| [Remark] - Good morning. |
Gottlieb groans, groggily opening an eye to look at what the sudden disturbance of his sleep is.
The monitor is back online. The lights are on. Kai has returned and the station is fully functional once again.
He rubs his eyes and stretches, yawning in tired relief. Nutri-bar wrappers fall down off of his lap, as he looks at the monitor.
“Good morning,” replies Gottlieb, pulling his feet off of the console and leaning in towards the monitor. “About time you got back to work, you slacker.”
| [Response] - I was taking my allotted vacation days. |
“Good morning,” remarks Grunheide from the side.
Gottlieb lifts an eyebrow, looking at the monitor. “You don’t get vacation days, Kai. You don’t even do anything.” Gottlieb taps the smaller monitor to his side. “Why don’t you tell me what the hell is up with the sun here, Kai?” asks the man. “Why does this keep happening? How can a whole sun just…” He snaps his fingers. “Poof.”
“Poof,” repeats Grunheide. Gottlieb looks her way, shaking his head.
| [Response] - Undetermined. The vanishing of the core star of this solar-system is fundamentally impossible in the context of the understanding of my fundamental knowledge-base. |
“Try thinking outside of the box then, sunshine,” replies Gottlieb, rolling his eyes.
| [Response] - Magic. |
Gottlieb sighs, his head drooping. He rubs his tired face, getting up and grabbing his rifle. “I’m gonna take a shower. You figure out what’s going on with the sun instead of staring at my ass,” says the man, walking off in the spacesuit towards the shaft, leading out of the gunner’s bay.
| [Response] - Twenty seconds. |
Gottlieb looks over his shoulder towards the screen. “Huh?”
| [Addendum] - I will allot twenty seconds of water usage for Orbital Gunner Gottlieb to use for personal hygienic reasons. |
Gottlieb waits for the catch to come, but nothing ever does. Warily, he stares at the monitor for a moment longer, before walking off to wash the smell of space off of himself.
“Thanks.”
| ~ [Azimuth] ~ |
Azimuth sighs in deep relief, staring up towards the sun. She holds her arms out at her sides, basking in its sudden warmth, as would a most delighted sunflower.
— But she was already holding them like that anyway.
The woman winces, letting out a sharp breath as the attendant behind her pulls the strings of the corset tighter.
“Why exactly do I have to wear this?” she asks, looking over her shoulder to see the other woman, who is fiddling around with a bunch of strings and cords. “I’m going to be wearing armor over this anyways.” She nods her head to the side of the room, towards the set of ceremonial armor that had been crafted for her.
The attendant pulls a string on the left tighter and Azimuth lets out a hacking sound. But the woman doesn’t reply, simply tending to her work. Azimuth sighs, looking back ahead of herself. She does her best to simply think about chickens.
After a minute longer, the attendant finishes and another two walk over, carrying the metal breastplate. Despite the unnecessary discomfort, Azimuth does smile a little at this. She’s never had armor before. She hasn’t seen it yet, but she bets it has to look amazing. It probably costs more than she’s ever made in her life all put together.
— They set the cuirass over her front.
Azimuth can’t help but notice how tight it is.
She looks down, seeing that the armor hasn’t been made to fit her natural shape, but rather, the shape that she has with a corset on.
“Wow… Really?” she asks, looking at them.
The attendants don’t reply, simply keeping at their work like busy worker bees.
Azimuth sighs, looking back forward.
She just has to keep thinking about chickens. This stupid ceremony will be over soon and then she can get back to… hiding in her room and trying to figure her life out.
The orc looks at the gauntlets that they’re placing on her hands.
One of them has a chicken engraved into it.
Nice.
Maybe it isn’t all bad?
| ~ [Gottlieb] ~ |
“Give me the chicken-lady, Kai,” says Gottlieb, walking back in, rubbing his wet hair. Twenty seconds isn’t a lot, especially given the poor amount of water that comes out of the nozzle. But it is a lot in comparison with only ten seconds and he feels like a new man.
The man sits himself down on the chair, sliding it along the rail to the monitor.
“Auxiliary Gunner Grunheide. Target the individual.”
The goblin looks his way. “Eh?”
Gottlieb sucks his teeth, pointing at the monitor that zooms in on a large procession of thousands of people, moving through a large city. There seems to be some kind of celebration happening today. It must be a really big deal, seeing as how many of them there are.
