Mini-Grand 5317 [Round 1: The Marianas Moray]

[Schazer]

Loading Mini-Grand Framework... Done.

Generating Administration Personality... Generation compromised.

Continue anyway? Y/N_

Y

Applying administrative personality... Done.

"Fuck. Alright. who are you Do I just- yeah, ok. Looks like I can-"

Generating Characters... /home/gbce/.../characters not found.

Importing Characters from /home/gbce/.../contributors... Done.

Generating Characters... Done.

Four beings suddenly found themselves nowhere, able to see one another but nothing else. A synthesized voice came out of the nothing surrounding them.

"Shit. There's input limits? Fine. You guys've probs got thisplease identify, it's a Mini-Grand.please Don't die if you can avoid it. Or kill each please get outother, for fuck's sake. Just get me out of here already. Or you're fucking dead. That makes sense, shut up. I just want I can't seem to crack the intro clips do my jobto get more words to you, so just listen, I guess?

"Th- the- the first contestant is Mjilner Recognised non-founder Administrator of the Grand Battles access database and, um, he possesses animal magnetism.

"The second contestant is Lunarian. His abilities include prophetic dreams.

"Our third contestant: LanguorousSudachi, an empathic apimancer.

"Our final contestant is Prince Tristan, who... isn't actually the son of a king. He is, however, a master tactician whose speciality is unorthodox strategies.

Generating setting......... Done."

The four generated characters suddenly found themselves moved, scattered in various locations within a great, steel submersible which swam the ocean's deepest trench.

"Ok, if this shitI thought you left didn't glitch out, you guys are presumably in round one. I've got no fucking clue what's going on there, but something about compensation for a low Discourse Index?wait, you shouldn't know Whatever. I assume you've all got-"

Unauthorised access detected to GBCE framework.

Closing connections...

Deleting compromised administrative personality... done.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

The contestants heard a great snarl from beyond the tiny, blackened portholes in the ship's flanks, before the whole structure shuddered to a halt.

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1. Ixcalibur: Mjilner (green)
2. Solaris: Lunarian (#BA3B42)
3. SleepingOrange: LanguorousSudachi (#000099)
4. Dragon Fogel: Prince Tristan (#0080FF)

Username: Ixcaliber
Name: Mjilner
Gender: Male
Race: Borin' Human
Colour: Green
Abilities: Mjil has the inexplicable ability to attract any local wildlife into his immediate vicinity, whether he likes it or not. He's only just discovered this ability. He does not have any command of the animals in question. If they are violent they'll probably be violent towards him. The beginning and end of his ability is as a wildlife magnet.

Description: Mjil is a boring human with long dark brown hair (longer than shoulder length but not all the way down his back) green-grey eyes hidden behind a pair of rectangular glasses and a scraggly beard. He wears a black t-shirt with a stylised green hammer on it and dark green pants. He is usually barefoot.

Mjil mostly keeps himself to himself. He is sort of introspective and is likely to go over things in his head a few times before coming out with them. If he doesn't have anything new to contribute to a conversation he probably won't.

Biography: Mjilner is an unemployed English would-be author with a short attention span and an almost fanatical devotion to collaborative writing competitions known as Grand Battles. He spends a lot of time hanging out chatting to internet friends under this assumed moniker, pretty much going nocturnal in an attempt to be on at the best time for internet chats. Bizarrely he enjoys working on the Grand Battle Wiki and will probably take the time to make a page for the battle.

Username: El sol y la luna
Name: Lunarian
Gender: Boi
Race: Homo sapien
Colour: fuck you ix i wanted green [#BA3B42]
Description: He's wearing nice thin and black glasses with a polo shirt like some douche. The polo is a very nice green color with white stripes. He's got black hair that's cut pretty short and he's a bit tan because his family is from the Caribbean. He has a watch. He's got jeans. He's got nice tennis shoes. Those last things are all blue.

He might be one tub of hair gel away from looking like sort of a douche bag but he is isn't I swear. He is sort of savvy about things and can usually tell why someone is mad and likes to attempt to console them. He is usually focused on presenting himself in a nice manner, but sometimes he sort of flips character, in that sometimes he's cynical and other times he is overtly naive and he doesn't know when he does it and he might be a bit schizophrenic but oh well. When he gets mad he sort of gets in a huff and then just cries afterward. He doesn't like to break things.

He doesn't really pay attention to romance or anything.

He also really fucking hates dogs.
He really does.
Don't let them near him.
Items/Abilities: He doesn't really have any powers other than sometimes he falls asleep and then he dreams things that later make him have Deja Vu so I suppose you could say that he's maybe a prophet or something. He isn't athletic but he's not a wimp either and he could probably punch out fuckin brits who keep tryin to out do him FUCK YOU MIJ (just kidding i love you <please love me>).
He also has a new internet capable PEARGENIUSUPHONE that he may or may not know how to use.
Biography: High School Senior who spends an inordinate time on the internet, having amassed an obnoxious amount of posts on some internet forum (over 10,000) for no reason other than obsession and alleged love. Most of them are in the Games Sub Forum or the Collab Subforum. He finds himself in the unfortunate situation where he's in the middle of everything and finding conflicting feelings between the different parts of the forum and while it isn't his problem he can't fucking help trying to fix everything. He wishes that everything could be unicorns and rainbows on that forum but it will never be. He idol worships various forum peoples such as the Grand Battle supah stars and certain people of bird and cracker nomenclature.

One day he will fly over to a specific Austrian's house and beat him up just because.

Username: SeepingLorringe
Name: LanguorousSudachi, although most people just call him Ludachi these days.
Gender: The manliest man
Race: The humanliest human
Colour: A nice royal blue [#000099]
Description: Ludachi is a dude who doesn't like the things you do and wants to make sure you know it. He'd use words like "sassy" or "acerbic", but you know he's an asshole. He's just smart enough to be condescending about it.

