Swimmingly

The oddly resonant voice rung out from the huge hulking man at the bar, who seemed to be talking to the mage from the earlier fight. He was plated head to toe in a black-grey pattern of armour, joins slithering over each other with barely a whisper. He wore a full face helm, a mask, even, with a spiky glyph inscribed on his forehead and a flat sheet of metal where the nose would be. The eyes fell into shadow, though they flickered with a red light out of the corner of Korb's eyes. He kept staring at Zeith, but answered nonchalantly. "Friend, I hope, possibly even future associate. I do hope you refrain from killing me, please. Please." "I asked Zakk," the man...thing...said, voice echoing in a rich baritone, underlayed with a gruff dwarven accent and a lighter one, unidentifiable . Was anyone here human? I accidently used the first person plural for Tool, Dreaming, but wouldn't that make sense for his condition? Or does he purposefully use the singular to make himself more individual?

"Excellent, goodman Vhalin!" Korb exclaimed, tapping the cobbles with his cane and striding forwards, pulling a large, worn white gold coin - a schooner - from a pocket in his sleeve. With a flick of his finger, he sent it spinning at the smaller man's head. It flashed in the lamplight for a fraction of a second. Then Vhalin's hand whipped around in an inhuman blur, catching the disk between two fingers while a dagger leapt into the other one. Korb backed away a half-step as Vhalin examined the coin. The ranger hastily resheathed his dagger, mumbling apologies. Korb held up a languid hand. "I'm sorry for that, friend. Just testing your reflexes. Something of an interview, if you will - and you passed, believe me." Vhalin laughed suddenly, a surprisingly musical tenor. "I see! Is game, yes, like...catch-sticks, perhaps?" He affected a wistful tone. "Was much good..." He seemed to trail for a moment. "Here," he called, flinging the schooner back at Korb with a piercing force. The white-gold disk bounced off Korb's left shoulder with a bruising thump, and Korb swore loudly. "Rotted land!" Vhalin looked up hopefully. "Was good throw, yes?" Korb almost told the fellow that, no, it wasn't a game, but he didn't have the heart. "Ah...um, yes, that was a good throw - yes, very good. But...don't try that with anyone else, it's very complicated who starts it and all that let's go inside shall we?" He patted the creature's back with a little more force than necessary, rubbing his bruising shoulder, then bent, picked up the coin, and pressed it into Vhalin's hand as they entered the inn. There were the usual stains and blood of a Docks inn, and a bar with, stooped over it, an eclectic and varied selection of individuals, anyone of whom could probably macerate his ribcage one way or another with minimal effort. Korb smiled, his new bodyguard trotting in on his heels. This was going to be interesting. Wait a minute - there drinking idly - was that Zeith? Had the bastard finally made his sorry way back to Silari? Korb grinned wider and stared at the man until he looked. The expression writ on his face could have bought a small kingdom. BreathTaker, can you maybe do a plot post outlining what's happening apocalypse-wise, once everyone's dandy with one another?

What if, the more complex an object, the more or more subtly you can affect it? That would follow from curiosities' point, though it sort of copies the cosmere 'everything has a soul, the more complex or invested the object the more complex the soul' thing.

I honestly doubt that there's such a thing as Shared Dreamspace, because there just isn't any mechanism in the brain or body capable of transmitting that level of detail between two people. Unfortunately, brains don't have WiFi cards.

