Kobold King

Within seconds, the nice little living room was the site of a fast-paced fight. Lightwards had never been good at keeping up with this sort of struggle, but he was able to get an impression of events as they happened. The first thing that caught his attention were the hounds. He was shocked at the sight of them for a moment. They were humanoid, with faces distorted and canine. Claws instead of fingers. There was a faint smoky atmosphere in the room, coloring the air and apparently issuing from the creatures. Lightwards had never seen anything like them. Wait. Of course, he thought, stunned. I know that stance. He'd raised a coyote once, and it had held itself in that same strange manner. A mixture between servitude to a master and a lingering predatory instinct. Nighthound created these, and he had to assume he had the similar--if not superior--grip on them as Lightwards had on his Warriors of Light. Before he could fully process this information, the room was engulfed in chaos. Nighthound himself had Funtimes by the throat, who weakly giggled from her chokehold a mere yard away. One of the hounds was attacking Traveler, who felt the need to weakly kick at the creature as opposed to using his teleportation usefully. Lightwards fumbled with his pistol as he heard Nighthound scream. The Doctor had flung the contents of that travel mug from earlier into his side, and it had eaten away into his ribs. Either Nighthound's weakness was coffee, or Doctor Funtimes had turned it into acid. Lightwards made a note in his mind never to drink anything while she was present. Nighthound roared angrily, throwing Funtimes across the room. The feral Epic stood there in smoldering anger for a moment, taking deep and ragged breaths as a cloud of smoke obscured his wounds from view. He was facing Funtimes on the other side of the room, apparently too furious to recognize a much closer threat. Lightwards seized his chance. Raising his pistol, Lightwards fired two shots into the back of Nighthound's head. In all likelihood they wouldn't kill him, but he was close enough for at least one confirmed shot. Ignoring the sound of bullets hitting a skull, he turned to the rest of the room and discharged the rest of his clip into the bearded hound. Backing into a corner, Lightwards reloaded and wished to Calamity he'd been able to obtain a Utahraptor or two before coming into this fray.

I've always imagined Calamity as female. And her name is Jane.

I've always sort of assumed that Calamity is either an intelligent entity with a special interest in humans, was a human itself at some point, or was created by humans and is still carrying out its purpose. With David's degree of research on Epics, it seems like he would have heard of a superpowered dolphin terrorizing the Pacific or a flying gorilla challenging Steelheart's rule. Something to ask Brandon Sanderson someday, perhaps.

In between grimaces caused by the flamethrower colorations, Lightwards gestured for his Warriors to take them. Not what I imagined my conquest of Portland looking like, he thought grumpily. He waved for his vulture to approach him from the other side of the street, and turned around only to find Funtimes proffering him a travel mug full of coffee. "You looked sleepy. You shouldn't be sleepy." "Yeah," the Traveler agreed. "Better to be hyper when there's a slontze like that around. Now, c'mon, let's go!" The other Epic held out his hand to take. Calamity, do they actually think I'm going to drink that? Lightwards pondered, confused. He didn't have long to think about it. He turned to his Warriors of Light just long enough to give marching orders. "Make sure Nighthound doesn't leave that house," he commanded, gesturing at the proper residence. Or what he hoped was the proper residence. "Surround it. Torch anything that tries to come out besides the three of us." Wondering vaguely if a teleporter could disintegrate him without reassembling him at the destination, he hesitantly took the Traveler's hand.

"Why not?" asked Lightwards irritably, shaking the dust off his coat as he rose to his feet. "I can't be alone in the desire to skin him alive and have him serving our tea by tomorrow." He cast a glance towards Funtimes, and then nodded towards Donald and the Sadrys. "Any chance of equipping my Warriors? We are a team now, as it happens."

That is the same reason my copy was the 17th Shard URL. I don't like to leave whole sentences copied, so I just copy the URL of whatever site I'm currently looking at. This is almost always 17th Shard or Wikipedia.

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/ Maybe I'm doing it wrong?

The next minute was a blur. No sooner than Lightwards had summoned the Sadrys, his associates had teleported away, leaving him with only Donald as support. Cursing inwardly, he began reloading his pistol as quickly as he could. "As quickly as he could" turned out to be a touch too slow. Nighthound darted forward in the blink of an eye, seizing his weapon and throwing it over his shoulder. Lightwards vaguely heard shouting from a rooftop, in what he believed was Funtimes' voice. ""Hey! Stupidface! Eat noodles, idiotbrain!” Before he could process the strange statement, Nighthound gripped him by the wrist and swung him forwards. The next thing he knew, Lightwards was lying on the ground, entangled by a thick net. "Get me out, Donald," he snarled vindictively, "I am going to disembowel that creature." Donald characteristically took his master's rage in stride, pulling out a pocket knife and beginning to saw through the rope. Lightwards continued seething, wondering vaguely whether Funtimes made a habit of calling ropes noodles, or if these ropes had been noodles at some point. Either was an equally irritating possibility. His anger was briefly interrupted by something crawling on the pavement besides him. Some kind of beetle, possibly a june bug, making its slow way across the stone in a typically ignorant manner. Time for you to join a greater cause, Lightwards though smugly, squashing the insect with his finger. He raised it almost simultaneous, allowing it to perch on his finger before flinging it through the net. "Attack Nighthound," he told it quietly. He was stuck down here with no way of fighting, but maybe--just maybe--his associates were still battling the feral Epic, and would be aided by the help of an annoyingly aggressive june bug.

It's also a reason for Mr. T. to shy back. I doubt very seriously the Diagram takes the rest of the Cosmere into account.

I'm trying to stay just behind Swimmingly on the rep list. At the rate we're going, somebody is going to pass Peter Ahlstrom soon and become the target of an angry mob. And I pity the fool who passes Brandon Sanderson. So Swimmingly? Be as witty as you can, I'll try to be as dull as possible.

Looking forward to it...

You're the expert. It just occurred to me that Funtimes is using her noodle.

I'm just edgy about the possibility of being ninja'd. Though since Nighthound has higher reflexes than Lightwards, you should probably go next in such a fast-paced setting. Noodles aren't going to dodge themselves.

So the rough order for the moment is Edgedancer > TwiLyght > then me, right? I'm up next?

Sounds good to me.

Fie, Wafflesworn. You operate on the assumption that the two are by necessity separate, and that they cannot be combined into a single culinary experience of pain.

So a green pony with a vulture just shot at a living trollface? This game just keeps getting more awesome with every page.

"Then I'm sure you won't mind this," Lightwards said with a smirk. At once, he and Donald discharged their pistols, firing into the feral Epic's chest multiple times. He wasn't sure if this Nighthound fellow could be killed with bullets, but Calamity this felt good. His eyes darted up to the Sadry residence, and he called for the couple to attend to him on the street.

So we'll engage in "aggressive posturing," then team up on the next day when we storm the museum. We get a nice fight, and the the forces of Boredom are repelled. I like it!

You've probably made enemies here just by the title of your introduction. For my part though, welcome!

This one looks like it has an increasingly high likelihood of appearing.