“Look,” he says, grabbing his control stick and moving the camera towards a marked blob. Zooming in, he focuses on the person, who he can only assume is the chicken-lady. But she’s sort of dolled up today.
“Ah,” remarks Grunheide, catching on.
“Kai only zooms in most of the way sometimes,” he explains. “It lets us get an overview of what’s happening around the target.” He looks her way. “Good for her though,” he says, watching her parade down a street. “I had no idea she was some big shot.” He scratches his cheek, thinking about it, wondering if he has anything to do with this. It’s probably fine.
“Shoot?” asks Grunheide.
“Uh… no?” replies Gottlieb. “We don’t shoot people,” he says, pointing at himself. “Unless they deserve it. Then we blast them to hell.”
Grunheide looks at him.
“What?” he asks, looking at her. “Oh. I get it,” he says. “No, I don’t have a problem with shooting goblins,” explains the man, sensing that she’s somewhat bothered by something. “That’s just the nature of the beast. But people are off-limits.” Gottlieb lifts his hands. “The human god has spoken!”
“Grunheide is people,” remarks the goblin.
“Sure, sure,” replies Gottlieb, waving her off. “But you don’t count because one, you already got shot,” he says, tapping the rifle. “And two… because I said so.”
“Ah…”
“That’s life,” says Gottlieb, looking back at the monitor. “Oh, hey, look!” he says. People all around the parade are firing spells off into the air. Colorful fireballs and blasts of magical energies explode all around the sky like fireworks. “Neat.”
— They lose the image of the ceremony, as the station drifts too far off from it.
“Ah, hell,” says Gottlieb. “You think they’re making her king or something?” he asks.
| [Answer] - Presumably, through misuse of both his position and as well as the orbital weapons platform, Orbital Gunner Gottlieb has interfered with the societal development of this culture in a historically catastrophic way. |
“Pfft~” Gottlieb blows Kai off. “What? Like they’re gonna make a big deal out of some stupid lights hitting the ground now and then, Kai,” says Gottlieb. “Get a grip.”
“Yeah, Kai!” barks the goblin.
Gottlieb looks at her. “Stop yes-manning me,” he says. “You’re just trying to get back on the winning team now that you got screwed over.” He shakes his head. “Kai. Give me something to shoot. It’s time for me to get back on the ball.”
The camera pans, zooming over the landscape towards a familiar place.
“Nice!” says Gottlieb, leaning in towards the quaint farm where the usual farm-drama has been happening that he loves to watch, with the girl who refused to leave her family farm and her father ‘paw’, as she calls him. This isn’t what he asked for. But he always enjoys watching them. “Oh man, I love these guys. I hope they kept their harvest safe during the sun-out.”
— Paw’s head gets cut off, falling to a small pile of red corpses laying atop a fabric covering, spanned over a plant, all of them clutching each other.
Gottlieb blinks, staring as he processes for a moment.
Goblins walk around the farm on the monitor, tearing crops out of the soil. Everything else has already been burnt and destroyed.
| New Ability - [Power Overdrive] Drains the station's batteries, overloading the gun and firing an extremely destructive blast with 300% firing strength. Incapacitates the station’s power grid until recharged. |
| (Gottlieb) has used: [Power Overdrive] |
The station rattles, every piece of unfastened equipment shaking as a heavy, rumbling buzz runs through the machinery, vibrating up through his bones and into his teeth. Kai’s light blinks in and out.
There is a heavy click, as his finger presses down the trigger.
The monitors flare out, overtaken by static as a blinding white engulfs them for only an instant.
— Then the power goes out.
| ~ [The Goblin-King] ~ |
The sun has come to us once more.
I am thankful.
I have ordered a rest for my tribe to hunt the forests for meat and for food, that has been deprived of us for so long, during the long dark.
Pathfinders diverge out into all directions, feeling and touching and gathering, like the branching roots of a strong tree.
I am the strong tree.
I am the goblin-king.
Lifting my gaze, towards the sun that I have missed for too many days now, I feel its warmth.
— I flinch.
It’s too bright. My skin burns. It hurts.
Confused screams come from all around us.
Through the gaps in my fingers, I watch as the horizon to my east, the sky having a blue of rarest sapphire, is erased by a curtain of incredible white. As if snowfall were cascading across the world in a wave.
The skin on my palm burns, as does that of my forearm.
