MacThorstenson

@Sorana

Of course. How could I be so stupid, Mac thought. He started apologizing immediately, "I'm so sorry." Shaking his head at his lack of tact, he bent over looking into another drawer for the women's script contract. His muffled voice continued speaking from behind the desk, "When everyone can somehow magically understand each other and speak the same language, you forget, that we can't all read the same language." Sitting back up, he placed a women's script translation on the desk. "Are you some kind of Returned?" The question caught Mac by surprise, causing him to bump his head against the desk. "Oof," he muttered, rubbing the back of his head with a new copy of the contract in his other hand. The poor girl looked like she would rather die right now then continue their conversation. "Oh no worries." Mac said, trying to put her at ease, "It's just been a long time since someone has asked me that question." Pausing he thought for a moment. The image of a body with its age spiked out of it lying on a table flashed through his head. "Yes, it's been a very long time. I wish my immortality was as easy as being a Returned." This is stupid. Why am I nervous about telling this lady that I kill people en masse for my own gratification? I've done it for over a thousand years. A quieter voice in the back of his head answered. Because you regret it. "The simplest answer is that I steal others ages. Using a magic system from another planet, one can take parts of someones soul, and graft it onto their own. Its an incredibly difficult science, requiring precision beyond that of the most complicated surgeries, and the power you can gain is nearly unlimited, but the cost is that it kills the donor in the process." Images of the bodies that he used for hemalurgy started appearing in his head, like slideshow of a crime scene. They showed him people he had spiked, starting over 1000 years ago. He continued talking, struggling to push the words out that would condemn him, "You can do it with nearly any aspect of the soul, with almost infinite variability. People have studied it for over 2000 years, and they are still discovering new things. But I steal others age, and make myself younger. In recent years, we've discovered ways to make it so the donor doesn't die after we steal their soul. But that only keeps us from killing more people." The images were like a river now, flowing freely from the recesses of his mind as if a dam had been broken, "It doesn't bring them back." He never talked about his work for a reason. It was important to learn early on that your goal was science, and not to look back, otherwise you started to see the cracks that formed in you. His body tense, he carefully reached into a pocket and pulled out his gold coin, tapping a little bit of heath. Hopefully it would help with the images. "I'm sorry." He continued, "You managed to find an insane god, filled to the brim with regret. If you don't want to stay here anymore I understand." He slid the contract forward. "If you do want to, here is the contract in womens script." @Sorana

The DA wedding department members sat alone and sad, as they hadn't had a high profile wedding in over 20 years.

"That's all I need." Mac started, "I wouldn't expect you to get involved in any fights beyond your capacity to mitigate. If someone is stupid enough to full on attack this place with blade and plate, then I would like to deal with them personally." Mac paused, wondering if he should continue. If he could continue. "If power ever becomes an issue, there are certain... methods that can be used. Unsavory by most measures, but they do work if power is what you seek." Mac sat back. "But that isn't the concern yet. As of now we only have one tenant besides you, and he seems like a good enough fellow. If we get more tenants and things start to become a problem, then we can talk again." Reaching behind his desk he pulled out a contract. "Here is the paperwork for the room, you can look over it and fill it out later if you want or now. But you mentioned that you would like someone to answer your questions about this place? I can do that for you." @Sorana

That is all set. @Voidus we will need you for odiums champions character. Both of them look good. They are approved.

