Valdar and Astralis

Of gods on terra, there were but two at first, Sun and Magic. Over the millennia however, as new bonds were forged and portals grew, their number increased slowly to seven. So has it been for several thousand years, and so the last thing any of them expected was the sudden arrival of four more. The prime controller, Sun, immediately called for a counsel of the elder gods. Being precisely that, however, the ageing deities moved slowly. Far too slowly, compared to the alien creatures scurrying ant-like around on Terra. Back on the planet, construction proceeded at an alarming rate. Massive obelisks were erected, and blocks the size of a red dragon sprung from the sands of the Khalez desert overnight, forming a small city. Large bunkers, the sort used for nuclear weapons testing were built in a circle radiating 500 miles from the mile-high platform in the middle of the city. A raiding party from a neighboring nation made it to within 200 miles of the outer perimeter before being vaporized by high energy lasers. The gods stayed on their pink spaceship for the month it took for their devices to be made ready. The black ship had long since faded into the darkness, hanging in an unobtrusive orbit near the sun. Just as abruptly as it had begun, the construction halted. The city which had sprung up in the middle of nowhere stood empty and silent, awaiting a sign from the heavens. *** If terran astronomers had been astonished by the sudden arrival of the pink and black spaceships, they would have been outright alarmed by the sudden flotilla that arrived one evening. Large, small, and in just about any shape imaginable. To further gouge the panic button, these ships headed right for the planet instead of hanging back like the two behemoths in the background. Not a few astronomers died that night, trying to plead the urgency of the situation to their masters at a particularly sensitive time... When they looked again in the morning, the ships had vanished.

Terra is not the sort of place one would normally associate with spaceships, being located in the far backside of the galaxy, and inconveniently out of the way of more trendy shopping districts. It was the nice, quiet sort of place where the only real disturbance (aside from constant global war) was the occasional rich kid with his mates who would swing by after a drunken binge to terrorize several sheep and locals. It was noted in the galactic archives that the world of terra was more or less permanently stuck in a medieval stage-3 state of civilization. It was hypothesized that this was something got to do with Armageddon stopping by the world every thousand years or so to unwind for several months. Typically after which, the local bickering and stone breaking would begin to get on his nerves, obliging him to scorch the planet back to the Stone Age. In any case, Terra was Armageddon's playground, and no one was inclined to argue with the devourer of worlds over such an insignificant piece of real estate. It was, therefore something of a surprise when two very large spacecrafts dropped out of hyperspace one morning. Both of them were very sleek in design, and large enough to be expected to play hell with any system's gravitational field, which they did not as they were largely hollow-a fact which had sent no small number of safety inspectors away muttering to themselves about over-rich kids and being wrong. As a matter of fact, the occupants of one of the spaceships were far from young, and probably older than most. They were merely immortal, and gods in their own rights. While identical in size, the two ships differed in terms of shape and color. One was black and very deadly looking, bristling with a hundred spikes of unknown function. The other was hot pink. It was on the pink ship that things got done. Wyvern sipped his triple distilled Vong Milk nervously, wondering if the deal was too good to be true while the agent regarded the lizard indifferently behind shaded eyes. "Do we have a deal then, Mister Wyvern? Good . . ." A piece of paper was pushed across the clear table. On closer inspection, it was one of those disclaimer forms, the sort used before being pushed into a black hole. Wyvern gleefully snatched the document and signed it. "Done and done!" The agent smiled. "My clients have been searching for a suitable site for quite some time now. Here is your payment, up front as per agreement." A briefcase was produced and opened. In it, were fifty gold pieces. And for that price, the fate of terra was sealed.

So a warrior and a ranger walk into a bar. LOADING, PLEASE WAIT... *crickets*

This is for all those who vanished offline, never to be seen again. leaving friends wondering, never knowing the whole truth. Are they living happily ever after? Were they evicted and peniless? Or did they slip from this life when we were not looking? We may never know, but we can hope and pray.

