Voidus

Participants: The Deep Serpent (@I think I am here.) VS The Devourer (@Voidus) KAIJU FIGHT!!!! ___________________________________________________________________________________ It waited beneath the sands, moving through the earth, consuming that which lay before it. It moved suddenly to the other place, the place with the black sky and the ocean that wasn't an ocean. Beads of glass replaced the dirt, rock and sand that it had been consuming, but it ate the spheres no less rapidly than it did the sands. Burrowing through the sea with the same determination. The spheres flared to life inside it when they were eaten, granting fresh vigour, life, energy. It slammed into something solid, stopping its progress through the sea. It felt along the surface of the barrier, feeling for perhaps the millionth time the walls of its prison. The walls extended in both planes that it lived in, shutting it off from any means of getting out, and they had proven impossible to destroy with force. It was rare that the Devourer even tested the walls these days, but this time it was thankful it did. It felt something different about the wall, a weakening that was rapidly growing. The wall began to give under the pressure of its claws, began to tear as it bit into it with its mandibles. Finally the wall shattered entirely, releasing it from the small cube of ocean that it could normally feed on, and out into the wider ocean. The limitless source of food for it to consume. It moved back to the other place of sand and earth, finding itself similarly unconstrained there. The walls were gone. It moved through the earth, consuming new earth at last. A few small, burrowing creatures were consumed as well. Gone before they knew it was coming. It pulled at some of its sand, raising itself up on a few ribbons, it breached into open air. A small, wooden thing lay in front of it, bulbous at the base it branched out into many branches. The Devourer reached out with one of its claws, delicately pulling the Boab tree from the ground before ramming it into its mouth. A small treat, not filling enough for its tastes. It could range far now, devour more. Devour everything. To the west it saw a large blue surface, the ocean of this plane. It wondered if devouring that would give it energy the same way the ocean of the other place did. It wondered if that hated creature was still in the oceans of this place. The Devourer hoped that it was, so that it too could be devoured.

Sitting cross-legged within the barrier, Voidus continued eating cookies and thinking. Idly another thought broke through his mind, one unrelated to how to get through the barrier. Wait, if this was a full lockdown then that means that someone must have released everything. Well luckily an army was nearby, they might be able to clean up some of it. The guardian's still locked here with me and hopefully none of the other primary experiments have any reason to attack the city. Satisfied that everything should be under control, he finished off the cookie before another thought struck him. Ah, if it was everything everything then the others might have gotten out too. Like those two across the sea. They also weren't too fond of each other when they were still growing up. Brushing the crumbs from himself, Voidus sighed. Well I hope they have some good cartographers over there, the geography might get rearranged a bit. He turned his attention back to the task at hand.

Megan Pierce stumbled along the side of the road, pulling a stray twig from her hair. She combed her fingers through the tangle that had started, struggling to restore her blonde hair to its normal state. After a minute she gave up, it hadn't been a good day for keeping up appearances, even if she fixed one tangle there were probably 20 more she hadn't seen. Walking along the side of the road for 12 hours straight was not a good way to keep your hair in order. The car she'd been using had broken down a day ago and the lack of traffic along the road had meant no hitchhiking opportunities had arisen. And that meant walking. Far too much walking. Though from the looks of things she'd be in the city soon. But 'soon' was relative, it'd still be another hour of walking at least, probably more. "Olympia Polaris." She said as she trudged, lifting her head to look at the city. "Dumb name. Wonder who thought of it?" Hopefully the ones who ran this place were better than the ones who'd run the Dalles and she could get a shower and a bed without too much of a struggle. And after that, she could start searching. She wasn't sure if Allison would be here or in another city, Calgary maybe. But it seemed that a number of other refugees from Oregon had headed in this direction so it might be a good place to start at least. A low sound from behind startled her out of her reverie, a red van chugged its way up the road, heading along the same road she was. Nervously, she stuck out a hand and lifted her thumb. She hoped they wouldn't try anything. Handsy guys were the worst. Impact's vision finally began to clear again, eddies in the smoke around her becoming slightly more visible. But it was still just vague shapes, not anything she could see clearly. If that Slontze damaged my retina then I'm going to rip his eyes out and set them on fire. See how he likes it. Still, she managed to keep the calm, arrogant expression of a High Epic. Convinced that nothing that any lower creature could do would bring any harm to it. A loud crack burst through the air, a short distance away and off to one side. She barely even felt the bullet as it ricocheted off, just a slight push of her clothes against her skin. Her smile became slightly more natural when she noticed. An Epic who needed a gun to do their killing was barely worth calling an Epic at all. She turned slowly towards the source, she wasn't sure if it was the smoke that made it hard for her to see the figure that shot her or if her vision was still too impaired but she didn't catch sight of anything that looked like a person. As she turned a wave of dizziness came over her, slightly disorienting her motion. Sparks. The medication? No I haven't even taken any today, haven't needed it in a while. She shook her head to try and clear it, but even her muscles felt sluggish, straining to move.

