Gryphon

A tiny glowing spot appears in a dusty room deep within the depths of The Might Pen keep. Slowly, as if burdened or restrained by a lack of time and magical energy, it expands... mystical energies crackling around its edges as time seems to hang in the balance. Eventually having expanded to a double hands width its growth hesitates and stops and for a brief instant its surface reflects a dusty abandoned room. Moments later a scraggly bedraggled Gryphon feather floats through the tiny portal and drops to the derelict desk below, and with scarcely a pop the little portal vanishes as if it were never really there. The feather, caught on an invisible breeze dances over to an ink well, dipping its self before dancing back to a piece of parchment, the dust stirred slightly by its passage. Slowly the feather scratches out a message: "Help me, I've been sucked into a pool of Real Life and can't get out! - Gryphon" Moments later the feather falls to the desk, it's task done, magic spent. The dust begins to settle once more. OOC: I sign in when I remember, and sometimes I even find something like the inspiration to post something while I'm here, but for the most part life does seem to be keeping me busy and plenty entertained.

Dear Ozymandias, Most joyous greetings of the season to you my friend! I do so hope this missive finds you in a state of health. It has been brought to my attention that you have begun a most sizeable undertaking and I write to offer you my humble assistance in so far as I am able. Long have I been amazed at the tolerance you have shown of the hordes of Treants, Sprites and other woodland spirits you charitably let exist in your kingdom. I was unable to fathom why you tolerated such a range of filth, but now I see the path you have undertaken and the sneakiness of it nearly overwhelms me! Had I any idea that you were simply allowing them to mass their numbers so that you could send them across your Southwestern border to be slaughtered while simultaneously reducing the small trouble of the undead plaguing your neighbour on that side I would never have made those thoughtless comments regarding your preference for hugging ... well, never-mind, lets just leave that safely in the past. Masterful sir, simply masterful. To aid you in your upcoming extermination I have taken the liberty of amassing a respectable number of red dragons, fire giants and a few of my larger fire elementals from the volcanic region that exists between our lands. I shall send them forth with all reasonable haste and if fortune favours us we shall see that pesky blight burned from your land once and for all. No need to thank me my friend! No need at all. I should make you aware however that some of the giants have expressed an interest in sampling your grapes of all things! I have of course warned them that you appear to be having a rather average crop this year, but you know how they can insist. I assured them that you'd be happy for them to sample your crops as a token of your appreciation for their upcoming assistance. It is after all, the least you can do. Faithfully yours, Gryphon

Life has a way of chewing up all available time and then some. On those rare occations when I think I've got a pretty good handle on what's going on - I don't. If you're a guy there is more involved in having a wedding than just showing up and trying not to look too untidy. Even if you utterly know she's going to show up - you still get nervous that she wont.

possibly like stepping into a bank of fog and not coming out the other side. Sorry I missed your game Ozy

Hey, sorry I went AWOL on this one. I see I bit the dust fairly early anyway... <crawls back under desk to hide>

Two things come to mind - is it possible to get a 'final' player list of who's in and character names - or do we need to wait until end of phase for that? Also, if no-one minds me asking is Guinea Pig an active player or the pet of a player? Just so I don't get more confused than strictly necessary.

When the email first arrived Jarod opened it barely even registering that he was doing so, his attention taken by the article about computer terrorists open on his second monitor... but the article was quickly forgotten as the video began to play. As Edgelad.JPEG brought the list of names up to the camera Jarod's eyes went wide at some of the names on the list accompanying his own - names he recognised from his hours trawling the net, names that made this message anything but a hoax. Mesmerized by the screen he reached for a pen scrawling down name, airline, company and tearing the page off the notepad Jarod grabbed his bag and headed for the elevators leaving an article about cyber-terrorism slowly decaying in a virus storm on the computer behind him. ~~~ As he passed his workmates desk Jarod gave him a nod. "Just heading upstairs to get some food, you want anything?" ~~~ A chance comment, a moment of distraction... strange how all the elevators are on their way to this floor... oh $#!T. Moments later Jarod was gone and Altor was jogging down the stairwell that he'd slipped into un-noticed hoping that his story about going upstairs for food would buy him a few minutes. ~~~ Despite the warning to the contrary getting the ticket and getting on the plane was almost easy, the overworked young airline clerk responding with a smile to the easy smile and lies flowing off Altor's tounge, grateful to have a customer who wasn't trying to make her life hell. Halfway through the plane trip Altor started to wonder if perhaps it hadn't been all a bit easy, but no... his luck had been in this week on all his hacks - no reason why that wouldn't carry over into this greater game. The plane was departed with more smooth smiles and security barely even glanced at the young man walking by in idle conversation with the white haired grandmotherly type - so they didn't notice when the two parted ways at the top of the disembarking area. Exactly three minutes after disembarking Altor was striding towards the bank of courtesy phones even as a page came over the airport PA system... "Paging Mr Altor, call for you on courtesy phone 9." Altor lifted the phone to his ear before the words had even finished echoing through the terminal and he spoke two words that might change his life forever: "Altor here."

Count me in too. I'll put together a character and post back soon. ~~ Jarod Green by day - a support tech at an internet company. Altor by night - a wanna be hacker who spends his life skirting the edges of what's legal with computers... he doesn't have the skills or the dedication that the really talented hackers do, but he's a seeker... who knows there's something not quite right about the world he lives in.

