Let's begin

[Quakerlol]

You take your place as the SYLPH OF VOID in the Land of CASTES AND LIGHTNING.

You do believe that you will like it here. Your hive is no longer underwater, sadly. It is surrounded by a moat and seems to rest on top of a ruin. Not the most structurally sound of arrangements, but rather picturesque. A jagged line of fire runs through the sky. It takes you a bit to realize that it is lightning, frozen in place. It provides the only light around. With it you can observe many other castles, most ruined and blackened. The sky is dark and starless. It's perfect.

--Show Spritelog--

DISCORDSPRITE: Zoooooo what do you think?
LERENA: It'z...
LERENA: Lovely.
DISCORDSPRITE: You zhould zee the dungeonz!!
LERENA: There are dungeonz?
DISCORDSPRITE: Yep.
LERENA: Thiz iz wonderful.

You can barely contain your excitement, but you know you have some important things to attend to. What should you do?

[Shipfish]

==> Check out them dungeons!
OR
==> Make sure the timeline is going as it ought to.

[Quakerlol]

==> Troll Aruale to make sure she's alright.

Yes, that is a good idea. Enough being a bad friend.

herobound.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=pester2&action=display&thread=54&page=1

That went very well. You're glad that she seems to be adjusting so well. This may be because you didn't tell her about how this is a semi-permanent arrangement, though. You make a mental note to make the destruction of your race a point in your next conversation.

==> Make sure the timeline is going as it ought to.

Very well. You take stock of the things that have happened so far.
Aruale got into the Medium safely, and so did you. The chain of connection is proceeding exactly as it should. You have connected to her, Kyanas connected to you, and presumably that imbecile Isaard will connect to her soon. Quite frankly, it's all out of your hands now. You're not the Hero of Time, after all. That's somebody else's job.

You could go kill some imps now, you suppose. Or you could contact someone and check on the state of things. Your role in ascension is over now, so there's really no hurry.

[Shipfish]

==> You talked to Kyanas. Just wanted to let you know.

==> Check out them dungeons!

[Quakerlol]

==> You talked to Kyanas. Just wanted to let you know.

You... what? No you haven't! You have talked to Kyanas a total of twice and not since the last time the command console told you to. You will not stand for this sort of tomfo- Oh hey she's pestering you. Welp.

herobound.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=pester2&action=display&thread=66&page=1

At some point during that conversation you encountered some GOLD IMPS, as well as the usual variety. You now have several bits of GOLD, SHALE, IRON, and GRANITE grist. Wonderful.

You suppose you'll ask your lusus about the swirly thing.

--Show Spritelog--

LERENA: Zo what iz it?
DISCORDSPRITE: Hmmm?
LERENA: Pleaze don't play dumb, I am perfectly aware that you were watching our converzation.
DISCORDSPRITE: You alwayz were a zharp one.
DISCORDSPRITE: Very well.
DISCORDSPRITE: It'z called a gate, and you have to get through it to advance in the game.
DISCORDSPRITE: The firzt gate leadz to your land.
DISCORDSPRITE: The zecond, to your zerver player'z land.
LERENA: Interezting.
LERENA: Zo how do I get to it?
DISCORDSPRITE: Generally your zerver player iz zupposed to build your hive up to it.
DISCORDSPRITE: And in fact you are zuppozed to that very thing for your client.
LERENA: I zee.
LERENA: Well I believe that I zhall go defeat zome more impz now.
DISCORDSPRITE: Are you juzt uzing that az an excuze to explore the dungeonz?
LERENA: Pozzibly.

==> Check out them dungeons!

You do believe that you shall do just that. You captchalogue your computer in your LIGHTNING MODUS, leaving a sooty spot where it once stood. Not the cleanest of modii, but still fun. You push through the heavy oaken door leading into the castle's interior and step inside.

Inside of the castle it is musty, as if the doors have never been opened before. There are all sorts of cobwebs and foot-thick drifts of dust. You make a mental note to figure out some way to clean at least this castle. If you're going to be here for a while, you want the place to be habitable. Your footsteps echo in the long hallway, and you feel a chill run down your spine. It is certainly odd to be so far from any other troll in a strange place. You see a shaft of light and run forward. It is a stained-glass window, cut in purple and gold. You try to make sense of the story it seems to be telling, but it confuses you. It reminds you more than a bit of the prophetic dreams you've been having, in that it makes absolutely no sense and it involves chess in some way. God are you bad at chess.

