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Rankev, as was his habit, kept this mouth silent for the arrest and the walk. If the others were resigned to this experience, why shouldn't he be? Seeing the giant rod and cogs was somehow comforting. If proper Law and Order could be exacted on so cosmic a scale, why should he worry? Surely something that could set -that- in motion could have a plan for him. Right? At the court room at last the weight of the situation comes full upon him and he feels that, again, his particular skills could be of some use here. Despite NOT knowing the law of these parts, that they pride themselves on -prefect- law is, at least, knowing one thing. "I move for a mis-trial," he says using the primitive terms of his own realm. "When we got here we were addressed as "Law Breakers". This obvious bias from him that sits in judgement is a clear case of prejudicial 'stare` decisis'. With such a clear sign that the judge already has his mind made up, I have no motive to present the evidence of our innocence. -Were- this a court of Pure Law, then there would be an -even- playing field for both the government and the accused. As prejudice is OBVOIUSLY present, this is a clear sign that Perfect Law does NOT live here, and, thus, we are not in any way bound to even recognize this slanted court. I move for a dismissal of the charges."
"No comestibles!?!" Rankev uncontrollably exclaims, quite disbelieving. "Confound. Now that I know this I'm not sure I -want- to spend all eternity here." Rankev gets stew&room the same as the others, and, beating off the frustration and stress that's been hounding him, he orders a double flagon of ale and does a staggering battle upon it, all the while wishing it was at least a bolt of invigorating rumtipple.
"Wait, it falls to the -other- side of the gear we're standing on?!?" Rankev had been content to just wrack his neck and looking around. The gears turning, all things being in perfect order, it all deserved to be just quietly digested. But when gravity itself is shown to have a new and quite artificial twist, his calm is disturbed somewhat. "So if you jumped off, you'd land on the other side. And, and, and...and if you jumped off from that side, you'd land back on this side? That is...a very convenient way of travel. Confound WE should have something like that! Then if you were on an island, it would DOUBLE the amount of land you could build on. Brilliant!" Making a mental note to come back to this plane and learn more about their gravity trick, he follows along.
Cheyanne looks blankly at Rankev as he speaks, clearly not understanding at all... Well stuffed on his own importance at defeating an entire squadron without a shot fired, Rankev explains. "I simply illustrated, good Cheyanne, that there actions were not lawful. And if indeed these are creatures of purest Law, then surely that would be a horrible sin, hm? I just explained that Padlock was 'broken' because he was turning the cog, but now wasn't, and why would you put a broken turner back instead of just replacing it? They must have seen at least some merit in the argument," he finishes, musingly.
"Well, if you can't dazzle them with brilliance then baffle them with bull...something," Rankev muses as he watches the searchers retreat from the field of battle. Victory? "And that," he says, turning back to the group, "is...Power!" he says, celebrating his win for whatever it may be. "Where are we off to now?"
Rankev stomps in front of the gang of modrons and calls at them. "You, sir, are being...inefficient!" he says defiantly at them. He had been thinking about this problem ever since he heard about what Padlock's job had been. It just seemed -wrong- that a race of absolute lawful embodiments (if the sketchy knowledge he had about this place was true) would somehow surrender their ingenuity. So too, to send a large number of troops on a trip just for a hand to do so menial a job? Have they never heard of water-powered mills? Or wind mills, for that matter? Well...maybe they haven't. "Sirrah, is it not the highest purpose of life to achieve Order?" He paused here. The secret of debate was to start with a principle so absolute that none could deny you. Then you use that momentum to...end with a principle so impossible that none can debate it. "And is it not Orderly to remove ALL instances of the the REMOTEST possibility to CHAOS infiltrating into any given system? And YOU, sirrah, are doing just that! I say that you are a worshipper of CHAOS! And how do I say this? It is your goal to put the Lost Object of Significance BACK into the job of turning aforementioned cog, IS IT NOT? But you, sir, would be putting into place an object that has ALREADY shown to be SUB-OPTIMAL for doing that job. Why, sir, would you do such a thing?!? Do you WANT that cog to be turned intermittently? For that is what would happen! The Lost Object, already having shown to not have a high value for performing that job is NOT the best tool FOR that job. Wouldn't that be logical? I mean, I have heard it said, and so you might agree with me, that the *ahem*, Past Performance is the best indicator of Future Performance. Isn't that so? Hence, I say to you that the ONLY way to retain Order is to NOT find or seek the Lost Object, and come up with some other way...a way that does NOT promote CHAOS. Some years ago a great thinker of our time invented something called a "windmill". Basically it translates lateral, naturally generated power, into mechanical, rotating power. All by using the natural forces around us. Thus even those low-beings on the Prime Material Plane do NOT need Cogs or Objects to turn their cranks...they just hook it up to a mill. And it generates constant, steady, un-interrupted turning. And isn't that what you, sirrah, are looking for? Let the Object go, and I think we can work something out."
