Zeitgeist Blue
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Nicole's devices sound like a EDM track you'd find in Spotify. Before the drop specifically. It's a synthesized sort of thing most of all, but you can hear the build up in the percussion and underlying musical elements layered all over one another. Listen a bit longer and if you understand music and you'd begin to hear the history of the song's genre. The use of more traditional and less electronic instruments. Though something's still missing though, like if you get a song and remove one half of the rhythm. Course that was all before Hex came and frizzed them out. Now cue scratching on the record noises.
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Nicole Nicole tried to pry the other girl's hands off her wheelchair but Corinne had put her weight forward, leaning down so that Nicole and her were eye-to-eye. Neither would she budge an inch from Nicole's attempts to push her away. And with the wheelchair pushed back against the wall, Nicole found herself with nowhere to escape. So she shut up, kept her lips pressed tight as Corinne spoke. Each word said put another weight on Nicole's shoulders, made her flinch and blush just a bit more from embarrassment. She knew these things about herself, even admitted to some of them the past few minutes, but there was a difference between keeping your faults deep down inside and ignoring them, and having them spoken out in the open by another. Laid bare, all she could do was struggle feebly and even that stopped by the time Corinne was done speaking. Her own hands laid tired and unmoving beside Corinne's as the silence wrapped around them. "S-- so what do you want?" Nicole said so quietly Corinne barely caught it. Then she drew her eyes up to meet Corinne's own. "What do you want? An apology? To talk?" She said again, still quiet but also frustrated, and her hands balled into fists. "What the hell does it matter to you? You'll be leaving and we'll get to never see each other again." "You win, Corinne. You win."
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Complicated - Durf Salvo Changes Added Complications -> Added From Shadows to Light Change Bellios Device -> Weapons Suite Array -> Damage 10 (Flamethrowers/Hellfire) -> Change Descriptors (Water) to Descriptors (Magic) Remove Second picture Bellios Device -> Sensory Suite Array -> Super-Senses 9 (Radar) -> Remove Analytical [+1]
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Nicole She heard a bump as Rita approached and Nicole frowned slightly. She must be imagining things and so she pushed the sound out of her mind. Then Rita was beside her, ready to point out inconsistencies, help her navigate through the maze of documents. Another bump. Nicole almost jumped out of her seat and she stole a glance around the room while Rita was not looking. Her mind must be playing tricks with her, replaying the sounds of the unlucky mice in her head. She had perfect memory, true, but still she had never known her mind to be so subtle as to blur the lines between the present and the past. Even she had been fooled. She shook her head, focusing on Rita's instructions. She clicked here and there. She read through a quick summary then moved to where it suggested the possible commit would be. Rita seemed to be pleased with her progress and the doctor gave Nicole a challenge accompanied by a wide grin, teeth bared so close to the teenager. Bump. "I-- I think I've got it now. Just give me a few more minutes." Nicole gave a weak smile back, barely glancing at Rita, before she turned her eyes to the monitor. A cold sweat broke across her back and she had the urge to reach back and scratch but she did not. Instead she glued her eyes to the monitor, hand clicking the mouse like her life depended on it. All the while Rita looked over her shoulder, the bumps continually getting more frequent and louder. She had narrowed it down to 20 commits before she was stump and by then the bumps had gotten so close. Nicole pushed the keyboard away and she herself moved her wheelchair a bit from the desk and Rita. With the sleeve of her wrist, she wiped sweat from her brow though the room was cold from the air conditioning. "I need some help, but I'm so close. Can-- can you take a look for me?" Her eyes flickered to Rita then towards the door of the room. If only she could get out and find some place alone. She could close her eyes and Bellios would be summoned from the unseen places. "I've got to go to the washroom." Nicole said lamely, throwing her thumb to the door. "I'll be back in a bit."
