Purpose

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DinkyInky
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Re: Purpose

Post by DinkyInky »

GlytchMeister wrote:Hades reclined in his throne dispassionately, listening to the report on the black and white holes around the entrance to The Hole.
"The neutron stars provided plenty of matter, inertia, and angular momentum to the system to keep the ring singularity stable and the spacetime deformations intact for several more millennia, assuming nothing else tampers with them again."
"And my father's right cerebral cortex?"
"Aside from a slight spike in activity when it sensed shifts in the local flow of time, it remains undisturbed. No related activity was detected in the rest of his brain or body."
"Good... That is always of utmost importance. How goes the young salamander's training?" Hades yawned, feigning boredom.
"He is making progress... Though he will be here for a long time if he keeps at this pace."
"Good... I don't want to wait too long to call in my favor..."
Dun dun duuuuuuunnnnnnn!
Yanno how some people have Angels/Devils for a conscience? I have a Dark Elf ShadowKnight and a Half Elf Ranger for mine. The really bad part is when they agree on something.

Aphyon chu kissa whol l'jaed.
--Safyr Drathmir
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

"Hades! He left! The Salamander is gone!" Another enslaved soul raced to the god's feet. "He has gone to assist friends of his masters-"
Hades held up a finger, and the soul stopped speaking immediately. The God turned his gaze upon the first servant. "Didn't you just say he would be here for a long time?"
"Y-yes... I..."
"Hmm. No matter. I expect this will accelerate his training... More than a little foolhardy, but it means less waiting on my part. Very well. Begone."
Hades leaned against the armrest on his throne. Blasted mortals making a mess of things, as usual...
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

{Please read Doing It Right to catch up with John's adventures with Club Alexander}
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

John returned to his apartment and began to unpack his new wardrobe, switching it out with his old one, and putting all of his old clothes into the boxes he had used to transport all of his stuff here. As he worked, he came to a rather disturbing realization.

He had no idea what to do.

His bank account had dwindled to almost nothing during his time at Castle Alexander, his job as a truck unloader was obviously forfeit, and soon everyone was going to come looking for him, asking for money he didn't have. As he looked around at his apartment, he gradually became more and more aware of just how desperate his situation was.

He even began to consider trying to contact his old vigilante buddies.

John sat down heavily in an armchair, running a hand through his hair.
"What're ya so stressed out about?"
John jumped and whirled, his eyes instinctively igniting as he failed to find the source of the voice.
"Hey, calm down. It's just me."
"Tsillah?" John peered at the shadows around the room.
A dark shape flowed out from under the armchair. "Yep!"
"Dammit, can't you knock?" John growled, extinguishing his eyes.
"Where's the fun in that?"
"It isn't supposed to be fun, it's a matter of politeness... And it's also a good way to avoid not startling dangerous things into burning your face off."
Tsillah snorted derisively. "Darkness doesn't burn, silly."
John let that pass. "I'm stressed because I am caught in a net of debts, small and large. I can't afford anything."
"Well, that's what I'm here for. I'm Monica's liaison, as well as a supervisor in MIB. Lily and Susie work under me." Tsillah coalesced into a young woman with sharp, angular features wearing an outfit not unlike that of a high-school girl.
"...so?"
"So, when Monica started to instruct you, I started taking steps to smooth things over for you. Unfortunately, you're too obviously paranormal to live among humans, and your training isn't complete yet. I've set up a space for you to live in the Library. Phix is a bit sensitive about fire and her books, but you can't to any real lasting damage the time manipulation a can't fix. It took me an' sis a bit of effort to convince her, so you'd better behave."
"Ugh," John passed a hand over his face. "Just what I need. Now I owe someone else something."
"You can deal with your debts when you get your fire under control."
John remained silent.
"...can't you?" Tsillah raised an eyebrow.
John sighed. "I'm indebted to Hades, MIB, and now Phix. Hades might see fit to collect tomorrow or in a thousand years... MIB will probably start pushing for repayment in due time. And I swear, if Phix wants me to babysit Dixie, I'll move out. At speed. Via a window."
Tsillah blinked. "You owe Hades a favor?" She sat down opposite from John. "Ok, yeah... Geeze. I guess you should be stressed out."
John rolled his eyes. "Thanks. I feel so much better. So, are you supposed to be my handler or something?"
Tsillah scratched her head. "Yeah, I guess that's as good a term as any. Why?"
"Because, according to Hades, I'm something of a linchpin in the status quo between various gods and forces."
Tsillah visibly paled. "You definitely can't go to the Library. Not until that mess gets sorted out."
"Oh? Why the sudden change of plans?"
"The Library is beyond Ms. Oduya's World Grid. The bigtime gods can go to the Library, but they can't come here without first getting through the Library."
"So... What's the play?"
"I... I don't know. You need to stay on Earth. It's a good thing Hades got to you first... He's probably the best behaved of the three."
"Really?"
"Oh, you have no idea. Zeus is a total sleeze. He couldn't keep it in his toga if his life depended on it. Hera is the most unhappy wife I've ever seen. Poseidon is only a little better... And the both of them have temperaments to match their elements. Hades is solid as a rock. He hasn't changed a bit since day one. But Zeus? If you don't like his mood, just wait five minutes, it'll get worse. Pos is a little slower, maybe ten minutes, but..." She petered off into an uneasy silence.
"But what?"
"I think the only reason Pos is slower to change is because he can really sink deep into an attitude. His fury is terrible, and his joy is absolutely sickeningly sweet. It's frightening. Zeus is flighty, but Pos? He's about as close to bipolar as any God has gotten."
John took a moment to process everything. "Yeah, I guess I'd agree with you... Hades does sound like the most sane of the three."
"Disturbing, isn't it?" Tsillah said, a sardonic grin flashing across her face.
"Not really. He's in charge of death and all of that. It would've been very bad if either of the other two got stuck with that job, I think."
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

