The World's Paradox (Role-Play)

[Klik 'n' Kill]

The floating helmet began to spin eerily as it rang across the gloomy bar, the expressionless emptiness that passed for Araduun's face rotating slowly until it finally came to rest facing the man who had dared to strike up "small talk". Recognition registered faintly in Araduun's mind - this was the same "heroic" fighter he had knocked flat in the battle outside. He took a sip from his mug, just for effect, and savoured his acquaintance's confusion as the drink disappeared into his non-existant form. By now the whole bar was staring at the abomination, attracted by the ringing caused by that wretched elf......Araduun made a mental note to have a few words with him (after he explained about the fish, of course). Ignoring the incredulous stares, Araduun struck up conversation offhandedly:
"I am Araduun, and the last time I walked this world with living steps has almost faded from memory. I came to plunder and pillage this place, and the gates were in the way" - he eyed the shady figure on his left, which had just jumped atop the bar - "but I see little point in following through with that now: there's little here but mud, madness, and two bit heroes."
His listener was obviously offended at this, but the dead have little in the way of tact, and Araduun barreled on: "in fact..."
However, at that moment he was interrupted by the alcohol-saturated....man....standing on the bar screaming out "who wants to help me kill the m***** *** f******* b**** *** *** ******* that this belongs to?????" swinging a mace embossed with a family coat of arms and effortlessly pronouncing row after row of asterisks. Araduun considered this for a moment then swiveled his "head" back to his conversational partner.

"Well?" he asked.

[Sicopath]

Ham, sat down on his barstool and immediately slipped off, he realised he must've vomited on the stool as well. As usual, King rode up from across the bar with a sobering serving of goatsmilk, only this time it was a few gallons, King funneled the yellow liquid into Ham's mouth, picked him up and gave him a pat on the back; "Go get 'em."

Ham strode proudly, feeling more sober than he had been all week, walked out the bar, over to the elf accross the square and saying "let's go"; the elf seem quite bothered by Ham's mixed odour of alcohol, vomit and goat's milk. "perhaps you should clean yourself up and change your cloak, don't want to be waking up more dead people we can handle."

And so Ham removed his cloak and vomitted onto it, he wiped his face with a clean portion before burying the garment in a hole he dug with his bare hands; "that'll grow an interesting tree methinks" Ham replaces the pink cloak with one from an acrobat lying on the ground, a dark red cloak.

"You coming?" Says the elf.
"Might as well help save my own life, let's go" replied Ham.

[Emerald Dragon]

ooc: Sean, no matter how much you censor those words, we all knew you had it in you... :D

[The Creator]

The knife pressed itself against Ogiratem's throat again as he glared down at the boy, without even a second thought Ogiratem stood tall again, his hand whipping out, a long thumb flicking backwards a brushing a button further back on his arm, a slender dagger was thrown into his hand, and he held it close to the girls neck. He held it limply in his hand, and let the sharp point glide of the skin on her neck, not cutting her, but leaving a red mark in the blades wake.

He looked down at her, his face void of emotion, "Me, little one? I am Ogiratem Turos, i am a tradesman of sorts. I know of your name Ms. O'Darian from my current employer, and i sourly suggest to you little miss that if you value your life, you will remove the blade from my neck," his grip strengthened on the knife and it pressed deeper into her throat, "And as for your little friend here...." Ogiratem's free hand darted out and picked the boy up by the shoulder, dangling him in front of the girl, "If you value HIS life, you won't let me take him back to my employer still attached to this damn book! Have you got my drift my friend?"

:smokin:

[Charade]

A cloudy glass of what could very well be water slid in front of the dark elf. Raising her head from her hands, she took a quick swig from the glass and turned to thank the serving lady, but was shocked by the hateful glare that she recieved. Breaking her stare, Vespertine quickly and quietly downed her cup of liquid and placed Vector on the table. He glowed a faint blue for a moment, a trick that always impressed his companion, and then returned to his original silver sheen.
"This place looks like a good place to start a grand quest!" smiled the eager adventurer. "It has everything: weird people, unsavoury looking freaks, nightmarish undead, and it's certain to have someone in need of my skill!"
"Well I dunno." murmered the sword, it's blade twisting and straightening with uncanny deftness. "I mean, sure. This place has it's...charms, but do you really want to hang around with these losers?" His last line came out a bit louder than usual, alerting the ogre sitting behind him.

