Null Session 1

[Athene]

Here follows the story of a fruitless session doomed to failure.

[jinx]

In the shadow-cloaked wilderness of The Dunes - the sand-blasted land with its sparse shrubbery that was an estuary between Alternia's barren wastelands and its lush forests - a hunter was working. His prey? A lone troll that thought herself a predator, it seemed, from the way she was so carefully stalking one of the humpbacked hoofbeasts that were so common out here. She was graceful, and her shapely form was draped in a variety of beast skins. A perfect target. The hunter smiled.
The female troll leaped on her prey, sinking a set of six long, blue claws into its neck. It died without knowing what had hit it, and the female withdrew her claws with gusto. She then promptly spun on her heels, olive-green eyes widening in shock as the hunter drew back the hammers of his glistening handguns with a loud click.
"Well, well, miss. Today certainly ain't your day, now is it? Here you are, all nice an' ready to bring back the bacon, only to fail in the end. Because you see, your luck has run out. I'm afraid that as much as I'd like to walk away right now, I have obligations that I must attend to, as I'm sure you did once. Yes, a fine thing like you? You'll do nicely. Oh, an' I feel that I should let you in on something. When you're screaming in terror, out in the Furthest Ring, tell those horrorterrors that Cicero sent ya. It won't be much of a surprise to them, I wager."
Chuckling, Cicero leveled his pistols with the greenblood's head. Having realized at this moment that her life was in jeopardy, she attempted to lunge at him, and Cicero's first two shots buried themselves in her legs. The shot was lucky, but true - she fell to the ground, fresh olive tears spilling from her eyes. Cicero tutted, shaking his head slowly side to side as he approached her curled-up form.
"Now why'd you have to go an' do that, love? This coulda been quick an' painless, but you had to go an' make it complicated. I'm not quite sure why you felt it necessary to put yourself through that, but I'll be glad to take you out of it."
True to his word, Cicero ended her misery with two bullets to her skull. He captchalogued her corpse and drew a pair of dice from the pocket of his coat. Careless smile still present, he threw the dice through the air. They landed several feet away, out of sight, and a pair of slightly faded red rocket boots landed at his feet. He checked his pocket a few seconds later, and sure enough, the dice were there. Cicero yanked off his boots and pulled on the heirlooms, captchaloguing his boots. He had spoken true to the lovely girl - he had obligations to fulfill. He rocketed off, heading for his nearby hive - a wide, sprawling, low-to-the ground base of operations where several different types of docile hoofbeasts meandered about, nibbling on roots and grass. He landed on the roof and dropped down through a trap door, flinging himself into the massively spacious main room of his hive and darting towards a pair of sturdy grey metal doors, dodging around chests, boxes, and assorted bits of rough-hewn wooden furniture. With the power of raw momentum, he rammed the doors open with his shoulder, and was immediately thrown to the ground as a pair of basketball-sized stingers slammed the floor on either side of him. Chuckling amiably, Cicero picked himself up and regarded his lusus with affection. "Alright, hold on! I've brought your dinner, you silly animal. An' I think you'll like this one - she's especially fair an' pretty."
He tossed his dice once more, and they clattered off his scorpion-lusus' solid white exoskeleton to roll off into the shadows of the monster's room. Cicero caught a glimpse of the number - two sevens. His smile widened, spreading across his face as the somewhat pale-looking corpse rolled mournfully towards Scorpiodad. The lusus snatched it up, and Cicero dodged out of the room to avoid the chunks of flesh that were sure to be flying soon.
Some trolls might have found constantly having to feed their monstrous, eight-legged lusus to be a horrible chore, but he always saw it as an opportunity to hone his skills and explore. There was a whole world out there to see, always another adventure to be had!
Also! Speak of the devil. Cicero slammed the metal doors behind him and trotted over to his worn sofa, collapsing on the incredibly comfortable cushions and snatching his husktop off the top of a nearby chest. Opening it, he pulled up Trollian and selected his best blue-blood bud.

