Session 2: Humanstuck

[jinx]

IN A WORLD RAVAGED BY STRIFE, SORROW, AND THE RABID UNDEAD, MANY WILL GIVE IN TO WEAKNESS
BUT THERE MAY BE HOPE YET, AS A FEW BRAVE SOULS GIVE HUMANITY A CHANCE OF SURVIVING FAR INTO THE FUTURE
THEY JUST DON'T KNOW IT YET
DUH DUH DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH

#shitty intro


It was a sweet, cool spring day in western Kentucky. Light, early morning rain had left the earth damp and smelling only slightly of chemicals, and misty dewdrops adorned every leaf and petal like cheap pearls. The oily dawn fog had cleared, sucked away by brisk wind that had also faded, revealing what might have once been a majestic country mansion. The building's brick-and-stone exterior still held fairly steady, but the pale green vines that seemed to swallow it threatened its structural integrity constantly. They also wrapped their deceptively graceful tendrils around the once-white wooden fence that surrounded the house's generous garden, where the richest and cleanest soils to be found within miles bred mutation-free vegetables and fruit - something almost unheard of in the world, at least to those who could still hear and cared about produce as a food source. Unlike the sad things that gnawed incessantly at the tall mesh-and-stone fence that surrounded the few acres of property still untainted around the house. Their throaty moans and pleas had already begun as the sun slipped over the horizon, slicing through the few clouds that dared to linger. These calls, a warning sign to those who knew their danger, were sweet and sorrowful as a siren's song to the house's sole human inhabitant. (Though, to be fair, her dog was not at all fooled.)

Speaking of human inhabitants, this select individual was just now rising from her deep, nightmare-ravaged sleep, oblivious as usual to the horrors of her dreams, which faded with her every awakening. She rubbed sleep from her stormy teal eyes and rose slowly, stretching every muscle individually and then flexing her spine last, in a luxurious feline arch. Rough hands yanked back flawlessly clean cotton sheets and a royal blue comforter, and Iris then proceeded to roll gracelessly from her bed and fall face-first onto honey-colored hardwood flooring. She rose slowly, grumbling as an unforgiving draftiness that seemed to plague her room bit at her toes and pierced her thin pajamas. With potential warmth as an incentive, she was dressed and fully awake in mere minutes. Rather than her typical faded white dress, she instead wore tight, dark jeans and a tight white tee - exploring attire. After yanking on thin socks and sturdy black hiking boots, she darted down a flight of obnoxiously creaky stairs and into one of her favorite rooms - the gloriously spacious larder. She flicked on the cool white lights, illuminating the larder's cool stone interior and revealing shelves of canned and preserved goodies as far as the eye could see, as well as a few fresh apples and pears shining delectably on the nearest shelf. Iris selected an apple for herself, and a few strips of dried venison from farther back.

Locking the hefty wooden door behind her, she slipped out of the larder and stepped into the bright light of daytime. More accurately, the shade the was cast by the house's wraparound porch, where her incredibly faithful wolfhound was waiting, ragged tail lashing impatiently. She tossed him his daily ration of meat and plopped down on the porch steps, and plucked the first two petals of her rose-shaped Sylladex, retrieving her moleskin sketchbook and her sturdy laptop. The day was beautiful, and she was hopeful that her friends might be awake. Until one of them messaged her, however, she would sketch more charcoal depictions of the sorrowful sad things.

[Athene]