Tsillah didn't stay much longer after that, and soon faded away to leave John to his apartment while she checked with various parties to find a solution.

In the meantime, John began to draw together his own plans. Until someone figures out a way to take care of me, I've got to do it myself. I can't stay here, and I don't have a safe haven in the Library. I need to... What is the expression... Bug out? Yeah... I have to get out of here. I need to hide.

John set his jaw and squared his shoulders. This place had no real sentimental value to him... Nor did most of the items here. He looked at his half-switched wardrobe and sighed irritably. Should've waited before I got started on that... Not I have to undo everything I just did.

John packed all of his clothes again and began to pack everything else that would be of use to him into bundles of sheets and pillowcases. Cookware, eating utensils, tools, weapons. As he worked, he drew up a list of items he would need to buy with what remained of his meager accounts.
Once his packing was finished, he found a set of keys and made his way to the parking lot and discovered his car was an old, rusty, red Saturn hatchback. He was soon out on the road.

The first stop was a hardware store, where John bought three tarps, plenty of paracord and rope, four five-gallon buckets, an axe, and several packets of various garden seeds - exclusively crops and herbs. He also bought a foot-long scrap of lumber and six feet of gasoline-friendly tubing.
The next stop was a sporting goods store. Here, John purchased a green Coleman A-frame four-man tent, a large backpack, an inflatable ground pad and a cheap sleeping bag (he didn't need the insulation, but he still liked being covered when he was sleeping), camouflage clothes, rain gear, and winter gear.
His last stop on his shopping spree was a gun store, where John spent half of what was left of his money on ammo and a gun cleaning kit for the hand cannon Greg had given him.

His car was stuffed completely full.
Last edited by GlytchMeister on Wed Dec 30, 2015 1:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

John drove north, sticking to backroads to avoid the tolls... And their cameras. If I'm running away from debts, even if only temporary, I might as well pull out all of the stops. John thought grimly as he stopped on the side of the road to consult the road atlas he apparently kept in his car and the orienteering compass, planning out his route.
He kept going until his tank was half empty before he began to scan for cars to siphon gas from. He eventually found a small town and worked his way through it, taking no more than a gallon of gas from each tank, and siphoning only from the more expensive, shiny cars.
The first time was thoroughly unpleasant. John spent several minutes sucking on the tube, and got a mouthful of gas for his efforts. Once he finished coughing and spluttering, he looked at the gas tank and started to think, trying to find a better way.
Eventually John ended up going to a tire shop and convincing them to let him have one of the junk tires. Then he cut a doughnut-shaped chunk of rubber out of the sidewall with his dagger and, with a careful application of heat, softened it until it made a good seal with his target car's gas spout. Then, he gently heated the air inside of the gas tank, slowly but surely expanding it, eventually pushing the liquid gas up the spout and hose and finally into the little red Saturn's waiting tank.

He was, as best as he could tell, about one hundred and fifty miles northwest of his apartment. A look at his map revealed a nearby state park - Devil's Lake, near the town of Baraboo.