Appearance-wise, he's of average height but with the shoulders of someone six inches taller. It makes him look blocky rather than intimidating or attractive. He's fitter than he should be for all the time he spends on the internet. His light-brown hair is inexcusably long, and he wears it in a ponytail. He has square glasses that don't quite make it look like he's not scowling. He is currently wearing crisp khaki slacks, a royal-blue buttonup, a grey sweatervest, and inexplicably a ruby tie. He always has his trademark Stupid French Hat. Yes he really dresses like that, no there's not a reason for it.
Items/Abilities: Ludachi always carries a black messenger bag with him, even when he's a mysteriously abducted simulation. It contains a Macbook Pro, a spare battery for same, a power cord, three notebooks, a set of artist's markers, a bag of sunflower seeds, and a wide variety of small and useless things. He sometimes jokes that his bag is the physical manifestation of his character Vorm; it's not very funny when he does this. He knows how to use various firearms but doesn't carry any with him, are you crazy? He has a black umbrella.

THE ORANGE OF SLUMBER POUNCES LIKE A WOLF IN THE NIGHT Ludachi has a wide array of mundane skills, most only moderately developed and some only imaginarily so. HE CALLS STARS FROM THE SKIES AND CAN KILL WITH A GLANCE He has the Amazing Power™ to sense emotions if he concentrates. Which is totally different from figuring out how someone feels by observing them. He keeps bees in every universe in every iteration of himself.

Bees are the best.
Biography: Ludachi is in his twenties and he does lots of things. What of it? He is highly bland and is currently one of those college students looking for work you hear so much about. He'd rather you forgot about his sordid high-school adventures and focus on the fact that now he's the kind of person who wears a sweatervest.

Username: Dragon Fogel
Name: Prince Tristan
Gender: Male
Race: Human, Caucasian if you want to be more precise.
Colour: Kickin' it oldschool with Eximo Blue (#0080FF)
Biography: A 30 year-old veteran of the Internet, Tristan hung out at a few other sites (and did some unimportant stuff like getting a Bachelor's degree in math) before eventually coming to whatever the Selvsetterverse equivalent to this place is called, I forget if we specified.
Although the site had a focus on art, Tristan was never much for it; however, when the writing-oriented Grand Battles started up, he found the idea very appealing and immediately signed up. At first, his entry (a vampiric toaster) wasn't taken seriously, but with a little insistence that yes, he was seriously entering a toaster into a battle to the death, he was allowed in.
His character immediately became a favorite, and after a year he proceeded to win the battle. In the process, he made quite a few friends and took on quite a few battle-related responsibilities.
He never could get random people to stop calling him "Prince", though.
Description: Prince Tristan is about six-foot tall, has brown hair that used to be blond, and wears glasses.

He's generally a pretty easygoing guy, though he can be irritable sometimes. He's got Asperger's Syndrome and is often reluctant to start a conversation with someone he doesn't know very well. He tries to be diplomatic when he does talk to people, and generally gets along with them well enough when he actually opens up a bit.

He can also be very, very silly when he chooses to be. Which is pretty often.
Items/Abilities: Tristan knows math reasonably well, but he's forgotten some of the more advanced stuff off the top of his head. (Do not talk to him about complex analysis.) Still, he can get lost in an interesting problem once in a while.

His main specialty is unconventional tactics. He has a number of weird and wacky ideas in his head, and every once in a while he comes up with a way to make one of them work. Whether it's sheer skill or if there's something else to it, no one is entirely sure.

One side effect of this is that he's got a good knack for tactics-oriented video games.

Finally, he has a "talent" for badly-drawn art. He may find a way to make use of this.

Tristan carries a Hewlett-Packard laptop, and an original-model Nintendo DS. Also his wallet and house key, though the latter probably won't be particularly useful.

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I've decided to keep the Marianas Moray's purpose reasonably nebulous, so whether it's a military stronghold or a research station (alien or otherwise) or some kind of covert transport device is up to you. It's just over a mile long, about two hundred feet in interior diameter, and until something happened just now it was cruising the length of the Marianas Trench.

The "Discourse Index" referenced simply refers to the likelihood of the contestants to engage in violence against each other. A low index configures round generation to something which may facilitate someone getting killed in a reasonable space of time.

Ready? Go!

[SleepingOrange]

Ludachi scowled, although it would probably be more accurate to say he scowled harder. With exaggerated care and slowness, he folded up his umbrella and hooked the handle into the strap of his messenger bag; after all, there was no sense carrying an umbrella in some kind of claustrophobic brushed-steel corridor. Having done that calm, sensible thing, Ludachi took a deep breath.

And completely lost his shit.

It was a very internalized shit-losing: there was no point in screaming, no reason to run one way over another, and the omnipresent threat of lethal spiderbearghosts or whatever hiding around every corner if this was indeed a Battle. The shit-loss primarily manifested as hyperventilation and racing thoughts, spinning fragments of concepts and conceits all orbiting the main theme of "I am going to die."; after a few moments, he exhaled sharply and slumped against the wall. Ludachi had had a panic attack before, and wasn't keen on experiencing one again, so he just concentrated on breathing and shutting out all the intrusive (though justified) paranoia.

With that out of the way for the moment, he listened to the sounds of his ragged breath and the odd groaning from whatever vessel he was in. It was almost relaxing, and for the moment, nothing was actively trying to kill him just yet. So... What should he do? It wasn't even as though he knew anything about the setting, since apparently the host was completely borked.

Then again, it's not like there wasn't a precedent to follow.

