Sherlock Holmes

I feel like we need a Discord Shard, anyone agree? It would go with the hypothetical Ruin-Preservation-Cultivation thing.

Tena saw Devaan and bowed, not wanting to get him mad. She then turned back to Shifty (as she’d already nicknamed him) and said, “Nice pack, brother. Do you hunt well?”

“Hey, you have wolves too!” Tena exclaimed. “Are you their alpha male, because if so, which is your alpha female? Also, are all of these your pups?” She finished off her taco and licked her fingers, eyes watering a little from the spice.

"Shove tolerance?" Tena asked. "Maybe because our bones are so fragile. And, by the way, that applies to me too, so don't try to break my back or anything." She turned to him. "Shifting Shadows, right? Aren't you a Nightshade form?"

Tena gave Zaphoid a double thumbs-up and walked back to the ladder, then Steelpushed against a dropped coin to fling herself into the entrance room. She sauntered out of the building, dropped down next to the wall and swung her pack off her shoulder, opening it and pulling out a ghost sauce-drenched taco. She began to eat it, her very un-Vorin tastes satisfying. @Archer

The Landlord slowly rise from his chair, coming to his feet with a wince. His back hurt. His back always hurt.

The Landlord picked at his teeth with a, you got it, toothpick. He leaned back in his fine mahogany chair, a butler at his side asking, “Do you require more pizza, sire?” “No, Frank, thank you,” the Landlord said, “and please do not call me ‘sire.’” Frank nodded, his finely-oiled mustache quivering, perhaps with displeasure or confusion. Usually, men as rich as the Landlord ignored their servants. The Landlord himself had once done the same, but in his old age he’d come to realize that those men who served him were to be treated as well as they treated him. It was only fair, and anyway, he needed someone to take over his job when he died, since he had never had any children. His wife had only given birth to three children, all of them girls, and stillborn. Frank was a good, honest man, a potential heir, thought the Landlord would have to train him in he was to truly have the necessary skills. There are too many options, the Landlord thought. The cook is a fine man. He would be a good Landlord. Another in the line that we have sustained for many millennia. Landlords had unnaturally long lives, the Landlord himself was one hundred forty-three. One hundred fifty was the average, so the Landlord was prepared to die. He’d lived plenty long.

So, the way this works is that the person who figures out what TV show, movie, video game, or book the previous quote is from writes another quote that should be from a different TV show, movie, video game, or book. Here’s the first one: “I feel like a million American dollars!”

"No," Axe answered.

@I think I am here. @BitBitio

The distinct sound of 80s rock could be heard emanating from Axe's fourth wall break. Wereci and Dusk were sitting on his bed, Wereci rubbing Grizzly's belly furiously (enough to make the dog kick his leg, somehow) and Dusk craning his neck to see what Axe was writing. Axe stopped typing for a moment to take a bite of his donut, then continued. "Oh, Tena," he said quietly to himself, "you are my soul. You are me, in essence. I wish you weren't beyond this wall." Wereci looked up from praising Grizzly of his virtues, to which Grizzly responded with a high-pitched bark that Wereci ignored. Wereci glanced over at Axe and asked, "Aren't I your soul?" "You are." "Then why are you saying that Tena is your soul?" "She is, but a different part of my soul." "Ah. Logical. Also, when did you come up with the shoulderblades pun?" "When I was skateboarding home from school on a snowy day, yesterday." "Oof. I feel young, and I'm older than you." "Oh, shut up."

All of a sudden, Andy spotted another Winged flying towards the skywhale. He landed and carefully set down his ward, Dusk, then folded his wings behind his back. "How in Rieshi's name did you manage to get wings?" Andy demanded of Wereci, her princessly nature undoubtedly coming out. Wereci somehow managed to do that to her. Wereci shook his head like a wet dog would, spraying what looked like fresh blood all over the back of the whale, though his hair remained a light blond, without noticeable stains. Oddly, his curly hair wasn't in a tail, instead standing up on his head and making him look even taller than he already was. "Easkalish is revived in this version of the non-canon plot, Tez," he calmly explained, then tapped the twin hilts peeking out from both of his shoulders with his wings. Dusk opened his mouth quickly, but didn't speak before Andy. "What's up with the swords?" she asked. Dusk put his head in his hands in despair while Wereci grinned a savage, lupine grin. "They're my shoulderblades, thank you." Wereci did a back-handspring in satisfaction, hurling himself off the whale. Andy took a half-step forward in shock as Dusk rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Does he do that often?" Andy asked of Dusk, panicked. Was Wereci going to fall in the water? Winged weren't nearly as good at swimming as they were at flying, so what would happen to Wereci if he landed in the water? "That pun? Yes, incessantly. He came up with it when he was thirteen and never stopped saying it. Even the first time, it only slightly funny. He has to have said it at least a thousand times at this point. That kid..." Dusk's utter nonchalance put Andy off. "No, I mean the constant putting himself in danger, idiot," Andy snapped sharply. Dusk broke into riotous laughter instantly and Andy got the feeling she'd said something really stupid. Dusk stopped himself with some effort, then said, "He's Wereci, lass, he does nothing else. You saw the blood he sprayed all over the whale?" Andy nodded. "He got that in his hair by slaying thirteen Zosan soldiers. In one go. He's unnatural, but I'm glad he's on my side." Dusk was not there a second later. Andy spun and followed with her eyes the winged form of Wereci towing Dusk up into the sky, powerful shoulder muscles bringing both of them higher and higher. Andy thought she heard Wereci shout, "I'm on my own side, queen!" Then Dusk was falling. Dropping like a stone; the comparison came to Andy in a half-second. Wereci folded his wings and dove after Dusk, managing to catch the older soldier seconds before he would have hit the water. A grotesque image came to Andy's brain, that of how her mother had described a suicide off of a bridge. Entrails splattered about, crushed, blood everywhere, the corpse barely recognizable. Wereci began rising again, winging higher and higher. He stopped at one point, drifting on an updraft. Andy thought she saw him and Dusk kissing, and turned away in disgust. "It's not natural," she muttered, then rose her voice to a shout that Dusk and Wereci wouldn't be able to hear. "You're ten years older than Wereci, Dusk! Shame on you!" Another fact bothered her more, however. Dusk had somehow managed to win over the taciturn Wereci despite the fact that Andy was trained in many seduction tactics and had tried all of them on Wereci. Apparently, the Tesan simply wasn't as easy as all the nobles in Arashea had been. Something else will work, Andy thought, perhaps a touch desperately. A quote from her mother came to her instantly. Every man has his trigger. Your father's was kindness. Her father. He'd remained a wild card with her mother many years after his death, though Andy had been seven when he'd died. She didn't remember her mother ever crying for him; Mya said that that kind of coping only ended badly, though neither of the sisters had the will to confront their mother about it. A moment later, Wereci landed back on the skywhale, bare feet thumping as he jogged for a moment to slow his momentum. He dropped Dusk carefully, and Dusk stood up, brushing off the sleeves of his coat, which was actually Wereci's coat as evidenced by that fact that it was way too big for Dusk, with a rare truly happy smile on his face as he watched Wereci continue jogging to the end of the whale and jump off, soon visible again as he flew high above the whale. Andy thought she heard Dusk say, "That's pure disaster on wings, that is." “Say, Dusk, why is he in love you?” Andy asked the tall soldier. Dusk’s expression was of surprise. “He isn’t in love with me. That’s ridiculous.” ”But why were you kissing, then?” ”We weren’t. He was just carrying me. Though, from this angle, it might looked like that.” Dusk shaded his eyes and looked up at the sky, then back at Andy with an amused spark in his eyes. “You have a suspicious mind, sister.” “That’s a distinct possibility,” Andy said, sure that her face was growing progressively redder.

