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Well, now that the forums are back, I'll work on bringing BAK to Cademia. Selax, if you or Kat want something notable to happen on the journey, let me know (or post it), it'll probably be a day or two before I can post.

I have about two or three more posts to follow in the current line I'm doing. This is kind of the introduction for evil-Wizard. I was going to name Orthrus' little girl Wendy or Gwenny, but I decided against it as I don't yet know what will become of that character

Are you going to post all three at once (to make it a continuous flow), or interspersed with scenes from the other lines?

Since I don't want to write all of it at once, I was going to intersperse it a little. It could easily be written as one large post, though; it's only going to cover about one or two hours of time.

If anyone needs to know what the end result is going to be because they plan to show up in Cademia later, I can PM you. Avatara, what day will BAK be arriving in Cademia?

This post has been edited by The Wizard: 27 July 2009 - 01:56 PM

Midday on 6. Should have a post bringing us to five next (or the morning of the six) and then a post on day six. I'm undecided on if they'll happen back-to-back or not.

Put up a long post I've been working on for a bit. Not sure how well I did everyone's characters, but I'm hoping it's something people enjoy. Anyway, everything else I have to say is a spoiler, so read the post first.

There was a lot that happened "off camera" in this post. Silver's heroic sacrifice, Selax's battle with Rythan, the heroes' assault on the judge's castle. All of them deserved their own chapter but I couldn't put them in without ruining the suspense I was trying to build in the rest of the story. My bad. If anyone wants though I could write some of that out in later posts.

To avoid any confusion: Anything written in a post with Seralcard that is ahead of the timeline for all other characters has not happened and can potentially be altered. Anything that happens before or during the normal timeline has actually happened and can affect other characters.

Some thoughts/observations.
Okay, so Seralcard is apparently partly responsible for breaking Direct Nexus.
I don't really like how Direct Nexus "does nothing" it seems like there would be some sort of magical effect, like an elevator feeling or such. Afterall, (to use cars as an analogy) it's the engine that's broken, not the battery (the mages power) & the electrical system is obviously working fine, (most other spells still work) so the solenoid (is that the word?) is spinning, but the engine doesn't catch.

To use your analogy, if the engine was damaged enough wouldn’t it just not start? I literally know nothing about cars aside from how they have wheels and go *Vroom Vroom* so maybe I can’t make this analogy work properly.

Anyway, you do have a point with wanting the spell to do “something”. It’s more interesting that way. Since there are already instances of nothing happening though we should make its effect random. Sometimes it does nothing and sometimes it does something you did not want it to do. The characters should arrive at the conclusion that it’s safer to just not use the spell at all.

Then again I think everyone may have already made that decision.

As far as I know, the fact that Directed Nexus is not working is related to Alaric's condition and to the cause of said condition.


The first time they tried it there was another effect: they time jumped into the future. I think Ragnar0k's assessment of the spell and its effects (i.e. sometimes one of the effects is that it does nothing) is probably accurate in this case (when it did do nothing).


I went ahead and put a short post up. I've started the eighth day group with Wizard and such moving toward Cademia.

Cademia Map added to the maps post.

A brief backstory for alternate Cythera has been added, to aid people in the creation of their alternates and such.

Everything I have to say is a spoiler for my post, so I'd read that first.

Seralcard's section happened, since it is within the normal timeline. There's an update on the situation in Kosha (in case anyone cares to liberate it and it's judge at some point) and now the assassin knows more or less what is going on with the alternates.

The section with the Daemons should happen either just after Selax, Silver, Talos and Wizard enter Cademia. It ends in an area beneath the sewers of the city. Do what you will with this information.

Finally, the elemental weapons. Alternate Seralcard would have entrusted an Alt Character with the Undine spear and another alt character with Ignae's axe. Who those two are I dunno yet, it's up to whichever of you guys wants the weapons. The armor, which was Seldane, is missing so no one gets it. The weapons are significant to the plot so if no one wants them they will be missing too.

And I think that sums it up.

Hey guys! Miss me?

Yeah, I'm half-back. LikeI explained on IRC, my computer is still in the shop awaiting a $500 payment for repairs. My time is limited still, but I'm making effort to keep up with you guys.

Let me say I'm really happy with the way the story's gone (even if the day changes is confusing). And I don't object to any of the ways Yomu has been used. Though I still don't know what happened to him in the future Cythera.