You continue on down the hallway, pulling out your knives in readiness. Luckily nothing attacks you as you proceed to find a long, dusty spiral stone staircase. You apprehensively tiptoe down it.

The staircase opens up into yet another dusty corridor. You are getting increasingly tired of eerie echoes and corridors. This corridor is long and boring with lots of stained-glass windows that are probably important and and have puzzles or whatever but screw that, there are dungeons to find. You go through a couple of these hallways and staircases before you finally find the dungeons.

They are absolutely perfect. You can see racks, iron maidens, manacles, thumbscrews, everything. Never has a place been better-suited to you. This may very well be the greatest day of your life. OKAY YES THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER. You go crazy, captchaloguing pretty much one of everything. You have a feeling they'll come in handy.

Okay that was a hell of a lot of fun. What now?

[Shipfish]

==> Alchemiter binge?
==> Moar slaying. Go for a basilisk this time.

[Quakerlol]

==> Get pestered by Aruale


[10:31] -- anonymousWavelength [AW] began pestering sadisticSylph [SS] at 10:31 --

[07:26] AW: hey )erena
[07:26] SS: Hello.
[07:26] AW: so i think you're supporsed to get me to my gaters or something
[07:26] SS: I can't right now.
[07:26] SS: I'm zort of buzy.
[07:27] AW: what the he)) do you mean bursy?
[07:27] SS: Well, for one thing I juzt got to my land.
[07:27] SS: I am currently in the midzt of exploring the caztle.
[07:27] AW: oh, okay
[07:27] SS: Bezidez, you don't have enough grizt yet for me to build up your hive all the way to your gate.
[07:27] AW: oh
[07:27] AW: i guerss i')) jurst go ki)) some more stuff then
[07:27] AW: te)) me when i have enough
[07:27] SS: I will.
[07:27] SS: And when you do, you can come vizit me here.
[07:27] AW: (oo)
[07:27] AW: see ya
[07:27] SS: And zoon, hopefully.

[07:28] --sadisticSylph [SS] ceased pestering anonymousWavelength [AW] at 7:28 --

You suppose that her sprite must have told her about the gates. Useful.

==> Alchemiter binge?

Well you don't see why not. You go back up to the top of the castle where Kyanas deployed all the machines. You take a moment to reflect on Kyanas. She seems like an intelligent troll. She has listened to all of your requests, and hasn't questioned you very much. You are indeed glad that she is your server player, and you believe that she can be trusted.

Okay, looks like it's time to make some cool stuff happen. You take stock of your inventory. You have several torture devices, your knives, and your husktop. Well, you're sure you can make some interesting things with these, but you have some ideas that you want to work out. You go inside your hive and look around your room. You see a TESLA COIL, which you have never turned on because you live underwater. Okay, let's use that. You captchalogue it and go back outside.

You already know how this machine works, of course, so you can skip the whole learning-how-to-do-things montage. First thing to do is duplicate your knives. You make a few sets of them for backup. Then you combine the TESLA COIL with your knives to create TESLA'S SHAVING RAZORS. Hooooly crap. These are awesome. You add them to your STRIFE DECK. You swing them around experimentally, and end up slicing one of the stones off of a crenellation with lightning. This continues to be the best day ever.

Well it's not like you can top that. What do you do now?

[Shipfish]

==> Go use those daggers on something! I can't wait!

[Quakerlol]

==> Go use those daggers on something! I can't wait!

Correction: knives. Daggers are barbaric implements of the most delusional of power-hungry magic-seekers. Knives are aristocratic, subtle instruments of manipulation and skill. The difference is important. Anyone who uses daggerkind is certainly far lower on the spectrum of sophistication than you, thank you very much. Well, enough digression, it's time to zap the crap out of a monster.

The floor shakes. Speak of the devil. You look up excitedly and see a huge monstrosity towering above you.

--Show Spritelog--

DISCORDSPRITE: Think you can take that on, little one?
LERENA: Of courze.
LERENA: Grub'z play.
DISCORDSPRITE: Don't get too confident, now.
LERENA: Pleaze. Give me zome credit.
LERENA: I can handle zomething az low-level az thiz.

You raise your right hand and flourish it. A single bolt of lightning hits the monster, piercing it through the place where its heart should be. Simple and elegant. It groans and falls to one knee.