John drove into the town, parked in front of a dollar store, and tried to plan out his next moves. I could just find some out-of-the-way spot in the forest around here and make a camp... But I'd rather avoid having a midnight discussion with police. I don't know if it's legal to just camp in a state park... And it's probably illegal to camp somewhere else without permission. I don't really need food, I can live off of the fire. I don't think I want to pay to camp on a real campground, that seems expensive. Ugh... I need Internet.
John reached for the ignition when Monica knocked on his window. Once John recovered from the surprise, he rolled the window down. "What are you doing here?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing." Monica stood with one hand on her hip, tapping her foot irritably. "I tried to pay you a visit at your apartment and found it abandoned. I had to go to the Library and track you down by your Dark Energy attraction."
"Well, that sucks. Here I was trying to get lost, and now I find out anyone with access to the library can find me without breaking a sweat." John furrowed his brow. "Jeeze, it's practically impossible to hide..."
Monica continued to look at John. John looked back, not sure why she seemed so angry. "...what?"
"Well? What the hell? Why are you trying to get lost?"
John shrugged. "I owe Hades a favor and MIB a bunch of money. I don't think I want Hades to collect, and I can't afford it if MIB decides it wants its money back."
Monica scowled. "You need to forget the debt to MIB. You helped take out Bolethius. You aren't exactly their golden boy, but they still like you a lot."
"You're sure?"
"Yes. I'm sure."
"And what about Hades?" John leaned back in his seat as a car passed by.
"You honestly think you can hide from him?"
John took a second to fight down a surge of heat. "Well, what the hell am I supposed to do besides run and hide? I can't fit in with humans, Tsillah and Brandi haven't found a place for me, and fuck-if-I-know how many other gods and Titans and goddamned bogeymen are looking for me for their half-baked plans for world domination!"
Monica ground her teeth together. "Exactly! What do you think I thought when I found your apartment all messy and you gone?"
John bit his lip. "Oh. Um... That... Uh... One of the aforementioned bogeymen got to me?"
Monica narrowed her eyes at John. "Keep going."
"I... Uh... I guess I probably should have talked to you about this first, huh?"
"You still aren't finished."
John had to think for a second. "I'm sorry?"
"There you go." Monica smiled a little bit.
John relaxed. "So... What now?"
Monica leaned against the car with a sigh. "I... Don't know. MIB doesn't know what to think about you. Usually when someone is dangerous, they tend to get treated as prisoners, and Brandi doesn't want to do that to you. But all of the more pleasant places for you are too close to humans, flammable paras, and breakable things... And God forbid you get anywhere near a volcano. By the way, don't you dare go to Wyoming."
John smiled ruefully. "I promise. So, if MIB can't help, what's the play?"
"We need to keep you out of the hands of all the other powers that want to get their hands on you... At the very least until we know more about this status quo and how you can screw it up. That means you stay on earth, out of the Library, and away from the twelve vortices." Monica frowned as she continued to work through the problem. "You need to be somewhere away from civilization and nowhere with any easily recognizable geographic features for you to break. Like forests, peat bogs, coal veins, and mountains." She threw a quick grin at John and continued. "Also far away from anything Lanthian or Etheitian."
They were both silent as they tried to think of a suitable place. John spoke first. "A desert with sand dunes seems best."
Monica looked at him. "...yeah... Even if you did glass a whole acre, we could just as easily pulverize the glass back into sand again. Dunes are always shifting, so no worries about messing up any landmarks."
"Can't do the Saharan Desert... Africa is seething with Lanthian stuff..."
"What about the Gobi? Lanthis barely touched that place. The only things in the ground there are stone tools and fossils. As long as you keep yourself under control, you shouldn't set off anything in China, India, or Russia. No volcanoes, and if I get you in the right spot, you'd have to reach pretty far to knock the Himalayas loose."
"Even if I did reach that far, I don't know if I could do anything to those mountains... The Alps look pretty breakable, but the Himalayas... If there's such a thing as 'too big to break,' I'd say that pile of rock comes pretty close."
Monica grinned. "I'll go home and do some research and then scout out a good location. You... Do you have enough money to go to a motel?"
John shook his head. "Not enough for a motel I'd trust."
Monica rolled her eyes. "True... Alright. Walmarts have free overnight parking. It's mainly for truckers, but anyone can use it. There's a super center on the southwest part of town, you can spend the night there."

John nodded and watched Monica walk around a corner. Once he heard the *poit,* he rolled up the window and set off in search of the Walmart. Upon arrival, he noticed there was a sparsely wooded area surrounding the store, and drove around to see if he could find a good place to sleep. Behind the store was a thick stand of trees that, if he was smart, would conceal his tent. It wasn't even that far away from the parking lot. John prudently decided not to sleep in his car - he had no desire to train his body to think falling asleep in the driver's seat was acceptable, and the Saturn didn't have enough room to accommodate him anywhere else.

The tent proved to be rather idiot-proof, though the rain fly was a bit more difficult. It wasn't long before John sank into an uneasy sleep.
Last edited by GlytchMeister on Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:36 am, edited 2 times in total.
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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Re: Purpose

Post by jwhouk »

Edited pending revision...
"Character is what you are in the dark." - D.L. Moody
"You should never run from the voices in your head. That's how you give them power." - Jin
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

John awoke to the sound of a semi driving past as it made its way to the offloading dock. The tent walls were wet with condensation, but John found as long as he didn't touch the fabric of the tent, he stayed dry. The floor was dry too.
John decided after a moment to pack up and keep moving. Monica already knew how to find him, and he had his doubts as to how far Walmart's hospitality would extend.
Once he had everything packed, he lugged all of his gear back to the Saturn and dug through his boxes of clothes until he found his cloak as well as a change of clothes. Balling them up, he went back to the stand of trees, made sure he was hidden, and stripped before putting on the cloak.
Then, breathing deeply, John relaxed the restrictions he had placed on his fires. The heat surged forth eagerly, but John held it in check at the last moment, finding the razor-fine balance point between no release at all... And critical mass.
The now-familiar swirling patterns in John's skin glowed bright as the heat burnt away the dirt and grime from the previous day. When the smoke stopped, John let off a final little burst of heat before locking the fire away.
Now feeling clean and refreshed, he got dressed and went back to the Saturn to resume his wandering.