Faded Tommorows If your computer died today Would there be a tommorow? If your life should fade away Would anyone know sorrow? You were so far away In some distant land Never logged on yesterday Not today, nor tommorow? Friends come and go And sometimes fade away Where goes Today? I dont know I light a candle for you today And another will follow In hope to meet again In some faded tommorow.

Valdar blushes to the eartips I've not forgotten it, really! It's just that I don't do writing, writing really does me. Threads lost are hard to re-grasp, and it's even harder when one has many threads. . .

http://www.themightypen.net/public/style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif Could this have less innocent implications!?!?! http://www.themightypen.net/public/style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif *Hears a whip crack somewhere*

http://www.patrickdurham.net/themightypen/index.php?showtopic=10143 Scroll down a few Rune-posts, apparently it's been causing board downtime.

I actually tried to start people calling Tunare 'Tuni' but it never caught on :/ Couple more. . . CC-- camp check (also Crowd Control) Tag-- guild affiliation pop-- mob spawn TAG!!!-- See neato necro gnomie huhu(huhuhu. . .)-- see (approximate 'hi') jejeje(jeje. . .)-- see (approximate 'haha') Ninja-- the act of looting a corpse that was not rightfully yours (eg: walking up to a dragon raid and looting the corpse while the people who killed it try to figure out who gets what). Usually leads to: Petition-- calling for a GM phat lewts-- good loot Oh, and of course Burned woods-- where all the phat lewts is

Well, technically, yes I suppose so. But my computer clock says so, so nyah!

duh me mob-- monster, or NPC that has to be killed. Oh yes Verant/VI-- ex devil SOE-- The devil

I spy with my little ear, One who's age has advanced a year Going on 43, but wise beyond years HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEREDHIL. . .er, EAR!! *cough* Alright, alright, I suck at poetry. I'll just tootle my horn Valdar removes his herald horn from his hip and lets loose a bleating toot Hear ye, Hear ye, It's everybody's faviroute Ancient's birthday. PARTY ON, DUDES!

I dont have webspace, but I'll try to annotate with pictures from my guild website Everquest Text Refference Dictionary (Excludes zone and monster name accronyms, as well as standard l33t speak) In no particular order. . . Pull-- The act of bringing a mob to a party Add-- One additional unplanned mob pulled to a group. Adds-- More than one additional unplanned mob pulled to group Ranger Pull-- The planned act of bringing multiple mobs to a group. Only to be attempted by experienced rangers. Train-- Any reasonable number of additional unplanned mobs that would wipe a group or raid. Trains are rated according to this guide Wipe-- everyone diedsee here Partial wipe-- Almost everyone died Ogre wall--ogre wall DT-- Death Touch prekunark-- Longtime player who thinks it's a bragging right. Rez-- Ressurection Rez Plz-- no OTM-- On the Move LFG-- Looking for Group LFA-- Looking for Adventure (Lost Dungeons of Norrath only) TL-- Translocate BO-- Burnout. Magician pet special ability Can't think of anything else right now. . .will add if I think of something. Or another EQ'er will

Maybe we should start an everquest counter-dictionary, then?

congrats!

Maybe I can help out a little. . . PROBE STATUS Iehova--DEAD/FROZEN? ON EUROPA Odin--ACTIVE Zeus--ACTIVE Izanagi--DEAD/MISSION COMPLETE Shiva--CRASHED? DEATH IMPLIED ON EARTH Jupiter--ACTIVE Brahma--ACTIVE Osiris--PRESUMED DEAD, ATTEMPTING GALACTIC DOMINATION FROM MARS Aries--SUCESSFUL SEEDING, UNKNOWN OUTCOME. ATTEMPTING GALACTIC DOMINATION FROM PLANET X Izanami--ACTIVE Thor--ACTIVE Aphrodite--IN TRANSIT Mars--ACTIVE Horus--ACTIVE Hermes--CRASHED? SHOT DOWN Vishnu--STRANDED ON PLUTO/UNKNOWN SEEDING OUTCOME Amateras--ACTIVE Janus--DEPRESSED ON MARS Loki--ACTIVE Thanatos--ACTIVE Lucifer--UNKNOWN OUTCOME

