Pre-Reckoning

[Athene]

[[ Thread that leads from start to last player entering the medium. ]]

[jinx]

The baking heat of the Alternian sun was nothing, thought the girl, as she leaped nimbly from her perch in the gnarled boughs of an ancient tree. She landed gracefully on the balls of her feet, contemplating. How was it that the sunlight was so dangerous to other trolls? It seemed a terrible flaw, one that she found equal parts pathetic and sad.
She shrugged her shoulders.
Ananta, a 'female' troll of several sweeps, was a loner, but not by choice. Her jade blood had condemned her to a life of solitude - instead of being kept in a tall, ungainly hive in Troll Central, her blood had earned her a lifetime stay in her current hive: a lush oasis in the core of a near-impenetrable desert wasteland. Two white towers, outlines shimmering in the heat of the midday sunlight, wrapped and entwined in the eternal grip of two leviathan trees - that was all she knew.
Ananta sighed heavily, blew a lock of hair from her face, and made her way towards her favorite sunning rock, determined to blow off these depressing thoughts. She sprawled out on the smooth boulder, absorbing heat and listening to the sound of her nearby slumbering lusus. She made sure that her laptop was close at hand in case anyone was bored enough to try to talk to her, but she had her doubts.

[Athene]

On the horizon the Alternian sun was dropping away, the twin moons rising on the opposite it. It was getting to about the time he liked to be active, the sun always caused more trouble then help. With a stretch and a yawn the young troll gazed out one of his respiteblock view ports. He had been awake for a while, but the sun was setting later as the months passed. It was offsetting his sleep schedule at this point, but it would be adapted to later. With a leap he trotted down out of the respiteblock, heading to the long staircase that lead down the tall structures interior. He leapt over the guard rail and plummeted down the space in the middle of the spirally stairs, whizzing to the ground floor. Before he landed he grabbed a hold of the feathered cape he wore, using it to slow his descent and allow a safe landing. Without pause he spun on his heel, turning back to a table in the corner of the ground floor. He zipped over to the table, slinging a stool beneath him and smashing the start button on his computer. Greeted by the starting screen he waited, the damned thing always took forever to start. After a few minutes of the swirling symbol on screen it opened to the desktop. Trollian had been set to start when you logged in, so you could already see, not to shockingly, that nearly no one was online. Earlier you had gotten some strange file from what must have been a virus, but it didn't seem harmful. The attached read me file was certainly.....something. Maybe Ananta, one of your friends, could figure it out. With a few clicks you had her up to troll.

-- polarOwlet [PO] began trolling elegantOrigins [EO] at 17:23 --
PO: maybe you can make heads or tails of this, because I'm honestly stumped. Sgrub.exe

[jinx]

Ananta groaned. She had been taking a nap - having the strangest, loveliest dream about being swept away by a handsome young troll on a dashing hooofbeast and riding off to adventure unknown, when suddenly, her gruptop pinged loudly to alert her that she had a message. She sat up, grumpily running a hand through her tangled hair, and set the machine on her lap.

-- polarOwlet [PO] began trolling elegantOrigins [EO] at 17:23 --
PO: maybe you can make heads or tails of this, because I'm honestly stumped. Sgrub.exe

What did he want? Didn't he have trolls to kill or a life to live, rather than wasting his time on a lonely loser? She sighed and examined the name of the file. Nothing significant, but if it was a debilitating virus, she didn't want to mess with it. She replied.

EO: I don't know what it isss, but I want no part of it. We ssshould get a tessst rat to check it for usss. What about Misssuki? He'sss brave.

She wondered if her sarcasm would get past PO. She doubted it.
Ananta rubbed her right horn, tracing the curving shape with her forefinger - a habit when she was feeling nervous or tense. Perched on her sunning rock, surrounded by things she had grown to love - endless varieties in flora, a slumbering lusus curled around the Matriorb, the glaring heat of the sun - she was normally very comfortable and felt very safe. Now, however...she didn't know. Something in her gut warned her of danger in the future, and her gut was rarely wrong. She left rubbing her horn and instead chewed on her bottom lip. Whatever this Sgrub thing was, it sounded dangerous. She was suddenly uncertain about letting Misu test it. He was so frail and shy...
She hoped desperately that her friends would be okay. They may be a bit inferior in basic survival skills and matters of intelligence, but they were the only ones she had.

[Athene]

With a chuckle Athene entertained the notion, Misu would probably test it out, he was overly trusting of most everything. It sounded like a reasonable plan despite it having a sarcastic remark.