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Let's have Nicole ignore the bumping for now. Build the suspense. Notice: 1d20+3 = 7 Search: 1d20+9 = 25
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Nicole Nicole held a glass of champagne in her hand as she was greeted by Dio and gave the dragon a smile before sipping from her glass. Her eyes followed Dio's gaze to Huang and his mother. "Not much," she finally replied, absently swirling her drink in one hand. "The Master Mage's been keeping house, learning the ropes since the position was passed down two years ago. Can't say I'm envious. I hate other dimensions." Her whole body stiffened and she glanced at Dio from the corner of her eye. "I mean, except for yours . It sounds wonderful, at least from how Leroy describes it. And I wouldn't be surprised either if the duties of your world's Master Mage was coopted by his mom with how much he talks about her." Her brows furrowed in annoyance as her thoughts went to Leroy. "I swear, everything your ward says is 'My home's amazing!' and 'This world sucks!'." She waved her hand at Huang as if to ward off her foul mood. "Don't tell me you want to eat our schoolmate, or even hadn't yet smelled him around Claremont. Dhampir's the technical word and he's the good looking guy over there. He almost sparkles if you bring sunlight or fire near him so don't eat him too badly." She leaned closer to the dragon and patted Dio on the snout. "His mom's Prime's Master Mage and I'll give you three guesses as to who's the similar looking girl wearing Heshem's symbol is. The one pulling his leash right now." Her voice lowered as if telling a particularly dangerous secret, but she managed to keep her tone light enough that it was hard to be sure if she was entirely serious. "Be careful, Priest of Ghorummaz. I don't think native Master Mages take too kindly to multi-dimensional conquerers and their followers, even if Prime's never been on the menu."
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Nicole "Which means we're drinking alien cocktails tonight," Nicole said to Selena and Davyd. Nicole matched her friend's grin. Then she gestured at Lulu, catching the telepath's attention. "And you, Lulu? Coming with us and Sitara to a bar and deep space both or just one or the other?" She turned her head to look at Sitara and Seven both. "I think, Davyd," she said slowly and unknowingly trampling iver Davyd's curated lie. "That these two are better teachers than any zero G training we could get back on Earth." "And our mentor's fine with it, I think. This is all about cultural immersion for us and what better way than to do things with the locals? Are you bringing us to the Kavaca or to one of the terrible dive bars first?" Ortilac's parting words lent weight to Nicole's own. They were here to learn and mingle. Then the ambassador asked for last second questions and Nicole's comms buzzed with with Rakesh's curt suggestion. So she shook her head at the ambassador. "Nothing more to ask."
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Nicole "Guess it was just nerves." Nicole sighed with relief. She spent the next couple of minutes to Rita's office composing herself until she was ready to tackle the next problem. "I remember," Nicole replied to Rita's reminder. Then they were in Rita's office and after Nicole had pushed the door shut she moved towards the computer, taking the mouse in her hand. Whatever had once happened was now in the past. Now Nicole was in her element once more. Reams of information were as far from her as a few clicks of the mouse and soon the teenager had pushed everything from her mind save what was displayed on the computer screen. First, she read the terminology Rita's team used, her eyes scanning for a few seconds many explanations which made no sense to her yet. They would soon but first she had to start from the very beginning of this scientific endeavor. She learnt with Rita and the team. Took the first tepid steps into uncharted territory. Explored new boundaries. Experienced failures. She had soon reached the animal experimentation and the creation of the nanomachine mice. She pushed through, until the mice no longer became like abominations but were better all the more for the nanomachines. Still, the scientists could not figure out why the initial testings had gone horribly wrong. They scratched their heads and scratched some more and Nicole herself could see the frustration mounting there. Finally, Nicole pushed herself back from the monitor, her fingers rubbing the strain from her eyes. A glance at the clock showed her the passage of time since she had took to reading. In some ways she had advanced her understanding of the Rita's research but in others she was still frustrstingly in the dark. The horrible documentation obscured the cause and effect of... anything really. Too many versions and comments of one thing, some of them contradictory. It was a mess to say the least. "Done," Nicole said, to Rita or an empty room it did not matter. "This would take some more time to unpack but I've got the basic gist."
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Got it. This'll be my first priority when I get to sit down and post.
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Sure! How many HPs so I burn? Search: 1d20+9 = 10 Notice: 1d20+3 = 6 Oof. Not good rolls.
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Computers: 1d20+15 = 31 Knowledge (Physical Sciences): 1d20+12 = 28 Knowledge (Technology): 1d20+15 = 17 Search: 1d20+9 = 12 Notice1: 1d20+3 = 10 Notice2: 1d20+3 = 20 And... here you go. Look at that spread.
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Nicole Nicole let out a breathe she did not know she was holding as they left the room. The last image had shaken her especially so. Mice-- things moving so much in synch couldn't but churn her imagination. Were the mice even conscious of their surroundings or were the nanomachines in complete control, the mice only able to watch helplessly as a force they could not understand made them move there or look here? She rubbed at her arms, suddenly cold though the hallway's temperature had not lowered from before. "Yeah, but thanks anyway," Nicole said, returning Rita's look though not the smile. She took no time to bow her head down as the elevator ascended. She had made up her mind on Rita's research before the elevator doors had closed. Dangerous, so so dangerous, and until what went wrong could be isolated and eliminated thoroughly human testing shouldn't even be a consideration. That some in Rita's team did so anyway made her feel even colder, and so she retreated further into her thoughts. Then she heard a bump. Nicole almost jumped in her seat. "What-- what was that?" She asked, looking around until her eyes landed on Rita. "Did you hear something or am I just jittery?"