"Ztill not dead, hmm? I can fix that." You leap into the air, using a parquet stone as a springboard, and come down hard with one knife into its eye. It screeches and explodes into a huge grist windfall. You ascend your echeladder to the much-vaunted rung of ELECTROLASS. Hell yes.

-- Show Spritelog --

DISCORDSPRITE: Well done, dear!
LERENA: Thank you.
DISCORDSPRITE: Although, it'z not over ye-
LERENA: I am quite aware, thank you.

You're not blind, after all. The monster brought two friends, who are currently climbing up the tower. If you kill them now, you won't be able to collect the grist. Or savor the moment. That's important too. Thus, you wait until they have both made it over the edge, holding your hands up like a conductor about to cue an orchestra. It is not until they are both within several feet of you that you bring your hands down, raining electrical hell down upon them. It seems to you that somewhere the string section has started playing. You could finish them off now, but this is far too much fun. You send precision strikes of lightning from your blades, targeting first their feet, then their hands, then their hearts, then their heads. They bellow in pain. The imaginary strings are picking up. You contemptuously flick a finger and finish them off with one bolt through the eye each. This isn't even a challenge.

You hear a hiss, and abruptly turn around. A hideous lizard beast has climbed up the tower behind you, and is nearly on top of you. There's no time to think or summon a bolt of electricity. You slash blindly at its hissing face, trusting your reflexes to buy you space. Somewhere the brass section is leading into a crescendo. You manage to strike a hit and bright red rivers run down its face. Bright red? Odd. You leap backwards and gesture wildly, shooting another bolt of lightning. It somehow dodges your attack. Well. That's certainly interesting.

You look around briefly to make sure that nothing else is attacking. Luckily it's just this huge lizard thing. Not like that's lucky, since it's managed to doge lightning and oh god where did it go. You stop moving and look around, listening for its hiss.

-- Show Spritelog --

DISCORDSPRITE: TURN AROUND!

You whip your head around just in time to catch it leaping for your face. Time seems to slow down and you know you have no time to get your knives up to defend yourself, no way to avoid its terrible teeth-

And a purple beam of light knocks it to the side. It screeches, and there's no time to thank your lusus right now because it lunges for you again, but this time you're ready, bringing your knives to bear on the monstrosity and firing. It can't dodge, weakened by your sprite's blast, and so you fire again and again until it screams and explodes into crystalline grist. You grin, sitting down as the adrenaline rush abruptly leaves you, and ascend to DIRECT CURRENT DEBUTANTE.

-- Show Spritelog --

LERENA: Thank you.
DISCORDSPRITE: Well I can't have you dying on me, zweetheart.
LERENA: Your zentiment iz appreciated.

[Shipfish]

==> Woah. Make sure to collect all that grist.
==> Rest a bit, that must have taken a lot out of you.

[Quakerlol]

==> Woah. Make sure to collect all that grist.

Thankfully, your lusus already took care of that. He can be considerate, when he isn't in one of his blasted pranking moods. A light rain begins to patter on the stones near your feet. You look up to see a bright pink cloud hovering over the tower.

-- Show Spritelog --

LERENA: What are you doing.
DISCORDSPRITE: Celebrating!
LERENA: With chocolate milk rain.
DISCORDSPRITE: Of courze!
LERENA: I'm going inzide.

==> Rest a bit, that must have taken a lot out of you.

You stand up and take stock of your injuries. Thanks to your lusus' quick action, you weren't seriously hurt, but your GEL VISCOSITY took a beating during the battle. Luckily, killing that thing seems to have replenished it. You move out from under the pink cloud and back into your hive.

You walk quietly down the hall to your bedroom. You are tired. The adrenaline has left you, and you desperately need to rest your eyes. You don't plan to go to sleep, though. Just lay down for a bit in your soft, soft cocoon, let the sopor slime wash over you, and then get back up and go on with everything. Not sleeping. Just resting.

You undress, not wanting to get a perfectly good outfit covered in sopor slime, and don a light nightdress.

-- Show Spritelog --

LERENA: Just in caze I go to zleep, will you make zure the creaturez don't injure me?
LERENA: Or at leazt awaken me if they attack.
DISCORDSPRITE: Of courze, my dear.
DISCORDSPRITE: Lizten to you, you zound like a frightened wiggler crying to their luzuz to keep the monzterz beneath their cocoon at bay.
LERENA: I am ignoring that.