...

Monica had decided she hated the Gobi desert. It was horrendously cold, and the chill only became worse as the sun went down. It was also incredibly dry.
"Glytch can have Mars all to himself... This sucks." The moment she spoke, she regretted it. The hot, dry air sucked the moisture right out of her mouth, making her tongue, large as it was, all the more unwieldy and unpleasant.
"Dabbit!" Monica immediately poited back to her house and grabbed a Gatorade.
She had spent the day poiting between her computer, which had Google Earth open, and different locations in the desert. It was almost nightfall at home when she found the perfect location for John... A large field of shifting dunes that stretched from horizon to horizon in every direction... And far beyond.
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

"Forces are stirring, your Holy Majesty... The creator of the Chimera has been imprisoned in his own body. The Timekeeper's daughter is mortal, and has a daughter of her own now. The Chimera is forever lost to the past... Not even Mayahuel herself could rejoin the three Golems if she wanted to. Another Lanthian experiment is prowling through the world again. That half-elven ranger is involved too." The minor God spoke earnestly. Bia stood off to the side, rolling her eyes at the shameless brown-noser.
Zeus leaned back, sprawling in his throat, spinning his crown negligently around a finger. "Finally, the threat of the Chimera no longer hangs over our heads. It's about time someone did something about that. Any more news from earth, Zelus?"
"None, my king and God."
"You may leave us."
Zelus bowed deeply and left the gleaming throne room, casting a spiteful glance toward Bia.
"Dear, I think it's time we took a break..." Hera stopped herself from completing the sentence with 'from each other.'
Zeus grunted noncommittally. "Fine. Why don't you go visit Cydippe? She hasn't been around in a while."
Hera was already walking away by the time Zeus finished speaking.

"Alright, Zelus, what do you have for me?" Hera asked the eager servant as she entered Cydippe's tearoom.
"Your brother Hades has his hand around the heart of the very same Salamander that fired the corrupt Golem's clay, my Queen."
Hera narrowed her eyes and chewed thoughtfully on a fingernail. "What is he up to now?"
"It also seems that the Prowler's stiff code of honor obliges him to repay a debt to the Salamander for helping to defeat the would-be Golem Priest and King of men." Zelus scratched his head. "It seems the Prowler intends to complete the Salamander's training."
"Thank you, Zelus."
"Of course, my Queen."
Hera waited for Zelus to leave before turning to her friend. "What do you think?"
"The Salamander is of little use to us now, he is still incomplete. However, we cannot wait until he is useful to secure a hold on him. We must create a situation where he will need your help to survive... He will owe you his life." Cydippe smiled cleverly and sipped from her tea. "Then we wait until he matures. Once he is complete, we can make use of him."

Zeus tossed his crown and state robes onto the throne and stalked out of the throne room, muttering to himself as he made his way to his next engagement.
"Good morning, father," Athena spoke from behind Zeus, her voice calm and calculating. "What's going on? You usually end your royal proceedings thundering and brandishing your Bolt at your wife while she screeches at you at the top of her lungs."
"She's plotting, so she's being nicer than usual. She thinks it makes me less suspicious... And she is constantly overplaying her part." Zeus led his daughter to the meeting in the War room... Which was really just a big conference room. Once they were inside, he turned to the one other attendee. "Hera's up to no good again, and this time it's centered around that John fellow... The salamander."
Hephaestus rolled his eyes before speaking in a quiet, almost whispering voice. "How does she intend to influence anything on Earth when you can't even go there?" His wheelchair, a magnificent contraption of gleaming brass and wood, rolled silently toward the table, seemingly commanded by nothing other than the deformed god's will.
Zeus shrugged and sunk into a chair. "The usual, I expect. She is ever so fond of manipulating people into thinking they're doing the right thing for the right reasons when what they're actually doing is wrong in every way." The Godking sighed. "Have you figured out a way past that damned Grid yet?"
Hephaestus shook his head. "Oduya's wits are a match for even me, Zeus... Though a human has successfully fixed that old glitch in the Library's teleportation system."
Athena furrowed her brow. "Heph, how good are your androids?"
Heph gave Athena a confused look. "They become more lifelike every day... Why?"
"I think I found a way around Themis's mandate regarding our passage through the Library." Athena turned to her father.
"'None may pass who bear ill will to any that lies beyond.' That seems pretty impenetrable to me, kiddo." Zeus leaned forward in his seat despite his doubt.
Athena smiled. "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but robots don't have will, do they? They are but machines... Facsimiles of life. Correct?"
Heph slowly began to grin, twisting his face into something resembling what a child might draw after waking from a fevered dream. "Go on..."
"If something has no will at all, that means it has no ill will for the Library to detect. Once the machine is through the gates, we can send any command we wish. It will act in our stead, speak our words, and bear our will through it... But none of its own."
Zeus stroked his beard, nodding slowly. "See what you can do, Heph... And make more than one if you can. I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket."
Hephaestus nodded and silently rolled out of the room.
"I don't know what exactly my oh so loving wife is planning to do with John, but I am damn sure I don't want it to happen. Athena, go see what you can figure out about what Hera's planning."
"Yes, father." Athena curtsied and left, leaving Zeus alone in the room to fume and mutter angrily to himself.
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

