Enter the World through the Lambda Server

Moderator: Nighthand

Phoenix512
Exalted Player
Posts: 304
Joined: Thu Nov 13, 2003 10:42 pm

Post by Phoenix512 » Sat Jul 01, 2006 9:53 am

Phoenix’s question about losing his memories of the real world was not answered by Nighthand but by Sheena instead. Her answer was that the Twilight does not really altered the memory but it tends to make the player think more about the World the longer a player is infected by it. So the inability to remember the real world is due to me staying in the World for far too long. If that’s true, Suzaku should be able to read those memories. Suzaku, try reading some of my memories of the real world.

Kazuma-sama, I am unable to read those memories. Most of your memory is blocked. I can only read a small portion of your memories. I have been trying to remove the blocks but I have not been successful.

His guardian’s reply made Phoenix a bit unease. Being unable to remember much due to either his subconscious blocking them or some other influence made Phoenix wished he had time to explore this further but Sheena took the floor again as she gave some intelligence on the level strength, element, and a little bit of the layout. Then Raine mentioned that Rayo’s idea to split up was bad as lesser hackers could be more challenging since the group does not know their powers or ability. Nighthand spoke once again and mention that Tokki was coming back to the group.

Phoenix remembered Tokki very well as he fought her once ago which he was defeated in a convincing fashion. He has been hoping that the old members would return and Tokki was a start at this front. He thought that her powers would be very useful in this upcoming fight. Phoenix left his mind wandered off away from Tokki and focused on Reinier and Rayo’s discussion about the teams. As Phoenix listened to them, he was impressed how Reinier managed to build the teams so well.

I guess Reinier does have a brain after all. I guess it’s not all slash and kill. There’s some intelligence in that brain of his. It seems that one team is based mostly on teamwork and interaction of each other while the other team is more powered based. Reinier’s team is weaker in terms of power but has an extra member and greater interaction with each other. And the team that I’m on has more power but lack great interaction between members. Also, it has Hijinx. I guess I have to deal with it as I did think that not everybody was going to happy with the entire arrangement.

Phoenix continued to listen on as the members of the group have not talked about field arrangement which he began to think up some ideas about this. Let’s see. The next question is where to go. If you used the level argument, it should be that Reinier’s team goes to Closed Solitary Gate while my team goes to Muted Illusionary Code. If you used the element argument, Reinier’s team would go to Pulsating Light Trap Core while my team goes to Closed Solitary Gate. It looks like that one of the fields will be Closed Solitary Gate. The other field will be up to the others to decide.

At this point, Phoenix decided to take the floor and spoke to everyone. “I been thinking about on where to go and came up with two possibilities. The first possibility is that Reinier’s team goes to Closed Solitary Gate while Rayo’s team goes to Muted Illusionary Code which is based on the average level of the teams. The other possibility is that Reinier’s team goes to Pulsating Light Trap Core and Rayo’s team goes to Closed Solitary Gate which is based on elemental strengths of the teams. I suggest using the first possibility since this is a war for one. Going to the two lowest level fields will improve our chances in succeeding taking out the hubs. The second possibility gives Reinier’s team a harder time in succeeding while Rayo’s team would have a greater chance in succeeding. If this was a game, it would be fun to pick the two higher level fields but since it’s not, it should be the two lower level fields. One more thing Raine, is there any way we could extract information from the hubs before destroying them? It would be a great help to our cause if we could get some information on the Elites’ plan along with other useful information before taking it out.”

Phoenix stopped talking and let the others to talk along with Raine possibly answering his question about stealing information from the hubs. He tried to get his mind focus about the upcoming mission but failed miserably. His mind kept thinking about the real world or specifically, his memories of it. Phoenix’s thoughts kept striking out on the real world as his recent realization about being unable to remember much of the real world really disturbed him. Meanwhile, Suzaku was trying to do the same thing that Phoenix was doing but she had a deeper insight about his situation which she could not tell him. The darkness is blocking his memories of the real world. It is probably a side effect of the original memory block of the missing ten days. My preparations are not done yet. I will free Kazuma-sama of the darkness and return those memories to him.
Phoenix
Level 48 Blademaster
Equipped Skills: Vak Revolver, Gan Revolver, Dek Vorv, La Repth, Juk Kruz, Rue Kruz, BiVak Rom, GiGan Zot
Other Skills: Rue Kruz, Rip Synk, Rip Saem, Crack Beat, Rue Slash, Ani Slash, Gan Crack, Gan Revolver

Wish List: Phoenix's Fire, Gold Necklace
EX-Spheres: LV 3 - Overdrive, LV 3 - Curative, LV 3 - Elemental Breath

User avatar
Dien
Exalted Player
Posts: 226
Joined: Fri May 12, 2006 1:59 am
Class: Blademaster
Location: The "Who's Online List," Stalking People...