Tena burst out laughing as she leaned over to see what the noble brat had written. "Fullborn?" she exclaimed. "Yeah. Sure. You just keep on telling yourself that, buddy." She patted the noble on the shoulder, grinning about the noble's comment about obliterating her. He likely was a cocky first-Oath Radiant, though why any spren would bond him baffled her. And if he wasn't that, maybe he was a Ferring or something.

"Many of the islands are entirely occupied by native species, so they don't have to worry about it," Koran explained. "The Landlord is, well," he looked up at the clouds, "he is what he is, I guess. I would say he's Voidus, but I think Voidus is trapped."

"We rented it from the Landlord," Koran said. "I think he owns this half of the planet, so he demands a lot of money for even one island. The tourist revenue is just enough, though we're going back to Valnore soon, so this tour is free. Just be glad you don't have to come to our planet; the hormonal anomalies usually drive outsiders insane within hours."

"That's probably true," Tena said as she looked over at the noble guy. "Also, I'm well used to robbing and torturing men like you, so I'd stay away if I was you." That was also true. Tena had spent many years robbing lighteyes and had occasionally had to torture them to find out where their strongboxes were, but nobody here had to know that specific information. I doubt any of them would speak to me again, she thought with amusement, then looked nervously over at Mace and decided that that probably wasn't what she wanted. @Archer

Tena signed the paper Zaphoid gave her without thinking about it. She wrote down Edgedancer, F-A-Steel, 1st Heightening Awakener on the paper, then left 'Address' blank; her house didn't have one. She passed the paper back to Zaphoid with a grin, saying to herself, "I don't do jobs unless there's a chance of death."

Tena was sitting in her house. On her couch, to be specific. The messages coming in through her Ghostblood tattoo were beginning to sow some doubt in her stubborn brain, and she was trying to work through that. The Ghostbloods have never been a moral organization, she thought, so why does morality matter now? We are literally a guild of assassins; doesn't that justify having an immoral leader? He isn't the same anymore-- but the Alleyspren, if it ever existed, would have changed him-- so what do we do? There didn't seem to be a clear answer, unfortunately.

Tena almost managed to not scowl at the noble-y man who has just climbed down the ladder. She looked at her watch to answer the question. “Nine-thirty.”

Tena jumped down into the room and completed a flawless double front handspring to use her momentum. She walked over to the side of the room and leaned against the wall, waiting for the boss-guy to give instructions.

Koran nodded at Nogard. “I, and all others on this island, are native to the planet Valnore. We simply rent this island.” Andy whistled to the tune of ‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor. She realized she was breaking the fourth wall and switched to ‘Kiss’ by Prince without missing a beat. Suddenly, a figure in torn-up baggy jeans and a Calvin and Hobbes shirt appeared about five feet above the whale in the sky. He fell onto his knees, wincing as they were doubtless scratched up, then spun around and came to his feet smoothly, pulling the collar of his shirt and straightening his shoulders self-consciously. He then slowly strode towards the group of people at the other end of the whale. The Winged saw him and immediately fell onto their knees in awestruck disbelief, while Andy waved her hand at him and began to sing the first two lines of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’ “Is this the real life? / Is this just fantasy?” “Caught in a landslide / No escape from reality,” Axel answered.

Tena shook her head in bemusement at Mace. That man is hopeless. Maybe. Well, I guess I hope not. She turned to the door to see a Listener wearing some odd form. “Hey,” she said, then recalled what the femalen had said. “None of us here are the boss we’re looking for. We’re just waiting for him to show up. Eventually he’ll appear and we’ll all be able to put our Metalurgy to work.”