He pulled out his laptop and opened it up; Colloquy bounced merrily on his taskbar as it automatically opened, but was quick to inform him he had no internet connection. Just as he was about to vomit a stream of invectives on his keyboard, a helpful popup explained that "None of his trusted networks could be found" and cordially asked if he'd "Like to join the open network AureateGrasp". Ludachi shrugged internally and decided it was worth a shot.

Colloquy promptly connected him to his regular channels, still displaying the tail-end of last night's chats.

[11:16pm] <PrinceTristan> It might have been a last name in the dream.
[11:17pm] <PrinceTristan> Actually, if he did that, you'd essentially be eating air.
[11:17pm] <PrinceTristan> Only it would be bread.
[11:17pm] <Ludachi> Whoah man
[11:17pm] <Ludachi> Like
[11:17pm] <Ludachi> Whoah
[11:17pm] <Ludachi> You blew my mind
[11:18pm] You left the chat by being disconnected from the server. (MIND BLOWN TOO THOROUGHLY FOR IRC)
[09:46am] You rejoined the room.
[09:46am] <SirDude> Hey Ludo
[09:47am] <rrrafk> Lorryblor~
_______>> rrrafk is now known as clockles.
[09:47am] <Ludachi> What the shitting cockknuckling goddamn hell is going on here
[09:47am] <Mediaclock> morning Ludachi
[09:47am] <Ludachi> I swear to fuck, if Selvie's not on
[09:48am] <Ludachi> I am going to kill everything forever
[09:48am] <MrCommanderson> Huh?
[09:48am] <Ludachi> Of course that's probably what's going to happen anyway
[09:48am] <Ludachi> Or even more likely everything forever is going to kill me
[09:49am] <MaybeAWriter> No, she hasn't been on since her last weird outburst
[09:49am] <MaybeAWriter> Why?
[09:49am] <Ludachi> The fuck do you think, MAWile
_______>> HwiNoree joined the chat room.
[09:49am] <HwiNoree>: Hi there
_______>> enary|Away is now known as enary.
[09:50am] <enary>: Morning all.
[09:50am] <enary>: Whoah, what's all this about, Ludachi?
[09:51am] <Ludachi> You tell me Mr Computerman
_______>> cooks left the chat room. (Ping timeout: 192 seconds)
[09:51am] <Ludachi> /Whois my hostmask IP or whatever it is
[09:52am] <enary> "Ludachi@q-555-55585-5555-finchdotfinch.fnc"
[09:52am] <enary> So this is...?
[09:52am] <Ludachi> Yes this is exactly dot dot dot question mark
[09:52am] <Ludachi> And unless I've gone completely batfuck, Lunarian, Mjil, and Tristan are in it with me
[09:52am] <Ludachi> Like
[09:53am] <Ludachi> It is composed entirely of people from this chat
[09:53am] <Arrex> Oh noes :o
[09:53am] <enary> Well, umm... Where are you and what's going on?
[09:54am] <enary> Ludachi?
[09:56am] <enary> Hello?
_______>> Ludachi left the chat room. (Ping timeout: 192 seconds.)

[Ixcalibur]

“What the fuck?” The bewildered sentiment delivered to an empty room could barely begin to convey Mjilner’s confusion at being thrust into a real life version of one of his favourite pastimes. Part of him was tempted to conclude that this could only be a dream and he’d rather like to wake up as soon as possible. But this attitude, this dumb refusal to accept the facts of your situation was something that always grated with Mjil, so reluctantly he opted to believe he really was in a Grand Battle. Of course that was easier said than done and there was a lingering doubt that refused to be quashed entirely. He chose to ignore it.

The implications of the battle itself, and the introduction by the pair of voices, were confusing and alarming. They raised more questions than Mjil had the time or the inclination to consider and so he decided to ignore them as well. The room he found himself in, little more than a claustrophobic metal box. There was something a whole bunch of diagrams he didn’t understand, and that was just about recognisable as a computer. One wall had a small round porthole through which could be observed absolutely nothing. The inky black of space, Mjil wondered? He quickly reconsidered this as it occurred to him that there was no gravity in space, then quickly reconsidered that when he realized that the normal rules need not apply any more. In the end he was perhaps more confused than he had been beforehand, and he chose to ignore this as well. He was doing pretty well at that at least.

* Now talking in #grandbattle
<Mjilner> finally
* You are now known as Mij|wikitimes
<SirDude> hey norse
<Mediaclock> Mijjie~
<clockles> mijjie~
<Mij|wikitimes> hey dude, medi
<Mij|wikitimes> pistle~
* clockles makeouts mij
<Mij|wikitimes> fuck how do i even use this computer?
<Mij|wikitimes> why does it have so many buttons and levers?
<Mij|wikitimes> i don’t think it was intended to be used quite like this
<Mij|wikitimes> pistle <3
<Mediaclock> what’s going on?
<Mij|wikitimes> gotta wiki this new battle
<Mij|wikitimes> obvs
<Mediaclock> ?
<SirDude> New battle?
<SirDude> You mean S@1?
<Mij|wikitimes> no, new minigrand thing
<Mij|wikitimes> gonna have to move my page to Mjilner (writer)
<SirDude> ahh minigrands
<SirDude> whatever
* SirDude is now known as Sir|TF2
<Mediaclock> I don’t see a new minigrand?
<enary> Mjil, Ludachi was here before saying you, he, Lunarian and Tristan were entered into a battle?
<Mij|wikitimes> yeah that happened
<clockles> mijjie :(
<Mij|wikitimes> it’s okay
<Mij|wikitimes> i am dealing with it
<Mediaclock> you’re in a battle?
<Mediaclock> D:
<enary> dealing with it?
*Mediaclock huggles Mij
<Mij|wikitimes> if the others show up tell them not to worry
<Mij|wikitimes> it will be okay
<Mij|wikitimes> I have the wiki under control
<Arrex> boop
<Arrex> mij want me to draw you a picture?
<Mij|wikitimes> No I am fine.
<Arrex> aww, okay
<Mij|wikitimes> I gotta go
<Mij|wikitimes> There are alarms going off?
<Mij|wikitimes> laters
* Mij|wikitimes quit (I GOT THIS)

[Dragon Fogel]

Tristan tried the door. It was locked.