Mac stared at the destruction of the city below him. "Storm it. How are we going to fix this?" his friend walked up next to him on the observational platform, "You know why they're gonna be mad right?" "Yeah," Mac replied, his voice barely above a whisper. "The experiment escaped. We lost years worth of work overnight. As well as an entire city." Mac chuckled at the irony. His first research project, map the beaver spiritweb, had seemed simple at first. But as they built the breeding centers and started spiking the beavers they quickly realized that beavers responded uniquely to certain patterns of spikes, they became furious. Filled with a hatred for anything that moved. Mac tried to capitalize on that, creating a weapon. He went beyond the scope of the project, giving beavers allomancy and feruchemy. Creating the lord beaver. Then early this morning it went missing. And now, looking out at the city through the window of their lab, Mac could see what happened. "None of the tests indicated that he had this much power?" His friend shook his head. "And we have no way to track it?" Another shake of the head. "How did he kill them?" "Preliminary reconnaissance is saying that he managed to pull all of the metal in the city into one big ball in the center. Our lab was protected due to the shields, but it destroyed the rest of the infrastructure and buildings. No one knew it was that intelligent or powerful." Mac stopped. "Storm it." What to do next? He needed to think like the beaver. Where would he go now? He shook his head and started pacing. They had no information on The Lord Beavers psychology. All we knew was that he had decided to kill everything he could. Suddenly, Mac realized something. "Guys I think we have a chance. The beaver went for the closest city he could. But what if it wasn't the closest city? What if that city wasn't there?" His colleagues eyes widened. There was only one thing that could change the past. "Are you proposing to burn the entire city down with balefire?" Mac nodded. "If the city was burned out of existence, then we could find the path to the nearest city, figure out how far he could have gotten in 2 hours had the city not been here and then capture him there." "But doesn't that pull the risk of destroying the planet? If we destroy a city of this size then there is no telling what could happen." "It doesn't matter, we need to get the beaver otherwise we are all dead. If the city is destroyed we can blame it on another black hole incident. They happen every day." Suddenly, Mac was a mile away from the city. The burning wreckage and smoke rising into the sky at a distance. He glanced at his friend for confirmation that the team was in position. He gave him a thumbs up in return. Mac seized the Saidin, feeling the power of creation flow through him, he forced it into one large weave of balefire, then released it toward the city. The white yellow beam soared through the sky, and as it hit the city the world cried out in pain. Then he was back in his room, lying on a bed, a thousand years in the future. The room was completely silent. No stimuli at all. He took several deep breaths, trying to slow his racing heart. Reaching over to the light he turned it on. As he moved he felt his sheets. Completely drenched from sweat. Why was he remembering this now? He knew the story of his failures well. Too well. He shook his head and started to get dressed. There was no harm in having an early start to the day.

"That's alright." Mac leaned forward, instinctively thinking about some way that he could help her stay at his place longer. It wasn't much, but if he protected those who he could, then he was already on the first step to helping the city. "Maybe we can work out a little deal. You see, whenever we have large quantities of invested people in any kind of establishment it tends to be blown up in some form due to conflict. Right now you, me and one other fellow live here. Now he didn't say that he was invested, but he carried around a decent amount of stormlight. I definitely qualify as high invested, and my guess is that most of the other people who come here will have investiture in some form. Whether they be Knights Radiant, allomancers, etc. I don't know if you have any investiture, but if you were a soldier it would be nice to have a second hand to help in some conflicts when I'm not around." He glanced at the housing contract on his desk. "The prices are already pretty cheap, so I would be able to dock a lot of it if you were to work for me. If not, and you want to look around for work as well that's totally fine."

Mac paused when she asked her question. A home. It had been a long time since someone had asked him that question. “Well that’s a good question.” He started. “The short, and mysterious answer is that I haven’t had a true home for quite some time. And the place that I use to call home was destroyed. Now I’m trying to preserve this home for others. To give them what I never really had.” That much was true. After all, repopulating the city again had been his idea. And while he had proposed the project in terms of sociological tests and closer resources, there had been some part of him that tried to build a Utopia. Maybe he hadn't been as lost as he thought. “Obviously I’m not doing that great of a job, but anyway. We aren’t here to talk about my mistakes. You said you needed a place to stay? How long are you expecting?”

Nodding along as she told her story, Mac led his way into his office and sat down, Motioning for her to do the same. "The money won't be an issue. You would be hard pressed to find a currency that we don't accept here." He grinned as he remembered the cookieconomy. "I remember about 60 ish years ago someone had the bright idea of basing our economy off of cookies. It only lasted about a week, but it was an interesting week. Anyway, what was I talking about? Money, yes. Yes money shouldn't be a problem." While he said all this, in the back of his mind he was thinking through what she said. She came here by accident by a ship. Now the rest of the alleyverse is uninhabited and we certainly don't have ships, but she also described cars as carriages without horses. Definitely an off worlder. Based on the accent they are probably alethi. His face fell a little. "The city was beautiful once. A long time ago. But now it has lost hope. 2 devastating wars in 20 years will do that to you." He shook his head quickly. "But things will get better. People will recover and move on, like they always have." Hopefully, He finished silently. "Where did you used to live? I would wager alethkar based on the accent, but most people take such a roundabout way to get here that accents aren't a reliable judge."

Quick note that the poll is up for Legend at the top of the Alleyverse character thread.

Quick note that the poll is up for Legend at the top of this thread.