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Nicole It was during class that her phone had received a text message informing her of the gathering at the Elder Sign on the eve of Summer Solstice. She had heard of the recent origins of the Elder Sign and had blanched visibly as her thoughts moved towards the Terminus Invasion. Still, the text had no origin phone number and the particular mystery intrigued her. It was about an hour's work before she had found the Master Mage's sigil embedded. A series of calls to her other magically inclined schoolmates allowed her to confirm what she had suspected, and also allowed her to tease Huang about Mommy calling his friends for his birthday party. A magical gathering, hosted by no less than the Master Mage herself, Taylor Faretti. She liked these gatherings and had attended a number of them, from potlucks in some rented community hall to this dinner event that would undoubtedly be the talk of the town for a few weeks. No where else could one gather as diverse a magical knowledge as in these gatherings. No where else could Nicole be allowed to pick someone's mind on their opinion on triplicated faerie-anger used as a power source for huftenberries. The answer is, of course, to quadruple it and add a pinch of lithium from seven day old batteries. She had informed her schoolmates that she would be arriving early and would wait for them there, which is how she had found herself all alone by the Elder Sign's border. She wore a sleeveless dress that reached to her knees, a sash tied around her waist, and purse tucked comfortably beside her lap. She had just finished tracing a series of runes that would allow her to navigate the wards. And so, glasses glowing a faint purple, she waved her phone across the runes. As far as catalysts go, a Bluetooth signal was as unobtrusive as they come.
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Nicole Nicole's eyes grew wide in surprise and she quickly pulled her hand back as the mice began to move towards her, one mice bumping against the glass. Then more of them came, bumping against the glass, until Nicole could hear the thuds of hard bodies. No rhyme or rhythm, but unceasing, it filled Nicole's ears as close as she was. She moved back and away from the glass, eyeing the mice warily. She wasn't meant to see things like these. That was what Salvo was for, to put up a barrier between her and the outside world. Physically armored, but also mentally, psychologically. Outside of it, she was just a normal teenager. But she was a teenager who found a morbid sight, and like watching ants tear into a small animal's corpse she couldn't tear her eyes away from it now, not even if it made her feel like throwing up a little. She had to see it through. "Agreed," Nicole said in response to Rita's words. "I'd--" Her voice wavered and she paused, took a deep breathe, and continued more forcefully. "I'd like to see your documentation, especially on the testing and results of these... mice. Please. See what's changed between the iterations of the nanomachines used."
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Salvo = 35 posts = 35 posts = 3PP Down in the Underground (11) Everybody Make a Scene (6) Hammer and Scalpel: City Night Heist (2) Happiness in Slavery (6) Scene: Terrifica and Salvo (3) Stellar School (5) The Tale of Two Trees (3) Extra-curriculars = 1 post = 1 post = 1PP Eros Unlimited Profile
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Nicole Nicole gave Selena a wide grin at Sitara's offer. She had been expecting to ask, beg, and cajole Chawla to let the both of them leave the Li's hospitality sectors when they had the time, and if none of those worked then they might have had to sneak out to find someone who would agree to take them. Yet here was an offer not two seconds after Selena and her had come up with an itinerary. "See?" Nicole said, looking as pleased as if she had planned Sitara's offer. "We've got a ship already. Now all we need is a good excuse to duck out for a few hours." She had depleted her questions for Ortillac, so she turned to Selena and Sitara. The diplomatic proceedings and Leroy's exit both faded to the background. She knew they would be called to witness the end of the proceedings once the questions had died down. "It's funny how many things are the same in other worlds as it is on Terra. Legal drinking age for one. I don't know the protocol for when you're light years away from home." Nicole leaned forward to hear the alien better. "But how did you do things when you were young, Sitara?"
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Nicole "What... happened here?" Nicole resisted the urge to blanch as the room's only installment was revealed to her. Mice, yet made wrong. She paused by the doorway before pushing forward into the room, her brows furrowed in determination. Her journey to the middle of the room seemed longer to her than the several seconds it should have took her, but she reached the glass cage and placed a hand over it. There was disgust yes, a growing sense of anger, but pity washed over both. "You poor things," she said. These unlucky mice were victims more than monsters, grotesque in such a way that she could not tear her eyes from the sight. She could see eyeballs stuck out in metallic snail-like contraptions. One mouse wriggled across the ground, legless, like a worm. Several mice were fused together, heads and limbs jutting out with no rhyme in a mass of flesh and steel, and they sat immobile. Yet Nicole carved everything she saw into memory. "I bet if there's anything you'd want right now it's to be fixed of this." Then a shiver ran up her spine and she could feel heat color her cheeks. She whirled on Rita. "And your colleagues want to go through with human subjects after this? There shouldn't be any chance of this happening! Not 1%, not half a percent. None."