Judging by his spartan surroundings and the hard ledge with a pillow and a blanket on it, he realized he must have had the good luck to begin the round in the brig. At least this cell seemed unoccupied.

Banging on the door and yelling "HEY I'M STUCK IN HERE GET ME OUT!" didn't yield any results. There was an alarm, but Tristan doubted that it was his doing. Most likely, there were no prisoners in the brig at all and checking on prisoners they didn't have wasn't a priority in an emergency situation.

Tristan sat down, dejected. Unsure of what else to do, he tried switching on his computer. Most of the programs inexplicably didn't work, even ones that didn't require an Internet connection, but after some fiddling around, he managed to connect to the one available network and then open IRC.

Now talking in #grandbattle
<enary> Hey Tristan. How goes the battle?
<PrinceTristan> I take it I'm not the first to show up in here, then.
<enary> Ludachi came by, then he was disconnected and then Mjil came in, now it's you.
<PrinceTristan> Huh.
<PrinceTristan> Now I wonder if it's even possible for two of us to get on at once. Maybe we'll have to talk face-to-face.
<PrinceTristan> Anyways, by the looks of things, I'm in the brig.
<PrinceTristan> It's an empty cell, but the door's locked anyways.
<enary> Maybe Les Point is working there!
<PrinceTristan> Very funny.
<PrinceTristan> Anyhow. I'm not sure how I can actually escape, I doubt bashing the door down with my laptop is going to work.
<PrinceTristan> I tried knocking and yelling. Nobody's here. So I'm guessing there's no actual prisoners.
<SirDude> Didn't Mjil say something about an alarm?
<PrinceTristan> Yeah, that's going off. No idea what it's for.
<PrinceTristan> I mean, I guess it could be an intruder alert, but I get the feeling we're in for a lot worse. This is a battle, after all.
<PrinceTristan> Anyways, if I get disconnected and one of the others comes in, tell them to get themselves thrown in the brig so I can get out of here.
<PrinceTristan> Or at least have a conversation. If I'm going to die, I don't want it to be for being too isolated to have character interactions.
<Mediaclock> ;_;
*Disconnected
*Attempting to reconnect...
Error: ShaDGAS*(fyaGFA(dfA

Tristan just stared at the screen and shut off the computer with a sigh. Lunarian was probably talking to them now. With little else to do, Tristan took out his DS and started playing.

He loaded up Regress Fights and decided to start a new campaign. Sure, he'd beaten it eight times already, but it would pass the time until help arrived.

[SleepingOrange]

There was an error connecting to the network.

Retry.

There was an error connecting to the network.

Retry.

There was an error connecting to the network.

"Fuck you, AirPort."

It wasn't yelled or spat, but more sighed out with the long-suffering air of someone very used to dealing with a coworker who disliked him as much as he did them. It just so happened that the coworker in this instance was a wireless networking program, and one that was very smugly useless in an inanimate sort of way.

The macbook made a little fwup noise as it shut, and Ludachi's shoes made rather louder thudding ones as he stood up. No sense wasting battery until AirPort stopped sulking. Besides, there was a whole whatever-this-place-was to explore and three other contestants to find, plus whatever innumerable lurking horrors might exist to get mauled by. It was going to be a busy day, so he might as well get started. Ludachi habitually straightened his glasses as he scanned the corridor, but he wasn't really paying attention to his surroundings; he was idly wondering if this meant that someone out there was writing for him and he was just a character, or if this was actually real. Weren't Mini-Grand characters simulations anyway? This train of thought and all the niggling questions that it brought up were almost certainly the reason someone as staid and cautious as Ludachi was capable of wandering towards a door and going through it, knowing full well that sooner or later things would be trying to kill him. Maybe it didn't matter!

Or maybe it did and this was all just coincidentally like fiction, but that sort of thinking was easily repressed.

He was in a ship, he was pretty sure. Whether it was a space sort or a submersible sort or even a time sort who knows with these sorts of things wasn't as apparent, but it was definitely shiplike. The portholes in the corridor confused him a little, since it was impossible to see anything through them and they were almost certainly a weak point in the hull. Still, the portholes at least a mundane mystery; the contents of the room he'd found himself in were just baffling. It was almost like a cheesy Sci-Fi flick come to life; hundreds of weapons that didn't so much look futuristic as looked like they wanted to look futuristic lined shelf upon shelf and rack upon rack. Many were pretty arcane, but most screamed "Gun, but fancy!". All in all, they were pretty clearly designed for bipedal anthropoids of about human size.

The PROPERTY OF UNITED STATES NAVY stamped onto each one served only to reinforce that notion.

One pistolesque little weapon drew Ludachi's eye; it was labeled LIPC and looked like the lovechild of a 1950s ray-gun and a cyberpunk's wet dream.

"I was just reading about these the other day. I'm pretty sure they're bigger than that, though," he said to no-one in particular. "Still!"

He picked it up, and a very shrill klaxon sounded. And again. And about infinity more times, if the pattern held up. Replacing the lightning-gun did very nothing to soothe the siren, though, so he held onto it.

"Huh."

Ludachi wandered back into the corridor.

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My current idea, which is by no means binding, is that the Moray is a (probably-unmanned) weapons secreted by the government in the last place anyone would ever find it. Feel free to expand on or ignore this notion.

