- Master Weaponsmith/Part-time Swordsman
- Int/Dex
- Galadonian (Rebel)
It was later. Work had been done.
Under his impromptu mentor Dragonruby's supervision, Thunderclaw had spent hours conceptualizing, drafting, and eventually finalizing an overview of a soon-to-be revolutionary in loyalist Galadon. It seemed like a good fit for him; similar to what he saw as an ideal version of himself, but not so similar as to put him in serious danger of what Dragonruby referred to as "Zapy Syndrome," or "zapness." He'd briefly wondered whether to that end, he should make the character female, but Druby had quickly shut him down with something about 'not being ready' for 'that degree of separation' yet. Well, whatever. Every now and then he would take a break, and Druby had used that time to show him how to use the sim-pods, the monitors, and how and where to restock the IV bags. Now, finally, heart jumping nearly up into his throat, he stood before a pod of his own, and fed his sheet into the designated slot for this at the base. There were a couple of beeping sounds, and the little LED bulb beside the scanner started blinking on and off in a yellowish color.
"That means it's processing." Druby's voice over the intercom startled TC a bit, at which he jumped straight away from the machine and looked wildly around for the door. "Whoah, hey. Easy there, TC. Breathe, will ya?" It took quite a while for the sleep-deprived and cowardly man to calm down, but eventually he did so and Druby went on. Finally, he was laid out inside the pod, even managing to keep more or less still while the lid closed and the restraints locked themselves over his wrists and ankles. He hyperventilated quite a bit when the visor came down over his head and blocked out his field of vision, though, so he missed a lot of what was being said after that.
"So what's going on right now is just the initial render," came the voice, which skipped straight to somewhere in the back of Thunderclaw's mind while various machinery started hissing and humming in the darkness all around him. "That's where it creates the character, and adds it to the sim-world. You've only gotta do that once. Should be done soon, for this one. Then there's the uplink process, pretty quick these days, newer models and what have you, fuck if I know how SKT got this kind of tech to begin with, goes faster if you already have yourself in the right mindset by the way - oh, look, uplink's started. So, soon as that's done you'll be thrown into the sim. Then it'll stream in the post-processing to you; memories, skill sets, that sort of thing. Should be any second now, so be ready for that. Oh, and don't forget: there's a pretty fair chance that if you die in the sim world, you'll end up dying out here as well. So, you know. Try to avoid that, obviously."
Most of this ended up going straight into one ear, metaphorically, and out the other, but some primal instinct for self-preservation rang alarm bells at this last bit, and grabbed hold of it along the way. "Wait, what!?" He shouted back at the lid of the pod. "You never told me that! Hey! Wait, stop! Let me-"
Whump.
There was silence, and then vertigo. And then there was light.
"You never told me that!" He screamed. "Hey! Wait, stop! Let me out o-" Soren Lorasson, precision metalworker, cut off his shouting as suddenly as he'd begun, and looked around at the inside of his shop. There was old Rori the inkeeper, who'd come to put in an order for a set of fine cutlery, huddling wide-eyed and afraid in the corner. And there, across the room, was the thing he was so afraid of: Dollos the Vrykal, all cold metal with cracks of cold, blue light, standing in the doorway. And on either side of him, a pair of towering city guardsmen, advancing on him with a matching pair of grim expressions and tall, pointy spears.
"We did" came the metal man's hollow, unearthly voice in response. "Seven days ago, a notice was placed outside your shop informing all blacksmiths and carpenters in Lotharan, that all further business was to be reserved exclusively for the use of the state. Having continued to accept and perform unsanctioned trade since that time, you are hereby under arrest for the manufacture and distribution of contraband. Now come along quietly, and perhaps Lord Haitos will show mercy."
This was wrong. It was all going very wrong. Soren had hoped that he could quietly bide the time until the rebel forces drew near, with the front just several miles away from his own, buzzing city, and welcome the invaders with the diagrams and some prototypes of the new anti-Vrykal weaponry he'd been developing.
He was nearly sure that the penalty for his little trades and money-making side projects wouldn't be too harsh to handle, as a blacksmith like himself was too valuable an asset to throw away carelessly in times of war. If they searched his shop, though, and found the secret panel where he kept his sketches, if they figured out what they were for... if that happened, there'd be no saving him even if he were the last smith left on this world. He had to make a snap decision, and now. But what could he do?
- Go quietly
- Shout
- Scream
- Fight
- ???