She chased the creature up, up, finally breaching the over the top of the storm as it continued to ravage the city below. Finally the Phoenix stopped, waiting patiently in the air as its quarry slowed and turned towards her. She had worried that this foe would simply attempt to flee, but it seemed she had resolved herself for this fight. The Phoenix gave her a final moment, as with the other. They floated for one endless moment, a pocket of calm and quiet above a city torn apart by violence, savagery and the fury of the storm. Suddenly, the creature firmed its gaze, clenched its muscle and pulled something from the shield it carried. It began to glow white, the Phoenix recognized in an instant the signs of a rapid drawing of heat. In an instant the blast enveloped her, burning her feathers away before beginning to char her skin. At the same instant her healing kicked in. Forty of her seventy five spikes included some means of healing, she used all of them to keep this blast at bay. Her skin healed a fresh layer under every layer that was charred by the blast, her feathers regrew as fast as they burned. But her spikes were not a biological entity, they were a part of her but they had no means of healing themselves so accelerating the rate that the rest of her healed did nothing to prevent them from melting under the heat radiating over her. But she was no stranger to heat, she was the one who controlled fire, who weaponized this force of nature. She reversed her usual flow from her metalminds, storing instead of tapping. She felt her body begin to cool, sucking the heat in from the surrounding air and the metal that still resided within her. She filled, filled and filled, replacing much of what she had already lost that day. Finally the heat began to subside, she slowed her storing, keeping pace with the heat as it diminished. The light faded, the creature no longer visible. Breathing heavily, she held herself in place for 10 more wingbeats, watching the ash fall to the ground, waiting for her body to finish regenerating. Several of her spikes had been evaporated in the instant before she could start storing, but she still had enough to continue. She looked down, towards the city, then back towards the ash falling from the sky. This one was not the hated one, but its goal had been clear, it drew her up, away from the rest of the city. They had sacrificed themselves, but they still tried to save others, and they had only resorted to death as a last resort. They had put life before death, journey before destination. These words are accepted. She thought towards the last few pieces of ash that fell. With tired, lopsided wingbeats, she flew her way back to her nest. Enough of this death. She had life that she needed to protect as well.

Taking a handful of cookies out of a pocket, Voidus began steadily munching through them. Glucose was important for peak mental performance after all. He definitely wasn't addicted to cookies.

The outlines of objects had just begun to be visible again when a secondary flash was set off, this one thankfully not in her direct line of sight but her vision went white again. Her headache now coming on in earnest, a consistent crushing pressure on one side. She didn't move from her position, continuing to stare at the same spot on the ground, adopting a slightly bored expression. There was something to be said for learning from past injuries, and unfortunately she'd had her fair share of that back in Oregon. For a brief moment, Impact wished that she had Megan at hand, if the two had been together they could have crushed the Epic into the ground the moment they'd seen him. But she didn't need Megan's abilities to get out of this. Though no down her sister would be following after her if word of this got out. A faint whiff of smoke hit her nostrils a second before the plumes began obstructing the air in earnest. She forced the air around her out more powerfully, dispersing the smoke among the rest of the air, it might have still hampered her vision if she'd actually been able to see but at least this would be breathable in a moment. As she stared into the white void before her eyes, she quickly ran through options. Even if she had her vision, trying to surprise a speed Epic was never a good idea so simply fleeing was out even if she was willing to accept the social consequences and until she could see again trying to engage directly was a bad idea so moving to attack was also out. What did that leave? It seemed that this speed Epic was at least smart enough not to try shooting her, but they seemed intent on blinding tactics for the moment, so if she just stayed still then there was little danger. Add a little of the arrogance that came standard to any Epic who was convinced of their own invulnerability and Impact waited, maintaining her passive stance and tried to look as unfazed as possible by this assault.