Post by Dien » Sat Jul 01, 2006 8:03 pm

(OOC: Third attempt at writing this thing: let’s see if I can’t get something going)

Slowly, Dien rose to his feet, somehow not garnering the attention of the entire room with what had happened. A couple players stared, and in spite of it he could only smile nervously. Okay, he thought, taking a seat, I must’ve missed something. The last of the whipped cream disappearing from his figure, he began to slowly take in bits of conversation among the whole group.

There were three fields to choose from, each of differing level. From what he could gather from small-talk, they were some form of communications hubs for the Elites’ flashmails. That much alone gave him all the brain-fodder he could ask for, for now. He’d never really dabbled much in the Global Flashmail Network before. Compared to some of the things he’d used, though, GFN was still an infant. If it was anything like the old email system from the glory days of the internet, then it worked by transmitting files from a specific destination to a specific destination.

Now, if the Elites had really developed a subliminal system for routing their mail to whatever operatives they had, then there were several things that could be taken advantage of with access to the hubs. First, messages that originated in or were destined to Yamiyo would need to be transmitted through those hubs. This meant that tracking one of these messages would lead to the location of Yamiyo, and possibly give whatever code-wielders they had some kind of advantage in finding it. The method for tagging such a message would be tricky, but if it worked, they’d have their hole.

The second possibility with the hubs was surveillance. If they could introduce a couple lines of code into the one of the hub’s data processing algorithms, then they’d be able to get a copy of however many flashmails that hub processed and be able to finally start getting the upper hand on these elites. Still, even installing a few lines of code would be tricky without some handy rewrite function available (OOC: a la Data Drain), and ever since he’d become trapped, his own applets had been inaccessible.

Still, the group had already moved on from the fate of these hubs to how they were going to go about destroying them. It would be too late for Dien to jump in and suggest a different course of action, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t ask for future reference, right? Most probably, one of the girls would be his best choice in talking to about it. The only remaining question was: which one? Sheena, the one in the gold halter, seemed a bit to bubbly to be able to understand what he was talking about this time around, just glancing over to her in the other room attending to Nall told him that much. The one choice left was Raine.

Quickly he made his way over to her, still a bit nervous about proposing an idea to someone who’d been around this scene a lot longer than he had. What if they couldn’t even tag flashmails like that? He’d look like one of the biggest n00bs, and wouldn’t be able to propose any more serious ideas without a hell of a lot of stipulation, even if they actually could help. Then again, what defined a good idea and what defined a bad one? He’d gone through dozens of ‘bad’ ideas in his programming lifespan, but still had his handful of good ones. In the long run, it was the good ones that mattered, and not the bad. Still, why was he so nervous about this?

"Uh, excuse me, Ms. Raine,” he said, a bit timidly, walking into the barracks room, “I have some ideas about these hubs, and I don't think the others who are hell-bent on destroying them would be willing to hear me out...” His voice trailed off, and his mind went off in thought on its own, waiting for her reply.

Well, let's hear it, see what you've got.” She turned to face him, and he swallowed a hard, dry swallow that left his throat craving water.

“Well, for one, I seem to remember you saying something about not being able to find Yamiyo,” Dien continued, a little more confident, “well, what if we were to subliminally tag one of the flashmails going through the hub that was en route to that server? It might make things a little easier, if I'm right.”

Raine chuckled, responding in due time, “That's a good idea, Dien. Unfortunately, whoever was on the receiving end of the flashmail would know immediately... Or if they didn't, there's no guarantee they'd be in Yamiyo. You see, the problem with Yamiyo's location isn't exactly where it is... we've been there before. It's that the entry to it is sporadic at best. It's always moving around, in fields, between fields, barely resting in one place for more than a few moments. It's random and unpredicable, and almost always guarded. Unfortunately, any tampering with the hub would alert the hackers that something was being done.” The girl sighed slightly before continuing. “Yamiyo's beyond our reach, for the moment... it's all we can do to even trace their activities and be able to find these fields. Sometimes I hate the keyword system...

