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<blockquote data-quote="Ashy" data-source="post: 1906891" data-attributes="member: 312"><p><strong><u>Intro, Fini...</u></strong></p><p></p><p>Soon, it is your turn and the snagger snags you with a tentacle that feels and smells like cold clay. Even if you wanted to struggle, you seriously doubt that you could break free, so strong is the creature’s grip. It feels like you are encased in solid, cold stone and you have to mentally struggle just to continue breathing. As you are tucked underneath the thing’s mass and into the mass of wriggling red tentacles, you notice that the larger tentacle moves, allowing the smaller tentacles access to your tattooed arm and your belly. These red tentacles are completely smooth and dry; a few stray tentacles also slide across your face and you note the strong scents of cinnamon and loamy earth.</p><p></p><p>The snagger sets you down and though you did not feel the process, it has inserted something small, black and shriveled into your navel. You look down for a moment at this thing and it touch it – it feels like thin hardened, lacquered wood and if you did not know better, would swear that it had always been a part of you.</p><p></p><p>You hear a squawk form above – the sound of a strangled bird. You look up in time to see the lizard atop the snagger looking down at you crossly. It motions with an ebon-tipped claw towards the gaping black door before you – you notice that several of the smaller red tentacles point in the same direction at the same exact moment. The larger tentacles are already gently, but unavoidably, scooping up the next individual in line.</p><p></p><p>You enter into the doorway and see before you a small, non-descript, square room the color of long dead ash. No ornamentation adorns the walls, ceiling, or floor and precious little furniture is present; a solitary lecturn stands before you and behind it stands a <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17719" target="_blank">thoroughly uninterested-looking young woman</a>. You have to search your memories for the last time that you saw someone so utterly and completely bored looking – however, fleeting, a chord of sadness is struck within your heart for the young woman, standing there in her strange-looking grey dress; her black eyes (as perfectly black as her hair, in fact) boring into you with the undeniable force of a pillow-fisted giant.</p><p></p><p>Affixed upon her lecturn is a tiny, militaristic-looking steel plate. ‘Controller Annui’, it reads, and once your eyes fall upon it, almost as if triggered to do so by that very act, the young woman begins talking. Her tone is completely deadpan – the words of a person who has repeatedly said something over and over again for so incredibly long that she no longer has to provide a conscience thought in order to do so again. Words, evenly-placed like pearls upon a string, tumble out of her mouth; your mind is rife with a thousand questions, but there is little doubt that even if you ask them during this regurgitated vocalization, they will fall upon unhearing ears.</p><p></p><p>“Welcome to the C.O.R.E. itinerant debriefing and reclassification chamber for Cycle Two. There is little doubt that you have many questions, given that this is your first time as adult sentients to experience the process. Please listen closely and all will be revealed in time. However, please bear in mind that after this debriefing you will remember very little, if any, of what is said here. At best, even the brightest or most shattered minds can only recall vague impressions and sensations of the C.O.R.E. facility and assignees. This is, of course, by design and for the best interest of everyone.”</p><p></p><p>Controller Annui takes a measured breath and like a well-trained marathoner, continues on with her diatribe.</p><p></p><p>“Regardless of what you know, or think you know, you are wrong. There is only one source of all things – sentient and non-sentient – in the whole of the omniverse; that source is the C.O.R.E. and we all stand within a single (of many) physical manifestation of the C.O.R.E. This particular manifestation is known colloquially as the Central Orientation and Reinsertion Edifice – it functions to maintain the insertion flow of sentients into and out of the various multiverses and to track, monitor and analyze the complex procedural flows of intertemporal, interspatial and interrelational relationships between those sentients.”</p><p></p><p>Again, a pause, and you can almost swear that you saw her blink.</p><p></p><p>“In short, those of you that stand in this room, at this moment, are bound by ties of fate that neither death, nor time, nor physical form can mar, bend, break, or sever. These binding relationships may have been known to your in your former existence, which we call ‘C-ONE’, or it may have never been realized. For whatever reason, the C.O.R.E. has deemed that your prior incarnations where not suitable for the work which it had deemed you created for, and so you find yourselves here, and you must be reinserted into the appropriate multiverse and timeflow coordinates in order to begin anew.”