[Solaris]

There are five well-known stages of grief. They are, in order, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Normally, being thrust in a battle to the death against your will when you are nothing but a seventeen year old kid without much on you besides some stupid phone and your own wits, would cause anyone to go through any and all of the stages, possibly stopping and then running on anger to get through, or denying the event utterly and completley while attempting some more sensible reason, or even yes, accept your role as nothing more than an itty-bitty speck in the grand scheme of the multiverse.

Which was now confirmed to exist of course. Along with a large number of things that Lunarian certainly did not want to dwell on. Regardless, the feeling that the high-schooler, notably the only one in the battle, was not grief, but shock. He was shocked that he didn't realize it sooner. It was only then that he moved into grief, at first denying that he could have known, then trashing about his room in anger at his naivete, bargaining about a next time that wouldn't happen, and finally depressing himself on to the floor, frozen in agony at what he could have possibly prevented, if only he knew that his dreams were prophetic all along.

*ping*

Lunarian looked down at the source of the sound. He saw that his phone had automatically began to connect to IRC, specifically a channel that he frequented very often...

-->| YOU (Lunarian) have joined #grandbattle
=-= Topic for #grandbattle is "Welcome to the GrandBattle IRC. || See also: #GBGames for video game chatting || Planning and meta thread! http://tinyurl.com/3yuxc5o || wiki: http://to.ly/5AyQ || Awful things http://miburl.com/rr6ffD || S@ http://tinyurl.com/7g7rhrr"
=-= Topic for #grandbattle was set by enary!~enary@gkr-142-68-3.eastlink.ca on Monday, November 07, 2011 6:17:54 PM
<enary> And so we have ever piece on the board. How are ya Lun?
<MrDeane> Mornin all
<MrDeane> Oh hey Lun, what's up

There was a pause. What would he say? What could he say?

<enary> Tristan, Mijil, and Ludachi all came on in already
<enary> Tristan wanted to pass along a message
<Mediaclock> Lunnie are you there?

Words went on ranging from worried to passive to jokey in that sad worried way. Eventually, he began to type up something. Something very big.

<Lunarian> Okay so i knew about this except not really and sort of, okay remember all of those dreams that i talked about sometimes about stuff, one of which was a lot of me being in stupid and weird and impossible places and there were times that i was with other people and i was like, man this would make an awesome grand battle round and stuff
<Lunarian> well voice says that i have prophetic dreams
<Lunarian> fucking /prophetic dreams/
<Lunarian> the dreams were fucking real, all of them, i could have fucking stopped this, i could have stopped this
<enary> Oh come now, like you could have know they were real events before now
<MrDeane> Yea man, don't be so down in the dumps about this
* Mediaclock hugs Lunarian
<Lunarian> no, i should have realized it, no
[ERROR] Connection to irc://irc.esper.net/ (irc://irc.esper.net/) closed. [[Help][Get more information about this error online][faq connection.closed]]

Lunarian stared at the error message for a while before standing up from his slumped position.
"Okay. I know where Tristan is. I can get through this."
Tears started to form.
"I can get through this."
His grip on his phone began to shake.
"I can get through this."
Without another word, he accepted his words and ran off to where he thought he would find his friend and fellow writer.
He was right, he could get through it. The question was, would he?

[Ixcalibur]

Mjilner had fully intended to investigate the alarm. He’d opened up the thick metal door that and had peered out into the long corridor beyond, flashing red with the intermittent light of the alarm, when it occurred to him that perhaps the alarm was not the consequence of one of his friends. Maybe it was a warning that the hull of the ship had been breached and they were rapidly losing oxygen? Maybe it was to alert everyone to the presence of a deadly contagion or a monstrous creature. Maybe it was some kind of technical failure that would mean nothing to Mij, but by investigating he would like find himself in the midst of the inhabitants of this vessel (whatever they eventually turned out to be), and they weren’t likely to be happy. People were rarely happy to see battlers. With no clear idea how to proceed his mind started to wander, to envision the various scenarios playing out. He quickly dashed back inside the room he had appeared in, closed the door and dragged a metal table in front of it in an effort to barricade himself inside.

* Now talking in #grandbattle
<Mjilner> What is even up with the internet here?
<Mjilner> Nothin’ but error messages and then suddenly no discernible reason it works.
<Mjilner> Makes me miss my own internet.
<Mjilner> When I get out of this I am never gonna complain about it again.
<Mjilner> I mean… uhm… if I…
<Mjilner> ummm
<Mjilner> ANYWAY GUYS
<Mjilner> I made a wiki page: http://grandbattle.wikia.com/wiki/Unidentified_Mini-Grand
<Mjilner> It’s a bit lacking in content because the internet over here is pretty dumb, I can’t get onto PPNC.
<Mjilner> If someone else would mind filling in the blanks.
<Mjilner> guys?
<Mjilner> fuck am I even connected?
*Disconnected

*Now talking in #grandbattle
<Mjilner> hello can anyone hear me?
<Tevler> Mijjj
<Tevler> Post in 5111
<Mjilner> Tevs
<Mjilner> I’m stuck in an actual mini-grand
<Tevler> post in 5111 anywaaay
<Mjilner> and my post would just be ‘Dark Lord Rannus says very long words, tries to do evil magics and is completely ineffective.’
<Mjilner> but wordier
<enary> Mjil, Tristan was in here before he wanted to tell you, he’s stuck in the brig, try to get yourself arrested so he’ll have someone to talk to.
<Tevler> what
<Tevler> are you actually in a mini-grand?
<Mjilner> yep
<Mjilner> think you could put it in the announcement enes?
<Mjilner> words are kind of at a premium at the moment
<ChooseYerContagion> Mij :<
<enary> did you find out what that alarm was?
<Mjilner> no
<Mjilner> I had important wikiing to do.
<ChooseYerContagion> Also tweeting Elswyr http://twitter.com/#!/GPlaysElswyr
<Mjilner> I’d like to say I had a message for the others, but I don’t know anything about this place or what is going on.
<Mjilner> Truthfully this situation...
<Mjilner> it’s fucking terrifying
<Mjilner> guys?
*Disconnected

“Fuck.”