The ones referred to collectively as Tina were busily closing up shop after another fairly pleasant day at work. They were, for the most part, rather looking forward to their evening with Stan.
Just as she was about to turn off the "Open" neon sign in the window, a tall man with a long, dirty-blonde mane and a rounded goatee and blue-green eyes tapped politely on the door. He wore a navy blue suit and a matching overcoat.
Tina opened it with an apologetic expression. "I'm sorry, I shut everything down for the night."
"Oh, there's no immediate hurry," the man said with a smile. "I was just going to ask you if you have the equipment needed to make a respectable cup of υποθαλάσσια τσάι."
Tina blinked and tilted her head. "Ypothalássia tsái? Undersea Tea? I'm afraid not. That brand's been out of business for several thousand years... Those plants aren't even cultivated anymore..."
The man nodded. "That's alright. I was just getting a bit of a pang of homesickness. Olympia is so high up, you know. Can't even smell the salt of the sea there." With that, he inclined his head politely and walked away, still smiling mysteriously.
"...what just happened here?" Tina stared after the strange man.
You know, I think we all know someone who knows where to find some of those plants. We can probably cobble together the rest from what we have here.
...
Euryale.

----------

The man continued to walk down the street. A sharp observer would have noticed an occasional puddle of water shifting, almost as if yearning to touch his shoes, as he passed by... Dogs and cats fled, bolting in fear, yelping and yowling as they felt the ground subtly pulsing beneath them as the man walked.
"What are you doing here?"
The man stopped and stood, his posture relaxed as he watched a slender young woman with long, straight black hair stepping out from an alleyway. "Just trying to get a good cup of tea, Stheno."
Stheno narrowed her eyes at the man. "I didn't know you could get past the Library."
"Only when I'm in a good mood."
"Mmm. You're making every animal in the twin cities piss themselves. Along with a few seismologists."
The man shrugged. "They don't call me Earthshaker for nothing. Now, about that tea..."
"I'll bring sis with me to Tina's tomorrow and see what we can do for you, big guy."
Poseidon inclined his head politely, his smile widening. "Much appreciated."
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

John was immediately unsure of his ability to survive on his own. He knew he didn't really need food or water, and he knew he had gear enough to give him a place to sleep... But this was a desert. The very terrain seemed to be designed for discouraging life. The sun was cruelly bright, despite not creating much warmth. The wind whipped and howled over the dunes, carrying the sand into the air to thrash itself, stinging and biting, against their skin and faces.
"Are you sure about this? What about a forest...?"
Monica leveled a flat gaze at John, who immediately reconsidered. "On second thought, a forest is kind of flammable."
"Yeah. Tiny bit."
Monica led John to an outcropping of rock near the edge of the dunes. "I haven't seen this rock get covered in sand, it seems pretty safe. You can sleep under it without fear of getting buried."
John nodded and plunked his backpack down and began to set up camp. "Thanks. What will happen with the rest of all of my stuff?"
Monica stood on a corner of his tent to keep it from blowing away. "Itll get put into a storage unit, and your car will be stored in a garage. It's being put under MIB's witness protection program budget."
John grunted. "Oh, joy, more debt."
Monica rolled her eyes. "Anyway, you need to lay low out here. Don't make any fires at night, use daylight to cover up the light of your flame. If you melt a bunch of sand, just pound it to bits again."
"Yeah, I know." John looked critically at his tent stake. "That's going to be useless in this sand."
"I guess you'll have to use rope and rocks." Monica shrugged. "The dunes are a good practice field, and there's plenty of rocky desert around with scrub and such for materials if you need it."
"Ok." John packed his tent away and tucked everything securely under the outcropping. "I guess I'd better go hunt down some rocks."
"One other thing, John. Things are happening. Fairly important figures are moving and scheming. The status quo hasn't been changed too much yet, but it's only a matter of time."
"I'll keep a weather eye on the horizon. There's not much else to look at anyway."
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

John drew himself deeper into his cloak. The impossibly black, loose garment had proven to be rather well suited to John's current situation. The deep cowl was very annoying at first, as it always seemed to find a way to blow right into John's face, but after a while he found it was better to simply let the hood do what it wanted. When it blew over half of his face, that half invariably was the one facing toward the wind, and was thus shielded from the infinitely more annoying sand.
As time went on, John noticed the cloak was slowly mending the tatters, cuts, rips, and bullet holes from the Battle of Pillsbury... John felt a little sad about that, because he thought the stitch marks would serve as a reminder... He didn't have any scars from those wounds. They had disappeared when he went berserk.
With a shudder, he remembered overhearing a whispered conversation about him after the battle...
They saw a demon, a monster... A Beast. Horns, claws, teeth, wreathed in flames, laughing as he tortured his victim, and his eyes... The most terrifying thing was what his eyes showed...
John shook himself. He looked down and saw the swirling patterns in his hands, and took several deep breaths to quell the fires. Once he was cooled down, he concentrated on making shelter.