</p><p></p><p>Controller Annui’s right index finger moves ever so slightly and she depresses something unseen on the lecturn. The bright, cheery “Ding!” of a recently arrived elevator is heard from somewhere and the wall behind Controller Annui dissolves into blurry white light, which then gives way to something that makes you blink a few times. At first, you think that your eyes are deceiving you, but despite your best attempts to turn it into something more sensible, it remains: <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17720" target="_blank">a tiny, garishly painted and interconnected string of roller coaster cars, complete with track</a>.</p><p></p><p>There are thirteen cars, one for each of you. Controller Annui motions with her right hand; it is a tired, well-worn and half-hearted expression. She continues staring forward as she speaks, as if she had known all along what would be lurking behind the evaporated white wall. “Please step into your assigned car, there is no need to worry, as I said you will not remember any of this; also your umbilical should provide all that you might need.”</p><p></p><p>Each of you, as if controlled by puppet strings, steps into a car: Nebiros, Jalen, Airole, Vargo, Wato, Wayne, Ory, Larris, Adauth, Ganshinji, Kalador, Roth, and Gundakar. The moment the last one steps in and sits down, the little, bizarre train zips away straight into blinding whiteness. When you again gain your sight, you are barreling down a track that is suspended in a vast sky or pure white. Wind rushes past you at such a speed as to make your heart instantly leap into your throat and to make your stomach do flip-flops; the chop-chop-chop of the wheels on the tracks threaten to rattle the teeth from your head. Like a rollercoaster ride out of the mind of a lunatic, the tiny train whips sharply up and down left and right, teetering, threatening to tip over at any moment and spill you out into the great white void that yawns around, below and above you. Here and there, far off in the void, you can make out what seem to other tiny, rickety coaster tracks, with equally rickety coasters upon them, each beating their own choppy rhythms. Up ahead, you see a switch-track, complete with an old fashioned cross arm control for determining which track is in use.</p><p></p><p>Without warning, Nebiros cackles wildly and rips his safety bar and hurls it ahead of the coaster, striking the cross arm. Ominously, the track slides to the right with a clack and the imp cackles with frenzied glee...</p><p>------------------------------------------------------------</p><p>OOC: Roll init, everyone!! Neb, your init may be modified by me this round... (FYI)</p><p>Also, everyone remember that you are completely naked at this moment. You have only your mark upon your arm and your umbilical...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ashy, post: 1906891, member: 312"] [B][U]Intro, Fini...[/U][/B] Soon, it is your turn and the snagger snags you with a tentacle that feels and smells like cold clay. Even if you wanted to struggle, you seriously doubt that you could break free, so strong is the creature’s grip. It feels like you are encased in solid, cold stone and you have to mentally struggle just to continue breathing. As you are tucked underneath the thing’s mass and into the mass of wriggling red tentacles, you notice that the larger tentacle moves, allowing the smaller tentacles access to your tattooed arm and your belly. These red tentacles are completely smooth and dry; a few stray tentacles also slide across your face and you note the strong scents of cinnamon and loamy earth. The snagger sets you down and though you did not feel the process, it has inserted something small, black and shriveled into your navel. You look down for a moment at this thing and it touch it – it feels like thin hardened, lacquered wood and if you did not know better, would swear that it had always been a part of you. You hear a squawk form above – the sound of a strangled bird. You look up in time to see the lizard atop the snagger looking down at you crossly. It motions with an ebon-tipped claw towards the gaping black door before you – you notice that several of the smaller red tentacles point in the same direction at the same exact moment. The larger tentacles are already gently, but unavoidably, scooping up the next individual in line. You enter into the doorway and see before you a small, non-descript, square room the color of long dead ash. No ornamentation adorns the walls, ceiling, or floor and precious little furniture is present; a solitary lecturn stands before you and behind it stands a [URL=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17719]thoroughly uninterested-looking young woman[/URL]. You have to search your memories for the last time that you saw someone so utterly and completely bored looking – however, fleeting, a chord of sadness is struck within your heart for the young woman, standing there in her strange-looking grey dress; her black eyes (as perfectly black as her hair, in fact) boring into you with the undeniable force of a pillow-fisted giant. Affixed upon her lecturn is a tiny, militaristic-looking steel plate. ‘Controller Annui’, it reads, and once your eyes fall upon it, almost as if triggered to do so by that very act, the young woman begins