Oh, "SKY" team is an awesome title.

I'm caught up on reading all but Ragnar0k's latest post (it's so long and it's 2:30am T_T). Tomorrow I'll read and post most likely bringing SKY to Cademia.

I have an idea for Yomu's alt, but I'm not sure yet how to introduce it since I'm not clear on the NegaHeroes (or dread?) main goal.



Well, Fetch is a malfunctioning spell and we know how that goes! Let's hope Nexus doesn't start making people permanently disapear.

This statement makes three assumptions that are quite false.

1. The "NegaHeroes" are all working together.

2. The "NegaHeroes" all have a common objective.

3. We actually know what the NegaHeroes are planning on doing.

Hm. Well after finaly reading the last post, everything's starting to make more sense. I'll be ready to write up Yomu's alt right after I get a reply from a person or two.

Good news though, the mac repair shop is going to give me a deal on the repairs and so now it's only going to cost an afordable $300. I'll have it on Friday. I'm excited!

So I might not have a post up tonight like I had planned, but it will be up soon.

Alright with much help from ~Visitor~ the next post for SKY is up.

It's mainly just a lead-in for a post to come that takes place at the vineyard.


I also have another post planned, but I'm waiting a little longer to release it.


P.S. Selax or Avatara, please use your mod powers to fix the typo in "travelers" in my post. Thanks!

-Jacks

I finally got my next post up. There's still one more I want to write in this little side-story, but I don't want to write the rest of it now I'll try to do it before the weekend.

All right, I try to avoid doing this as much as possible, but there's a growing number of complaints that the story is getting a little chaotic and hard to follow, and that we're in danger of unravelling. So its time to put on the moderator gloves and do some light steering of the story boat.

The number one complaint I'm hearing (and I agree with) is that the story is getting confusing because every thread is on its own time-space (this was partly my fault for starting it). So, I'd like to make the big focus of the next couple of weeks bringing some of these lines together. That doesn't mean everyone has to join up to be one big happy group like with every other story, but it would be nice if we were all on the same day roughly. That way, even if everyone isn't in the same group, actions taken by one team can affect the other team more immediately, so it seems like a less fragmented story.

I think we should start with all the "normal time" groups consolidating to day six. (refer to this)

To do this, I'd like to request a few things from some people.

First, it would help if posts about characters in the future (that's Selax, Wizard, Talos, Silverfish, Galahad, the demons, the denizens of Kosha, and whatever else) scaled back or held off for a couple weeks. You guys have cool ideas, that's great, go ahead and write them down, but it would help if you held off actually posting them until the story catches up to Day 8. This might actually help you out, since half of the story's characters have two days to do stuff in Cademia before you arrive, and whatever occurs in that timeframe is going to influence what you see and do when you arrive.

There are two exceptions to this: Seralcard, since he hops around through time and according to the OoC post earlier he pretty much has a blank check on what he does on his visits to "possible futures". The demon crew and Galahad are also probably okay, as long as you hold back from talking about Cademia or heading to Cademia too much (for continuity reasons, because stuff you'd likely reference if you were talking about Cademia hasn't happened yet).

Next, before we do a whole lot with the actual Cademia storyline, it would be helpful for Wizard to finish up his mini-arc because it probably sets the scene for what Cademia is like when we arrive on Day 6 (no pressure Wizard!). It would also be helpful for SKY to make it to Cademia so they can get caught up (I think they were projected to arrive near the end of Day 6).

To the rest of us, once this happens its up to us to not keep the future crew from waiting too long.

Moving on, this post is split off because it contains possible story spoilers (though really its just ideas).

The number two worry is that the story is lacking a bit of focus right now. Sure, we're all headed to Cademia, but its not really a big focal point like the Kosha killings was in the first part.

So, here's an idea - it may not be the end-all idea, if you have something better, speak up!

What if a small group (say a half-dozen at most) of people from alternate land are trying to infiltrate Cademia?

Let's take a step back. Given what's already been posted, we know that Kosha has been replaced by a bunch of people for whatever reason. We also "know" that in two days, a demon army will be poised outside of Cademia for whatever reason (probably an invasion). Given the location of the bridge between Cythera and alternate Cythera, its logical that Cademia would be the next target after Kosha (the next closest city, and a valuable city to hold).