Huh, I should do one of these too. Name: Korb von Shwartmeyer, Duke Age: 32 Height: 5 ft 10 in Weight: 152 lbs Race: Human, Vrumeynan ethnic, Silarni national Class: Runner. He really needs to learn to handle himself in a fight sometime, and has since he was 10. Seriously, get some lessons. Description: Slight, with short black hair, light brown eyes, and delicate fingers, he has excellent fitness and can run extremely, though by no means inhumanly, quickly. You could call him an athlete, but he might be insulted. Or not. You never really can tell with the man. Duke Korb von Shwartmeyer is a man who likes opportunity. On the long term, his plans involve setting himself up to be able to grab any low-hanging fruit as it appears; in practice, that requires him to prune the branch very carefully and thus miss many of the actual fruits. (Overextended metaphors ftw.) On the very short term, he tends to be impulsive, doing frankly idiotic and life-threatening things just to prove he can, often expending inordinate amounts of resources to conceal his actions from the world afterwards. Somehow, this has not spiraled out of control. Yet. Though he acts a bit of a buffoon, he can be rather crafty when he needs to, and has a way of gathering people around him that fit his plans remarkably - or perhaps he's simply very good at adapting his plans to the people around him. Again, with the Duke, it's hard to tell. He wears nobles' suits (currently in a Revolutionary Revival style with a faux-colonial era sword-cane engraved in silver) chosen, tailored, and adapted to his specific tastes by a tailor who's name he forgot after the first meeting, nearly a decade ago, and so has since greeted with "My friend!". Enthusiastically. The man's name is probably scribbled all over the von Shwartmeyer ledgers (he ruins his suits doing something stupid nearly every other day), but the Duke hasn't bothered to check. He's got people to do that for him. I should probably mention here that anyplace in Silari Korb calls the Docks probably refers to the vast swathe of the city occupied by the less-than-middle-class citizens. His inability to distinguish poor but orderly and dangerously lawless neighbourhoods has him wandering in and out of them all like a headless chicken, in fact. For example, the tavern on Crafter's Row is, according to Korb, in the Docks - but it's the edges, and it's pretty safe there. He really didn't need to hire a bodyguard yet.

But if the stick isn't trying to describe me, and I can't actually say anything...

Korb stared at the short fellow for a moment. He seemed strangely apologetic, but there was something about the way he moved - he was dangerous, even if he was loathe to admit it. "You're new here, I assume?" The stranger looked down, seeming to shrink a little. "Yes, Lordship. This is much easy to tell?" His voice wasn't really that growly, more gruffly singsong, and he was calling Korb 'Lordship' unironically in the Docks. Korb was beginning to like this man, though he wasn't exactly the most threatening of fellows to look at. He'd do until Korb could get into a tavern or inn - he glanced at the sadly disrepaired and unjustly abused example that the two fighters brawled in front of - and, well, Korb made too much money anyway. He could take this stranger in under his wing. Hopefully the several knives concealed about his person wouldn't poke out feathers, so to speak. By all the ten thousand gods on this rotting world, have you gone insane?!, a voice inside him screamed. Noble's suit at night on the Docks and you're taking knife-happy foreigners "under your wing?" How on earth have you not died yet?! As he had for the vast majority of his life, Korb ignored the voice. Audacity was the soul of ambition, after all. Besides, Korb hadn't had any real fun in a while. He was exactly where he wanted to be in life, and had spent the last five years working to maintain that place. Capacity. That was what his goal had been. Second best at everything, so he had the capacity to take action. What good is capacity alone? Done rationalising the stupidity he was about to exhibit, Korb cleared his throat, turned to the side slightly, and took a swig from the small vial of wine his tailor had sewn into his sleeve. Gods, but that man was good at his job. Korb recognised the vintage - his own. "Just a little, my man, but for all the right reasons. My name is Korb - just Korb, please, as I'd rather not be mistaken for somebody important - and I'd like to purchase your services as a bodyguard for tonight, and possibly longer." Korb settled back, hands on the hilt of his sword-cane, trying his best to hide the silver gilding while not looking like he was hiding anything. His clothes made him stick out like a silver pin in a pigsty, but every little bit helped. Over the short stranger's shoulders, the brawl seemed to have cleared up, leaving cracked cobblestones and a thick, patchy rime of frost across the ground. The stranger seemed to consider the offer for a few moments - or perhaps he was simply arranging the words in his head - and spoke. Whatever the vast and world shattering evil we're looking to rebuff is, could it start by doing something unspeakable to Korb's estates? He needs some motivation beyond "because things happened and I was bored" to join the crew, though that's good enough for now. Doesn't need to happen right away, of course, but that's a plot event we might want to aim for - maybe Korb asks everyone to meet him at his estate after a mad frenzy of hiring everyone threatening in sight as a bodyguard? Also, to clarify what I've imagined for Silari, it's an old city, founded as a trading colony four hundred years or so ago. Conquered by the Vrumeyan empire, the locals were mostly subjugated by the colonizing upper class, and put to work building the trade industry. However, when the city declared independence and fought off the ragged Vrumeynan navies that came to reclaim them, several locals managed to become officers in the military and were subsequently made into low nobles, though a few originally lower class ethnic Vrumeynans number among them as well (counts and some barons). The high nobles (dukes and high barons) came from the upper class ethnic Vrumeynans, as did the king. In recent years, however, the merchant class has been surging, the chief among them garnering wealth and political power to rival the nobility, becoming a faction of their own (the merchant lords). Among the Docks and surrounding area, there are a variety of ethnic and political factions, the primary one being the Lizardmen. It's good to remember, however, that the vast majority of Lizardmen in the city are really just lower-class immigrants, trying to scrape by despite a human-dominated political scene. Anyone want to change details?