You step into your recuperacoon and close your eyes. Just a small nap, that's all. Just sleeping off the fight. You almost instantly fall into a deep sleep.

((Lerena will return to this thread as soon as she wakes up. In the meantime, she is on Prospit.))

[Quakerlol]

==> Awaken

You blink blearily as your consciousness returns to your 'real' body. You had a bit of trouble grasping the idea that your body exists in two places simultaneously, but you try not to think about that too much anymore. You climb out of the recuperacoon and rinse off quickly, getting dressed once again. You hope that Kyanas isn't watching with her server-window. Privacy is going to be a bit of an issue with this game.

You nod to your lusus.

--Show Spritelog--

LERENA: Thank you for protecting me.
DISCORDSPRITE: No problem, my dear! It iz my job, az your guide and your luzuz!
LERENA: All the zame, I am grateful.

He accepts a scratch behind the horns. He may be a meddlesome prankster, but he's your meddlesome prankster, after all is said and done.

You walk back outside of your hive. No monsters seem to be around, but there are large piles of grist around. Looks like your lusus kept his word very well indeed. You walk around, idly picking up all the grist, and note the punch designix in the corner. Hmm. Perhaps with all this grist lying around, it's time to make some more things.

You go back into your room and pick up an old hairband. This could be useful. Your gaze also falls upon a pair of sandals, and you get an idea. You snatch up the sandals, a wristwatch, and a small glass statuette of a songbird. You take all this out to the punch designix and get punching.

Husktop || Headband creates the SCOUTER. You equip the hell out of that. There, now you have a sensible hands-free computing option. You also combine the husktop with your wristwatch to make a nice little wrist-mounted computer. Hmm, tiny. You go get your HOLOGRAPHIC PROJECTOR from your media room and add that in. There! Now it has a nice large holographically-projected screen and keyboard. Compact, yet usable.

Now for the most important thing. You equip the computers and crack your knuckles. You || the sandals with the statuette to create some completely useless GLASS SANDALS. Dammit, not what you wanted at all. You go ahead and || it the other way, making a hideous BIRD MADE OF SANDAL LEATHER. Come ON! You && the two items, finally, hoping it turns out the way you want and wishing there was some way to preview the items before they are made. You create some winged sandals. These things look like they could barely get you off the ground. You're going to need to amp up the power somehow. But with what? In contemplation, you start idly playing with your new lightning-knives. That sparks an idea. You punch the card for the knives and create...

THE TELLARIA OF THE TEMPEST. Hoooly crap are these things sweet. You equip them, and gingerly put your foot down. Sparks fly. Perfect. You stomp down harder, and you hear ozone crackle. You jump into the air, and the wings on the sides of the sandals aren't even flapping but you're flying, hovering above the ground, and this is amazing.

[Radiodragon]

==> Hate to go all Daedalus on you, but for the love of troll Jegus do NOT fly too high with those things.

and

==> Get your server player to build up your hive.

[Quakerlol]

==> Hate to go all Daedalus on you, but for the love of troll Jegus do NOT fly too high with those things.

Oh, you're sorry, you can't hear the command console over the sound of how AWESOME these things are. What was that? Fly higher? You thought so. You point your toes and zoom upward. This flight feels more powerful than your dream-flights somehow, more... electrical. Your skin prickles as you soar up, up past the towers that just up from your castle. You stop and look down. You can see more castles stretching out for miles, with forests and rivers interspersed between them. Various frozen lightning bolts illuminate the land. You look up and see a spinning purple gate above you.

You think your lusus said something about that leading to the rest of your land. It does indeed seem to be very interesting, and you would like to explore it further. Better be prepared first, though. Reluctantly you descend back to your hive.

--Show Spritelog--
LERENA: Well, I am going to go to my land now.
LERENA: Will you be accompanying me az a guide?
DISCORDSPRITE: No, I'm afraid not!
DISCORDSPRITE: I muzt ztay here.
DISCORDSPRITE: Zpritez are limited to the hivez of the playerz!
LERENA: I zee.
LERENA: I zuppoze I zhall be going now, then.
DISCORDSPRITE: Take care!
DISCORDSPRITE: I will be keeping in contact with you through pzychic meanz.
LERENA: That'z zomewhat terrifying.

You go around your hive and collect all your necessary materials, including the things you have alchemized. You equip everything that you will need and launch yourself into the sky once more, flying like a streak of light towaards your gate.