[Dragon Fogel]

*Now talking in #grandbattle
<PrinceTristan> Oh, hey. Finally made it back on.
<PrinceTristan> I'm six missions in, still keeping up a 300-point streak of course.
<PrinceTristan> After the third I decided to try reconnecting and just keep playing until it worked.
<PrinceTristan> So is anybody coming my way?
<enary> We passed your message along to Lun and Mjil, but they didn't really mention if they were headed your way.
*Selvsetter has joined #grandbattle
<Selvsetter> FUCKIN' FINALLY GODDAMN CONNECTION
<Selvsetter> oh, and look who decided to show his face
<Selvsetter> Tristan
<Selvetter> have you found a way to get me the fuck out of here
<Selvsetter> or am I going to have to tear you a new one?
<PrinceTristan> I don't think you understand how much trouble I'm in here, Selvsetter.
<PrinceTristan> You see, I'm in a locked room, and there's no people in here, and absolutely nothing dangerous or at all noteworthy.
<Selvsetter> oh shit, man
<Selvsetter> yeah, that's a recipe for elimination right there
<Selvsetter> get the fuck outta there and start fuckin' doing something already
<PrinceTristan> I'm working on it.
<PrinceTristan> How's your battle going?
<Selvsetter> feels like it's taking forever for anything to happen
<Selvsetter> I fuckin' swear
<MaybeAWriter> (she sure does)
<Selvsetter> shut the fuck up mawrie
<Selvsetter> anyway
<Selvsetter> if I die from inactivity of all things
<Selvsetter> then whoever the fuck is writing this is so fuckin' dead
<PrinceTristan> Oh, hey, I think I heard someone at the door.
<PrinceTristan> I'll get back to you if this connection will let me.
<PrinceTristan> And don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you.
<PrinceTristan> I'll try to think of a way to get you out of there. But right now we have our own problems.
*Disconnected


Tristan shut down his laptop at the door opened. Lunarian stepped through.

"This is all my fault!" he shouted, in a panic. "We're all going to die or maybe just most of us and I could have stopped it and oh man I'm actually meeting Tristan this is so cool even if we're supposed to be fighting aagh we're doomed aaaaahhhhh"

Tristan grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Calm down, Lun. Focus. What happened? And why don't I see any guards escorting you?"

"Well, uh. Funny you should say that." Lunarian looked around awkwardly. "I, uh, haven't seen anyone around besides you."

Tristan stared at him.

"No personnel? But this ship, or whatever it is, has a brig, and some form of computer network. It's clearly not meant to be unmanned."

'Uh... So what does that mean?"

"Bad news, most likely. But there's an upside."

Tristan smiled.

"It should give us an interesting story for this round."

[SleepingOrange]

This place was pretty big, Ludachi had decided. He'd been meandering along the corridor for some minutes, passing some doors and opening others at his whim; most contained more weapons caches, but several were obviously labs and one had very definitely been a dormitory of some sort. Or was there a different term for it if it was military? Whatever. It was a communal bedroom.

The labs could have been automated, perhaps; you could do amazing things with robots and remotely-controlled devices after all, especially if you were in the nebulous improbable future that the LIPC and so forth suggested they were in. But robots and probes don't need beds. So where were all the beds' occupants? It was another unsolvable mystery, so Ludachi just kept walking.

The next door that caught his eye didn't catch it because of the flashing warning light: after all, there were flashing warning lights all over the place since he'd taken the gun. No, it caught his eye because of the display screen next to it. It was only after he'd seen the screen that Ludachi noticed the flashing light was a different kind from the alarms he'd set off. It was next to a sign that said AIRLOCK COMPROMISED. Interesting.

Ludachi pressed the helpfully-marked on button next to the display; after a few moments, it booted up and displayed a logo. After a few more, it displayed a grainy, green-tinted view of the airlock room beyond. Ludachi looked at what was inside, and it looked back at him with a hundred borrowed eyes.

He recoiled, face a twitching rictus of terror. Dozens of brine-mummified bodies, twisted around each other and seamless grafted together, filled the airlock; they appeared to be forming the appendages of something much, much larger than they, and were writhing as though searching for something. The human tentacles stretched out the exterior door and into the black abyss beyond farther than could be seen. Every head had turned towards the camera as Ludachi activated it, and a number of bodies began bashing themselves against the door in an apparent attempt to breach it.

Ludachi ran.

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IDE/THEORY: The Moray passed above some kind of incorporeal benthic abomination during its voyage, which mentally dominated all the people on board and had them throw themselves out the airlock; it has since been using their bodies as its own, and was playing with the Moray when we showed up. Now it has new toys and a physical form with which to play with them!

Again, feel free to have this not be the case at all.

[Solaris]

reserve to be filled later because i dont seem to be doing it otherwise???\\

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"So where do you think we ever are? Earth maybe?"

"I don't know, the lack of anyone here seems to point that whatever is the species in charge, it isn't exactly familiar. It doesn't help that the letters we've seen aren't exactly normal."

"Point." Lunarian looked around as he and Tristain walked to no where in particular. The two had been speculating about the round and the various clues that had been left to them by the battle introduction.

Moving his eye to a porthole, Lunarian felt odd in his head. An ache slowly growing and spreading out to his head. In a wince of pain he closed his eyes. And then he saw. It was not for very long but he saw. Darkness, completley and utterly, envoloping, all-encompassing, just there. But... it was doing something. Was it speaking? Or was it singing? In a moment thoughts flushed in and flushed out. It was w o n d e-

"LUNARIAN."