The first order of business was finding enough large rocks to serve as anchors for his tent. He searched in a repeating, expanding arc, extending out into the rocky desert to one side. Every time he found a large enough rock, he tossed it into a pile by the outcropping. It quickly became a game to see how close to the pile he could he get each rock.

It was nearly sunset when John's pile of rocks was satisfactory, and he ignited his eyes to better see what he was doing as he began to set up camp. The tent was first to be set up. To John's dismay, he found the bug screens didn't keep out the sand, and the rain fly didn't stop the wind from blowing sand right through the screens.

John furrowed his brow and crossed his arms as he worked to come up with a solution. Glytch and his Boy Scout training probably would have had this figured out in a heartbeat.

The sun had sunk completely below the horizon, and John was amazed to find it was getting very cold. Deserts, it seemed, weren't always hot. The cold didn't bother John at all, as he could make his own heat. John began to work out a solution. First, he got out a long rope and wrapped it several times around the rock outcropping, which looked like a miniature version of that one big rock in that cartoon movie about lions. Then, John took out his tarps and began to experiment with them and the rope until he managed to make a sort of extra-large, three-sided tent that used the rock outcropping as a roof and a fourth wall. Anchoring everything to the ground used up almost all of the rocks John had gathered. The door into this pavilion was really just a flap that was held secure by one of the larger rocks.

John looked up just as he finished the pavilion and noticed the sun was coming up again. He had worked through the night. This wilderness survival stuff just eats up time...

The inside of the pavilion was far more pleasant than outside. The wind hadn't slackened at all during the night, and was still blowing fiercely. The walls of the tarp bulged taught, held in check by the rope framework and the heavy rocks. With a somewhat self-satisfied smile, John realized his former self probably would have had all kinds of trouble lifting just one of the rocks, let alone tossing thirty or so. He wasn't even out of breath.

John spent the rest of the morning shaking the sand out of his tent, cursing and oathing at the incessant howling wind. Then, with his shelter finally complete, John unfurled his sleeping pad and bag and fell asleep for the rest of the day.
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

Code: Select all

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, PARANORMAL DIVISION

MEMORANDUM

From: Department of Early Sensing of Paranormals (E.S.P.)

To: MIB station on duty in Minneapolis St. Paul area

Subject: Person of Interest

PURPOSE

To advise you of a Person of Interest to the M.I.B. entering the country via Library. 

DETAILS

Said Person of Interest was granted access to Earth via Library Portal and immediately proceeded on foot to Mucho Mocha.  Said Person of Interest is a Level 2 Divinity-Class being, and as such must be treated with respect and care - Extremely dangerous.  Person of Interest, Codename EarthShaker, wants a cup of υποθαλάσσια τσάι, Undersea Tea.  Civilians are already involved, Special Agent Billens has been requisitioned to lead the operation to obtain critical ingredients for the tea.  Goal is to satisfy EarthShaker so he'll stay in a good mood and go back to Olympus.  Be advised, person of interest is a walking natural disaster... Keep him happy and everything should be fine.

Recommend Obfuscation and MindSweeper teams be sent out to local seismologists to cover up data revealing EarthShaker's footsteps.
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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DinkyInky
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Re: Purpose

Post by DinkyInky »

Dagnabit Glytch! I barely got my keyboard out of the way in time!

Blueberry Lapsang cream tea(heavy cream thickened is as close as I can get)up and out the nose!
Yanno how some people have Angels/Devils for a conscience? I have a Dark Elf ShadowKnight and a Half Elf Ranger for mine. The really bad part is when they agree on something.

Aphyon chu kissa whol l'jaed.
--Safyr Drathmir
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

The ones called Tina very nervously approached the portal to the Library. They knew that man was a big deal. They also knew that the prospect of his favorite tea was the main thing keeping him from becoming a bad deal.
They made their lungs take a large breath. Not that it helped, but it was the sort of thing people did when they were nervous. She opened the door and promptly ran into a ridiculously fit man. At first glance, he looked like a college frat boy - his bright green shirt had a few Greek letters on it, and he wore jeans with holes in them. Then they who called themselves Tina noticed something... He had no aura.
"Pardon me, ma'am." The not-alive frat boy extended a hand to them. Wary, they got up on their own.
"No, that's... Uh, it's alright. Er, have a good day!" They stammered. We gotta tell someone about him.
They watched the not-alive man's movements for a moment. He was perfect... Absolutely symmetrical. She'd never seen a human who was perfectly symmetrical before. Not even Bud was like that.
He didn't even have a sweater on, and he didn't have goosebumps from the cold.

Nudge was minding her own business, which is to say, she was inspecting her desk for traps, when Tina came racing up to her. "NUDGE!"
"Uh? Oh, hey girls!"
"How many golems are there?!?"
"Um. Three. And a half, if you count Tepoz."
"I just found another one! And he was weird!"
Nudge narrowed her eyes and called Phix.

