a goose

IC: Incommodo

"Well y'see, we live in a world that is full of mystery and excitement and crimes that are too boring for the police to get off their asses and solve them."

Incommodo smirked proudly, gesturing at himself with the thumb on the hand that wasn't around Arkrak. "And that's where I come in."

IC: Nikarra (Motara Desert)

"Mhm. Did you shoot it?"

IC:

"I am, I'm just running a little short of cases."

"And clients."

"And a workplace."

"Job security in this economy can be pretty harsh, bro, but an out of work detective is like an out of work artist: you're never really out of work, just broke and homeless."

I apologise on Vorex's behalf for all the crazy that occurred when we were 12/13 year olds.

that name is not welcome here

- Suzy

IC:

Nikarra's smirk widened into a particularly snarky grin. "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww."

"In all seriousness though," she said, "Let's move off from the Xa-Koro home catalogue and get to the point of Dor, why the ##### did you tear a hole into a temple in the middle of the desert?"

Who are back, and do I really, honestly want to know?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

NO

NO YOU DO NOT

- Suzy

IC:

Incommodo shrugged. "Felt like longer."

He teleported over to Arkrak, putting an arm around him and pulling him close. "Any time without you is an eternity, bro."

IC: Nikarra (Motara Desert)

"To be completely honest, I would not be surprised if you spent more fishing out that furniture than my cousin bought it for," Nikarra smirked. "Bit of a sucker for sentiment, ain't ya?"

IC:

Incommodo stood up out of the bush where he was crouching, looking slightly sheepish and scratching the back of his head. "I'm... I'm sorry, man. About the whole Ko-Koro thing. That's some bad . Sorry for the whole bush thing as well, it's just..."

The Toa of Magnetism shrugged. "We miss you, man. I missed you."

IC:

"The message reads, 'Go hoooooooommmmmmmmmmmeeeeee! Go to your girlfriend and your best frienddddd, Incommodoooooooo! I have never met him but he sounds like a pretty cool guyyyyyy I think you should do as I suggesttttttt!'"

I'm so sorry, but we're back.

i'm not sorry

no regrets

- Suzy

IC: (Ga-Wahi)

"Incommodo isn't here. I'm a bush. A bush of destiny, like in that story with the bush that's God. I bring a MESSAGE of DIRE IMPORTANCE."

IC: y'all already know who this is gonna turn out to be and i regret nothing (Wherever The Heck Arkrak Is)

"yo"

 

Victory was mine, Tyler.

 

i feel like all these lists with my name high up may be misconstruing me as someone even vaguely important to the old rpg

i would like to assure anyone who believes that that i wasn't

i just talked to hub a lot

- Suzy

 

On a related note(speaking of Arc 1), I feel this RPG is a lot...quieter than it could be, or used to be.

I've read about things that happened in BZPRPG's past, and I remember a few years ago when I took an enthusiastic look at it, the first thing I saw in one of the threads was a PC getting stabbed through the face or something like that, deciding it looked too tough and brutal, and left. I've come back now and decided to go ahead, but it seems a lot less...I dunno, in motion?

What happened?

The more active players have become old geezers.

 

hey, i'm not that old

it became less active because fewer people are acting as hub's enablers and helping him find new heights in post counts

(but in fairness, we just don't have as many people as we used to, and this is actually extremely active compared to where we were earlier in this arc. we just don't have the crazy levels of membership we had three years ago)

- Suzy

IC:

"Yeah, I guess that works too," Nikki grinned. "And I thought it was cozy. I even spotted the piano from The Final Problem, brought back some memories. Pretty ##### nice, as far as homes go."

IC:

Nikarra shrugged. "I broke into your place, it seemed pretty cozy. If you stopped on the way and did a little interior decorating, the murderising might even be seen as a fair trade."

"Assuming we're talking fears of murder, and not marital infidelity. That one... yeah, probably best to leave the house as it is."

IC:

Nikarra shook her head emphatically, loudly tutting in response to Dor's exasperation. "##### ridiculous. Although I caught it from halfway across the desert, so I reckon your advertising had a lot of spread available. Maybe just move to a demographic with a little more, y'know."

"People."

IC:

Nikarra smirked as she took the canteen from Dor and took a swig from it, refusing to let on just how good the liquid felt on her parched tongue.

"This how it's gonna go when we bump into each other from now on, then? Quick health check every time I forget to feed myself?" she joked, before taking another drink and swallowing the juice alongside her pride. A twinge of regret rippled through her face at her response to his kindness, her defensiveness coming across just a little too callous.

"...Thanks, Dor. It's nice to know someone's looking out for me."

IC:

Nikarra couldn't help but laugh at the prospect Dor was suggesting. "Maybe not tonight, but I will be calling that one in sometime."

She made the mistake of looking into his eyes for a second -- perfect, icy blue, pulling her in and trapping her like a black hole for just long enough that she found herself somewhere far in the past, far away from the desert, long before the Daedra or the Mark-Bearers... but not before Dor. The cogs of destiny had moved to push him into her life once again, and there was no mistaking some element of fate in it; Nikki knew full well exactly why she found herself right back in front of him every time she tried to pull away.

There was no her before Dor, and there was no her without him. The Nikarra of the past was a blank slate, as alien to her as a total stranger, and the Nikarra who was separated from Dor was a shell, a parasite. She fed off his presence to keep herself afloat just as much as he had once done the same to her. She broke the eye contact to look down at her wrist, where a clock had once glowed through her skin and counted down to her death, just as another had on Dor's, the burden that they shared after he all but forced it upon her. Not that I complained, she noted, sighing internally. Anything was worth being near Dorian Shaddix.