His eyes opened to PrinceTristain shaking his body out of his stupor. Both looked shocked at what had just happened, Lunarian for the dark visions, and Tristain for the formers sudden inamination.

"I'm... I'm sorry!" Lunarian pushed Tristain and ran away from the hallway they'd been in, and away from that porthole in specific.

He was running without thought, without a goal, and without a reason to do so.
Why am I running?
Because it was there.
What is it, why did we leave Tristain with it?
Why am I asking myself questions I can't answer.
I just needed to run. Because of that thing that... went into my head.

Lunarian began to slow down, contemplating going back to make sure that Tristain was okay, and try to filter out the rubbish in his head from what mattered.

However, he didn't get that chance. As he came to a complete stop a small rumbling shook the sub and Lunarian fell backwards.

Meanwhile, a crew, miles and miles above, on the surface

[Ixcalibur]

Mjilner slunk down in the corner of the room and stared at his makeshift barricade for as long as he could bear to. He kept running it through in his head, despite his desire not to. He wasn’t equipped to deal with life or death situations. The one time he’d fainted when they’d tried to take a blood sample had been proof of that. The best strategy, the only strategy was to hide in this room, close his eyes and pretend that it was all going to go away.

But…

…if this was a written grand battle that would be suicide. But he wasn’t a written character. He was a person with weaknesses and limitations. This was real. The universe wasn’t going to refrain from killing him just because he was interesting, and even worse what if that was the case. Mjilner wasn’t interesting. He couldn’t hold a reader’s attention like a real grand battle character could with their problems and their character development. Mjilner was just some guy who liked writing and here he was in some place he didn’t even understand, cowering in a corner, waiting to die, one way or another.

He willed himself to stand up, to pull away the barricade and ever so cautiously step into the corridor. ‘What would Emperor Tera do in this situation?’ Mjilner wondered. First off he wouldn’t have done a single one of the actions that he had done. That practically went without saying. After a minute or so of thought Mij was forced to conclude that Tera would just find someone to order around and then get them to one by one kill the other contestants. This wasn’t an example Mij could follow, and it wasn’t particularly one he wanted to follow.

Mjil decided to try a different tactic ‘How about…’ he paused mid-thought. Come to think of it all of his characters were psychopaths… more or less. Alexander was okay he guessed, but he didn’t exactly plan to go down the Woebegotten Ritual road. There was of course Lara Kajata, the vampire alchemist. She wasn’t a psychopath, broadly speaking, and any psychopathy that might happen in her future would come from her simple desire for survival. Did that mean he should spend the entirety of the round looking for plants? He hoped not because this place looked more barren than Super Robo City.

This train of thought was pretty useless he eventually decided. He couldn’t just copy one of his characters because he was not that character. He was himself. He had to just do the best he could and he guessed that would either have to be enough or not. It was a bleak outlook but it was the best he could do.

Slowly Mjilner became aware of the sound of many things rapidly approaching. He turned his head in that direction as Ludachi barrelled towards him; they collided and crashed to the hard metal floor. It only took a moment before, fuelled by pure panic, both Mjilner and Ludachi were up and fleeing down the corridor, pursued by something dark and primal.

[Solaris]

"So where do you think we ever are? Earth maybe?"

"I don't know, the lack of anyone here seems to point that whatever is the species in charge, it isn't exactly familiar. It doesn't help that the letters we've seen aren't exactly normal."

"Point." Lunarian looked around as he and Tristan walked to no where in particular. The two had been speculating about the round and the various clues that had been left to them by the battle introduction.

Moving his eye to a porthole, Lunarian felt odd in his head. An ache slowly growing and spreading out to his head. In a wince of pain he closed his eyes. And then he saw. It was not for very long but he saw. Darkness, completley and utterly, enveloping, all-encompassing, just there. But... it was doing something. Was it speaking? Or was it singing? In a moment thoughts flushed in and flushed out. It was w o n d e-

"LUNARIAN."

His eyes opened to PrinceTristan shaking his body out of his stupor. Both looked shocked at what had just happened, Lunarian for the dark visions, and Tristan for the formers sudden petrification.

"I'm... I'm sorry!" Lunarian pushed Tristan and ran away from the hallway they'd been in, and away from that porthole in specific.

He was running without thought, without a goal, and without a reason to do so.
Why am I running?
Because it was there.
What is it, why did we leave Tristan with it?
Why am I asking myself questions I can't answer.
I just needed to run. Because of that thing that... went into my head.

Lunarian began to slow down, contemplating going back to make sure that Tristan was okay, and try to filter out the rubbish in his head from what mattered.

However, he didn't get that chance. As he came to a complete stop a small rumbling shook the sub and Lunarian fell backwards.

Meanwhile, a crew, stationed miles above on the surface of the Marianas' water were surprised to see a sudden blip of motion far below them.
Had they found what they had been searching for?
There was only one way to find out.

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crew could be human, probably isn't, have advanced tech most likley, possibly even investigators of the paranormal?????
ill remove it if anyone objects, sorry for taking so long on so little!
especially when it is poop

[SleepingOrange]

Mjilner and Ludachi kept fleeing long past the point either could really run anymore. They stumbled along endless metal hallways, panting and aching and terrified, not even sure what they were running from. Eventually, Ludachi's lungs screamed that if he didn't stop, they'd burst, and he pulled Mjilner into a side-room and collapsed. The pair of them sprawled there on the floor, waiting for ancient eldritch death to descend on them, trying to catch their breaths, hoping against hope something would happen to save them.

Nothing did. But nothing happened to kill them, either.

Eventually, once he felt he could manage it, Ludachi sat up. Mjilner had already propped himself up against the wall, and was nervously staring out into the corridor. Once he heard Ludachi rising, he turned back.