Phix stood over the wreckage, huffing and puffing. She was supremely annoyed. "It's a Greek automaton, no doubt. The maker seems to be very concerned with with the concept of perfection... And I've never seen one quite this advanced before. Why the hell did it go crazy when it saw me?"
An MIB forensics team carefully began to pick up the pieces. The lead detective shook his head in disbelief. "I have some suspicions, but I'll need confirmation from the eggheads."
"What's your gut say?"
The detective sighed. "That Hephaestus had a hand in this... How many others have gotten into the city?"
"We don't know. They didn't register on the library portal usage index... Even the wills of golems are picked up by the sensors. If I were to guess, I'd say they never opened the portals themselves, but rather passed through while others were using it to avoid being logged."
"That could be a very big problem."

Tina had only just stopped hyperventilating when the blonde man in the navy blue suit and coat returned. His gentle smile wasn't quite as wide as it was before. "Has any-"
"AH GOTS IT!" Euryale came bowling into the shop, carrying a small cooler. She appeared to be slightly damp... And she smelled of seawater.
The man breathed deep and his smile widened. "Ah, Euryale. So glad you could come by. Is that the plant she needs for the tea?"
"Oh, hi mistah Po! Yep! Now all's Tina gots ta do is brew it up!"

Fifteen minutes, and several mangled machines later, Poseidon was happily sipping on his cup of tea. "Thank you very much, ladies. You don't know how much this has helped." He searched his pockets briefly before handing Tina a check.
"Uh... Mistah Po? Yer check's blank." Euryale said, frowning with confusion.
"It is, isn't it?" Poseidon laughed, and the two ladies couldn't help but smile as the mirth of a god washed over them. Poseidon picked up his cup, snapped a lid onto it, and left the shop.

"Way-all. Crahsis averted!"
"Ah heh... Heh." Tina was beginning to contemplate closing shop early today.
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

"Very clever, brother..." Hades murmured as he read the latest report from his underling. "Now they know Heph is up to something. He's smart... He won't make another move without being very careful. Good. That will delay him."

...

Hera was on the verge of strangling the accursed lawyer that was now walking away from her. "I won't risk my hide for a job. I'm sorry, your Majesty, but you'll have to find a way to make sure I'm not the one paying for this in the end."

...

Hephaestus groaned. "I really didn't need to give him bad news at this point..."
"Give bad news about what to who?" A voice spoke behind him, crackling with energy. Hephaestus turned to face his step-father.
"Ah, uh, it seems one of my androids were identified." Heph steeled himself.
Zeus heaved a sigh. "How? You said they were indistinguishable outside of ripping them open to look at the parts."
"Yes... But some strange creature with swirling silver eyes saw the android for what it was somehow and then the Sphinx librarian came out of nowhere. The threat-level jumped up, the drone tried to take her out by default, and got ripped to shreds."
"Why did it lose?"
"I built them for covert operations, not for fighting a war. I didn't know you had that in mind." Heph shrugged.
"I'm not sure I know what I have in mind."

...

John sat atop his rock, failing to meditate. He was incredibly bored, and his mind was racing with thoughts of things to do.
Unfortunately, every single idea that came to mind required someone else. He'd strength trained with some especially heavy boulders, he'd set a smoking fire by his camp and ran deep into the dune field and back. He'd rearranged an entire dune, using heat and concussive force to blow the entire thing apart, just to see what was underneath. All he found was more sand.
After some more time spent futilely trying to calm his mind, John gave up and dropped down from his rock and started pacing. He gradually became more and more irritated, torn between wanting to get out of the sand and into his pavilion and his desire to do something. Every time he turned, the wind would whip his cloak to a different direction, allowing sand to get at his face.
He began to toy with the idea of heating enough air to force the wind to blow the other way before he realized he really needed a hobby.
"What the hell am I supposed to do to take up my time? All I have are rocks and this accursed SAND!" With a bellow, John unleashed a fireball at a distant dune, blasting a sizeable hole in it that was quickly refilled as the dune collapsed. The ground shuddered from the impact. The thunderous sound of the explosion made John's ears ring. Dumbly, he sad down and put his head in his hands.
THUN-krish!
John looked up. "The hell was that?"
THUN-krish! THUN-krish! THUN-krish!
"Ok, what the hell is goi-"
WHUD-CRASH!
John jumped as something big landed behind him. He set off explosions beneath his feet, propelling him up and away. He saw hundreds of black, shiny objects lying on the desert below. John landed with another set of explosions. He looked down and saw the sand beneath him was blackened and fused.
John stared at the sand for a moment. Then: "Ooooohhh. So That's what I heard falling."

For the sake of covering his tracks, John spent the next month combing the desert for more chunks of glass during the day and playing with it at night. He would heat his fingers until the glass stayed molten and slowly let both his fingers and the glass cool as he shaped it. It took him a while to figure out how to make glass that didn't fly apart the moment he touched it. Once he finally got the hang of it, he began to make sculptures. The first was a wave of water. It ended up looking like that one Japanese painting of a big wave if John looked at it from the right angle.