The sun was drifting lazily around the western horizon as the day wore down on the little island, but it was far from a sleepy little place.
The sound of crashing metal and shouting could be heard through much of the cleared area, a tall structure that housed the only living inhabitant of this filth ridden island standing there within. The words that were being belted out little machine gun fire were nigh indiscernible, but they clearly were less than friendly. After they ceased there was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of scrap clattering down other things until a synthesized voice called out, much clearer than the other vocals. " It is normal to feel stressed in this time in your life Gene, Just know that I, and the good Lord are by your sid-" The robots pre-recorded message was cut of as a round metallic object went flying out one of the windows in the building, falling to the ground and bouncing a few times of the grass less dirt. The head of a robot was the object so harshly projected out of the building, the rim on its metal fedora bent from the fall.
The body that the head belonged to soon flew out of the window much more gracefully, drifting down onto the ground and retrieveing its lost top. Placing it back atop its metalic neck it pointed its finger to the torn area where it had come off, a small butane flame welding it back in place before returning to the broken window. "Now Gene, I know that you are angry, but wrath is a sin of grievous danger, you should consider changing your ways." The static sounding message was met with a frustrated growl, the recipient of it storming off to the lower levels of the structure.
With a harsh kick the front door came ajar, nearly falling of its already abused hinges, a young man of sixteen years stepping out, well, more stomping out.
He quickly evacuated the area, heading to the nearby ruins of some wierd frog temple, which just happened to be his favorite place to sulk after events like this, and they were common happenings.
Coming over a small hill and into view of the body of water, with the temple in the center, Gene grimaced and made a distastful noise at its sight. The water around the structure was a brownish green and anomalous garbage floated about like a sewage systems run off.
Carefully he made his way across a rather rickety rope bridge that his late grandfather had installed, the rope had held well enough, but the planks had all but mostly fallen out, forcing its traversers to walk the ropes like circus performers. Despite the challenge Gene arrived at the other side and made his way up to the entrance of the archaic building, only to find a disgusting symbol.
hanging over the entrance was a large, oaken cross, his grandfather had thought every entrance needed one, and Gene thought.....otherwise.
With a mighty two foot leap Gene grabbed the bottom of the cross, holding fast. His weight was enough to break its bindings and bring it down, leaving Gene on his ass and the cross in his lap.
He quickly captchalogued the cross to hide the evidence and headed deeper into his sanctum of peace. Soon he found himself resting under a nice wall of hieroglyphics. He was much more pleased now, but something was still bothering him. Stupid peice of shit fucking garbage ass computer. And just like that his fetch modus deposited the object of aggression, his laptop, right in his lap. Flipping it open he pa-roused his programs, noticing his chum on that atrocious chat thing.

--wedgeWielder [WW] started pestering fallenHarmony [FH] at 21:34--
WW: The fuck you doin up this late at night I thought you would be crying at the moaning things outside your cage.

[jinx]

Iris had nearly covered a page with a rough, dark sketch of one of the sad things - a rather tall, lanky one that had not emerged from the shade of the forest to gnaw at her fence. She found this rather fascinating, and brushed his likeness onto her page with her best piece of shiny, smudgy charcoal. Suddenly, a flickering movement on her laptop's screen caught her eye. She set down her sketchbook carefully, leaving it open so the newly-laid charcoal wouldn't rub on the back of the previous page, and rubbed the worst of the dust off on her pants. A thin frown crossed her lips at the sight of the new message.

FH: It's not a cage, and since when do I cry at them? Honestly, I don't understand you sometimes.

Snorting with sudden irritation, she snapped her sketchbook shut crisply and, with that and her laptop tucked under her arm, retired to her luxurious garden. Young, springy trees, their branches laden heavily with fruit, beckoned to her; she sat, cross-legged, beneath the nearest apple tree. From its thin shade, she observed the soft, springy grass; the heavy scent of loamy earth, the sweet tint of honeysuckle that trickled towards her from a leviathan bush that occupied a large corner of her garden, sharing the space only with white-blossomed rosebushes; the rows of lovingly tended vegetables, where the leafy heads of cabbage were nestled next to the protruding plumes of carrot leaves and the spiky, protective tendrils of her beloved pumpkin patch; the quiet section where a trusty well lay wreathed in the shadow of a few relatively young chestnut, maple, and willow trees; and a burnt, blackened patch of ground, beneath which her kindly old caretaker was buried. She burned wood there these days, to make charcoal.

