincing." Acid chuckled to Kefetasura, "Mind helping me out for a sec...?"

((And burning the candle at both ends means basically making everyone your enemy, sort of what Hitler did with his war on two fronts. That's a classic example of burning the candle at both ends. ))

((Eh? Makes sense to me. He even got the dakkar aspect right. Did I miss something?))

Heh, I just got out of lab, so I should be working, though my group and I are all nuts. Heck, the prime topic of the lab was a salami rocket with a twelve inch chamber and why it couldn't exceed X pounds of thrust.

Even more interesting was someone's hand spontenaeously going numb...

Well, where are you? Right now, we (Hal, Essex, Khell, myself) play together on Protector the most, followed by Infinity and Liberty. Virtue kind of takes the 'sometimes' slot there.

"Well, that all depends." Acid smiled wryly, "What's the voting process? I find..."

He cast a hurried glance at his cobbled-together machine, quickly choosing new words, "I mean, if it doesn't break any rules, I'm sure it'll be fine..."

Essex!

Don't use that kind of language - we don't know how old Smooth is!

*slips note under table*

The first step has been taken. Now to corrupt people even further. Today your PC, tomorrow the WORLD!

Acid didn't wait long to enter, followed by a clunky contraption that looked like a V8 engine on legs. It was bipedal and found its way with a 'face' of many different lenses, most lit up in one way or another. A long, skeletal robotic arm with a truly massive, yet nimble-looking hand dangled about in front of the thing as it clanked into the room after its creator.

Morsko slipped in through a window, a little groggy that there was a speaker system even outside. That tree had been an excellent place to take a nap, and the speaker in the branch under him was a loud and obnoxious instument of pain as far as he was concerned...

Heh heh, yes we do. We are presently on:

Protector, Infinity, Virtue, Guardian, Liberty, and I think Pinnacle. There may be a server ot two I forgot too.

Must...breathe...

*starts looking for Essex's gasket*

A good idea is to make a chracter based on yourself. That way you can act like that character without thinking too much about RP itself.

I started out this way and am now...somewhat...on the way to making actual RP characters, so I probably wouldn't be the best mentor here. Just thought I'd throw out some random suggestions that might be helpful.

Nice, you got Ess to freeze up.

Heh heh.

We've invaded Virtue, btw.

[ QUOTE ]
Midas snatched the Stone from the table as it grumbled to itself about imbeciles and hurried over to Vern, scrutinizing the dragonlike creature carefully. He didn't like Essex sitting on it at all.

"The sooner we get out of here, the better." the scientist remarked. "By the way, could you send my robots down as well? They're in the room we entered through."

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Damien looked up at his brother as Darean gave him a nod as a reply to an unspoken question."Take us with you, we got work to do on the ground." Damien told Vern.

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Experiment followed behind Midas silently, but rolled his eyes at Damien as he told the sentient lizard thing that they were coming along. Did they really need all of this attention?

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Essex just teetered on Vern's back, carefully balancing herself atop him.

She felt very, very odd.


[/ QUOTE ]
Vern snickered. Apparently, humans weren;t so complicated after all. He'd have to try just going somewhere insteadof asking everyone to come on already more often.

The journey to the drop bay didn't take long, and Midas' bots were present and accounted for. The shimmering lens of the fiktive transmitter seemed to gaze at the group like an all-seeing eye.

"Alright, here we go. Hold on to your atoms." Vern announced as an unseen force activated the transmitter, the energy keys of the holographic keyboards lighting up in lightning-fast sequences without any hand there to input the commands.

And once more, the ship was populated only by a few robots, its meager crew of Necrian soldiers, and something no one seemed to quite understand...not even Vern...

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

They materialized where the communciations tower had stood - actually, more accurately a few meters from the rim of the crater that was left of it - surveying the scene that was Portal Court back in the 'normal' timeline.

They saw...

((Well, I'm about to turn the engine off and take a nap if the gate guards don't do something, and H'tead has probably ruined my paint job by bleeding on it 5 times over now.

As for the space thing, I was just waiting for your go-ahead to post IC again. I even asked you about it in the channel. ))

((*Pokes thread*))

((That's the thing that's really confusing me here. The car doesn't hve any magnetic properties, remember? AFAIK, H'tead was holding on with claws.))

((Actual'y, Diov has a point. We never knew if H'tead was still on the car after that first wall until now. ))

"Hey, no poking the driver!" Acid laughed at Kefetasura, "I see our definitions of danger differ somewhat. Oh well. You are forgiven."

A bump echoed from the back of the car.

Acid grimaced. Dammit, this guy was persistent. Archie sure knew how to pick 'em...

Wait...

When H'tead had done his bugoin-windshield imitation, hadn't he been screaming and ranting about everything? Now why would he do that if he was serving Archlich?

To fool them. Archlich was not supid, he'd very likely pull sometthing like this.

Then again, he didn;t even know they were coming.

However, this wasn't someone to trust.

On the other hand, he seemed to be just as confused as everyone else.