2. Teach them that it's only OK to use it for less than five seconds.

I was trying to convey the scene more authentically from the Duke's point of view - if someone clanks, they've got weapons and armour, if they've got arms and armour, they probably can use them, if they can, they might, if they do, the duke is dead. Add shrouded figure and a voice that sounds growly whether apologising or threatening and you have a terrified Duke overestimating the threat level of everything - though, to be fair, that's a legitimate response to nighttime on the Docks. I rewrote that trying to make it more obvious that the Duke's a bit of an unreliable narrator in the heat of the moment, though.

Yeah, I remember one rather vivid episode from when I was a kid where I dreamt I heard my parents talking about me just outside my door as I was getting up. I confronted my mother about it, and she just gave me a confused look, as well as a verbal beatdown for the language I used. I had to backpedal pretty quickly for that.

What did I get wrong here? Could you correct me so I can edit it? Edit: tried to fix the fight.

Korb ambled out of the tailors' - the man had taken to keeping new clothes in his measurements at some point, generally updated to the just-past-latest style. A good tailor for the purposes, that man was. It was convenient, never needing to keep abreast of fashion oneself and still cultivate the exact image one required. Despite Korb's rank - barely lower than the city-king himself - Korb's title was more political than functional. His estates more or less ran themselves, producing a steady profit and rather nice wine, and he was left to politick, scheme, and generally make a fool of himself. He had carefully carved out a position for himself as the second-best at just about everything of importance in the city. He was second-best in title, second-best in fashion and bearing, second richest, second fastest, even, among the nobility at those Contests. The wine from his estates was even second best in the city. Combined with his natural talent for being more or less unnoticed, this position left him just out of the public eye. Everyone knew him, and some chuckled over his eccentricities, but they didn't take undue note. However, as the other dukes, high barons, and merchant-lords jostled for position and respect, jumping up and down the ladders of aristocracy, Korb stayed quietly and occasionally frantically maintaining his ideal image at the edge of peoples' minds. A few blocks away from the Docks - the worst of them, anyway - an averagely respectable winehouse perched on it's rundown street like a tarnished penny in a bed of coal. The Gods' Vinery was a relic of a past age, when the Docks had been a bustling depot of trade and commerce in a newly established colony. When Governor Ferl von Gudmannz had decided to become City-king SerFerl don Gudmannz I, at the violent protest of the Vrumeynan Empire, the war and trade embargoes had let the area stagnate, the entire region splitting into ethnic-speciesist ghettoes and black-market trading rows during the ten years of war. Somehow, the Gods' Vinery had weathered all that, and it was set to reap the rewards as gentrification on the outer edges of the Docks slowly crept inwards. Korb walked into the blondwood building, new sword-cane with ostentatious handle- apparently it had been the fashion six months or so ago - tapping the ground genially. The man he had come to meet sat in a booth with a vinery board carved into the wood - dozens of small, circular indentations, each filled with a miniature flute of wine. The pattern made a parallel, each wine on the board matching its mirror - a two-person set. "Count der Alucard," Korb nodded as he sat down, "I trust you are well?" The man was a native to the area, not descended from the old Vrumeyan colonials like the majority of the nobility - his grandfather had perhaps been a high-ranking officer in the revolutionary navy, elevated to a title in gratitude for his services - and to keep the humans native to the region from chafing at their now independent but still ethnic Vrumeyan rulers. "Excellent," der Alucard answered, smiling. "Yourself, lord Shwartmeyer?" "Well as a fine wine on a summer day." Der Alucard smiled, plucking the first of the flutes from the vinery board - a light, bubbly confection, perhaps a ber Ferandrelz vintage? Korb nodded, smiling in turn, and lifted the matching cup from his side of the board. The drunk at the same time, letting the wine flow over their palettes, and set the empty glasses back into the vinery board. "Now," der Alucard said, tone a little harder, "to business..." Korb left the winehouse an hour and a half later, satisfied at the arrangement he had come to - giving der Alucard just a little more than he had too, arguing weakly at just the right points. The deal was profitable on both sides, and der Alucard now saw him, not as a fool, but not as a master of the mercantile arts, either. He would gladly deal again, even owe a favour or two should it come to it, because he saw Korb as neither dangerously stupid nor dangerously perceptive. And, should