"What was that? And where is it?"

Ludachi shook his head. "I don't know. It wanted me. I could feel it wanting me. It saw me with all those eyes, saw me through the camera."

Mjilner narrowed his eyes, trying to remember what he'd seen. There certainly hadn't been eyes. Come to it, he didn't think he'd actually seen anything. He'd just known it was there, and it was bad.

Ludachi was standing up, fists clenching and unclenching. He scanned the room, trying to find something to occupy his attention and let him forget what he'd seen, but it was just another empty dormitory. "There's something out there, and we're just food or toys to it. And it's in here, too."

---

Ludachi was right, largely. When the thing had brushed his mind, he'd felt its motivations. But what he'd missed was that the thing didn't really want to be in the moray; it had already absorbed so many just by taking their will and bringing them into the sea. There was no challenge there, no fun. Now it wanted to do things the hard way, and now it had a body that could. It delighted in all the little sparks of light that had fallen into its darkness, and it wanted these new ones too.

And so it pushed.

---

Mjilner was about to say something else when both men heard a grinding, straining sound above them. They started and simultaneously stared up at the ceiling; a fist-sized section of it was bucking, pushing the metal inwards. They began backing out of the room, still watching the ceiling. Once they were both in the hallway, the distended section burst.

Instead of a torrent of water, though all that came through was a bloated hand, followed by a rotting arm. The ceiling split further, and an entire torso flopped in, its smiling head turned at an unnatural angle to watch Mjilner and Judachi. Soon the entire body had pushed its way through, followed by a dozen more, all seemingly fused an all staring. They were mostly men, but among them were a few women and even fewer spindly, grey, big-eyed humanoids.

In the back of his mind, through his shock, Ludachi wondered why the apparent submarine wasn't decompressing. Were the bodies sturdy enough to block the water, or was some force holding it back? A failsafe of the submarine's?

It wasn't until Mjilner grabbed him and pulled that he snapped out of his horrified trance and began running again. Behind them, the tentacle of human and inhuman flesh writhed and pushed farther into the room, snaking its way into the corridor. With every glance behind him, Ludachi could see the bodies mouthing words, constantly vomiting seawater and slime onto the pristine metal of the Moray's floors. He tried to convince himself those weren't tears streaming out of his eyes, it was just exertion, but he'd always been good at spotting when he was lying.

Mjilner, too panicked even to break down and apparently with better hearing than Ludachi, stopped. Ludachi skidded to a halt once he realized he was running alone and turned around.

"What the fuck? Come on!"

Mjilner shook his head.

"No, listen."

Trying to ignore the slowly writhing abomination behind them, Ludachi listened. There was the groaning of metal up ahead. Then a pop. Then another, and another.

"They're all around us. We can't run anymore."

Ludachi laughed crazily, clearly losing what little grip he could be said to have had since first eying the corpses. "I have only just begun to run!"

"Shut up! Look, you've got a weapon. Do something."

Oh, he did, didn't he. Ludachi drew the improbable pistol, eyeing it suspiciously. "I don't know if it works. I don't know how it works."

Mjilner almost shouted with frustration. "Then figure it out! That thing's not moving fast. You've got time. It's a gun. How complicated can it be?"

It was a gun. It wasn't complicated. Ludachi hefted it, appreciating its balance in spite of its strange construction. He'd always been a shotgun man, but pistols were easier than rifles.

He sighted down the strange barrel and pulled the trigger.

A flash of light, too brief to really be seen, blasted from the tip into the chest of the lead corpse. Air around the laser ionized, superheated into plasma, scorching the thing's rubbery flesh. Before the sizzling even had time to reach anyone's ears, the gun emitted a burst of electricity, which crackled down plasma channel with an earsplitting roll of thunder. All of the bodies that comprised the tentacle twitched and flailed, either because their controller was genuinely in pain or because they still had enough nervous tissue to send scrambled commands to their muscles.

Ludachi, face still flushed and tears still leaking down his cheeks, furrowed his brow. "That actually worked better than I expected."

Mjilner back away a few steps. "It doesn't exactly look damaged, though."

[Dragon Fogel]

Tristan sighed. Lunarian had run off, and now here he was, alone again.

Well, alone if you didn't count whatever was staring at him from the other side of the porthole. Tristan hadn't noticed it until after it had shaken the Moray and knocked him over. His first instinct had been to run, but then he realized that Lunarian had likely seen it before running off before. And yet, in all that time, it hadn't attacked him, aside from the sub-shaking.

Had it not noticed him? Unlikely; the two glowing eyes in the portal were fixated on him, after all. Then was it uninterested in him? That seemed more likely. Perhaps this wasn't the threat that had emptied the Moray of its crew; or perhaps the crew had been nonhuman, and this creature had no interest in the new species.

That train of thought was interrupted when Tristan heard a strange noise; it sounded like metal straining. Having no better ideas, he started walking towards it to investigate.

A minute or so later, Tristan heard another noise, from the same direction. This one sounded like thunder. Tristan quickened his pace, too curious to simply stand by and let the noises happen.

He arrived at the source of the noises to find Ludachi and Mjilner, and a large tentacle poking out of the ceiling waving vaguely in their direction. It was either covered in or made up of corpses; either way, Tristan felt a little sick just looking at it.

Tristan mentally struck down the "not interested in humans" theory as he walked over to his friends.

"Hey guys, nice to finally meet you," he said. "So, what have you been up to?"

Ludachi said nothing, and aimed the pistol in his hands upwards at the tentacle. Mjil covered his ears, and Tristan decided it would be best to follow suit. The bodies began flailing again, and seemed to move backwards just a bit.

"Oh, not much," Ludachi replied. "Just fighting off a horrible abomination that wants to devour us. How about you?"