[Athene]

Gene had been standing, his laptop on the floor at his feet, waiting for a reply. While his chum typed their message he spent the time staring at the hieroglyphics on the walls. He never knew what they meant, but he liked to imagine that whatever old humans had lived here worshiped frogs like gods, which would not have been to much of a leap seeing as the walls were covered in pictographic frog text.
About the time he heard his laptop blumped out its awkward notification of a message he heard something large scoot across the ground, which normally would creep a person out, but around these parts it was cause for due alarm.
The island on which Gene lived was in an awful state for many reasons. General miss-care, improper disposal of garbage, but mostly it was the nuclear radiation that was slowly leaking up out of the ground.
During the days of Genes infancy his grandfather had built this place and powered it off clean, near infinite nuclear power, but after his untimely death no one of proper knowledge was left to attend the facility that lay deep below the island. As a result the reactor had destabilized and begin leaking nuclear waste into the soil, and from there into the water. There were many fail-safes that kept the core from reaching critical mass, but it couldn't stop the ecosystems degradation.
Because of this awful pollution the forest had died and the water had become impure, and moreover the life that still survived was altered in unpleasant ways. The rats were ravenous and violent, the fish were scrawny and pathetic, and the reptiles had been sprouting improper limbs, but worst of all were the frogs. For whatever reason the frogs that once swam about the temple ruins had become large, about the size of small dogs, with mouth fulls of pointed teeth. They were not fearful of Gene either, and despite the presence of extra limbs that slowed their movements to a crawl they still managed to get a drop on the boy now and then.
As had become instinct Gene quickly accessed his strife deck, but was met with a bitter realization. He had forgotten his grandfathers rifle in the house.
With little time to react Gene threw whatever he had into his strife abstrata, and just in time, for the voracious amphibian had come around the corner and spotted him, increasing its scooting speed two fold.
Drawing on his abstrata he found himself gripping tight the ornate cross he had pulled down earlier, and without time to bother with it he lunged forward.
Wielding the cross like a pickaxe he slammed it down onto the frogs head, dazing it for a moment. Quickly the frog recovered, laboriously leaping upward with its five legs, only to be caught by the cross coming on a horizontal swing, smashing sharply into the side of its head. This time the cross lodged itself in the frogs now splintered skull, thick black-red blood spilling about the ground.
Forcefully pulling the new weapon out of the green beast he replaced it in his deck. Thinking he had had enough of the frog tomb for tonight he snatched up his laptop and headed homeward.
As he slowly opened the newly reset door he made sure to stay stealthy, as to avoid any meetings with that awful metallic bible thumping patriarch-bot. With a soft foot and some luck he made it up to his room, were he finally got around to answering the girls message.

WW: Well its sorta like a cage right? its got four walls and you can't go outside it, besides what else were you expecting?

[jinx]

FH: You know very well I leave the comfort of these four walls all the time - how else would I get firewood? Or meat? Deer don't just come skipping gaily into my little patch of land and lay down for Seb and me to eat. I have to hunt the damned things. Not that you would understand hunting - you probably spend all your days holed up in some bunker on Nuclear Hellmurder Island, munching potato chips and raging about your incessantly religious parent! Well, guess what! Some of us actually have to work for a living. Speaking of which, I mean to go hunting today, so I may have to leave you to your own devices soon. Seb doesn't like me being out after dark.

She pressed the lid of the laptop down, shutting it securely in place with a satisfying click. She stood, slightly shaky at first, and had just re-captchalogued her things when Seb made a strange noise - something like a low growl that ended in a rough whine. The fur along the ridge of his back stood straight up, and he seemed to be coiled like a steel spring. A deeply uncomfortable sensation crept into the pit of Iris' stomach, and she quickly retreated indoors, her massive wolfhound companion hard on her heels. His claws, clattering and skidding on the dusty hardwood, reflected the fast beating of her own pulse as she ascended the stairs. Seb suddenly gave a low moaning sound and shoved past her, darting up the short spiral staircase that led to the rooftop, where he stopped abruptly. Iris followed, gently closing the trapdoor shut behind her. She crept forward slowly to the eastern edge of the roof, shielding her eyes from the still-rising sun.
Beneath its glare, something horrible was happening. A large section of the eastern fence had crumbled in the previous night's lashing storms, and it seemed that the sad things were beginning to push through and make their slow, staggering way onto her land. They moved purposelessly, still - some milled about near the breach, some explored the rest of the fenceline, and others wandered in meaningless directions. But many were making their way towards the nearest identifiable object - her house. These creatures had never seemed frightening before, but now, as Sebastian, the seven-foot-long wolfhound, cowered by her side, and the harsh smell of rotting flesh choked her, Iris was suddenly horribly, terribly afraid.
As much as she wanted to give in to that consuming, raw emotion, though, she couldn't. She was hard-wired for this sort of thing, whether she realized it or not - emotions had never kept her from making logical, intelligent decisions that would keep her alive. Feeling more confident, if just slightly, she turned from the sad things and dropped back down through the trapdoor, down the stairs, and into the larder. Seb contented himself pacing by the front door and giving the occasional nervous growl as she retrieved several long planks of ash wood, which she had collected several years ago in one of her first out-of-the-fence raids. The wood had aged slightly in the dry, well-tended larder, and was fairly sturdy. Grabbing the rarely-used toolbox as well, she shut the larder door and got to work. Three planks across the front door, nailed into place firmly and quickly. The windows she covered with four boards laid laterally across each. Satisfied, she retreated upstairs and pried her laptop open. She returned to PesterChum and typed furiously.