Po: you know what
PO: thats not a half bad idea, thanks anny :>

-- polarOwlet [PO] ceased trolling elegantOrigins [EO] at 17:23 --

Before he sent the file to Misu though, he remembered something in the read me file. He had only skimmed it and it he would hate to send his moirail some horrible virus unless he knew what it would do. He'd hate to blind the poor fellow with some horrific porn virus or something, but just crashing his hard drive might be amusing. He popped the read me file open once more and gave it a better read, and threw this effort found out that the Sgrub.exe file a compressed version of two programs. Out of curiosity he decompressed the file, the result being two new files. Sgrubclient.exe and SgrubPlayer.exe. With little thought he popped up trollian, began trolling one demiCat, and proceeded with the tough loving.

-- polarOwlet [PO] began trolling demiCat [DC] at 17:23 --
PO: hey misu, do me a favor and run this

While his friend ran that, he decided to test out the other file. He transferred a copy over to a spare grubtop He had lying about and ran the file, watching as it began loading.

[demicat1313]

DC: ummm, w-what is it???
PO: its just a file I wanted you to test for me, I'm trying to get into coding.
DC: r-really??? <O.o>" i guess its m-more constructive then your other hobby >>"
PO: hey, archery is very noble I'll have you know, but just run the file, it'll be fun
DC: allright i c-can give it a try <^_^>
-- demiCat [DC] ceased trolling polarOwlet [PO] at 17:24 --
PO: hehehe

you click the file and it automatically begins to download the screen begins to dim as more time passes , it seems strange to you that your moirail would suddenly decide to take up coding, it would appear harmless enough but his hobbys tended to be of a more malicious nature and you suddenly find yourself questioning wether or not your grubtop is safe.
you decide to browse around your library while it downloads you switch your goggles to mobile interface mode and begin to walk down the great hall.

[Athene]

Athene sat impatiently glaring at the grubtop, the psychedelic backdrop with the weird icon having lost their interest as the loading bar sat idle, hardly moving. This grubtop worked at the speed of pond scum, and it would be a while before it was ready.
Looking up he stared at his three bows, each larger than the last. Recently he had matured enough to fire the greatest of the three effectively, and just looking at it gave him a sense of pride. He looked back to the screen and shrugged, it would take a while, he may as well get some shooting practice in while it loaded.
Standing he grabbed the bow that sat highest up, the largest of them all. There were quivers out the waste chute around here, and he knew there would be one by the view port. Athene walked a few feet away, opening the viewport. For roughly forty minutes he sat, launching arrows into whatever moved. After a while he returned to see the download had finished, now he just had to wait for Misu to finish the download

[demicat1313]

it seems you wont be going to the library, because the file holly sent you not to long ago had finnishe loading and was prompting you to hit enter... you look at the screen for a minute wondering if this was a good idea and against your better judgement you slowly pressed the enter key.
at first nothing happened and you thought it was a dud maybe holly hadn't coded it correctly...
suddenly the screen turned white and a strange looking spiralgraph appered on the screen.

-- demiCat [DC] began trolling polarOwlet [PO] at 17:24 --
DC: o-okies i loaded it and theres a weird looking s-screen with a sort spiralgraph on the page??? what d-do i do???

[jinx]

Ananta inhaled deeply and shook off her worries. Surely, as soon as Athene knew what it was, he would let her know. For now, she needed a distraction.
PING!
Ah, there was one now. She quickly snatched up her grubtop and checked the Trollian window, cheeks coloring slightly when she saw who it was.


-- goldenWolf [GW] began trolling elegantOrigins [EO] at 20:53 --
GW: Hello miladly. I hope you are well?
EO: Yesss, of courssse! Um, isss there sssomething I can do for you?

Stupid! "Is there something I can do for you?" She sounded like some sort of second-rate whore! Ananta slapped her forehead, narrowly avoiding her burned eye but still flinching as the palm struck the edges of seared flesh.

GW: Well yes actually. You see I was off battling a rather violent young troll who insisted on murdering other trolls. The thought of it can you imagine? Murder is such a terrible habit. Ah well he died honorably by my blade but before he did so he managed to rip a massive hole in my favorite jacket rendering it useless.
EO: ...0w0. Continue.
GW: Um yes okay. I would appreciate very much if you could find the time to make a new one for me. Of course I would not be upset if you said no. It's just that you've told me before how dreadfully boring it can be living alone in the desert with no friends nearby and I thought this would solve both of our problems.