The old forest is ripped apart and all I hear are screams and the cracking of wood.
| [Remark] - Good morning. |
Gottlieb groans, groggily opening an eye to look at what the sudden disturbance of his sleep is.
The monitor is back online. The lights are on. Kai has returned and the station is fully functional once again.
He rubs his eyes and stretches, yawning in tired relief. Nutri-bar wrappers fall down off of his lap, as he looks at the monitor.
“Good morning,” replies Gottlieb, pulling his feet off of the console and leaning in towards the monitor. “About time you got back to work, you slacker.”
| [Response] - I was taking my allotted vacation days. |
“Good morning,” remarks Grunheide from the side.
Gottlieb lifts an eyebrow, looking at the monitor. “You don’t get vacation days, Kai. You don’t even do anything.” Gottlieb taps the smaller monitor to his side. “Why don’t you tell me what the hell is up with the sun here, Kai?” asks the man. “Why does this keep happening? How can a whole sun just…” He snaps his fingers. “Poof.”
“Poof,” repeats Grunheide. Gottlieb looks her way, shaking his head.
| [Response] - Undetermined. The vanishing of the core star of this solar-system is fundamentally impossible in the context of the understanding of my fundamental knowledge-base. |
“Try thinking outside of the box then, sunshine,” replies Gottlieb, rolling his eyes.
| [Response] - Magic. |
Gottlieb sighs, his head drooping. He rubs his tired face, getting up and grabbing his rifle. “I’m gonna take a shower. You figure out what’s going on with the sun instead of staring at my ass,” says the man, walking off in the spacesuit towards the shaft, leading out of the gunner’s bay.
| [Response] - Twenty seconds. |
Gottlieb looks over his shoulder towards the screen. “Huh?”
| [Addendum] - I will allot twenty seconds of water usage for Orbital Gunner Gottlieb to use for personal hygienic reasons. |
Gottlieb waits for the catch to come, but nothing ever does. Warily, he stares at the monitor for a moment longer, before walking off to wash the smell of space off of himself.
“Thanks.”
| ~ [Azimuth] ~ |
Azimuth sighs in deep relief, staring up towards the sun. She holds her arms out at her sides, basking in its sudden warmth, as would a most delighted sunflower.
— But she was already holding them like that anyway.
The woman winces, letting out a sharp breath as the attendant behind her pulls the strings of the corset tighter.
“Why exactly do I have to wear this?” she asks, looking over her shoulder to see the other woman, who is fiddling around with a bunch of strings and cords. “I’m going to be wearing armor over this anyways.” She nods her head to the side of the room, towards the set of ceremonial armor that had been crafted for her.
The attendant pulls a string on the left tighter and Azimuth lets out a hacking sound. But the woman doesn’t reply, simply tending to her work. Azimuth sighs, looking back ahead of herself. She does her best to simply think about chickens.
After a minute longer, the attendant finishes and another two walk over, carrying the metal breastplate. Despite the unnecessary discomfort, Azimuth does smile a little at this. She’s never had armor before. She hasn’t seen it yet, but she bets it has to look amazing. It probably costs more than she’s ever made in her life all put together.
— They set the cuirass over her front.
Azimuth can’t help but notice how tight it is.
She looks down, seeing that the armor hasn’t been made to fit her natural shape, but rather, the shape that she has with a corset on.
“Wow… Really?” she asks, looking at them.
The attendants don’t reply, simply keeping at their work like busy worker bees.
Azimuth sighs, looking back forward.
She just has to keep thinking about chickens. This stupid ceremony will be over soon and then she can get back to… hiding in her room and trying to figure her life out.
The orc looks at the gauntlets that they’re placing on her hands.
One of them has a chicken engraved into it.
Nice.
Maybe it isn’t all bad?
| ~ [Gottlieb] ~ |
“Give me the chicken-lady, Kai,” says Gottlieb, walking back in, rubbing his wet hair. Twenty seconds isn’t a lot, especially given the poor amount of water that comes out of the nozzle. But it is a lot in comparison with only ten seconds and he feels like a new man.
The man sits himself down on the chair, sliding it along the rail to the monitor.
“Auxiliary Gunner Grunheide. Target the individual.”
The goblin looks his way. “Eh?”
Gottlieb sucks his teeth, pointing at the monitor that zooms in on a large procession of thousands of people, moving through a large city. There seems to be some kind of celebration happening today. It must be a really big deal, seeing as how many of them there are.