“So I take it that also rules out installing a spy script on one of the hubs?” Dang, that shut down his second idea before he could even let her know about it – he just had to be sure.

Pretty much. Besides, we wouldn't be able to just walk in and install it anyways; they'd know we were there because we'd have to pass whatever guards they left, and they'd probably at least scan it's code for tampering, or maybe just reset it to however it was. We pretty much just have to destroy them so much that they can't repair it.

“Huh,” he said, pausing a moment to think, "what if...?” His voice trailed off again, and he looked up to her, “these hubs, they'd have to know where the entry port to Yamiyo is at any given moment in order to send flashmails there, right?”

I couldn't say for sure. They probably have a constant connection, but nothing we'd be able to exploit; a limit to size of data transferred on it, for instance.

“Right,” he said, nodding and looking to one side, trying to think of anything else that could be done, “well, if I were still real-world-side, I'd make sure to copy the source of one of the hubs for you so you could at least have it to look at and harvest whatever information you could - if only a more detailed knowledge of how the Elites code”" Dien sighed, shrugging before he continued, “but I guess since there's no real way of copying data in-game that we're back to blowing 'em up, eh?”

Pretty much. Besides, the whole point is to cripple their communications more than it is to track them. They're a large enough organization, they make mistakes now and then.

“Heh, I'm sure,” he said, “thanks for your time.” There wasn’t much to be done for it: destruction was their only way to go. Damnit! he thought, so freaking useless! It wasn’t the first time he’d felt that way – the first time his ideas had met up against a wall of impossibility. Pluto’s Kiss had been frightening for him, especially as a kid as young as he was. It was events like that God-forsaken virus that drove him to use what he had, and yet, both now and back then it was proven to be inadequate.
__________

“Ever since the Pluto’s Kiss epidemic, -thud- Altimit has been
the operating -thud- system, due to its impervious -thud- shell of firewalls and simplistic coding. -thud-” he read aloud, the book from his new class spouted off recent history like a broken fountain. Its water would jump up high into the air, lingering for a moment only to come crashing down on the unfortunate students who had to drink from it. The one problem for Jed was that he already knew it. Hell, they could’ve changed his name for the author’s name and it wouldn’t have made any difference.

“Maaaaaaan,” he whined, letting the book slide from his hand to the carpeted floor next to the chair on which he sat, “what a drag! I mean, I
know all this stuff already!”

“Yeah man,” Roy said, throwing his yellow ball at the ceiling once more, the repeated thud echoing to both of their ears, “I
toooold you not to spring for that class.” Another thud, and a voice called down the stairwell to their location, complaining about the noise. The heavier one lying on the longer couch only laughed. “So close, too,” he mused, “two more and I would’ve broken my old record.” It was a monthly contest he had with himself, or something like that. Up ‘til now, the record stood at 29 throws until his mother shouted down the stairs, and then five more after that before she actually came down. Testing the second was rarer, as it tended to result in the ball’s destruction by fire, but it did happen sometimes.

“You and your records,” Jed managed, letting his eyes close as the television rambled about some more kids had gone comatose thanks to that popular new game, “man, you’d think that with how many kids are going into comas thanks to that game that the government’d shut it down or something…”

“No way, man,” Roy replied, sitting up and tossing the ball to Jed, “our government don’t care
jack shit about that stuff. I mean, look at Pluto’s Kiss - only 9 million in relief funds!”

“Yeah,” he replied, opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling, “if only stuff like that didn’t happen, then our government could get back to governing.” He chuckled, throwing the ball lightly back to his friend.

“They haven’t done that since World War II, man,” the other replied, catching it, “and even then, if you look at it, we damn near fell apart.”

“That’s not what I’m saying though,” Jed said, sitting up and facing his friend, “like, what if we did something to help out, y’know?”

“What did you have in mind?” The ball was thrown back.