FH: Forget everything I just said. Those...creatures have breached the fence. They're moving towards the house. I'm not going anywhere. Let's talk.

[Athene]

Gene had been moderately distracted after Iris's initial departure to hunt, and had taken up swinging the cross into the sturdy metal walls of his room, trying to see which would break first.
When he heard her second message, he begrudgingly trudged over to the computer, reading the message once, then again.

WW: Woah wait are you being serious or what?

As he typed he heard the iconic metal footsteps on the floor below him, and he did not intend to be schooled by robo-dad twice in one night. Snatching up the laptop and his grandfathers old rifle he scampered down the stairs and into the nexus that led to the various floors, hopping on the small disk on the ground and appearing on the ground floor of the house.
He quickly scurried out of his house and into the hills of the island, preferring death toads to a metal preacher. Back into the temple he went, purposely losing himself in its dim corridors. Soon the light from above faded away and he was left with only the laptops light to find his way.
After he thought himself to be deep enough in the ground as to avoid whatever detection he reopened the husk top, checking in vain for any new messages.
A thought popped into his mind, maybe a way to at least try to help his companion. With a few knowledgeable turns he found his way to a stash of rusted guns and ammo his grandfather had placed down here in case the house ever got destroyed, his grandfather was always prepared for things like that.
Without much hesitation he retrieved a microwave-esque device from his sylladex. He quickly grabbed a few pistols and ammo with the intention of sending them off to Iris, but before he could something caught his eye.
Laying just beneath a few boxes of ammo was a piece of paper and a sleeve with a strange emblem on it. Grabbing the letter first he glanced over it.

if you want to help your friend install the files from the disc and then send it to her, be the server.

Genes brow furrowed a bit at this, it certainly wasn't his grandfathers hand writing, but he didn't really have time to argue with paper. Snatching up the sleeve he pulled the disc out, rudely yanking his laptops disc tray open and plopping the CD into it.
After slamming the tray closed Gene waited, a prompt quickly popping up. The black console window ran a few lines of nonsense before something that actually mattered. Press enter.
He followed the directions and watched the spirographic light show, at this point more than a lot confused. After it was finished it opened a window with two buttons, one saying server and the other saying player. As per instruction he clicked server, which led him to a message prompting him to wait for a client to connect.
He sat there for a few moments, waiting to see if a client would connect before he realized he still had to send the disc to Iris. Removing it from his computer he tossed it into the transportilizer, pushing the button labeled PRGM and then the number 2, which was like a speed dial to Iris.

WW: Okay so a note told me to tell you to use that and be the player, but idk what that means...

Gene then sat despondently awaiting a response, unsure of whether or not it would ever come.

[jinx]

Iris was perched on her bed, eyes closed as she tried to meditate - one of the few endeavors she had never been successful in - when something light and thin bounced off her leg and onto the blanket. She opened her eyes and saw a paper sleeve with an unfamiliar green symbol on it. Shaking her head in a resigned sort of way, she removed the disc and placed it in the only vacant disc drive in her laptop. She pulled up PC.

FH: I really don't think now is the time for games, but I suppose I've got nothing better to do. I at least hope this isn't some shitty simulation game. God, do I have no patience for those right now.

She opened the window and watched green text roll meaninglessly across her screen for a few seconds before she was prompted to [ENTER], which she did. Following the vague instruction she had received from her less-than-helpful friend, she selected the Player option and drummed her fingers along the laptop's hard exterior as it connected with whom she could only assume to be Gene.