“Look,” he says, grabbing his control stick and moving the camera towards a marked blob. Zooming in, he focuses on the person, who he can only assume is the chicken-lady. But she’s sort of dolled up today.
“Ah,” remarks Grunheide, catching on.
“Kai only zooms in most of the way sometimes,” he explains. “It lets us get an overview of what’s happening around the target.” He looks her way. “Good for her though,” he says, watching her parade down a street. “I had no idea she was some big shot.” He scratches his cheek, thinking about it, wondering if he has anything to do with this. It’s probably fine.
“Shoot?” asks Grunheide.
“Uh… no?” replies Gottlieb. “We don’t shoot people,” he says, pointing at himself. “Unless they deserve it. Then we blast them to hell.”
Grunheide looks at him.
“What?” he asks, looking at her. “Oh. I get it,” he says. “No, I don’t have a problem with shooting goblins,” explains the man, sensing that she’s somewhat bothered by something. “That’s just the nature of the beast. But people are off-limits.” Gottlieb lifts his hands. “The human god has spoken!”
“Grunheide is people,” remarks the goblin.
“Sure, sure,” replies Gottlieb, waving her off. “But you don’t count because one, you already got shot,” he says, tapping the rifle. “And two… because I said so.”
“Ah…”
“That’s life,” says Gottlieb, looking back at the monitor. “Oh, hey, look!” he says. People all around the parade are firing spells off into the air. Colorful fireballs and blasts of magical energies explode all around the sky like fireworks. “Neat.”
— They lose the image of the ceremony, as the station drifts too far off from it.
“Ah, hell,” says Gottlieb. “You think they’re making her king or something?” he asks.
| [Answer] - Presumably, through misuse of both his position and as well as the orbital weapons platform, Orbital Gunner Gottlieb has interfered with the societal development of this culture in a historically catastrophic way. |
“Pfft~” Gottlieb blows Kai off. “What? Like they’re gonna make a big deal out of some stupid lights hitting the ground now and then, Kai,” says Gottlieb. “Get a grip.”
“Yeah, Kai!” barks the goblin.
Gottlieb looks at her. “Stop yes-manning me,” he says. “You’re just trying to get back on the winning team now that you got screwed over.” He shakes his head. “Kai. Give me something to shoot. It’s time for me to get back on the ball.”
The camera pans, zooming over the landscape towards a familiar place.
“Nice!” says Gottlieb, leaning in towards the quaint farm where the usual farm-drama has been happening that he loves to watch, with the girl who refused to leave her family farm and her father ‘paw’, as she calls him. This isn’t what he asked for. But he always enjoys watching them. “Oh man, I love these guys. I hope they kept their harvest safe during the sun-out.”
— Paw’s head gets cut off, falling to a small pile of red corpses laying atop a fabric covering, spanned over a plant, all of them clutching each other.
Gottlieb blinks, staring as he processes for a moment.
Goblins walk around the farm on the monitor, tearing crops out of the soil. Everything else has already been burnt and destroyed.
| New Ability - [Power Overdrive] Drains the station's batteries, overloading the gun and firing an extremely destructive blast with 300% firing strength. Incapacitates the station’s power grid until recharged. |
| (Gottlieb) has used: [Power Overdrive] |
The station rattles, every piece of unfastened equipment shaking as a heavy, rumbling buzz runs through the machinery, vibrating up through his bones and into his teeth. Kai’s light blinks in and out.
There is a heavy click, as his finger presses down the trigger.
The monitors flare out, overtaken by static as a blinding white engulfs them for only an instant.
— Then the power goes out.
| ~ [The Goblin-King] ~ |
The sun has come to us once more.
I am thankful.
I have ordered a rest for my tribe to hunt the forests for meat and for food, that has been deprived of us for so long, during the long dark.
Pathfinders diverge out into all directions, feeling and touching and gathering, like the branching roots of a strong tree.
I am the strong tree.
I am the goblin-king.
Lifting my gaze, towards the sun that I have missed for too many days now, I feel its warmth.
— I flinch.
It’s too bright. My skin burns. It hurts.
Confused screams come from all around us.
Through the gaps in my fingers, I watch as the horizon to my east, the sky having a blue of rarest sapphire, is erased by a curtain of incredible white. As if snowfall were cascading across the world in a wave.
The skin on my palm burns, as does that of my forearm.
The old forest is ripped apart and all I hear are screams and the cracking of wood.