“Nothing big,” he said, catching the play thing, “just some form of online policing. God knows that neither the Japanese government nor ours can handle it nowadays.” Roy remained silent, only staring at his friend, waiting for him to go on. “…It’d be like a registry of hackers, so-to-speak. We’d get together, and help people out.”

“Dude, don’t event think about that stuff,” his friend said, “you
know what the penalty is for hacking these days.”

“Correction, the penalty only applies to malicious hackers - ones whose purpose is to destroy. This would be a place where the light hackers of the internet could get together and orderly sort out the problems that the net faces.”

“Whatever, dude,” Roy said, “remember, we got a test tomorrow on the second chapter of that lame book.” The two only looked at each other and laughed. Either
one of them could have written it.
__________

Dien, snap out of it,” she said, inviting him back to the present and out of his memories, “I didn’t get swallowed by a dragon just so you could go daydreaming again.

“Sorry,” he said, sitting on a nearby bed as her body faded into existence opposite his own, “but if the other blademaster’s suspicions are even partly right, then I’m gonna want to hold on to these as long as I can.”

Relax,” Danielle replied, “Sheena herself said that his worries were based in nothing serious and besides, your memories are all pretty dull.

“You didn’t seem to think so in the tower,” he chided, “it seemed to me like you couldn’t get enough of them.”

No, that was all you - I just walked you through it.” Dien looked back towards her, but she was gone. He wanted answers, or something. There was no telling, really, confusion settled in with the maelstrom of distractions that were swirling around his head, and he lay back, trying to sort through it all. He did have a headache, but it wasn’t anything worth complaining about.

Reinier stood up on a bed nearby, spouting off some stuff about teams and whatnot. Smirking, his thoughts proven less than fruitful in this endeavor, he thought back, trying to remember just what had happened to him: all of it, from the tower to this instant. There was the first encounter with the hideout at Mac Anu, and then the hell that followed. First the Admins and their knights, and then the Elites and their monsters, and then the fatal blow by Xenobia: betrayal on behalf of Reinier, Zan, and Rayo for their respective underlings. How could Zan even do that to him?! Weren’t they friends?

Of course they were! It was all Xenobia - none of it had been the lycan himself. What had killed him had been one of the Elites, not his newfound friend. When had that line of thinking changed? It was strange, he remembered lying on a bed in more pain than he’d ever felt, and even just thinking about it made him cringe. Then, the next thing he knew, he had that one really messed up dream, and woke up on the floor of the conference room. Dream: what had happened? It was something about breaking control, about withdrawing his will and releasing everything that it held back, namely Pain. Wait, was that it?

We need your opinion on the groups, and what field we want to go to. Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?” Dien heard, and he stood off the bed, walking over to the player now elevated over the others. Maybe he’d be able to shed light on what had happened…

“So wait,” Dien said before anyone else could jump in on the conversation, “two questions: first, what the hell just happened to me? One minute I'm in pain on a bed and the next I'm being revived by the wabbit. Two: what are you talking about?”

Reinier looked down to see Dien, fully alive and not relying on others to do things for him. “Oh thank God you're moving again. ‘Cause if we had to switch you to a catheter, I'd probably just ignore your existence for the rest of the time I'm in this hell-hole of a game. Anyways, in the order you asked. The ex-wabbit revived you ‘cause you were actin’ funny and I think Zan killed you. Next, we're going to fields to try and hunt down waskly hackers. They use a different means of communication then Flashmail, and Raine and Sheena have discovered where those means are located. We're splitting off in to different groups to find said means. You're in my group: Team Reinier. Questions? Comments? Suggestions?” Reinier smiled as he made sure Dien was, indeed, on his team. The blademaster stared for a moment, his brain having trouble taking it all in. Eyes closed, and he shook his head slightly, his brow furrowed in concerned thought.

“I gathered that I was in your group - and I'm ok with that much as long as Zan's around, but back up a moment: I did what now?” Reinier scratched the back of his head and shot the new member of the group an odd look.

You uh, got killed? I guess PK’d works too. I have no idea what was goin' on with you, but at one point you were going in to shock. I made a nice little foot cradle under your feet so you wouldn't die. I gathered that I should do somethin’, ‘cause Phoenix was flipping out.