Of course, it was a mixture of the color of the desert and of smoke. John moved on. He made a bear, which ended up looking a little less cuddly than he wanted. Next was a fierce-looking (though cross-eyed) hawk perched on a snarled branch. Then he made a sculpture of himself, sitting cross-legged in his black cloak, the hood drawn low over his face.
Finally, thinking of Monica and Brandi, he made a pair of proud cats - one a spotted Jaguar and the other a black panther. He worked for a month each on those two... Making sure the eyes were straight, the teeth poking out were symmetrical... He stumbled on a way to make thin, flexible wires of glass as long as he used very clean glass. He used these, laid flat on the skin, to make fur, and stuck them in on point to make whiskers.
As an afterthought, he made Tepoz a twisted decanter and a stopper. John wasn't sure, but he guessed if Tepoz dumped water or alcohol out of the bottle all at once, it would spiral and twist on its way out, creating a little whirlpool in the bottle.
Gibil wouldn't want a glass sculpture and John knew it. He didn't bother trying to think of a gift for his fourth teacher.
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
FreeFlier
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Re: Purpose

Post by FreeFlier »

Technical point: decent glass requires more than sand and heat.

--FreeFlier
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

John didn't really notice when it began to get colder. He felt the change, but it hardly had an impact on him. He made his own heat. He had no need to bundle up or build fires.

At least, at first.

One early morning, he woke up to the sound of glass cracking. Slowly. It was a bit like the sound an ice cube makes when it's dropped into water... Internal stresses are unleashed and it cracks on the inside.

John listened to the sound for a good ten minutes before he realized what was happening. And by then, it was far too late.

All of his glass sculptures were ruined. Some lay in pieces, others had ugly cracks running through them. With a little howl, John jumped to the bottle. The moment he touched it, it flew apart, cutting his fingers. John jerked back and healed his cuts, growling as his hands and arms itched, before tentatively reaching for the bear. It snapped and fell apart before he even managed to touch the glass.

Despairing, John sat and watched as his sculptures fell to pieces. Outside, the raw glass chunks began to crack and shatter with loud reports. One quite literally exploded, and the shrapnel patterned against the tarp, slowed enough by distance that the tarp wasn't shredded.
John grimaced. He couldn't let the tarps get destroyed. He ran out of the shelter and summoned a tightly controlled heat shield, wrapping it around the pavilion like a bubble. Just as he finished, a closer, watermelon-sized chunk of glass shattered violently. The shards hissed as they passed through the air before exploding again as they passed through the heat shield. The thermal shock was so immense the shards turned back into sand. Coarser and more jagged, but small enough to not pose a threat to the tarps.

John climbed up to the top of his rock and remained there until the sun came up and the glass stopped shattering. Then he took every last remaining chunk of glass, along with his ruined sculptures, to a valley between dunes and suddenly focused immense heat on them until they all exploded. Then John turned and slowly walked back to his camp, broken-hearted.
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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jwhouk
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Re: Purpose

Post by jwhouk »

"Once I had a love, and it was a gas,
soon turned out, had a heart of glass..."
"Character is what you are in the dark." - D.L. Moody
"You should never run from the voices in your head. That's how you give them power." - Jin
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GlytchMeister
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Re: Purpose

Post by GlytchMeister »

Brandi and Tepoz were waiting for him at his shelter when he returned.
"What were you doing out there?" Tepoz was dangling his legs off the tip of John's rock.
John had to take a moment as his brain shook the cobwebs out of his speech center. "Uh... Huh?" John shook his head briefly. "Gah... Um. I was... burying, uh, glass."
Brandi raised an eyebrow. "You don't sound very sure of yourself."
John shrugged. "Haven't used speech in a while. I got rusty."
Brandi nodded before handing him an envelope. "I've been having your mail diverted to MIB. We've almost completed the cover. People think you got into "specialized law enforcement" and went undercover. Nobody should bother you from before your trip to the Hole."
"Thanks. Now I just need to get myself completely under control."
"And you've been working on that by turning chunks of the desert into glass?" Tepoz snorted.
"No... I... A bit. I tried making glass sculptures."
Brandi's eyes widened slightly. "Oh? Can I see?"
John hung his head. "No... The cold broke it all. That's what I was burying. It was shattering and exploding."
Brandi nodded. "Desert temperature swings aren't good for glass." She paused, considering John's expression. "I'm sorry. Maybe you should open that envelope."
John did so, and his mood brightened considerably as he read the invitation. "Oh yeah, I'm definitely going."
Brandi grinned again. "Somehow I thought you'd see it that way."

...

Hades leaned back in his throne, smiling faintly behind steepled fingers. "The two of them will meet?"
"Yes."
"And you are certain John's training will be completed?"
"Absolutely."
"Excellent. Dismissed."
He's mister GlytchMeister, he's mister code
He's mister exploiter, he's mister ones and zeros
They call me GlytchMeister, whatever I touch
Starts to glitch in my clutch!
I'm too much!
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