Korb ever see a need, he didn't doubt he could destroy the man financially. Not that he would, but it was nice to have insurance. As Korb walked, the relatively nice, if run-down, outer docks district faded back into one of the less desperate lizard ghettos. Lost in though, he began to wander the streets, half expecting to get jumped and robbed again any moment. Miraculously, it didn't happen, and so Korb managed to wander in the gathering dark for a full quarter-hour, dressed in out-of-style gentlemen's finery, among the thin windows and chiseled stone ornament of a proudly sslyssin neighbourhood, poor and overcrowded though it was. It couldn't last, of course. The thug leapt from an alley, knife drawn, and Korb made the split second realisation that this was not a man he could have a civil conversation with as he gave up his belongings. Korb ran. When Korb ran, he ran. In his estimation, the nobility managed to both place far too much emphasis on the annual Contests and far too little time preparing for them. Some made an effort to exercise at the facilities scattered about the hilltop mansions, but most began their training only weeks before the Contests, if indeed they did join. The past seven Contests, Korb had needed to consciously restrain himself from winning each of the running events, coming second each time. That had been quite a blow to his ego, but he consoled himself by sprinting through the lower markets - the legitimate ones - at full speed each dawn, just as the fishmongers and butchers were beginning to set up their wares and shops. So, as a result, Korb was quite possibly the quickest man in the city, excluding the magically assisted. The thug stumbled, surprised, as Korb shot off like a greyhound after a hare. His swordcane clutched at the point of balance like a javelin, he bounded out of the sslyssin district in the direction he'd been walking. Back towards the Docks. The thug gave up, panting and heaving, but Korb kept going. First of all, he loved to run - a simple pleasure, one of the few left to a duke as carefully positioned as he. Second, you didn't just stop running through the Docks at nightfall. You found a crowd, and preferably someone who would follow you with a drawn sword for a few coins, then stayed with one, the other, or both until you were in the low markets at least. Korb found both around the next corner, legs still pumping as he grew closer. A small crowd had gathered, watching an ongoing fight between some grotesquely muscled lizardman and a low-level magic user. The wizard, or magician, or whatever - Korb had never been clear on the differences - had set his fists glowing blue, and was crouching over the lizardman, dropping punches into his jaw - the flesh around each strike crackled with frost, scales curling and popping free as the blood in the skin beneath froze and expanded. From the gaping hole in the second story of the inn they fought next to, Korb guessed that the wizard had leapt down and hit the lizardman - or perhaps thrown him out of it? Beyond his magic, he seemed brawny enough. Hell, with the magic, it was barely a fight at all. Racist bastard had probably plugged the sslyssin for looking at him funny. Korb hated people like that, but they had their uses. And, when carefully overused, they had a habit of expiring. Korb would have seen more, except that, sprinting towards the fight, lamplight, and protection of the crowd, he rammed into a slight figure with a clank - pain blossomed in his chin - then a an ominous rattle, presumably weapons bouncing off the armour as the figure staggered for a step, then recovered. For his part, Kort tripped, tumbling head over heels and nearly cracking his skull on the cobblestones. The figure turned, and growled something - too soft for Korb to hear, but in the Docks, intent could be assumed. It was swathed in cloth head to toe, complete with what seemed a veil and white cloth wrappings in the gap between glove and coat. Perfect. Korb picked himself up, felt around for his sword-cane, and noticed that the figurw was holding it, looking curiously at the engravings on the hilt. He saw Korb reach for it, froze, and dropped it -there was a distinct clack as it hit the stony ground. "Good evening, friend," Korb said, hoping the abject terror wasn't making his voice too squeaky. He reached down with only mildly shaky hands and picked up his cane. "How do you feel about making a few coins tonight?" First off, sorry for all the exposition. If anyone wants to change the worldbuilding I've done here, message me and I'll edit it. I just thought that, as it seems everyone else is a fighter or mysterious wanderer, it would be good to have a perspective acquainted with the politics and history of the region, which, again, are totally changeable. Second, I hope the word count is okay. My posts will probably be shorter than that usually, but I had to establish the details of the character, the setting, and build it into a plottish event. Usually I'll be more restrained. Third, Vhalin, you're up! Edit: The fight should be more accurate now. Changed some characterisation details, as well.