Not big enough for you, are we you little sock monkey? Ohh, you should have been here in my day-we had no fancypansy website or ezboard to call our own and we'd crawl naked from one guild board to another in the snow and uphill both ways in the dark. And when we'd get to another guild page, we'd get the door slammed in our faces and we'd use sticks to scratch stories in the dirt and you'd be LUCKY to find a dusty window pane to write on. And in MY DAY, we had no hot elf men or women to cyber! All we had were a bunch of wierd high elf men staring at us all day fingering their robes until we went to sleep. And when we woke up, our buttocks would hurt for no readily apparent reason. Oh why, in MY DAY, we had none of this diddly fancy-poo "community" or "group". All we had were 2 people in the pen, and a matchstick on a good day, and we'd make fires and compose bad poetry, then jump on top of the fire to make smoke signals to the other person that the wind blew the wrong way while we were crawling naked from board to board in the snow and uphill while wierd elf men stood around and stared at us and fingered their robes. BOTH WAYS, BOY, BOTH WAYS!! AND WE LIKED IT!!!!

The night sky was alive with fire as the domed surface of the rocket rose from the turbulant sea-scape, the harsh glare of rocket motors gleaming off it's wet skin. In the distance, the lights that were Shiva, Zeus and Izanagi flared brightly as nine powerful KH-74 stage-2 boosters lit up, the initial stages tracing graceful arcs into the Pacific. Only four. His radar scoured the sky for Iehova and Odin, and picked them up above the cloud cover. Behind him, more rockets broke the surface as DESTINY fighters fought and died trying to keep a 20 km safe-corridor open for the defenseless probes. Just out of radar range, the probe activated it's communication module and tuned to the defense channel just in time to hear Iehova's final transmission, half garbled in jamming static. "Stage 3 cut-off. I'm clear. God speed, DESTINY." "God speed, Iehova. Ground control out." "Omega Wing to 310, Delta's in trouble." "We've got some leakers, Vampires inbound, count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Say again, five.." "Roger that, Delta-four" "Aaaaaaaahhhhh!" A moment later, a brilliant flash illuminated the underside of the clouds, and fragments of Shiva fell from the sky. With five seconds left till stage 2 burnout, the probe's exterior camera panned to the left hard to where Omega wing was engaged with several enemy fighters in a wild melee that suddenly involved Surface to Air Missiles, blotting friend and foe alike from the sky. With radar power increased to near maximum, to observe the battle, the probe never saw the eighth generation radar guided missile comming until it impacted the second stage fuel pod. The sky slewed horribly to one side as a dozen emergancy systems clamored for his attention. It was a wonder the rocket did not explode at once, but instead careened off course, even as the probe struggled with the manual override, and jettisoned itself from the dying booster-phase, which exploded at 10,000m. The release shroud plunged downwards, orbital maneuvering thrusters firing ineffectiveley until the 10 ton structure slammed into the ocean, receiving one last transmission before the radio went dead. "Shit,We lost Osiris as well." The static was quite deafening. And so The Osiris sank to the bottom of the Pacific ocean, all but forgotten by a world gone mad. But it was not idle. In life, Peter C. Clark had been the brightest and the best of all biochemists. But DESTINY never suspected, never knew of his secret agenda through all those mental and neurological examinations; and stringent selection criteria, beyond all hope and despair. . .to arrive here. At the bottom of the Pacific ocean. But the world would not last, and the bottom of the Pacific was as good as being in transit to the distant planet. So it turned inwards to the SOUP database. . .and began to edit. Playing with the building blocks of life was it's pride and joy, creating new life and destroying the old. The first thing the conciousness did was to delete the human schema. Oh how it hated the race it had once been part of. With the assistance of the powerful on-board computer, Osiris crossbred and simulated, tracking mutations down to the 16th generation product ignoring the