“Uh thanks,” Dien replied, beginning to back away, “I'll just, uh, go and talk with Sheena about the fields a bit.” There was more to it, more that he wanted to know: more that he wanted to find out from her. She did seem to be the resident Twilight-specialist, so maybe she’d be able to help him know some more stuff. The golden halter wasn’t hard to notice from the other side of the room, and he made his way over there.

“Uh, Sheena?” he asked, walking up to her, seeming still unsure of how to do even that, “uh, can we talk for a second?”

Sure!” She exclaimed, turning to him very energetically. Taken aback at the enthusiasm for a moment (and its inherent bounciness), he continued.

“I don't suppose you could tell me how I went from being unconscious on a bed to being KO’d on the floor with a faceful of whipped cream...?”

You finally integrated with Twilight! That means you got yourself your own special power! Which happened to be killing your party members, but that's okay, because Zan killed you off before you could do too much damage! The whipped cream was your friend Hijinx's idea though, so you can thank her for the ressurrect!

How can she be so happy about something like that? he thought silently, still trying to figure out what happened. As sad as it was to say, that would have to wait for later. “So these fields,” he began again, “what did you see along the lines of monster portals, nodes, and other things?”

Not much! I just hopped in and hopped back out, but there's nothing right near the gate entries for any of them!” Well there was some good news. They weren't going to be killed off as soon as they gated in: yay! He would have asked for speculation as to what was there, but his mind was too busy chasing its own shadow inside.

“So, back up a minute,” he said, smirking slighly at his own inability to keep a single topic going, “what do you mean by ‘special power?’ I don't feel any different than I did before being infected...” His voice trailed off, unsure where to go from there.

You were making other people double over in pain!

What?! His eyes widened. That dream he'd had - it wasn't a dream?! That meant... “Who specifically?” He barely remembered anything after the voice urging him to let go, except getting very upset at people, and by God he didn't want to have any grudges going down while they were in the middle of a fight. Bad blood like that was never good.

Zhao Xun and Zan!” she replied, smiling all the while. The two names were like an arrow that shot right through him, and it felt as though he’d be crushed through sheer remorse alone.

“R-Right, then,” he managed, “thanks for your help.” The girl only giggled and turned away, back to attending to the speed demon that had saved him from eternal slavery. Zhao and Zan - what had he done? He had to make it right - if such a thing could even be done. Apologize? Hell, that wouldn’t even come close to covering what had happened.

Nothing was adding up - he couldn't make heads or tails of anything that had happened. It was like someone had taken scissors and ripped a giant hole in his memory, and he was left trying to patch it up. In any case, his gaze fell on Zan. Wincing slightly at the sudden onslaught of remorse, he knew he had to talk to the player, if only to find out just what the hell had happened. “Zan,” he said as he approached, “got a minute?”

The lycanthrope seemed distracted, his eyes blinking away a glazed look, focusing on the approach of the Blademaster. “Huh? Uh, yea. Sure.

Dien sat down, not wanting to face his friend if what Sheena had told him was true. “Zan I,” he began, his voice stopping itself there before he could finish, “I'm...sorry. I don't even know what I did, but so far both Reinier and Sheena have pointed you out as a victim of whatever it was - I can't go on without making that up to you.”

Zan's laugh was empty, withered, the Heavy Blade's expression masked in part by the leather hood draped over his head. “Don't apologize, kid. Bad shit tends to happen with Twilight's first expression. Besides, I did make you into what you became, if only indirectly. It only makes sense to be attacked.

“Yeah, but that wasn't your doing,” he replied, “hell, I don't even know if I can be held responsible for what I did - I don't even know what that was!” The blademaster lay back, his hands under his head and helping to fix his gaze on the ceiling.

A shrug then, Zan's hood withdrawn to reveal the stark tundra of his Siberian Husky eyes, his own gaze fixated on things that could not be seen. “Whatever. What's done is done. I've been in your position. No control, hardly any memory. You'll either trek through paths in your mind that will leave you sick with yourself, but with control, or you'll go insane. It'll all be up to you.

“I guess the choice is between insanity and control, then,” he said, chuckling slightly at the irony of that decision, and just at the fact that this player probably knew more about it than he could dream of, “so what exactly did I do?” Sure, he didn't need to know, but that dream: if that had been even in the smallest part what really happened, then he'd practically inflicted hell on the two players named as victims.