- Int/Dex
- Galadonian (Rebel)
It was later. Work had been done.
Under his impromptu mentor Dragonruby's supervision, Thunderclaw had spent hours conceptualizing, drafting, and eventually finalizing an overview of a soon-to-be revolutionary in loyalist Galadon. It seemed like a good fit for him; similar to what he saw as an ideal version of himself, but not so similar as to put him in serious danger of what Dragonruby referred to as "Zapy Syndrome," or "zapness." He'd briefly wondered whether to that end, he should make the character female, but Druby had quickly shut him down with something about 'not being ready' for 'that degree of separation' yet. Well, whatever. Every now and then he would take a break, and Druby had used that time to show him how to use the sim-pods, the monitors, and how and where to restock the IV bags. Now, finally, heart jumping nearly up into his throat, he stood before a pod of his own, and fed his sheet into the designated slot for this at the base. There were a couple of beeping sounds, and the little LED bulb beside the scanner started blinking on and off in a yellowish color.
"That means it's processing." Druby's voice over the intercom startled TC a bit, at which he jumped straight away from the machine and looked wildly around for the door. "Whoah, hey. Easy there, TC. Breathe, will ya?" It took quite a while for the sleep-deprived and cowardly man to calm down, but eventually he did so and Druby went on. Finally, he was laid out inside the pod, even managing to keep more or less still while the lid closed and the restraints locked themselves over his wrists and ankles. He hyperventilated quite a bit when the visor came down over his head and blocked out his field of vision, though, so he missed a lot of what was being said after that.
"So what's going on right now is just the initial render," came the voice, which skipped straight to somewhere in the back of Thunderclaw's mind while various machinery started hissing and humming in the darkness all around him. "That's where it creates the character, and adds it to the sim-world. You've only gotta do that once. Should be done soon, for this one. Then there's the uplink process, pretty quick these days, newer models and what have you, fuck if I know how SKT got this kind of tech to begin with, goes faster if you already have yourself in the right mindset by the way - oh, look, uplink's started. So, soon as that's done you'll be thrown into the sim. Then it'll stream in the post-processing to you; memories, skill sets, that sort of thing. Should be any second now, so be ready for that. Oh, and don't forget: there's a pretty fair chance that if you die in the sim world, you'll end up dying out here as well. So, you know. Try to avoid that, obviously."
Most of this ended up going straight into one ear, metaphorically, and out the other, but some primal instinct for self-preservation rang alarm bells at this last bit, and grabbed hold of it along the way. "Wait, what!?" He shouted back at the lid of the pod. "You never told me that! Hey! Wait, stop! Let me-"
Whump.
There was silence, and then vertigo. And then there was light.
"You never told me that!" He screamed. "Hey! Wait, stop! Let me out o-" Soren Lorasson, precision metalworker, cut off his shouting as suddenly as he'd begun, and looked around at the inside of his shop. There was old Rori the inkeeper, who'd come to put in an order for a set of fine cutlery, huddling wide-eyed and afraid in the corner. And there, across the room, was the thing he was so afraid of: Dollos the Vrykal, all cold metal with cracks of cold, blue light, standing in the doorway. And on either side of him, a pair of towering city guardsmen, advancing on him with a matching pair of grim expressions and tall, pointy spears.
"We did" came the metal man's hollow, unearthly voice in response. "Seven days ago, a notice was placed outside your shop informing all blacksmiths and carpenters in Lotharan, that all further business was to be reserved exclusively for the use of the state. Having continued to accept and perform unsanctioned trade since that time, you are hereby under arrest for the manufacture and distribution of contraband. Now come along quietly, and perhaps Lord Haitos will show mercy."
This was wrong. It was all going very wrong. Soren had hoped that he could quietly bide the time until the rebel forces drew near, with the front just several miles away from his own, buzzing city, and welcome the invaders with the diagrams and some prototypes of the new anti-Vrykal weaponry he'd been developing.
He was nearly sure that the penalty for his little trades and money-making side projects wouldn't be too harsh to handle, as a blacksmith like himself was too valuable an asset to throw away carelessly in times of war. If they searched his shop, though, and found the secret panel where he kept his sketches, if they figured out what they were for... if that happened, there'd be no saving him even if he were the last smith left on this world. He had to make a snap decision, and now. But what could he do?
- Go quietly
- Shout
- Scream
- Fight
- ???