Brandon hasn't completely revealed how that works last I'd checked, but here's his explanation: source

Impact watched dubiously as the Epic began searching through a bag, allegedly looking for a pamphlet of some kind. It seemed that this Epic thought she was as gullible as her sister. She waited as he continued searching, keeping a constant stream of power flowing out of her to deflect whatever idiotic weapon he wanted to try next. He turned mid-sentence hurling a small object in her direction, she had a brief moment to watch it tumble to her feet and recognized the shape. She'd seen many in the Dalles though not many there had been stupid enough to try to use one on her. Her ability activated faster than her body, pulling her back and upwards from the grenade, but before she could attempt to shield her face a tremendous light burst out of the grenade. The light burned into her eyes, she attempted to shut them against the light but even then she could still see nothing but pure white. She started blinking, moving her eyes around to try to make out some shapes in the light. Thankfully her abilities deflected any other damage from the blast, but she felt an intense pulsing begin behind her eyes, a new migraine coming on from the sudden burst of light. She held herself still, keeping her place in the air and directed her line of sight to where she'd last seen the grenade. "Well that was pointless." She said.

The Phoenix moved out of the way of one of the creatures, spikes granting her supernaturally enhanced speed even beyond what the Light gave her. Usually she wouldn't even bother to avoid insects like this, but several of them had begun aiming for the pieces of her soul, ripping them from her body. She increased the output of her fire and Lashed anything that touched her back towards the ground, keeping herself in constant motion and surrounded by a storm of wind and flying rock. A slash of metal in front of her face almost caught her as she pulled herself back at the last second, seeing one of the humans who'd begun this conflict. The others seemed to be pulling away but she'd track them down eventually. She would not forgive these indignities. She snapped towards the one in front of her, but the storm around her did not allow for precise movements and it began to head steadily upwards. Well, if it wanted to take this above the storm she wasn't about to stop it. She would show this thing that the sky belonged to her, not humans who fumbled their way through the air like a newborn chick. With a screech she followed it higher, and higher into the skies above the Alleycity.

Did anyone else see Kobold's post here and secretly hope he might have been joining the new RP? I knew it was a long shot but I was still secretly hoping it would happen. (Totally understand IRL stuff though if you ever read this Kobold, not trying to pressure anyone into anything or make them feel guilty)

Well the Lord ruler was able to store at least 3 days worth of Youth in the Atiumminds on him and he was tapping like 50000% pretty consistently. Given that an average requirement would be maybe 1000% I'd say you could store several hours worth in either.

I'd say it would be very unlikely for that to occur for a metalmind. A metalmind is a store of Investiture but as far as we know that gives it no other special traits, particularly not when it's only invested to the degree that the average Keeper could manage. Something like the Bands of Mourning might have some secondary effects, but unless it was a Hemalurgic spike I'd say it's unlikely for that to happen with Feruchemy. Just like Allomancers can't just leave metal in their stomach without burning it unless they want to get sick, the metal itself doesn't have any special protections around it. So yeah, Keepers have probably had to deal with some minor infections from their piercings from time to time. But they do also have the ability to heal themselves so maybe not as big an issue for them.

Been a while since I was at uni but AFAIK a metal isn't inherently more likely to cause infection than anything else. Allergic reaction or metal toxicity perhaps but not a regular infection. Especially for things like piercings where they're not in an open wound.

Backtracks return to the game is now officially canon. (Actually on second thoughts Backtrack is probably pretty happy for nobody to know who he is or where to find him.)

Brandon has implied that there is a way to use compounding in reverse to grant yourself increased Allomancy. source source And it definitely seems like Nicrosil is capable of doing this, storing your ability to burn metals in it and then tapping it in large quantities makes you more powerful Allomantically.

MEC would actually probably like to find him quite a bit Also I'm not gone, just haven't had much need for the MEC yet.

Voidus sat motionless in front of the wall of energy. He drummed his fingers over his knee as he contemplated the problem at hand, watching the wall impassively. Could destroy the barrier but then the spike's unprotected and the Guardian could get out. The heavy thud of a very large foot hitting the ground behind him drove this point home as the Guardian continued its slow circuit around the inside of the barrier. Could try and kill the guardian first but then the spike is really really unprotected and the universe might end. The soft thrum of energy before him was somewhat distracting, but using any active Investiture here was not a good idea, even for him. Could try and move the spike as well but that might still end the universe. He continued to sit, pondering his problem, blocked off from the rest of the city on all three realms by the barrier that surrounded the area.

I'd say it was because they wanted to keep themselves and their knowledge alive during the Final Empire, if they tried to fight they would definitely be overcome, they couldn't counter an entire army. And then there'd be no more Keepers to pass information on if the empire ever did get overthrown.

When you're reacting to something in the future it doesn't really matter how fast someone is moving, you react before they even start moving. But I would think that a Steelrunner could very easily emulate Vins trick and just change what they were about to do based on how the Seer is reacting.