Is it getting hotter outside? she wondered. Because Ananta certainly was sweating a lot more than usual. Only he knew about her secret practices. Nobody else knew information that personal. She would blame herself, but she knew she couldn't help but tell him everything; he was so easy to talk to. So understanding, so kind, so warm and helpful...
Oh yeah, she should probably reply. She tapped away at the keys, typing as quickly as possible with sacrificing accuracy.

EO: Yeah, sssure, I guesss I can do that for you. Jussst...don't tell anyone about thisss, okay?!
GW: I wouldn't dream of it kind miss! Your secret is always safe with me don't you know that?
GW: And thank you very much! I await your gift eagerly!

-- goldenWolf [GW] ceased trolling elegantOrigins [EO] at 21:13 --

EO: Nailed it! *ssswoon*

[Athene]

as Athene waited for his moirail to finish the download he thought about going back to the window to continue practicing, or maybe go clean the dead things out of the woods, but before he could the waiting window on his grubtop turned black and a message on trollian came threw on the desktop. Looking at the grubtop he saw something...weird.

-- demiCat [DC] began trolling polarOwlet [PO] at 17:24 --
DC: o-okies i loaded it and theres a weird looking s-screen with a sort spiralgraph on the page??? what d-do i do???
PO: um, I think the next bit is on me.....misu, raise your left hand for a sec, i gotta check something.

Sure enough the little misu on the grubtops screen raised his hand. This was bizarre, but kinda cool. Curiously he moused over to his friends respiteblock, taking a gander about. Nothing to unusual. He clicked on the recupricoon, and it popped up into the mouse's grasp. With the glee of a wriggler athene whipped the recupricoon about, giggling in his hive. In his moment of whimsy he accidentaly released the recupricoon, and sent it sailing threw the wall and into the lawnring. Fuck.

[demicat1313]

i glared in the only direction i could, my grubtop.
whatever this program was it allowed holly to move my stuff...i started getting irratible.
DC: h-holly??? what did you do??? put it back!!! n-no stop!!!
*crash*
i stared in horror as my recupricoon crashed through the wall of my hive...

[Athene]

Athene looked to the desktop, seemed that wasn't a great idea. Well, nothing to do about it now. Exploring all the buttons on the HUD, it became apparent he could deploy a bunch of shit. Not sure what it wqs for, but cluttering misu's home sounded fun.
Athene started to deploy the objects in the most logical way, by plopping the coolest looking ones out first. Before long misus room had a shiny new totem lathe and cruxtruder. you couldn't fit the alchemiter there though, and to look for any place to drop the massive table thingy. After a bit you decided to dump it in the middle of his library, the weight of the behemoth landing shaking the ground and causing a few bookshelves to topple over, along with something in misu's room. Whatever fell seemed to strike the Cruxtruder, which was now open. And some ball seemed to have floated out.

[jinx]

On the dark, shadow-cast plains of Alternia, a stone hive stood tall and imposing; a powerful sentinel, gazing down on the land it lorded over with an unflinching gaze. It was a sturdy cylindrical hive, featuring a single window that wrapped around the top tier of the tower. Through this window, the deep violet light of the eternal night sky shone down into a spotlessly clean room (sparsely decorated or furnished) in which a young troll was seated comfortably at a spotlessly clean desk.
All in all, it was one of the most unusual hives on Alternia.
The troll ran a hand through his slicked-back hair, clenched his fists, and inhaled deeply. His cheeks were flushed deeply with gold so dark it was almost brown, and he was shaking visibly. Stress emanated from him in waves.
Breathe. Breathe.
Normally, Gawain was much better at keeping his emotions in check (or at least bottled up). But today was different. He couldn't breathe or stretch or smash things enough to vent the horrible, awful fear he felt.
It had been so long ago. So long when the shining gem in his life, the wonderful, beautiful creature that he had devoted himself to, his every day motivation...so long ago, it must have been sweeps, she had disappeared.
It was the Heiress, of course. Like a true leader, she had taken charge from day one. And it had been marvelous. She had been a lovely specimen: flowing hair, sharp-toothed smile, curving horns, and a fiery, lovely personality had defined her as sometroll who would do big things one day. She was so very good, and that was something Gawain adored. Of course, he had experienced flickering red feelings for her. But he had to keep those in check; he couldn't afford such a distraction when there was evil yet to be eradicated in this world.
Of course, that hadn't kept her from being a distraction. He was furious with himself when his work ethic had slipped slowly away because he spent too much time daydreaming about a trollette who was way far out of his league, hemospectrum-wise. It was highly inappropriate and Gawain was disappointed beyond all belief that such an insignificant thing as flushed feelings could keep him from doing the thing that was most important: making the world a better place.
It was unlike him to give up hope. He never stopped hoping. But this...it was different. Infuriating and horrible and beautiful and unnecessary and he needed to stop. So he gave up hope.
And then she disappeared.
All her messages had stopped, nobody had heard from her, and Gawain had been so distressed that he had seriously considered doing sopor to calm himself down.
As the months passed, the flushed part of his heart had stilled and he had become a machine once more - work, day in, day out, sleep, work, sleep, work.
He had tried to seem more normal than he felt, to not let long nights of no sleep have an effect that his friends might notice. He had even teased Ananta about making him a new jacket, doing something completely out of character: lying. Of course his jacket hadn't been ripped by another troll; he had dealt the damage himself. But his lie had slipped past her. For some reason, she always seemed less perceptive of his negatives than the others. Strange.