"Well then you have come to the right place!" Mac started. "We rent out rooms and provide food for those who need it. And I will definitely be able to answer any questions that you have about the alleyverse." Maybe once you hear about this you will be able to help as well. Leading the way to his office, he asked over his shoulder. "What brings you to our lovely city anyway? I assume it wasn't the site seeing or the people considering that the only sites we have are the result of two wars, and the people are those who survived them?" @Sorana

Mac nodded as his new tenant went off to read about the library. It was a good thing he put that there, the alleyverse was a confusing place, and didn't lend itself to multiveral travel. There was almost no guides or information about how to get involved, and the entire place was a mess. Hopefully this would help him. Once the man knew more, he would be able to help more. At this point the city didn't need money or resources, it just needed a few people to inspire them. It needed hope. The people of the city didn't see how anything could get better, so they didn't try. The people needed heros, people to inspire them to do better, to achieve more. For people to embark on a Journey, they needed to have faith in a destination at the end. You could do that. Mac shook his head. If anything he was the opposite of what the people needed. Despite the fact that they hadn't spiked random people in years, electing instead to use renewable spike farms, a murderer from their history was not the person to inspire positive change. Some journeys didn't have a destination worth finding. Walking downstairs he heard a knock on the door, he hurried over and opened up the door, letting in a gust of wind as well as a lady standing at his door. Frowning at the windspren that flew in with the gust, he ushered the lady in while shooing the windspren out. "Hello," he greeted her, "How may I help you?" @Sorana

"Yep!" Standing up, Mac moved to the door of his office. "On the main floor, we have the main sitting room that you passed on your left. Right out here we have the dining room as well as the stairway." Walking over to the stairway he motioned down there. "In the basement we have the kitchen and a few meeting rooms, and if you glance out the back window we have a decently sized patio and garden." Walking up the Narrow stairway he moved to the second floor. "On the left we have two rooms, yours is the first on on the left." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a key. "On the right we have a library and three tiny study rooms. They should be soundproof. The top two floors are basically just rooms. You can go up there if you want but its really just a hallway." @Lord Furret

"The Library is open 24 hours a day, if you want I can give you a room right across from it. I would ask that you please be careful with the books, they are my personal collection and some of them do date back thousands of years. And considering that you are the only other person in the house at the moment I don't think that you will need to worry about bothering other people."

"Yes, I am a member of the Dark Alley. I'm not going to spike you, no need to worry about that. While you are in my house you are under my protection, from the DA, other guilds, or anyone else you happen to meet on the street." Mac grinned as he heard the last part of his sentence. "Well you sir, are definitely welcome. This city needs more people trying to make it a better place." He grabbed the contract and pulled it over to him. "Here we have 10 rooms, all of which are identical, the only difference is what floor they are on. They all have a full bathroom and are around 180 square feet." Pointing at a few places on the contract he continued. "You can either have full board, half board, or bed and breakfast. All of which include usage of the library and meeting rooms if you need them. A few other things in the contract are that we promise not to spike you and to alert you and anyone in the house which foods are spiked, also you promise not to fight or cause damage to the property, typical rules. Pricings are listed at the bottom. Once you've read through it I can give you a tour of the property, and then you can sign."

"No worries," Mac replied, "Life moves on. We protect those who we can, and unfortunately that isn't everyone." Sitting down at his desk, he reached under and brought out a contract, then set it to the side. First he should probably get to know this man. "Now before you sign this, It would probably be appropriate to get to know each other. My name is Mac, I've been a long time resident of this city, moved from scadrial a while back. And just so we don't operate under any false pretences here, I am one of the leaders of the DA. And I won't spike you unless you let me. Now, how about yourself? What brought you to the alleyverse?"

"Well you've come to the right place." Mac said. He stepped aside and gestured. "Right this way if you please." His smile quickly turned into a grimace as he heard the second question. "About 6 months ago a group of people tried to invade the alleyverse." And I waited too long to stop them. "We stopped them relatively quickly, but not before they caused a lot of the chaos. They used a lot of emotional magic, causing riots and the such, as well as being incredibly destructive. All that is added onto the damage caused when there was a guild war about 20 or so years ago." Shaking his head, he led the man into his office, "Unfortunately this city is the source of a lot of conflict in the Alleyverse. Hopefully it will get better.” His smiled again, however this time it was appeared ever so slightly strained. As if it were masking the mind of a man full of regrets, and knew that however much he tried, he could never quite make up for his failures. “Now, you said you were looking for a place to stay? We have excellent accommodations as well as three meals a day, all included with our full board option. All for a great price.” @Lord Furret

His eyebrows rose, someone had shown up already. Smiling, he walked to the door and opened it. "We are indeed open," He started, then gesturing at himself he said, "Mac, at your service. How may I help you?"

Mac stood next to the front door in number 12 Donovan Avenue. After about 3 months of hard work he had bought and renovated an old brownstone, turning it into a boarding house for various citizens of the city. He peeked his head out the window, grimincing when he saw the damage outside. Even in one of the better protected parts of the city, it was still a mess. There were only 10 rooms, so not enough for everyone who needed help. But maybe he would be able to provide a shelter for a few people, and give them a little help. A little protection was better than none. Moving to his office, he sat down at his desk, hoping that people would show up. ===========