-- findersFolly [FF] began trolling ghmorrahsChampion [GC] at 09:30 --

FF: Rise and shine, 8eautiful! It's a lovely day out there, an' I'm sure you're ready to yap at me some more a8out that game or whatever it was. So let's hear it.

[Athene]

The fizzle and crack of a small welding torch rung threw the hive of a particular troll. The glow coming off the arcs that fused metal on metal lighting the rather dim hall leading to this trolls workshop. Unlike the rest of the hive this room was largely cluttered and messy, scraps of metal and bits of wiring or electronics lying about. The blue light threw the silhouette of the troll onto the back wall. On the table sat a long metallic object constructed of segmented plates of steel, a new plate being mended onto the construct where it was presumed an old one had been removed. When the plate was fully fused to the object the troll set down his torch and picked up the item, pressing it into his right shoulder with an audible clack. Raising his newly repaired arm he checked to make sure all the joints were functioning properly, and no issues were to be found.
Standing up from the table he walked out of the workshop, the dim hallway was lit by a few dim blue lights, giving just enough light to see without it being to bright. there wasn't much that was worse then it being to bright. As the troll passed by the water closet he swung his right arm towards the door, the segments pulling apart and allowing the arm to extend far beyond its normal reach. Grabbing a towel off the rack the arm retracted with a cacophony of metal clinking. Dragging the cloth across his forehead he draped the towel over his left shoulder before entering a room with sightly more lighting. The light was being thrown off the screen of a husktop sitting on a nearby desk. Pulling a chair from across the room with his arm he sat down casually at the desk. Nothing much was happening on trollian, the list of contacts showing no online chums. How could zero people be one when there were twelve on the list? It just felt unlikely. It was unfortunate since today he was going to try and get everyone together to play a new game that was coming out today.
Hearing the light clip-clop of hooves on stone flooring he looked to his left, a large white stag standing in the doorway with a glass of white whole milk in hand. A metal hand was sent across the room and gingerly took the glass, bringing it back to the desired recipient. Taking a sip of the foamy beverage he glanced tot the screen again, one of the names blinking insistently.

GC: well i wanted to wait until everyone else got FUCKING online but i guess theyll just get to miss out on the GODDAMN fun. also, its spelled hear FUCKTARD. anyway i took the liberty of ordering twelve copies of this stupid game, but in retrospect that seems to have been a massive waste of FUCKING beetles. ill send a copy down to your SHIT hive in a second so hold your FUCKING hoofbeasts.

After sending the message he proceeded over to a box holding a few discs, which was odd for a game but whatever. Sticking the two discs into a small metal box stuffed with plush fluff he took it to a nearby window. Sliding the glass screen open he looked down to the hive below, taking careful aim and hurling the metal box down at it. After a short flight the box shattered threw one of the visible windows. Delivery sucssessful.

[jinx]

After reading his friend's message, Cicero's years of interpreting his friend's sent him sprawling to the floor. He hunkered down beneath an old, creaky wooden table, clutching his husktop to his chest. Sure enough, the crash of shattering glass heralded the arrival of a gift. Grinning, Cicero extracted himself from his rather cramped position and retrieved the box, which had put a dent in one of his favorite recuperacoon-side tables alongside breaking through a newly-repaired window. He chuckled and opened the box, retrieving the disks from their plush packaging and setting them on the table. He perched on a nearby stool and replied.

FF: Why, thankie, love! It seems that you're in a fair good mood today. An' the others are all 8usy with their meaningless, menial lives! Tryin' to get something accomplished, what a 8unch of nooksuckers. You an' me, we have much 8etter things to do, eh?

He slid what appeared to be the main disc into his husktop. With a soft whir, the machine processed the new addition and pulled up a window, where a spirograph and some gibberish about a server and a client were pulsing like some sort of torture device for epileptic children. Eventually, he was prompted to push a couple buttons, which he did compliantly.

FF: Right then, my 8eauty, what's next?