"Oh! Um, you are quite welcome!" he says, almost surprised. 'Well look at that. Me, being not completely useless. Will wonders never cease!' With that thought he notices that the not-modron has captured everyone's attention leaving...possible resources...laying about. He starts searching the new corpses with the professional touch of one used to treating things in an academic manner.
After having failed to grasp the last spell-crystal, and seeing his band dangerously close to being wholesale murdered, Power shakes his head, trying to clear it. Usually when he gets into sticky situations, the fat of his intellect can get him out. He hopes such a thing can happen now.
"Careful!" he blurts out, easily identifying the enchantment the spellcaster but on himself. "He's made himself more graceful! Very dangerous! Wait a minute...." Having seen how the crystals float, and having devoted the last few moments to their study, he finds he can better anticipate them. Sure enough, this one appears and he's able to quickly run after it.
"Gotcha!" he yells, his hand solidly swiping at the floating bit. "And so we see that there is nothing you can do that can not be undone by...power."
Rankev frowns as they start taking casualties, but then his frown goes away as the quick-thinking goblin mitigates that obstacle. His curiosity is piqued by the odd crystals that seem to appear at every spell. Unsure how his more basic force missile would react, he instead can not resist testing the theory of how these crystals mitigate instantaneous ekovations. He throws caution to the wind and sprints after the lightning-spell-fast-crystal.
'Hrmmm. That's not supposed to happen,' Rankev muses as a small crystal moves away from him as he casts his own spell. 'That's not supposed to happen either,' he thinks, watching intently the drama unfolding as the bladling releases his own crystal, only to have it snatched by the goblin, which then seems to countermand the enchantment he had cast.
His eyebrows rise steadily as his intellect puts the pieces together. "It seems that this plane, in its demand for balance in all things, creates a palpable kind of counter-balance whenever a spell is cast," he states, pondering the implications of this.
Power ate his stew with something between disgust and fascination. Although he'd never seen a rust monster, he'd heard enough about them to put them just above garbage eating otyughs, and just below rats. Still, the flavor wasn't bad and he was hungry so he worked his way through it without too much trouble.
As Glutton addresses the monodrone and it answers back, Rankev approaches the creature and stares at it. "Hmmm. You know, I had never met anyone that could not tell me that it didn't just speak in 'yes' and 'no' in some kind of binary patois. That I can verify that they speak Common could alone get me published for the next three years! [b]"Um, negative, my friend," he says to the modrone, trying to use simple words in spite of his new knowledge. "But perhaps if you describe your predicament we might be able to shed some light. That might sound unusual to you but it has been a rather unusual day and I feel the impossible is now just commonplace."
'How does metal get into the soup? Do they use beasts partly made from metal? Or is metal so common here that it gets into everything, like dust in other places? Is it only this steel-like stuff that is everywhere? I wonder if they have patches of gold that grows naturally, like coal in other places?'
"Given that metal usually needs to be forged, one wonders how the metal under our boots came to be? Does it go down for all eternity? Do the people around here mine the ground for the metal to build shelter? Do these people over-value wood since they live in a mineral ultra-rich environ?" Rankev muses these things as he follows the others.
"Peace, friend Gribblix, peace. A stitch in time saves nine," Power mutters at the anxious goblin. So to, he was also 'Clueless'. But...unlike the rest of the others, he had related to books and libraries the way other men chased women and gold. As their erstwhile ally rattled off the brief biography of those poor souls before them, his fertile brain dug deep, seeking to gleen the least of data about what was before them.
Though he experience a brief--and uncharacteristic--brain freeze about this 'Mechanus' place, given that they were headed there, it seemed a meat choice to unlock the gnome anyway.
"Ah! Well it seems that this is something I may finally apply my unique talents at! In. That really should be 'my unique talents in'," he muses before casting a simple spell.