That said, if you take a look at the timeline (Kosha started getting taken over after Day 5-6 or whatever?), given the relative distances involved for the purposes of this story, its likely that whatever nasty group we come up with has only just arrived.

If we abuse Wizard's idea, we could even go so far to assume that his actions that day were related to whatever they are doing in an attempt to prepare the city for takeover. Though, Wizard himself probably would not directly associate with said group (or he might, I don't know, but it seems beneath him).

This way, we have something for people to do on days 7 and 8 that also relates to the invasion. Thoughts?

As a final note, the number three complaint is the cast is blooming at a chaotic speed (though it slowed down a bit in the recent posts). Do try to keep in mind how many people are likely to live on both Cythera and alternate Cythera (ie, the armies of darkness aren't vast and endless). Also consider that if too many people cross over to this Cythera, who's staying behind on alternate Cythera (which probably isn't simply being abandoned)? Finally, remember that everything that occurs here impacts any future stories - there is no magical "reset" button (unless we start over in a new continuity, but BT just did that). So make sure those dramatic sweeping actions are meaningful!

P. S. You've probably guessed by now, but this is on track to be a lengthy story. If we were to subdivide it into parts, the first part was the murders at Kosha through Rapierian's jailbreak. The second part is this rush to Cademia and hopefully something significant that happens (to tie it all together). The third part probably will start either when or shortly after Selax/Talos/et all arrive at the end of day 8. After that, who knows?

This concludes your weekly moderator rant. Now back to your regularly scheduled plotting and scheming.

My apologies if I step on any toes. If it makes you feel better, I'm not really trying to dictate what people should post, just suggest when they should post it (until the story stabilizes again). I liked how in the beginning we had a bit more continuity from post to post - you'd see a post about something and the next two posts followed and developed it a bit more before jumping to another location and time. Most stories people just post whatever whenever and when you sit back and read them, you get a feeling of whiplash, being jerked from one scene to the next and then back all of a sudden.

If you strongly object to this, let me know, and I'll back off a bit.

Well said Avatara, though I'd suggest that we update the first few posts of the topic.

I think it would benefit the TS if maybe we put up a character listing with info on what someone's plans and motives are (currently) suspected as. This way we could at least have some idea of what someone's motif is without having spoilers.

Like:

Yomu: Traveling with Katerei and Shanadar, given up on finding Raperian, now heading to Cademia in hopes of rejoining the group.

or,

Beast: In ranks with the Dread, currently secretly preparing the takeover of Cademia for some reason.


Thoughts?

Both of you make excellent points. I have no problem with holding back on posting until everyone is more or less in the same time. It's largely my fault to begin with.

Reading what's been written here and speaking with a few of you guys in irc I realize that only half the people reading my posts are actually clear on what's going on. I'm writing long posts about characters with vague motivations and allegiances working towards goals I've yet to reveal. Two Jacks has a solid idea that should go a long way fixing that problem without my having to drop spoilers about what I and other writers have planned (the reason I've been evasive).

A couple of us are having to be vague because there'd be no fun if we spoiled everything up front.

For me personally, a lot of the difficulty in understanding your posts is the vast number of characters that come and go that are hard to distinguish (specifically the demons), especially when there's a few weeks between posts. I think the only character I actually remember from the last one is Galahad, and that's because he's shown up more often and did that one thing in the future. Wizard's recent posts have a similar problem, there were a lot of names tossed around, but its hard to keep track of who did what when the previous bit was so long ago. (The moral of this is that expendable characters are often...well...treated as expendable, both subconsciously by the author and the readers. The people that get some depth and stick around are easier to follow and remember.)


If you think this would help, we can give it a shot. I think it won't help in every case (for example, my "apparent motive" is still too vague to be of much use to anybody - blame Selax!), but maybe overall a list can aid in short-term coordination. I can put a list like this in one of the reserved posts.

Unlike every other post on the front page (you guys keep checking those frequently for updates, right?), this is something I cannot maintain on my own. I'm not a mind reader, so it really is up to everyone else to keep their part updated. For my part, I can maintain a consolidated and accessible list based on what other people put up.


Random observation: The amount of vagueness in a story is inversely proportional to the distance from the end of the story.

I don't think the proportion is inverse, unless we're really bad writers.

Nah, we just all have a high chance of dropping out before it ends, leaving more loose ends than it started with.