Then again, that could be just a clever ruse.

A ruse that involved masochistic beating of oneself? Unlikely.

On the other hand, even if he wasn't on Archiess side, there were serious doubts this guy would actually help them. Hell, after what had happened before, he'd probably like to main both of them three ways to Sunday.

Yeah, better to have others take care of him.

Incidentally, the checkpoint was just coming into view, and with te once-more fully mirrored windows, the new paint job, and the fake IDs the car held instead of license plates, it exactly resembled the identity of the Blood Roller.

Though this disguise might not work as the actual entrance to th Edge of the World, out here in the city there wasn't any reason it shouldn't.

With any luck at all, the guards would take H'tead off Acid's hands.

Slwoly but surely, the car rolled to a stop in front of the gate. Acid didn't know it, but if everything went right, the passage would happen much like Thuel's - soldiers scared of the terrible man who was rumored never to levae his car as well as a 'rebel assassin' on the trunk...

((Actually, the car never stopped. BIC post to come once I figure out mugas.))

[ QUOTE ]
Kefetasura walked up to Acid and tapped him rudely on the forehead.

"Wake up! Stop living in your little dream world! You are not the only person in the world who can do things, and furthermore. . . " Kefetasura glanced over at the car and noticed H'tead stuck to it like so much bird poop, ". . .Oh, nevermind. Trying to actually help you is like taking a bath with a toaster. It's not even a good idea in theory!"

With a telekinetic scoop and flick Kefetaura fliped H'tead like a pancake and dropped him back down on the car.

[/ QUOTE ]
((???))

((So...Kef walked up to a car traveling road speed...say 50? And he glanced over at the car when a second before he walked into it and tapped Acid on the forehead?

Not to mention we have no idea whether H'tead is even still on the car.

Mecha, have you been drinking again? ))

((Damn backseat drivers, all of yalls! Gimme dat wheel back!

And yeah, you can do that, but it still wouldn't have the end result of speeding the car up. Actually, this wouldn't even work in a normal car because of the transmission. Your clutch would kick out and there goes the torque to your idler gear. ))



Acid just sighed as Kefetasura's telekinetic bolt clipped the car. Why the heck didn't he just let him to what he wanted? Seriously, had he sounded worried in any way? Was there any indication of immediate danger?

This was exactly why Acid had wanted to go alone in the first place. Well, too little, too late.

"Collision." the machinery announced in a calm, monotone voice, and then the car rammed right into a building, tearing into the brick and mortar with not much of a care. It didn't even slow down much, despite H'tead's efforts (if the guy was even still on the roof and not already stuck to the wall above the hole the car had made like a certain overzealous coyote).

Through three or four walls they went, passing by decrepid rooms and a few hobos on the way, the drunken bearded men waving as the car zipped past.

And out the other side of the building they went, right into an alley across the street.

So now there was a choice - punch through or go with the old idea. With the information Kefetasura provided, Acid could manufacture an almost perfectly forged ID signal. With a little creative tinkering on the part of New Mu's computer system, they should be able to get through the next gate without a problem...

...assuming nothing else happened to throw over the whole plan, such as another dimensional vacationer spattering onto the windshield like some oversized bug, then shooting beams out in random acts of spontenous insanity.

Acid decided on the second. He'd rather keep any potential casualties out of this if he could.

New Mu didn't look like it had security cameras everywhere, and the helicopter that had surely been tracking them already would have a near-impossible time keeping up with Acid driving right through a building, especially since the car didn't emit a thermal signature.

Yeah, this alley was as good a place to change as any.

Hitting the brakes for about two or three seconds, Acid slowed the car back to the speed limit, though he and Kefetasura felt no force thanks to the expertely crafted g-force compensators.

"I don't take it asking you to just sit there and let me drive would actually net me a result, hm?" Acid questioned Kefetasura as his hand ran over the center console again.

In a slight discharge of static, which was only a side effect of the process, the shining black chassis of the car changed to a dull blood-red, the scratches H-tead had put into the car disappearing as well.

The license plates, however, were the most important change, rearranging themselves into the ID insignia of the Blood Roller, a strange, reclusive agent of the Secret Police who was rumored to actually live in his car. With the information Kefetasura had provided as well as knowledge from SENECA, the forgery was almost impossible to detect...

((*facepalms* I was being sarcastic. Acid's car is not a car. It looks like one. It does not run on gas, it does not have any electricity, and it's most ceretainly not capable of being magnetized. Otherwise anyone with a strong enough electromagnet could just pick it up and render it held, no?))

((>.>

<.<

Yeah, sure, let's go with that: H'tead's the reason I'm driving so fast, nothing else! I do not have my foot mashed down on the gas, and my car works with elecricity! ))

"Ah crud." Acid commented. He wasn't sure if H'tead had seen him throuh the mirrored windows, but being this close, chances were he had.

He smirked to Kefetasura, "I didn't think Archie'd send someone after us that quickly. Can ya get rid of him...?"