"Well, now, this should be our quarry," he says, picking out a toothpick. "Let us away, I dare say!" he says, shimmying back down the rope.
Power rejoices in his ability to lay low the fiendish wolves. "Think on THAT the next time you want to attack innocent journeyers!" he taunts at the dead wolves. The irony that he's taunting corpses doesn't really settle upon him. At the hall of the giants he wonders if it is a good sign or bad that they are first greeting by a snoring janitor. "Surely those are both horrible things," he says at the man, not putting in the edge of irony that the statement calls for, trying to help break the ice.
OH MY GOODNESS 40 posts!1! Over a weekend!!11!!11!!!!eleven!! Okay, I guess you guys do likey to game over the weekend. I picked the wrong day to go travelling. ^_^[/ooc] As the minotaur flips a brace of coppers at a merchant in exchange for an odd pair of small ear-hole-shaped things, Rankev follows suit, figuring that if even the smelly minotaur is doing a thing, he should at least try to be as smart as him. Later, as the Howling Winds of Madness buffer them, he keeps his own council, figuring that a hold on his tongue will translate to a hold on his mind. Probably.
"Gah!" Rankev screams in frustrating frustration. "What an awful place this is!" He knew that his meditation tea might get him out of this, but he wanted to save it...for the journey back.
"Uhhhhh," Rankev stammers, taking a few steps back and hiding behind the minotaur. "So, we're not running some more then?" he says as his companions turn and provide a united--if passive--front toward the alleged law-men. Well, other than getting into a fight with random bystanders, this was exactly the sort of thing that he had wanted to avoid. He just wanted to walk to the 'door' and go get something from absolute chaos. Why can't it be easy? Why is nothing ever easy? Ah, well, he'd hate for them all to die just because he held back. In for a copper, in for a platinum and all that. "Oh fiddsticks," he says, mentally summoning the energy needed for a martial display.
dice!:
'Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" Rankev screams, high and girlish, as the living tsunami crashed down upon him.
The tidal wave of the crowd surges toward him with uncaring purpose...
...and just sort of flows around him, leaving him unscathed and even untouched. "Let's go," he says, unable to explain or account for the unrivaled miracle he just witnessed.
Also, the website is notoriously cantankerous. Before I hit either Preview or Submit, I always cntl+A, cntl+C...just in case.
Rankev finds his way back to the minotaur--because even in this eclectic crowd, such a beast is had to miss. "Can we not just get going?" he asks. "It seems that whatever goes here has nothing to do with us. With the crowd engaged, can we not regain the street?" With a mission to be done he hated to get sidetracked. Not that he always doesn't get sidetracked. Especially if the cause is worthy.
'Meeee? What's a 'Harmonium'? Is it bad? Is it good? Is it the orderly lawful power around here? Or is it another gang? Is this some kind of power play and they want to disperse this peaceably assembled crowd using violence? Do they have the right to do it? Are they doing it for their own gain or for the good of the community? Do they have the right to order private citizens around? Or do they take me for just some pawn that needs to do it because they are stronger than I am? Will they offer recompense when its done? Am I expected to ask for recompense first? Will they think me weak if I do it without any cheek? Can they really have power if they need another gang's patrol to solve their problems for them?' All this and more runs through the dwarf's mind in the blink of an eye. His brain, unable to reach a consensus, requires more information. "Why?" he stammers out.
Guys- let me know if I'm ever pushing the pace too fact for you; if most of the group has responded since my last post I have a tendency to move on and I neither intend to leave anyone behind nor blast you with so much from the firehouse so fast that you're lost, so just shout out if I ever go too fast. Oh my goodness yes. The boards are littered with literally thousands of games that all died because they went to slow. Indeed, its hard to stop if you refuse to slow down. I promise to never complain if something goes too fast. But if something is too slow, I'll get in the habit of not checking the game. And one of those downsides is that...I get in the habit of not checking the game. Indeed, I don't think I'm telling secrets here when I say that one wonders why they should bother posting if their post won't get any reaction for a week. (We've all been in games like that.) So too, I've come across 2 rules that I've heard about and some people find helpful. The first is the rule of 2. It means that if 2 people of the party have decided on an action, that action takes place. I have waited for, literally, a week to try and get a unified decision from the party, but that game quickly died. The other the 48 hour rule. If someone hasn't posted in 48 hours, it's okay to bot them. (Some do 24 hours, but I don't think many games are that fast.) If someone hasn't posted in 2 days, it's because Life is happening and they'll probably be grateful for things to just move on and they'll get caught up when the pace slows down. Or at least that's my feelings. IMHO. YMMV.
