Paroxysm

I was feeling a little more handy, man. Sorry to disappoint!

Nothing quite to taste, alas. I guess there's always next year. 🤔 I've missed Valucre though. I really need to check it more on mobile.

Almost responded to an interest check. 😒 What a disaster that would've been.

Three. ;_;

A boiled egg, and enough coffee to make waking up at 1am feel almost like a functioning hour.

How are my serfs doing this fine day?

If you need to expand or redact anything in my original write up, you have my blessing to rip it as necessary and request for the original thread to be retired.

?

Going to have to drop with apologies. Honestly, didn't mean to push Valucre out of mind, but this is the first time I've even checked the site since pretty much my last post. 6 day work weeks + holidays coming has got me in a bad spot.

Renata studied the graph in silence, absorbed in thought. Had the numbers really grown by that extent? Last she had heard, well… She had been busy lately, but she would not have thought it possible to miss them scaling up their operations by such a degree. Her own data of Martial Town—where much of her attention and focus lay, admittedly—reflected a downward trend, not upward, but, as in Noel’s case, the data was imperfect, contaminated. And Dougton… The baton found its way to her hand. “Dougton’s,” She said, cycling through old census records, but settled on Casper’s when she found Dougton’s required more handshaking than she was willing to invest. “Excuse me, but, to add onto the imperial estimate in taken, as of a census a few years ago, Dougton alone would be just above fifteen percent of Casper’s population.” She balanced the baton in her hand, turning it this way and that, letting the weight of the numbers sink in. “I could support that, E… Ahem,” Renata paused, not remembering if Evelyn had formally introduced itself, but continued a short moment later, “but I’m skeptical if enough leverage exists for us to use one of the groups as a bludgeon, given their nature and expertise. Another response would be to find some way to inoculate their preferred hosts, and to seek other methods of curtailing their numbers, a disease with a high rate of lethality, sterilization, an agent or change in the environment that is hostile to them, benign to everything els; I don’t think we should rely on any one method, with the consequences of failure being so high.” With nothing else to add, Renata passed the baton, and readjusted her own, personal threat assessment of the issues facing her people.

Of the tiered rows of benches that served as seating, Renata sat at the lowest, nearest the floor. She was off-duty today, free of arms and armor, but still carried the weight of her station, of PeaceKeeper and temporary regent to Palgard. In answer to an unspoken summons, the baton bobbed slowly toward her, and was plucked from the air. “That sounds appropriately cataclysmic,” Renata agreed, “but my worries are more grounded at home; I look at our recent history and see fallen cities, ruined ecosystems, and collapsing infrastructure; I see the hand of evil, organizations and supposed empires, and nobody responding to their provocations. ” The spice of zeal peppered Renata’s words, a seasoning present because Palgard was her home city, and it, the victim of two attacks now, was in a sorry state indeed. Bodysnatchers, loci — proper threats, those things; she could still only see herself advocating for the disarmament of those that would do the people of Terrenus the most harm, if afforded the opportunity. "If left alone, this lot will do what they do best; they will kick over other people's sandcastles, causing more damage, more cities and lives ruined." She passed the baton.

Something like Sir-ot-suh-ga. It's an actual name, so I'm sure there are youtube HOW TO PRONOUNCE videos if you want exact pronunciation lol.

Since Carlos is covering the Handymen side, I'll refrain from tossing mine in, and will instead bring my neglected PeaceKeeper, Saratxaga. Posts will be short due to RL schedule constraints. (Just like you prefer, Desolate-senpai).

Glory stood still as a statue amid the storm of debris, red-hot metal and shards of earth, compacted by Glory’s mind, tracing thin but deadly lines through the surrounding air space. Her will steeled, the missiles sparked molten streaks along the guiding paths of her influence, none allowed to come so close as to cause visible harm, with a wide orbit that brought them safely around Glory, so that they impacted the protective barrier behind her, where they remained floating briefly as the spell sapped them of their destructive power. This, Glory could not focus on, however, no matter how she wished to observe the efficiency of the spells employed by the mages. More pressing concerns demanded her attention. There was a hole in her chest. Meat and blood and fur spilled out of it, before the squirming insides knitted close again, the image whole and unmarred. The first salvo struck home, and Glory let loose a psychic scream, of pain and agony intermingled with a dash of loss. Small bodies fell as Glory took a step forward, some still twitching, others mangled with pieces missing. A hot flash of metal from Ethic, and another shot into Glory, except this time there was no scream, no tiny, fur-covered corpse to signal an injury; instead, the image of Glory winked out, with the bullet visible in the forcefield, before it fell to the ground with a small clink. Glory reappeared beside a fountain, and another bullet struck clean through her image, except this time nothing appeared to happen. Another Glory, another bullet, until six Glorys stood staring as Ethic retreated into the Gardens. The six walked slowly until they met in the center of the room, facing the exit into the Garden, and then they walked as one, following, slowly, after Ethic. Only one moved with any sort of distinctiveness, as she looked over her shoulder, back at the audience, and then in front of them, at the bodies that littered the floor. Her image skipped a few frames, did not turn back in a fluid motion, but a jerky, inhuman one. A tangled, confused wave of sensations crashed through the parlor doors and into the gardens, an intermingling of physical and emotional delusions, fear and pain, tightly bound together, transmitted as a weapon of the mind, with compulsions to confound and impair. This, Glory did without meaning, as black-taloned hands held onto the doorway, pulling a heavy, red-scaled body through, its size impossible to be contained by the building it was emerging from, without damaging the interior. A gigantic head, with a teeth-filled maw emerging to roar, gouts of fire and smoke billowing from its throat. The head faded as Glory strode through it, with more scenes playing, some of human warriors, others of fantastical beasts, all transmitting without thought or reason. Without transition, Glory’s true form reappeared, and this time remained; she was a great, swarming mass of rats, a roving carpet of fur as she advanced. An electro-kinetic storm brewed around her, electrical arcs clinging to the individual rats that made up her body, as her two mental disciplines worked together. A spike of agony, built by recollection of the audience, by Ethic, and by Glory, took root in Glory’s mind before being directed toward Ethic, not hurled, not thrust like a blade toward the heart, but assembled and then, where the two psyches met, handed over like an unwanted, second hand sweater, to be received or rejected.