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Nicole She couldn't help but whimper as Corinne invaded her space, an inch or two separating the girls noses. Corinne's stare made her squeamish and her own eyes flickered to the sides as if searching for an escape, before she averted the whole of her face to the side. Her wheelchair moved backward in an attempt to escape Corinne's grasp until she hit the wall beside Marquez's office and she could go no further. "You're... Right." Two words and they made her feel terrible unlike anything else said since. Emotions warred across her face - defiance, anger and shame - before the light in her eyes went out and she let her whole body sag. Defeated. Tired. Those were her last words to Corinne in their last afternoon together, though they did not just refer to the now. Corinne was always in the right.
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Nicole Ambassador Ortilac's made fine points. Humanity needed to band together first instead of squabbling among each other, and also institutionalize systems related to metahumans. Claremont was a step towards that, but she knew that she was one of the privileged few to have gone through its training. There were many others who had less to go on and some of them were vulnerable enough to be snatched up by vultures to use powers for criminal activity. Those assembled took offense at her and her questions, but she was merely asking out of curiosity so she ignored the murmurs and pointed looks her way. Then Ortilac turned his attention to Leroy, and Nicole and Gauss leaned in towards one another. "Or we could board a ship and go to the asteroid field we passed on the way here. Imagine." Nicole's eyes sparkled. "Zero-gravity and deep-space space rocks. How much could you move without anything pulling you down?" She noticed then Ortilac beaming down at them though she did not know why. A quick mental replay of the past few seconds revealed his question, and ever happy to learn more Nicole raised her hand again. "Ambassador, are there any pertinent cultural or historical facts about the Li we should know about? I would like to know if the Coalition embraces the diversity of its many worlds instead of merely gathering them for their technological advancements."
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Nicole "Everyone wants progress, in their own way, I guess," Nicole said in lieu of asking more questions. No words were spoken between the two women as the elevator descended. Instead, Nicole went through some of the mental exercises she had learned from Marquez and Terrifica. How to make certain experiences stick less to your mind, to dissociate them from events and things and people that would otherwise be marred by mental proximity. Finally, the doors opened and theymoved forward and when Rita asked again if she wanted to proceed, Nicole nodded her head vigorously. "I appreciate the concern, Rita." Nicole gave the doctor a reassuring smile, which quickly turned into a grin. "But I think it's important. All this secrecy... kind of makes a girl want to look even more."
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Nicole It was then that Nicole averted her eyes from Corinne, not just to get a rise but so she wouldn't need to meet the other girl's eyes. There was a pause, a break in the storm, as Corinne ended her tirade and Nicole brought her hands together in that silence, fingers interlocking. A second passed, turning into several more, and for a few minutes it seemed the only sound in the room was the clock's ticking. "My family died in a fire," Nicole finally said, still looking away so that Corinne couldn't see much of her face. "That was what the police said anyway. But I know magic and I know it was my family's hubris that got them killed. It speaks volumes that I have yet to shed a tear for their deaths but you care, even today, for merely almost killing your mother." "I lost the use of my legs from the backlash of magic and try as hard as I could and I can't remember what happened, but I sure as hell remember the rest of my life as if it were a minute ago. Bare feet through grass and streams, shivering on cold marble and baking on a summer afternoon. Those little snippets of freedom and all I chose to slip off my pumps. Of all the things--" Her hands balled into fists, trembling, before she spun as far as she could in her chair to face Corinne. "So maybe I've wished I was you. Maybe I still do sometimes. Put us side by side together and who wouldn't pick you at the drop of a hat? You and your... plan that you love and chose for yourself. Your poise and your mile high legs and your pretty face. When you beam the room stops, cool yet approachable, friendly. Hell, even walking away from all this mess is admirable in its own way. Gifted, beautiful, a billionaire's kid while I'm a cripple," she spat. "One who runs on damn spite and the power high whenever I bear the name of Salvo." She moved her wheelchair forward until she was right in front of Corinne and she had to crane her neck to meet the other girl's eyes. "But I'm still better than you and you know why? Because there are three thousand people and their families who don't care about any of that. Three thousand dead from when the Terminus invaded and there would have been thousands more if it weren't for us deluded, brainwashed, spiteful people." Her voice quavered and her eyes were wet but still she looked defiant and she jabbed an accusing finger at Corinne. "I was there, in the middle of the fighting for days. Where were you Corinne? Tell me, where the hell were those shields when the three thousand dead needed them?"