"And then after the Lost have torn the powers down...then what?" Power asks, completely mistified. "What is there plan afterward? I mean, one can imagine what the plan is for someone who -wants- to become a power...they want to then use that power. It's obvious. But then after you've torn them all down? (And, presumably, not allow anyone else to take their place.) Are they all insane, or...do they have some kinda of representative republic form of government ready to go to replace the quasi-feudal system they believe is currently repressing them? Also, what's a 'blood' and what does it mean to be top-shelf? Do they wield governmental power, or are they really rich, or....?" Rankev was having a hard time keeping up. And to a ragged beggar nonetheless! "And if your friend gives out free healthcare, do you, um...do you want to go see him? I mean, if you needed like, a salve or unguent I'm sure we have time?"
"So, Ms. Bleaker," Rankev starts, honestly thinking that's her name, "you're saying all of the Godsmen want to become a higher power...but none have ever achieved it? Well does it strike anyone that they're not very good at it then? You'd think if any of them were on anything resembling the right path at least ONE would've been successful by now." He pauses to purchase a potion of cure light wounds ('everyone else is so I may as well') and the tea and rat powder mentioned. This does for his pay for now and he hopes to be successful since he's now as poor as he was when he came in. 'Why does everyone keep saying she's a glutton for punishment? She has a few open sores but most of the lower class do. By the way she's dressed she's obviously some beggar leaping at the chance for some easy coin. Can't really blame her, the poor thing.' "Can, um, can we just go around? Are they having a parade or some celebration...?"
"No, reMUNeration," Rankev corrects, quite unable to help himself despite this being a desperately stupid thing to do. "'Remuneration' is to pay moneys for services rendered. ReNUMeration is to just re-count something again, as to re-number something." But then he didn't really want to be rude, so he ended with a bit of self-depreciating humor' "Ah-HA! I have made that same mistake many times. Indeed, this one time, see, there were these Cresent Hawks, and they wanted revenge...." Then he just winds down realizing no one wanted to learn about the first time he heard an arcane word. "Um, yes! Two thousand will be quite good, I should say. It is ah, standard, where I come from, to give over half now, for travelling expenses, and half upon delivery. And, I mean, I can see that some few things might be good to have, going into the literal embodiment of insanity. Perhaps I might purchase from you some Meditation Tea? And, I guess, some Vermin Repellant? If that is amenable, then on behalf of all assembled, I accept!" he gives a small bow. 'What am I doing? What have I gotten myself into. Well I don't have much of a choice now do I? It's either this or choose between starving to death or being eaten to death.' "Um, no, I'm not 'a' power, per se," he starts to explain to the--y'know, he wants to ask what she is, but something about her just says that that would be a bad idea--"Miss, um, Bleaker, was it?"
At this point he wanted to go on but the best course of action seemed to be to just stop talking.
"Rankev," Rankev replies as the--hmmmm, lavender eyes and black hair? Not drow. Must be another demon--asks about the toothpick. "Rankev Davis. But my friends know that I...am Power!" He waves his hands and a small ball of light forms in his palm. He's quite proud of it. "And no, I had taken the reference to a toothpick at face value. Pandemonium though? Surely he can not mean the plane of absolute chaos, and he did talk about someone paying to get us there, so I assumed it was some sort of large bar, or a district of town, perhaps? And he expected us to get back, so it must surely be within walking distance. Surely."
'None of these wands are labeled! What kind of a business is this? Mind you, I have a burning urge to study all these wands and label them. Perhaps I should approach the proprietor?' Just then the proprietor saves him the trouble and addresses him. And some other people. Persons. Things. 'Oh my! By all the planes she can take my sword anytime,' he thinks, suddenly seeing why there were so many stories of people being taken into bargains with demons. They had quite the sales force. He listens peacefully to the story of the toothpick. At the end he has big question. And one small one. "Um, and for what remuneration?" Rankev asks. "I mean, that is to say...why should we do this thing for you? But if we do um....then how are we to know this toothpick? It is unique in some way, yes? Something to ensure we do not just bring back any old toothpick? Is it gold? Hand-carved? Is it a Toothpick Of Unusual Size? Oh, and, um, do you need someone to label all those wands for you? I could be hired for that." Two small questions.
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