She shook herself from the recollection and looked back to Dorian, the Dorian of the present. Her tears had begun to subside, and her smile had become warmer in the wake of Dor's latest joke, and when she spoke it was clear she'd become a little calmer, although exhaustion still rang strong through her voice, hoarse with the dehydration she'd been dealing with in her time in the desert. "So... fancy meeting you here."

IC: Nikarra (Motara Desert)
 
Nikarra felt a thousand emotions at once, swirling and fighting for dominance inside her, her head spinning and her gut twisting and squirming, her own emotions like sandpaper filing down her stomach lining as she used every ounce of resolve she had left to keep standing. No. No. Not now.
Not him.
 
Dorian Shaddix was waltzing into her life once again, covered in blood and dust and dirt and the Toa felt herself shatter inside, and shatter again with every step he took forwards. She could make him out in the dark, unmistakeable after every past encounter she’d had with him, even covered in grime and ##### as he was now.
You’re a survivor, Nikki.
Survive.
 
Something clicked in her mind for just a moment, a tiny vestige of Sloth rearing its head as Nikki felt her shock channel itself into a half-hearted smirk that conveyed all the pride of roadkill, flattened and condemned but still, somehow, breathing, even though every intake of air was nothing more than a stabbing pain that inched it closer to death. “Well,” she started. “You look like #####.”
 

- - -
 

Earlier
 

Nikarra’s feet moved sluggishly through the sand, white under the pale moonlight, as she forced herself to keep moving, not to give up. She was tired and hungry and dehydrated and hopeless, but she was moving, that was all that mattered right now, she was moving. She had to keep moving.
There’s something better waiting for you, Nikki, she thought to herself. Not too much further. You’re a survivor. There’s nothing can stop you, only slow you down.
 
She sat down on the ground, breathing deeply, trying to psych herself up for one more effort. She looked up at the sky, the void and the stars, vast and endless and incomprehensible, and for just a moment she felt so small, and so vulnerable, and she held on to that feeling. She closed her eyes and allowed it to fill her up, just for that moment; she knew what she was walking towards by now, there was some kind of structure already in sight. But she knew she was going to have to be strong, that whatever was there… it was going to kill her, no two ways about it. For just a moment she embraced her weakness, and then she took a deep breath in, opened her eyes and stood up. You’re not through the woods yet, Nikki.
 

- - -
 

 
“Nikki.” Dor said, hoarsely, probably still catching up with the shock Nikarra had already experienced. “I nearly replaced your molar with a slug, kid.”
The Toa of Lightning all but collapsed into Dor as he pulled her into a hug, tears welling up in her eyes from sources unknown as she couldn’t help but hold him tight and bury her head in his shoulder. She withdrew from the hug slowly, and opened her mouth more than once as though she was about to say something, make some reply to what he had just said or give some explanation for the tears streaming down her face, but in the end she just sighed and shook her head, looking him up and down once again and taking in the almost pitiful sight that his trip through the temple had turned him into. Almost. Dude’s still the best-looking hobo I’ve ever seen.
“That blood better not be yours, ######.”

IC:

Elle frowned for a second as she glanced over at Dallas and his girlfriend, and then grimaced. #####, he looks pretty hurt. Ouch.

"I, uh, I don't know about meeting everyone," she said as politely as she could, looking between Dallas and the other two. What were they called again? Okay, new names: iPod Whisperer and Major League Botanist. The first is a little more inspired but she already made the daughter nature joke. "As I mentioned, the whole socialising, meeting-new-people thing, it's not exactly my forté and I don't know just how well I could really handle meeting everyone in one day. Might be a wee bit much, for now."

IC:

Elle laughed, bordering on a giggle as she tried to cover her mouth and hold it back. That is a pretty cute frickin' couple.

The sadness flickered behind her eyes again, and something uncomfortable shifted in her chest, like a response to a lingering memory that was wispy and just beyond her reach, only the feeling left behind. For less than half a second, she looked like a different person, her facial expression somehow and distinctly uncannily different, and then it was gone and she was smiling again, although it was a little less bright than before. She looked for whoever Ashley was shouting for, spotting a young girl sticking out her tongue at the group.

"Jesus, it's getting to be quite the party over here, isn't it?" Elle joked. "This rate, I'll have met everybody by the end of the day."

IC:

Girlfriend. I... what?

w h a t

ok so extremely attractive couple ok no biggie i can handle this what the ##### is that noise

oh, it's me. okay. little high-pitched. should probably tone that down.

Elle coughed.

"Oh my god, you're going together?" Elle looked from Dallas to Ashley and back again. "You are like the cutest couple ever. If that's okay to say. Is that okay to say? Sorry if that's not okay to say. You make a very attractive pair. Y'all are sweet."

i have claimed this couple and i will protect it with my life if needs be

IC:

Elle stared incredulously at Ashley's demonstration, her mouth hanging slightly open as a pink tree three feet in height grew into existence in front of her. "Ohmygod. That is awesome!"

After a few seconds more she had the sense to close her mouth, holding a fist up to her lips and clearing her throat awkwardly. Wow, you are just the best at social interaction.

"Also yes please introduce me to your cat sometime that'd be great."