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Nicole Corinne spoke for the first time and Nicole's face betrayed her surprise, head zipping back to the room, and just as quickly her features settled into a serene smile. Eyes half-lidded she matched Corinne's energy level and, cupping her chin by a hand, leaned forward. "Maybe, maybe, maybe." With each word Nicole's smile grew wider until her teeth showed, white against dark skin, as she worked herself up. "Maybe all of the above or maybe none at all. Or maybe I was too subtle for you? Then let me say it straight." The smile turned into a sneer, body tense now, and she jabbed a finger at Corinne. "To hear you talk, it's like you're the greatest martyr to ever tread foot on this school. And that has never changed." She threw tortured hands into the air. "Woe is me for I am cursed with great powers. That's what you sound like." Then her hands fell to her sides and her voice grew quieter but no less strained. "Like, would it hurt you so much to acknowledge that maybe you've been handed a gift a billion others would kill to have? To be thankful instead of so damn snide about it to everyone sane enough to understand this like you've been to me ever since Sophomore year?" She sniffed and swiveled her wheelchair so she would face away from Corinne. "You think you're better but maybe it's just the opposite."
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Nicole One of her eyes twitched as Corinne met her with nothing but silence. She maneuvered her chair to better face the other girl and Nicole scowled, willing her to look back and acknowledge that someone was talking to her. And no, Corinne's murmurs only counted to piss Nicole off some more. Finally and with a very long sigh, Nicole gave up. This whole bull**** didn't matter and it was obvious there was no getting a rise out of Corinne. "Whatever, not like doing this will get me the valedictorian. Can't even break above the As if there're no letters above them." So she moved to the window, as far from as she could within the confines of the room. Blinds hid the school grounds from Marquez's view but Nicole rolled them a smudge open, peeking out as if she would see the graduation if she tried hard enough. "Of course you don't care. You don't care enough to even talk to me so why should you care about any of this." Lazily, she spun a hand in the air. Her voice was calmer but all the more judgemental because of it. "Corinne, the dancer. Corinne, going to Juliard. In a few months' time Claremont will be nothing but a bad dream. I really do wish I could be as grateful as you."
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Nicole "I guess it wasn't that bad if nobody got hurt," Nicole said, turning to her friend. "Or died." She sighed then turned her attention to the waiting assembly. A thought niggled at the back of her mind, waiting for an answer, and she raised her hand for all to see, her eyes on Ambassador Ortilac. "Besides the obvious benefits of intergrating a new system state into your galactic-wide organization, what does the Coalition hope to gain from the Lia civilization? I imagine there was something about the Lia state which had caught the eye of the Coalition heads and allowed it to pass the prerequisite conditions so it could be accepted." Her question seemed to end there but after a moment's pause she spoke up again, voice cutting through the room. "And why hasn't there been an offer been extended Terra considering its proliferation of extra-normal citizens, which could allow it to offer the Coalition both military and scientific contributions disproportionate to its size? Given the record of past Praetorian and Terran superhuman operations wouldn't a more extensive cooperation be in both parties' best interests?
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Nicole "If you're so determined to miss all of this, why don't you try another go at it?" Nicole said blithely, barely looking at the other dimensional prince. "Maybe if you annoy Chawla enough he'll let you go just to keep you quiet." Nicole crossed her arms and faced away from Leroy. She had resolved not to spend her last Claremont field trip herding cats like the Sun Dragon as there were much more fascinating going-ons than his failed bathroom break. Being in space was one thing. Space! And not merely within the Sol system but lightyears farther than she'd actually ever imagined travelling. She had thought herself an Earth-bound girl but the opportunity to witness the diplomatic union had come and she couldn't pass the chance up. One last field trip. So many aliens, and technology, and culture, and worlds all together to witness the Lia sign, just like four Claremont students aboard the A Grace in Steel. She was lucky the rest of her soon-to-be former schoolmates were not as determined to kick themselves out. Then Sitara the Traveller appeared beside them, whispering into Leroy's ear. "You're the Praetorian," Nicole interrupted, her universal translator working to convert English to Gal Standard. She was now only half-listening to the ambassadorial proceedings. "Sitara the Traveller. Why're you--." Her lips pressed together before she could throw a barrage of questions. Slowly, she extended her hand. "Hi, I'm Nicole Whitfield-Hall and this klutz is Leroy Ransom-Conte." With her free hand, she lightly slapped the prince's shoulder. "And he's so sorry for breaking your ship, right Leroy?"