talking. Her tone is completely deadpan – the words of a person who has repeatedly said something over and over again for so incredibly long that she no longer has to provide a conscience thought in order to do so again. Words, evenly-placed like pearls upon a string, tumble out of her mouth; your mind is rife with a thousand questions, but there is little doubt that even if you ask them during this regurgitated vocalization, they will fall upon unhearing ears. “Welcome to the C.O.R.E. itinerant debriefing and reclassification chamber for Cycle Two. There is little doubt that you have many questions, given that this is your first time as adult sentients to experience the process. Please listen closely and all will be revealed in time. However, please bear in mind that after this debriefing you will remember very little, if any, of what is said here. At best, even the brightest or most shattered minds can only recall vague impressions and sensations of the C.O.R.E. facility and assignees. This is, of course, by design and for the best interest of everyone.” Controller Annui takes a measured breath and like a well-trained marathoner, continues on with her diatribe. “Regardless of what you know, or think you know, you are wrong. There is only one source of all things – sentient and non-sentient – in the whole of the omniverse; that source is the C.O.R.E. and we all stand within a single (of many) physical manifestation of the C.O.R.E. This particular manifestation is known colloquially as the Central Orientation and Reinsertion Edifice – it functions to maintain the insertion flow of sentients into and out of the various multiverses and to track, monitor and analyze the complex procedural flows of intertemporal, interspatial and interrelational relationships between those sentients.” Again, a pause, and you can almost swear that you saw her blink. “In short, those of you that stand in this room, at this moment, are bound by ties of fate that neither death, nor time, nor physical form can mar, bend, break, or sever. These binding relationships may have been known to your in your former existence, which we call ‘C-ONE’, or it may have never been realized. For whatever reason, the C.O.R.E. has deemed that your prior incarnations where not suitable for the work which it had deemed you created for, and so you find yourselves here, and you must be reinserted into the appropriate multiverse and timeflow coordinates in order to begin anew.” Controller Annui’s right index finger moves ever so slightly and she depresses something unseen on the lecturn. The bright, cheery “Ding!” of a recently arrived elevator is heard from somewhere and the wall behind Controller Annui dissolves into blurry white light, which then gives way to something that makes you blink a few times. At first, you think that your eyes are deceiving you, but despite your best attempts to turn it into something more sensible, it remains: [URL=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17720]a tiny, garishly painted and interconnected string of roller coaster cars, complete with track[/URL]. There are thirteen cars, one for each of you. Controller Annui motions with her right hand; it is a tired, well-worn and half-hearted expression. She continues staring forward as she speaks, as if she had known all along what would be lurking behind the evaporated white wall. “Please step into your assigned car, there is no need to worry, as I said you will not remember any of this; also your umbilical should provide all that you might need.” Each of you, as if controlled by puppet strings, steps into a car: Nebiros, Jalen, Airole, Vargo, Wato, Wayne, Ory, Larris, Adauth, Ganshinji, Kalador, Roth, and Gundakar. The moment the last one steps in and sits down, the little, bizarre train zips away straight into blinding whiteness. When you again gain your sight, you are barreling down a track that is suspended in a vast sky or pure white. Wind rushes past you at such a speed as to make your heart instantly leap into your throat and to make your stomach do flip-flops; the chop-chop-chop of the wheels on the tracks threaten to rattle the teeth from your head. Like a rollercoaster ride out of the mind of a lunatic, the tiny train whips sharply up and down left and right, teetering, threatening to tip over at any moment and spill you out into the great white void that yawns around, below and above you. Here and there, far off in the void, you can make out what seem to other tiny, rickety coaster tracks, with equally rickety coasters upon them, each beating their own choppy rhythms. Up ahead, you see a switch-track, complete with an old fashioned cross arm control for determining which track is in use. Without warning, Nebiros cackles wildly and rips his safety bar and hurls it ahead of the coaster, striking the cross arm. Ominously, the track slides to the right with a clack and the imp cackles with frenzied glee... ------------------------------------------------------------ OOC: Roll init, everyone!! Neb, your init may be modified by me this round... (FYI) Also, everyone remember that you are completely naked at this moment. You have only your mark upon your arm and your umbilical... [/QUOTE]
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