But she was back? On Trollian...that familiar, royal fuchsia...
She was back
oh gog
gog please let her
let her be okay
i need to talk
i need to talk to her
I need to talk to her?
I need to talk to her!

-- goldenWolf [GW] began trolling fallenFishy [FF] at 23:08 --

GW: Milady? Please milday say it's you I must speak with you please if you wish please.

[Athene]

The dim light that illuminated the halls and chambers of the palace like hive. All the lights within the domicile were out, the only source of lighting being that which reflected off the twin moons in the sky. The great hive was resting in ruin under the cold waters, and it had only been in such a state for about a week.
One week ago it had been the wriggling day of someone important, or who thought she was important. Crucio Maeror, the heiress to the empire. She thought she would grow to rule, she thought she was the greatest troll on Alternia, and maybe she wasn't wrong about that. She was not, however, the greatest troll in the universe. One week ago she got a very special "Present" from her ancestor, who was, unfortunately, still alive.
When her ancestor had left, the heiress to the throne was near death, and by the merit of some unseen force, they girl survived.
She awoke to the world with memories of her ancestor's merciless wrath and no honor left in her. The attacker had cut the locks from the youths head, shattered and ground her noble horns to nothing and blunted her once sharp teeth. Her body would recover over time, but her spirit had been altered in that calamity.
She hadn't left the ruined hive since she awoke, and largely she hadn't moved from where she lay. It had to have been four days since she awoke, and she finally conjured up the strength to try and piece herself back together, she wouldn't be the same though.
Despite finally having finally risen from her stupor she feared that it was too late, she had been down to long now. She walked slowly down the ill-lit corridor of her hive, light streaming down threw holes and breaches in the structure. She soon reached a desk, bits of marble and other debris littering the surface of the oaken table. She would have to say here far wells to her friends, they would all surely be gone by the setting of the sun tomorrow. She hadn't been able to hunt for her lusus, and soon it would begin to speak, then shout, finally it would sing its horrid swan song.
The desktop had just finished booting up and already someone had contacted begun to troll the poor lass.

-- goldenWolf [GW] began trolling fallenFishy [FF] at 23:08 --

GW: Milady? Please milday say it's you I must speak with you please if you wish please.
FF: I'm sorry Gawain, I can't talk for very long. I need to tell everyone something....this may be good bye for all I know. My lusus is likely going to kill everyone.

((they've not got a good fuschia color))

[jinx]

((Just so you know, I know what I said when I said sweeps and months and all that. Gawain was being dramatic. He sorta freaks out without his ladyfish. X3))

GW: Milady? Please milday say it's you I must speak with you please if you wish please.
FF: I'm sorry Gawain, I can't talk for very long. I need to tell everyone something....this may be good bye for all I know. My lusus is likely going to kill everyone.

Gawain's eyebrows creased with concern. This manner of speaking...it was not at all like her. He wondered what could have happened in her absence, aside from that horrendous lusus going hungry. Thinking realistically, he knew that it had not been that long since she had disappeared...
A horrible pain shot through him, and he bent over double. He clamped his jaws down and managed to sit up straight. And then, as abruptly as the pain had come, it disappeared. He rubbed a stream of blood from his nose and cursed silently.
If her lusus speaks...I will die.

GW: ...Milady?
GW: Milady I do not feel so well and it sounds as though you are not feeling well either.
GW: Milday are you alright?