"You 'ave a problem wit us puny lady?" the meaty hulk grunted as it casually tossed it's chair across the room. Vespertine's eyes flicked up to the beast, her crimson eyes attempting to diffuse the situation with fear. However, the ogre, who was many times her height, was safe in the knowledge that nothing smaller than him could possibly hurt him. He pounded his slab of a hand on to the table she was perched at and stared down at her.
"I says, do you ave a problem, wit us, puny longear?" The ogre spat out tiny droplets of green drool and exhuded the foetid stench of centuries old cheese. The dimunitive woman slowly pegged her nose and gave a sly smile.
"Well I didn't before, but it must be said, your mere presence at this table is insulting. Leave me alone." Vespertine was not one to think of conclusions and before she knew it, the ogre had raised her several metres from the floor with two fingers on his left hand. With a sickly grin twisted onto it's distorted face, the misshapen giant strode to the door and carelessly tossed the girl outside, leaving her a crumpled heap on the foul muck outside.

The ogre laughed his way back to his seat to try and find the pretty looking sword. In his ignorance however, he had not noticed a large blue rat race out the front door alongside him. The scurrying vermin swiftly ran up beside his fallen companion and shifted back into a familiar duellist's foil.
"Sorry about that mess I got you into, but I think you might need to chooses your words better. You can't start a fight with everyone, you know." The blue shimmer ran down the blade's edge as it spoke. Vespertine raised her head onto one arm, the weight of her unorthodox plated armour keeping her down in the soft ground. It was like tar on her armour.
"He was asking for it, he can't call me names and get away with it. I'll show him, when I can pull myself up from this filth."

[Wildwind]

Zanath glanced blerily around the bar. that dust packed a wallop. He got unstedily back to his feet and looked around the bar. The floating armour and a cloaked human were talking at the bar but everybody else interesting seemed to have left the bar. And they had just got there!
He wandered unsteadily over to the two at the bar and dinged the armour. it made a rather peircing sound that made Zanath groan, the hangover was setting in allready, well at least the stuff passed quickly.
"hello" he said to the 2 "either of you two seen anything interesting to do around this town?"

[Emerald Dragon]

"I value no one's life but my own Mr. Turos. But the sheer delight of understanding your ignorance brings a wonderful shine to the whole situation, don't you think?" She smiled somewhat seductively, removing the dagger from his hand.

It was obvious to her that he had no idea what he was up against. His subterfuge was damaged due to a bad disguise, that was clear. Not to him, so to speak. Adele looked at the half-orc almost in fearful contempt, she played with her hair a little and flicked it out of her face, before turning back to the boy. She heard the man grunt from behind her, but made no indication that she was going to apologise. She gave him a defiant glare and turning to the boy she said watching over him with a gentle hand.

"The book has preserved his life. To remove it would be death to him. I care not for you mission, but if you kill the boy, then I have no choice but to kill you too. He is the one, I know it. We should venture to a library to find how we can exorcise the book from him but still be able to keep his life. I will not let him die under your control, do you hear me?" Her voice came out like the daggers she possessed herself, of course it was her pride that stopped her from letting him see her weakness.

[peachey]

"well next time knock down the _south_ gates", retorted Malakai.

Just then Ham decided to leap up onto the bar and yell something barely coherent about killing the owner of a certain mace. Malakai shifted his gaze back to the suit as Ham staggered out, "i have ... business to finish with the drunk one, and as for you, at least i control my own soul".

As he turned back to his next drink Malakai heard someone ask "either of you seen anything interesting to do in this town?". Malakai downed his last shot and said "No" as he turned and left in pursuit of ham.

Malakai deftly broke the arm of a foolish mugger as he left. It was time to pay the blacksmith a visit about a certain sword.

[Holliss]

A fleeting thought passed through Giladril's mind as he wondered what sort of creature he was about to follow on this "quest". Then it vanished, it didn't matter, there were undead out there to destroy.
His elfish ears picked up a distant ring coming from the bar causing the elf to chuckle under his breath as he imagined that poor floating armour being hit again. Eventually he would have to destroy that one as well but for now he was content to let it suffer.

Meanwhile, that pink cape was getting really annoying, it wasn't like the century aged Giladril to ever feel self conscious in public,
but that pink cape...

"Lead the way... thing... with... fork..., no that doesn't work, what are you? Don't stop, explain as we go to find this filth that must be destroyed."

[Sicopath]

Ham fought the urge to slay those who dared ask unneccesary questions, but at this very moment, he thought it would pay to be nice.

"I am an engineered specimen, my parent specimens were both Quintesson, one with near-perfect resistance to magical energy and the other, an accomplished mercenary leader. All Quintessons have an extent of trans-dimensional ability, which made us perfect for assassination. After extensive macro-engineering I was deemed a near-perfect specimen, and having that, nobody dared stand in my way when i chose to leave the order i was created to serve."

That last part was a lie, up until the fall of the August meteor upon the stronghold, the Order's stronghold was a graveyard for Ham's former comrades.
The two neared the tower, bunnies danced about their feet and hummingbirds sang in their wake, a refreshing mist filled the air, clouds seemed not to exist in the clear blue sky and trees lined the edges of the golden footpath, SAUSAGE TREES!

