Psianide

See, there's three kinds of people: vigilantes, heroes, and villains.

Heroes think everyone can get along, and vigilantes just want to kill all the time without thinking it through. But then you got your villains, Chuck. And all that them villains want is to blow up everything! So, heroes may get mad at vigilantes once in a while, because heroes get killed by vigilantes. But vigilantes also kill villains, Chuck. And if they didn't kill the villains, you know what you'd get? You'd get your vigilantes and your heroes all blown up!

The Taking of Castle Bathory: Harbingers of Peace

"Live recording, September 23, 8PM."

"Clear balls of water rolled off the rustling leaves like teardrops, each reflecting the bright moonlight before falling to the Earth. Healthy soil now under attack by heavy rain, left wet, soggy and muddy until a sudden and mysterious force enveloped the area. Where nothing once was now stood two curious figures, untouched, even by rain. I looked on while they stood among the trees, hidden in the shadows of Cap Au Diable, observing the ominous building adjacent.

"It was with a certain air of confidence and sure purpose that the man and woman crossed the road and approached the stone building. Despite the strong winds, the woman's fedora hat remained fashionably positioned over her eyes, her long dark trenchcoat fluttering in her stride. The man leading the march wore a brilliantly white shirt and skinny black tie which danced gloriously in the wind with each graceful step.

"As they reached the great oak doors of the great stone building, the pair exchanged a reassuring look, almost bracing themselves for what was to come. Two loud bangs echoed through the night as the man rasped his knuckles against the wooden doors. Quietly and with no intentions of leaving, they waiting, perched on the enemy's doorstep. Meanwhile, myself and the other allies lay in waiting should peace turn to war. Grayson"

As the hail of bullets cut through the air towards him, the trenchcoat pistolier emanated another glow of light and disappeared, only to reappear behind the shooting vampire. His left Colt was poised to the vamp's skull and the other digging through his back adjacent to the heart. "For an ancient bloodsucker you should'a known never to underestimate a man with nothing to live for. Now let this be the last thing you hear you ugly scumbag; the name is Hellskiller."

.

Like an old town saloon in the Wild West, the doors to the Bar of the Damned flung open and out from a flood of white light stepped a man in a long dark trenchcoat. He had a stubborn stubble and unkept brown hair held together under a wide duster hat. He was armed with two Colts strapped to his right and left thigh, which jingled menacingly as he crossed the room. Mortally vulnerable and yet without a sliver of fear, he stared down the enemy monsters, taunting them to make a move. As he approached the poster wall of bounties he noticed the tension in the room was already high; two familiar-looking vampires seemed to be sizing each other up, a strange insect-faced character wrapped in rags was stirring insult and attracting a lot of uneasy attention. Then there was Jack Wolfe.

The trenchcoat swirled and danced as the man continued to the bounty list. He noticed a blonde man in a cassock stood with a bourbon in one hand and a half smoked cigarette in the other, busy reading the notes on the wall. He got a bad vibe from him but silently prayed the man was atleast a monster hunter, because he was certainly unlikely to be a real Catholic priest. But things were about to get interesting.

"Woah, woah, woah" he yelled loudly, browsing the list with a gloved finger. "Codename listen up; you will not believe this but that sexually frustrated Balwhory witch has put me way down at number thirty-two! Thirty-two!? Worth only a mere twenty-kay. Can you imagine?" he called louder, hoping to provoke a reaction among the monsters. "After all the hundreds of sick dogs and bloodsucking bats I've nailed. Only twenty-thousand dollars?"

((Written with Pious))

"The stench of sex, blood and dirty money fouled the air in Saint Martial. It didn't take much of a walk to find the squat brick building that was the Store but as I approached, I could feel the burning heat and physical pressure of a pair of eyes looking me over. I reached the doors and looked around, taking in every bit of detail available. "The name's Grayson" I grouched, talking to whatever the security measure faced me. "I'm a hunted hunter... Heard you're selling."

Thank you, you're so kind.

I'm here all weekend for this parody.

((Judging by what I've read on the war plot, specifically the Warburg chatlog, I think the idea was that it was all streamed on news cameras? I'm sure that's what it said but I could be wrong. Anyway, if the thread is about Public Opinion and the topic is Molly Longstaff, isn't her turning her guns on Pious, rogue hero or not, who then died from injuries incurred, the real headlines for discussion? One way or another, her actions would have reached public knowledge. Carry on. ))

"First, answer me this Miriage219. Because alot of people are still looking at Pious' actions the wrong way. You're Longbow, when a criminal is sighted, warranted for arrest, sure he comes at you looking to surrender and cut a freedom deal, but you're not sure he's telling you the truth. He asks to spend no prison time, complete immunity for the murders he's commited in the past, probably that of my family and other innocent people's families by the way, but like Miranda Wong, you tell him he still needs to come in for questioning, at which point he reconsiders and asks to be let free anyway until further notice, so he can 'probably' meet with you again, secretly, at another time, possibly during the invasion... tell me, not only is such a deal morally unfair, but does it even sound logical? To let a known killer walk away from your handcuffs, solely on his words that he will see you later... well that's exactly what Miranda Wong and Molly 'Execute' Longstaff did that night. And sane within his senses, Pious Hunter, regardless of his bad mood, or aggressive methods, was the only man that night who did the right thing. He pursued that scheming Arachnos soldier right across Siren's Call but without hero support, he was defeated in the chase.

"It seems the Rogue war is over now. And what did we learn? The villains invaded Blood Bay and Siren's Call, they even occupied Warburg and flew into Atlas Park. Longbow already knew they would do that. So what did Holt have for you in the first place? That they would seize said zones, that the Court and the Corp were the major players along with Arachnos? That they would attack on that Saturday? Longbow knew all of that. Pious was the only one thinking right. Holt had nothing new to offer. Zilch. Surrender? Yeah, to trick you all and escape sentence, maybe. And now look, even over Hunter's dead body, you people, with your high paying jobs and your flashy uniforms, you undermine that man's one biggest patriotic act. Instead of being out there on the streets, finding the real bad guys. Finding the real killers, and the murderers, who think its right, in this country, to "rid us of one turbulent priest"... She glances at Pirate Roberts... "And decide, just because they didn't like his attitude, to go kill a man.

"All this hate. All this hate and contempt directed at that poor man, heroes arguing among themselves. Instead of directing that energy into finding the real villains. No wonder he died in that hospital. His healing powers stopped working? Well is it any wonder? With all this negativity, all this blame, crushing him to his death. Maybe Khan injured him, but the real killers is all of you. All of you who held him in such contempt. With such hatred in your hearts. And why? Because he chased away the Arachnos? You should all be ashamed of yourselves. By the way, 'Longbow Officer' Miriage219, my name is Stephanie, not "Stephenine". Okay? If you're on the Isles to 'rescue' us poor helpless people, at least get our names right."

A female avatar who had been watching in silence finally found her voice. "My name is Stephanie, I live poor on the Rogue Isles. It's not a life I chose to live, circumstances just brought me to reside on the City of Villains. You can imagine how much I have to suffer under the terrorist regime of Arachnos. I can't even drive to work without being harrassed and extortioned by the government that's suppose to serve me. Now picture my relief when I heard on TV that someone had peeled away the fear in his heart and stood up for my justice, my freedom in arresting one soldier of Arachnos for his part in attacking Paragon City.

"I'm not condoning his fist-first methods or failure to restrain, because it *is* unheroic. But we're not all red and blue boyscouts, we're not all demigods like Statesman. This man was human, mortal like the rest of us. He was angry. Angry at the corruption of society, he was upset with the failures of the Justice system, he was desperate to apprehend just this one criminal, probably to proove to himself that even in this sorry world we live in, one man, one man can still make a difference.

"But he was undermined by his friends, misunderstood by his fellows. So called heroes who were more interested in a mock surrender, yes, a mock surrender! Because believe me, that's what it was. The day our "protectors" start trusting the villains of the Rogue Isles is the day we're all condemned to damnation. You, replay your fancy animation, that shady deal those cowardly heroes were trying to cut, involved releasing Holt from arrest. By what authority? In my opinion, my opinion, the Priest did what he thought was best for the free people of his country. He refused to recognise a faked surrender and opted for extreme prejudice, strict justice that would have brought Holt to the Police, or the Longbow services.

"For his five years of heroism, all he got back was a beating from a Nazi madman. How dare you, after all the good he's done, reduce his sacrifice, his martyrdom, as "taking out a dangerous 'hero' along the way", "a loose cannon", or regard him challenging a known villain, a qualified Soldier of Arachnos, as "terrorist actions". Listen to me, Peacemaker said it all, nobody's been given the full story of events in this war, only the newspapers written by the villains themselves, edited to made our heroes look bad. It's as Morpheus108 said, a man died. He died fighting in this war, for you, for your freedom, the least you can do is let him rest. Stop stabbing at his corpse, stop splashing mud onto his coffin. Stain his legacy no further.

"Look instead to his killer, the one, real criminal in this whole story, the murderer, Ubermensch Khan. Talk of the "outcome of a trial" for him. Talk of the "death penalty on the Isles" for him." I don't know about you, but in my sad and unfortunate life, I have lost alot of people. Friends, colleagues, family. My father, my mother and my son, all killed in cold blood by the criminal element that plagues the City of Villains, the same element that claimed the life of Pious Hunter. So talk not of his wrongdoings, people. Seek justice, seek retribution for his death. Or if not, then at least, stop tarnishing his good name. God, his body must be twisting and turning in the grave. Please just... just let him rest."

Glad you asked.

As said before, it would be nice to have some flexibility when using lower resolutions on netbooks or umpc's. I tried with an MSI Wind and because there were no scrollbars on the window it was pretty unusable. I've just bought an Advent U1A tablet and I'd like to use it on that too, sadly I cant.

Are we not supposed to point out the fact that the EU servers are dead now then? I must have been playing on a busy US server/playing Warhammer when that was posted. *shrugs*

Edit - made a new post on test forums...

As I've said in a post on the test forums, the test server comes down at 12am our time for a patch so lets see what that brings.

Post deleted by GhostRaptor