AVP:R (Aliens vs Predator : Requiem) What can I say, I was one of the guys who saw it with Mynx and I loved it. Shiny new examples of Predator technology while not discarding the traditional. Aliens doing what Aliens do best (killing things - lots of things) and who cares what the stupid humans did in the movie, they were really only there as a side effect of the movie being set on earth... which again is kind of traditional for both the Alien and Predator franchises. This isn't a movie like Doom where you needed to check your brain in at the door, but if you're the type who likes a movie that you can sink your mental teeth into or you find yourself complaining that a movie was shallow (read not deep and meaningful) then don't see AVP:R or you'll join the ranks of those who hate it. If you just want to see more Alien / Predator movies because you love the franchise then you should have fun with this installment.

Curses foiled again... <gets out the "Go Wolves" sign and the cheer/chant list to encourage a 'post-mortem' wolf victory>

Jamie watched as security ran towards another scream then watched with further dismay as they emerged from the customer services department and started directing people away from the door. As people started muttering about another death Jamie sat very still and thought. He was so sure that he'd seen Mattie cause the earlier death... so very very sure, but maybe Mattie wasn't the only one. Thinking back Jamie remembered one of the guinea pigs squeaking something about Santa not smelling right. "Maybe there's something to that." ~~~ OOC: Voting for Patrick/Santa with a whole lot less certainty this time.

Jamie sat next to a display of transformers shaking. More screams, so different from the screams of the spoiled brats earlier in the evening. What kind of person would cause so much disruption and chaos at Christmas time? Suddenly Jamie knew the answer: One who didn't understand the true meaning of Christmas. Getting to his feet Jamie ran through the shelves until he found some adults and someone else, someone pretending to be innocent. "It was him, I saw him do it!" ~~~ OOC: Jamie is accusing Vene, Mattie the Third, because he's convinced himself as only a child can.

Sorry about the out of order post... just sucky timing on my part.

Jamie is about half way between the service desk and the electronic toys when the lights go out. Carefully, he freezes not sure where to go in the darkness. As the lights come back on and the screams start he stares at a stuffed bear in confusion. Why were people screaming? He begins to run towards the sound.

Wandering past the service desk Jamie gave Thomas a friendly smile and a wave. It was a shame that so many people seemed to make life a misery for Thomas, that's not the way it's supposed to be at this time of year. Jamie's attention switched to a mother with some loud screaming children on their way out of the store, her arms weighed down with gifts. They had so much, how could they complain and want more?? Shaking his head he drifted back towards the shelves heading for the electronic toys section. ~~~ Bah! This is out of sequence. I started typing before Tanny posted the kill and posted after she'd posted... bugger. Pretend this happens before the lights go out.

Jamie drifted through the aisles watching as people helped themselves to the contents, occasionally stopping to touch a particularly entrancing toy before wistfully moving on. It would be so nice to be able to take some of these home he thought as another overstressed parent ran by with her arms full of gifts for her children. <Jamie sighed and moved on>

Jamie Baron: 12 year old boy with sandy blond hair. He's in the store because one of his parents works there on the janitorial staff. This is pretty much the only way he gets to have anything to do with toys like they sell here - his family are generally to poor to buy nice stuff like this for christmas.

I'm in too. I'll come up with a character soon.

I usually tend towards reserved trust. Trust, but until trustworthyness has been proven it's trust with a proverbial grain of salt. I'm happy to believe that people can be trusted, but there's a period of time at the start of a relationship where that trust needs to be nurtured so that it can grow and put down some firm roots. Trust is easy to give, as easy to lose as you let it be and often really hard to get back again once it's gone.

Belated congratulations to everyone from me also. Well done on your promotions all around.

You know there's a really amusing Weird Al Yankovic song by that name.

I've recently read my way through Terry Pratchett's latest 'Making Money' which revisits the character Moist von Lipwig from his earlier book 'Going Postal'. I also read 'No humans involved' from Kelley Armstrong's 'Women of the Otherworld' series, now in the absence of anything brand new that is shouting at me to read it I'm re-reading Anne McCaffrey's Crystal Line, the third book in her Crystal Singer series. I expect there will be others before long.

I could definitely get by in any of the worlds you just listed Rev. Life after being sucked into a fictional universe would be pretty sweet. While I'm thinking about it, there have been days where I wish we lived in some of Alan Dean Foster's universes. I was re-reading Sentenced to Prism the other week and once you got past the difficulties involved in living on a world that pretty much destroys the unwary human life form without thinking twice, that too would be an amazing world to live in. There are a number of books that have been written about people entering other worlds, often through the medium of books, possibly the best examples being Myst and The Neverending Story. I can't count the number of times as a kid (and more recently) I've wished that would happen to me.

Mercedes Lackey's SERRAted Edge series from her Elves on the Road universe. Even if I wasn't one of the lucky ones who turned out to be able to use magic and meet elves and other such adventures, knowing it was out there and possibly meeting those who could do it for real would just be incredible beyond measure. Naturally I'd prefer to be one of those who could do the magic.

Hey Salinye. I can't speak for all obviously, but I know I just got busy with RL stuff and kind of drifted off into a idle state, stopping in here to check up when I could or when I remembered. I think everything went through a lull, and then before activity had picked back up we went through another one, and another one. I know that one of the attempts to revitalize things kind of blew up in some of our faces and a number of people got new jobs or got busy at old jobs making it difficult for them to keep up earlier levels of posting. It could be that some of the more frequent fliers stopped doing University / College courses and switched to real life jobs, I distinctly recall that killing my available time and energy for posting several years ago. I can't really tell you what I'd be happier with in terms of more vigor on the board because if I'm going to be truly honest I'm still barely drifting in and out of here myself.