Suddenly, a rock hit Ham square in the face... Followed a fireball which burned the surrounding area, the grass, the bunnies, the SAUSAGE TREES! It was a mage, standing at the top balcony of the tower, another assassin, the sentry turned and ran back inside the tower, fun was to be had...

[Wildwind]

Zanath turned to watch the human leave the bar then turned back to the armour. Which seemed to be ignoring him. reaching into his pouch his hand grasped a pot, withdrawing his find Zanath found that he had got a pot of pink paint.
Zanath grined evilily and upended it on top of the animated armour. As it stood up spluttering with rage he turned tail and ran out of the bar, past a dark elf lying in the mud and down a side street.
After a sutible amount of time (and lifting several items from store fronts) he wandered back onto a main street and followed the faint voice of Ham up to the base of the tower.
Seeing a battle about to commence Zanath found a nice rock and sat down to wait and look for an inopertune time to barg in on the wrong side.

[ZitdemoN]

Bhren holding his jaw looked on as the two squabbled, then suddenly he felt Ogiratem's hand reef him off the ground. Shaking him like a rag doll, the large man barks -
"If you value HIS life, you won't let me take him back to my employer still attached to this damn book! Have you got my drift my friend?"

Dropping back to the ground Bhren tried to protest but his just clicked and he got nothing more than a sigh out, a painful one. Adele started her retorts and Bhren couldn't do anything more than stand there in silence. Again looking at the two, seeing them glare at each other with angst, Bhren couldn't help but feel uneasy with both of them.

"The book has preserved his life. To remove it would be death to him. I care not for you mission, but if you kill the boy, then I have no choice but to kill you too. He is the one, I know it. We should venture to a library to find how we can exorcise the book from him but still be able to keep his life. I will not let him die under your control, do you hear me?"

Looking at Adele glaring back at Ogiratem, Bhren still wasn't overly convinced. Neither of the two had the same intentions for the book and that would only lead to a lot of turmoil for Bhren considering he was the one in the middle. Forgeting his jaw, Bhren thrust his mouth open to say something and with a painful crunch it popped back into place. They both looked at him wincing in pain... "I don't suppose 'I' have a say in this at all..."

Ogiratem booming over the top of the small boy... "NO!!!". Bhren cowered back covering his face fearing another backhand from the giant. Adele stabbed the half-orc with her eyes, "Don't speak to him like that!!" And the two started to argue once more.

Bhren decided to take the opportunity to get away from them both. With the two arguing loudly, he peeped "i'm just going... to... the toilet, yes the toilet!" With little attention paid to him, Bhren made his way into a nearby establishment, ran past a whole bunch of drunken people and straight out the back door. Running down some back passages he made his way over the remaining rubble of the gate and out into the wasteland in search for the imp that plagued his past.

[The Creator]

He felt the dagger yanked from his hand, he watched the girl turn her back and flick her hair over her shoulder with a smirk, Ogiratem's fist curled as he prepared to take the girls head from her shoulders in one clean blow, but as he prepared his strike, his sense came back to him, What am I doing? What has this girl done to make me so mad? his hand fell back to his side quickly with an embarrsed look spreading over his face. Ogiratems hand flew out and grabbed the girls elbow and he dug his long fingers in between the joints with precision, she screamed and her arm flew out straight, Ogiratem's other hand grabbing the dagger out gently, fluently the blade slided up his sleeve, and with that he put both hands behind his back and glanced down at the girl with another wink over the crest of his glasses.

"Removing this book from the boy? You think we can do it without loosing little sir's life?" Ogiratem looked down with a releived sigh to where the boy had stood to let him know the good news, his head tilted in confusion when he saw nothing more then blank ground, "Where did he get to now?" Ogriatem turned looking over his shoulder and then back to the girl, "Now look what you've done! Did you see where he went? It seems we are working for equal goals, we might as well look for him together......."

:smokin:

[Emerald Dragon]

ooc: Just occured to me that Vespertine and her sword are reminiscent of Viconia and the sword Lilacor...is it just me, or have I been playing too much BGII?

Her elbow buckled under the pain it received from her assailant.

"You *******..." She slapped him forcefully with her free hand bringing it up openly to his cheek with sharp contact.

"The boy has run away can't you see. I don't blame you or myself. He has done it on his own accord. For you to openly blame me shows your immaturity, leave me be and let the boy die, you'll never get that book back in one piece." She flinched still feeling the beating pain rise up into her arm. Giving him a dark glare which was reflected back to her in the very same way she left him alone to find Sam.

"Poor Sammas...he must be heartbroken." She thought to herself sadly shaking her head while gently cradling her injured elbow.

[The Creator]

appreciate your assistance."

:smokin: