Kobold King

He's in his late thirties--Lucentia's the same age, right?

Fun fact: when Backtrack introduces himself, the first thing Lightwards will do is point a gun at him. Also: what do you call a group of vanillas who stubbornly continue to resist Epics? A Revolution.

Cool. At a glance, Backtrack will be able to figure out roughly where Sam lives. He can give Lightwards directions so he can do the blackmail on his own. Then he's likely to send Backtrack up to the Dalles as a first official mission (since he's pretty much useless for anything else.)

I should be able to figure out his reaction when the appointed time comes. Backtrack's probably going to be disgusted but will suffer through it to try to get the whole story. He'll probably nag Lightwards into giving him his own dinosaurs as compensation, though.

Looking forward to it. I also look forward to Backtrack being completely unsettled by "stepping into Koschei's shoes."

Lightwards strode back into the presence of his guests, with Funtimes and the redneck trailing close behind him. Sightline was characteristically untalkative, but Voidgaze greeted him. “Welcome back," she said. "I hope you had a nice chat.” Lightwards sniffed, but forced himself to smile. "Of course. My sincere apologies for keeping the pair of you waiting." He examined the pair of Epics for a moment before continuing. "Now, if you'll excuse me, back to business. I should like to meet with your leader at the earliest possible opportunity. Do you happen to know when Altermind will next be available for a strategic council?" Funtimes and Traveler suddenly teleported nearby. "He's hurt," Funtimes told them,. "I'm fine, Doctor," Traveler was protesting. Sam didn't pay attention to him--she was too busy staring at Funtimes. Every bit of mirth and joy was gone from her face. Her face was a scowl, and the childlike enthusiasm that made her somewhat endearing was gone. She looked like an Epic. The Doctor raised her hand, causing a number of rocks to swirl together and become bombs and grenades. "If Lightwards tries anything, you kill him. Okay?" Sam didn't reply and Revolution frowned. Funtimes briefly argued with Traveler before following Lightwards back to the other Epics. Unexpectedly, Remington decided to follow her. "So," Revolution said slowly as they left. "Who wants to be that she turned an article of Lightwards' clothing into something unpleasant?" Sam raised her hand. "I'll take that bet. And I'll add that his face turned red again when she did it." "This is the place?" Impact asked skeptically, staring at the run-down residence just ahead. "Worst. Lair. Ever," MV proclaimed, shooting Backtrack a glare. Backtrack grinned, putting his hands in his pockets. "No worries, ladies. This is just where his recruiter is at the moment." What he didn't say was "If you bimbos had looked at the sky once since yesterday, you'd already know where it was." But he supposed they had no reason to associate the floating fortress in the clouds with a necromancer they'd never heard of. He walked up to the front door, which appeared to have had its front lock forcibly removed without damaging the surrounding wood. Backtrack frowned, using his power to peak about an hour into the past. He saw a tall female Epic in a civilized dress teleport the lock out of it socket before barging into the home. Still somewhat in the dark as to what this was all about, he stepped into her shoes. It was a part of his power he liked toying with, but in this case it made his head swim a little more than made him comfortable. When he looked at the history of a place, he could choose to hear the thoughts of people who had proceeded him. In this woman's case, those thoughts were a touch too unconventional for comfort. He gritted his teeth and took the plunge into her mind, finding that her name was Saccharine and that she was looking for her husband. That would be "Jeffy," who based on her mental image of the man was the same as Purple Phoenix and Penumbra. Fascinating. "Right then, ladies," he told the twins. "Just follow my lead." He threw open the door and stepped in. "Hello shabby little shack!" he bellowed into the building. "Backtrack and friends are in the house!" "We're not friends," Impact muttered irritably. Backtrack just grinned at her. "I'd hate to be friendzoned so quickly. Let's head to the kitchen." Sidestepping a pair of well-aimed kicks from the twins, he strode into what had to be the only Epic tea party in Portland.

You certainly fooled me--I thought it was going to tear down half the Empire. Will they be coming up to the MoNA soon after that? ...sorry, my bad. I'll have Backtrack crash the tea party in the next few minutes, then we can get things going in earnest.

True, true. Edge, did you have any plans for the Lucentia/Nighthound fight? I was thinking that if they got too destructive, Claudius could notice them on his patrol and alert Lightwards.

Once he started moving, he could lie dormant for however long it took him to reach Earth. It would only take a small amount of gas to set him in motion. I actually really want to see a Slaughterhouse vs Nighthound fight.

This could come between their postulated friendship.

An Epic once melted Slaughterhouse into a mass of molten protein. He stitched himself back together in under a minute. In any case, he's mobile enough to escape most particularly dangerous situations. If you put him into space, he would reconfigure his body to produce flammable gases, would light them, reforming his body into an organic rocket to sail back to Earth with. In his own way, he's about as overpowered as Möbius is.

All right-y.

That does seem accurate. Since I'm so 100% sure that no one can exploit Slaughterhouse's weakness--and since I'm curious to see if any of you clever folks can figure out how--I'm considering making his weakness public. Thoughts?

Short of exploiting his weakness, attacking Slaughterhouse's mind is the only way to fight him. There's nothing you can do to his body that he can't repair. He doesn't even feel pain, since he turned off his pain receptors years ago. Nighthound couldn't fight him. Saccharine couldn't fight him. Not even sinister!Funtimes could faze him at all. But Simon might have a chance, and for that he must die. Horribly.

Sure--he's terrifying enough for sure.

...I actually hadn't made a connection "Simon" and "Simon says." But I think everyone in the room with me just heard my whimper. Simon might actually be the one Epic in the game so far to be a genuine threat to Slaughterhouse. Which means that eliminating him will be his top priority.

It's not truly a Lightwards nightmare unless sinister!Funtimes is there. I'm going to have three Epics in the game--Slaughterhouse, an insane Möbius, and a mental/astral projection Epic called Karma. Simon definitely sounds cool and it will be neat--and probably horrifying--to meet him.

If we let Stitch sew his threads into living people, he could make a pretty terrifying Calamityville Epic. But I like Simon. Writing the fight between him and Quickslide was pretty fun. I much prefer writing Epic battles to having Lightwards slaughter a bunch of helpless vanillas.

I call dibs on showing him what a real necromancer looks like.

Ah, I see. So it's a no-go for Black Fist contacting the Empire. I didn't see Joe's edit, but I see it now. It's almost a shame that we already have the perfect Epic in the gane, aince I was already beginning to flesh out Catalyst's backstory. And as for one of your characters sending Lightwards to his temporary grave? By all means. I'll make sure everyone gets a chance.

Mundivore's evidently on the wrong side. I hope galactic conquest is ambitious enough for him. (PP might be a little too reclusuve once Project Hyde kicks in to keep up his posse of lesser Epics. It's hard to keep up with sycophants when you're busy with... stuff.)

There's actually a pretty neat fanfiction about the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who invading Hogwarts. It's one of a very small list of fanfics I've ever read in their entirety.

Wait a minute... terrifying, civilized, prudish? I think it's quite clear that Lightwards and Lucentia were made for each other. (This actually makes me wonder if there's any Epic in Oregon who could be swayed to Lightwards' cause on ideological grounds. His long term goal is to conquer the world and ultimately this galaxy, forming a deathless utopia of humanity united under him and his lieutenants.) And yes--now I can perfectly imagine Funtimes doing this. And by the way: seeing her breakdown when Lightwafds punched Traveler makes me really start to worry about what happens when she decides to end Quota.

"Holding pinkies? I'm sorry Lightwards, but I'm not ready to make that kind of commitment. I think holding pinkies should be reserved for after marriage, in any case."-- If this romantic interest doesn't give this response, then clearly she's not made for him. If there was ever a reason for two lovers to share a kiss in a primordial rainforest, annoying the heck out of a tyrant necromancer is that reason. I kept meaning to write the next Backtrack scene, but I kept getting sidetracked with the MoNA awesomeness. Sorry about that. If you'd like to write a scene with the twins, that would be fine and could help things progress. I'll write Backtrack's next scene tomorrow morning.