The werewolf said nothing initially, hands clad in fingerless, black leather gloves running backwards through his hair. Did they really need to talk about this right now? “You gave us a little taste of what it was like to be you on that bed. Lucky for Zhao and I that that sort of pain is shit I can deal with.

Dien's eyes widened as he realized what that meant, and he simply stared, not sure what words could be said. Had he really...? No, he couldn't have, could he? “J-just do me a favor,” he said, sitting up and visibly shaken, “if it looks like I'm ever gonna do it again, please don't hesitate to kill me.”

With a tone as dead serious as his expression, Zan responded. “I find myself rather eager to kill people lately. I won't sweat adding you to a growing list.” Not a smile, not a gleam of humor showed in the lycanthrope's eyes when the words fell from his lips.

“Thanks,” he said with a nod, finishing the conversation before it could get any more heated. Yeah, of course the lycan was upset with him. Who wouldn’t be after something like that? He could’ve pressed the issue, but he was too tired. He needed some actual sleep - not pain-induced stillness.
Flashmail wrote:From: Dien
To: Reinier
Re: Groups

Reinier, I’m good with whatever you guys pick for a field, just remember to wake me up before we head out.

-Dien
After sending it, he fell asleep, letting his dreams overtake him in this virtual field.

(OOC: Just a note timeline-wise: this happens before Zan’s most recent post)
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Image|||Level 35 Blademaster (+200 EXP)
Wishlist: EXP, Ends of Earth, Armor with Status Effects

User avatar
Nighthand
Master of Games
Posts: 1265
Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2003 9:23 pm
Class: Bladesmage
Location: ...Tracking...please wait...

IM me if you see this...

Post by Nighthand » Sat Jul 01, 2006 10:34 pm

Nighthand basically stopped listening after a while. The decision seemed pretty foregone. Once Rayo had suggested the idea of splitting up, it seemed like everyone latched on to it. The heavyblade shook his head to himself, keeping quiet. It might be the most efficient way to get this all done, but he was still hesitant to break up the group. Oh well... It looked like he had very little choice in the matter anyways. The least he could do was to delegate.

”Alright, well, here's what it looks like. Team Reinier, you're going to Closed Solitary Gate. Maybe not the best choice, but I'd prefer it over the other suggestions. Team Rayo, we'll be heading for Pulsating Light Trap Core.”

Nighthand moved to the front of the room, by the doorway. He had a little preparation to do before anything else happened, anyways. ”Get what you need from the stores and let's get going. The faster we get this done, the better.”

That said, he wandered off to the NPC room. Their new hideout really was a bit of a miracle, and he was thankful to Raine and Sheena for allowing them to use it. After the chaos in Mac Anu, there really wasn't all that much else they could do to stay under the radar.

Flashmail
To: Tokki
From: Nighthand

You said you're willing to help us, and for that I thank you. I ask you to join half our group, including Rayo and myself, at Lambda: Pulsating Light Trap Core.


He knew that wasn't what the people expected, but after all, Tokki HAD told him she'd be coming back, and it didn't seem right to send her off with the other group. Again, perhaps the wrong decision, but one he had chosen to make regardless.

A quick trip through the stocks of the scroll-holding NPC left him in high spirits, and he headed for the chaos gate.

”We'll be going with you, to help disable the hubs.” Raine said, coming up behind him. He nodded. It made sense, anyways.

”One other thing... Take this. It's a key that will allow you to 'tag' someone, so that they can come into our hideout as well. I've already tagged all of you, but you'll need it for this Tokki person, or any other older members you encounter that you want to bring back. Nall has one himself already, too.” She pressed a small item into his hand, which he placed in a pocket with another nod.

”Thanks... for all of this.”

”We just want the hackers dead and gone, Twilight cured, and our lives back. This helps, that's what it comes down to.”

They really weren't much different from the rest of them, after all.




Ooc:
Lambda: Closed Solitary Gate
Reinier, Zan, Canti, Dien, Cypher, Nall, ?????, Raine

Topic will be up in moments.


Lambda: Pulsating Light Trap Core
Rayo, Zhao, Nighthand, Ryok, Phoenix, Hijinx, Tokki, Sheena

Topic will also be up in moments.

Rewards will be at the end of those, since this topic didn't do much.

Locked