The Stormfather

"It's a room that goes up and down." "We need a way to separate the Auton and the soldiers."

"Maybe. The police are generally... Unhelpful, when dealing with the Steeles."

"Yeah. Something... Something seems wrong here. Even if they wanted to track us, spy on us, or even kill us why do they need to know where important places in our life are? What's the reasoning to this? Or... Maybe... Maybe they can't track us. Maybe these places are places they think that we're... likely to go to?" Mark paused. "Although in that case, I don't know why that... Place... The place where..." Mark shuddered. "I won't be going back there anytime soon. The Marksman... maybe some kind of soldier group? A Peacekeeper squad?"

"Yeah. Yeah we really do."

How do y'all picture me?

I dunno. My school board does some weird stuff. And they also apparently have entire semesters of English without one creative writing or poetry assignment. (Which have carried my english grade for... 6 years...) And have THREE assignments about advertising. Heh? Wh- huh? Whuzat? Wh-who?

Uhhhh Study? I really don't have any experience with like actual school except for the past few months. And those haven't been that bad, but now it's the end of one semester so there's exams but technically not because apparently the word 'exam' is too frightening so the board had to change it for grade 9 to 'final evaluation' so that students don't get nervous? I guess? Welp.

Eep indeed.

I am still going to be in this thread for a long while. I'm 14. And I'm about to have actual large amounts of schoolwork for like, the first time. All of my teachers before high school used to like... not teach.

Mark followed confusedly. "What's going on?"

Deven listens as Tenth tells him what was up there. "Two Auton? Could be worse, I guess. I can probably handle them, as long as you can keep all of the others away from me. I don't like the sound of those lizards, though. They seem like they might have a few tricks."

As he Teleported up the floors, he found many, many offices and cubicles, workstations and computers. It seemed like most of the building was that kind of stuff, and it was all still empty. Then, as he Teleported up to the floor that had been marked for the highest clearance level, he appeared in a mostly empty hallway. In front of him was a large room, covering the entire floor save for the elevators, bathrooms, and some small offshoots that seemed to be for storage. Inside the room, there were several large machines, some that appeared quite, quite complex. One was a generator, that was certain, but it didn't seem to be using anything to make the electricity. It was linked up to a cylindrical machine in the center that pulsed with familiar yellow energy. There were people in the room, around two dozen. About five-ish seemed to be scientists studying the Teleporter, another group of a dozen seemed to be security guards, and the last few people... They were odd. One was a man in a full set of plate armor, holding an Auton-Killer sword. He looked like a medieval knight, though he was clearly accustomed to the new weapon. There was a trio of three-foot tall humanoid lizards, with rusty red scales and long, fanged snouts. They held silvery daggers, and one had a small crossbow strapped to it's back. These are the warriors, the ones that Ardaklin found from other worlds, that were willing to join him. Then, there were two... People? They only could have been what Deven had described as the Clockwork Auton, who looked like a set of plate armor that fully covered most of the body, and inside was various mechanisms of gears and steam. It looked clunky, but Tenth could also see that the arms it had could probably pack a punch.

In the Drominad HG, he has one kill. Himself. It was a very stupid joke. I'm also realizing I really should not have made a joke about that. I apologize.

I was almost dying from starving and general Drominad-ness which made me not able to fight people to cause death which is why the Greenspine was sent into the arena. So i couldn't cause death, which caused me to almost die (Almost, I died completely of my own volition and was definitely not influenced by outside forces) which in turn made it harder for me to cause death. Also, is Maj tied for highest killcount among tributes?

I was a little preocupied almost dying to cause death. Wait a minute. I was almost dying because I didn't cause death because I was almost dying because I didn't cause death because I was almost dying because I didn't cause death because I was almost dying because I didn't cause death because I was almost dying because I didn't cause death because I was almost dying because I didn't cause death because I was almost dying because I didn't cause death because- YAY FOR PARADOXES

I'm here now. Because I have insomnia caused by extreme paranoia. Yay. I find Gaz very relatable.

Deven glances around nervously. "This place is weird." He looks at the map to locate the elevators. "We probably need some kind of keycard, or we could try to.." He pauses. "I have a really stupid idea. It could be possible to drop the elevator to the bottom and climb up the elevator shaft, I think. We would just have to press the button for the basement, jump out of the elevator, and then... Break open the door?"

Mark walked back towards where they had first entered, trying to act normal and not break into a sprint to get away from the shed.

"Try to remember where those lions were placed on the map. Seems like they might be the placement of workers, or... Troops." Mark said grimly, closing the door behind him and wincing at the broken lock. "Hopefully they don't realize that we were here." Mark opens his pouch of gemstones, sighing as he realizes he had used all of his Stormlight sliding around. "Need to get some more light soon."

The Marksman seemed to require quite a lot of money, looking at the ledgers. Also, listed in the section for whatever the Marksman was (I don't know how these ledgers work) Were a few sections. Transportation, room and board, many things that would be required for a group of people to get them in a liveable scenario. And then weapons. Nearly half of the money sent to The Marksman was put into buying them weapons. Mark's eyes snapped to the door. "Mare, we might want to get out of here soon. I don't know how long Sweets is going to be able to distract everyone here. I certainly don't want to have to fight them. I won't fight them. Never again."

There wasn't much in the reports, although she did see that the company was 'donating' a significant amount of money to something called 'The Marksman.' Mark further inspected the map, finding that there were a few scattered red X's on various houses throughout the city. One was on Mark's house. One was on the Steele HQ. One was on... No. Not there. One was... No. One X was over the alley. The alley where it had happened. Mark clenched one fist and slammed it down on the table. The two final X's were close to each other. One was on the old Rusted HQ that had been in the basement under a bar, and the final one was off in the outskirts near the forest. "Mare..." Mark paused. "This is..." His eyes flashed to the X on the alley. A small, hooked knife formed in his hands. "That's where the Trickster grew up, I think. Arc. This is... These are all places that I have gone, or that are directly linked to my life..." Why can't I live in peace for one second? Mark looked around, spotting a corner of another map hidden under the mess of ledgers. It was another map, incredibly similar, but the X's were placed not on places that were important to Mark, but those that were important to Marewill. "There must be somewhere they stored these papers, right? Surely they don't just leave them all over the table. If we can find that, we can probably figure out what the hell is going on." Sereine. A shiver runs through Mark. 'Mark, I need to go visit my family. I'll be back... Few hours?' The last words she had said echoed through his mind. Useless words, meaningless words, but words that hurt Mark nonetheless. The last words she had said had been a lie. She had never come back. Because....Because... He had killed her. I won't relive this again! Mark slammed his knife into the table. "I'm done here." He said, shoving his way out the door.

"That works." Mark pushed open the door into the building, finally getting to see what was inside. Papers were scattered across the table, most financial reports or unimportant ledgers, but on the center of the table, there was a map. On this map, there were a few figurines. Three lions posed of their hind paws and waving claws in the air, one on this construction site, one on a farm near the outskirts of the city, and one downtown on a house in the more populated area. What?