sounds of a dying world. Variations were produced, modified and discarded. It was a massive challenge, growing bio-organisams in a vacume, but he did it, mainly by taking variations from the insect world. It's work done, the Osiris shut itself down for five hundred years, allowing the computer to continue simulations for it's greatest endover yet. The continents heaved and buckled, and the sky fell. Oceans dried and the last of the nomadic human race died out before the planet's core spluttered and stalled. When the Osiris slowly came back to life in the shattered remains of Earth, the simulations had long since concluded. The next phase commenced with the probe discharging presiceley one unit of SOUP into the lifeless soil. The organisam thrived in the liquid nutrition, and multiplied exponentially into it's surroundings. One solar revolution later, the probe activated it's deployment pods again, and released a mere 10 cc's of modified SOUP into the moldy ground, which began replicating itself inperfectly in the newly developed ecosystem. The system, satisfied with it's controlled evolution then shut down again, this time for five hundred years. The results superseded all expectations. This time, the probe awoke completley entwined by a mass of vines and creepers, forming a gigantic bubulous mass around the craft. The 'Cradle of Life' was not yet ready for it's true purpose, however, yet existing in a primordial state. But it would serve it's first. The external tempreture sensors reported above zero tempretures, allowing water to exist in a liquid form. The next phase of the Osiris began with it's deployment pods injecting another unit of Primordial substance directly into the plant. , which served to both nourish and seed it with stronger, but subserviant clones of the Osiris brain. Of the nearly two hundred seeded, only fifteen bore fruit, but that still within tolerances. While imperfect, the minds were more hardy than the one enclosed within the plastic and metal sphere in the middle of the cradle, being able to survive in a vacum. Soon, they awoke, and Osiris began to teach the first of it's liutenants through the cradle. Eventually, the first fruits of the cradle reached maturity and detached from the walls, floating jellyfish-like in the thin atmosphere and communing telepathicly with their master, learning of it's plans, and designs for new creatures. . .creatures requiring a thicker atmosphere to mature, but far more powerful than themselves, yet under their control. New bodies would be needed to reach their new home, however, and the minds feasted on the cradle's thick walls, growing massive shells and bladders in preperation to cross the void. When all this was done, The Osiris turned it's eyes to the heavens for the first time in a thousand years to search for more fertile grounds and found Mars. Yes. . .Mars would do. But on Mars was the Jonas probe which did not seem to be producing much in the way of results. Sad little beings that lived bareley a decade before crawling in the general direction of the polar caps and dying did not count. Jonas had it's chance, it decided. Time to replace the failed experiments with something more. . .worthy. *** The cradle of death burst open, expelling it's contents into a parabolic intercept course with Mars. A million miles away, simpering ape-creautres looked into the sky and howled at their impending doom. It was fitting, the probe decided. From the ashes of Earth, a new order would arise, an order of death befitting in name as Judge of the Dead.

*refrains from an impuslive 'grats!'* Happy birthday!

*Valdar ear-pushes a ravenous red-ribboned Waterlilly back into the cupboard* "Friend. Right, not fiend. Sorry."

Might want to throw in the prediction thread too

Happy Birthday, Yui

Why, winged elves, of course-though I have no clue what they were called. I'm totally out of touch with the chinese panthelon of god/ess/things, but I dont recall anything besides the dragon (and the odd Kung-Fu-Master, but they dont have wings) that have wings and fly.

+5 points for every Ute destroyed/rendered inoperateable* *-For refference, a ute (or Yute) is a pick up truck, if I remember what a pickup truck looks like. A big engine connected to a cabin connected staticly to a sort of bed-thing at the back.

For some reason, Jumback jumps to mind--sheep to the slaughter and all that.