The deity Ironeyes? Koloss?

I gotta meet up with someone capable before my brains get pulled out my sternum by some angry thug of the common sort.

That would be cool. Add being able to intuitively solve equations and move in such a way as to deliver precise amounts of force, and you could, say, derive the exact force and direction needed to knock someone out with a stone at fifty metres or the exact amount of force needed to produce sparks from a rock. Not spectacular, but very useful in certain circumstances. It would make a good counterpoint to a showy or mystical kind of magic, and would probably be absolutely deadly in the right hands.

That's awesome. I'm gonna read that for sure.

This seems primed to be a...short lived church.

Nononono, he requisitions songwriters to put Steelheart propaganda to all the tunes, then plays the revised versions over loudspeakers so nobody can hear them without thinking of the Steelheart version first.

Actually, I believe they are mentioned - by Sazed, recounting the tales of some long-dead religion, though I may be wrong. I think Rashek managed to screw up the magnetic fields somehow when he moved the planet

*runs as the mass of terror and ungodly biology called Feather rises from the Stygian depths to explain*

It's hard being ordinary, Korb thought. The pair of thugs - one tall and muscled, and incidentally blessed with claws, scales, and a tail; one thick as a slab of marbled meat - blocked the entrance to the alley. Muggings were not uncommon, of course, but Korb had managed to avoid this particular misfortune until today. Korb carefully lifted his satchel over his head, trying not to look threatening. In his estimation, it wasn't difficult. Thin, short, Korb was a better runner than most and a worse fighter than many. While some seemed to take every day as a personal challenge to beat more noses flat than the previous one, Korb stayed unseen. It wasn't that he was stealthy, or even quiet. You just didn't notice him. Of course, these two muggers had. Korb finished with his satchel, moving slowly and deliberately. He turned his pockets inside out, spilling coins and jangling nicknacks onto the cobbles, and removed his fine leather jacket, dropping it over the satchel regretfully. "Want anything else?" he asked the thugs. The lizard looked him over. "Boots," he growled. Korb sighed, but did as asked. He pulled out the dull knife in the side of the boot by the blade and tossed it onto the coat, startling the two thugs, who seemed to be getting more and more nervous as Korb dragged out the mugging. Though they held long, nasty-looking brass knives and pockets bulging with a variety of small weapons, they flinched with every movement Korb made, as if they expected him to leap up and beat them senseless. Korb sat down and began unlacing his boots. "What's the matter with you two, anyway? I walked through the Docks - I probably deserve this for being so stupid. You know there aren't any guards about." This is a bad time to be flippant, something inside him said. Korb ignored it. The lizard glanced at the thick man, who grunted. He looked back at Korb. "Well, friend, you see, usually, after shoving a weak-looking man into an alley and demanding all his possessions, we've got, oh, twenty seconds of witty banter before they pull out a knife, potion, sommon something, turn their skin to stone, blast us with lightning, call a blazing rock to smite us from the sky or something worse." "You've got a good vocabulary for a criminal." "It's all the witty repartee, friend. I got tired of never understanding their terrible puns, so I robbed a linguist and read his dictionary." Korb shook his head, laying the boots down on his coat and stepping back. "How'd a smart fellow like you end up robbing dishonest men in alleys, anyway?" The thick thug grumbled, but Lizard waved his free hand in a dismissive gesture. "Jarlen, it's all right. This man's kindly provided us with meals for a month, if I'm any judge of quality. I owe him a conversation, at least." Jarlen scowled, raising the knife towards Korb, but Lizard held his throatcutter with a relaxed gesture. "Upbringing," Lizard said, turning back to Korb, "and the damnable speciesism in this city. I couldn't apply for a single school in the place just because I've got fangs and and a green tail. Terrible thing, it is. Jarlen here," he said, slapping the big man on the back, "seems to have been born for this, though. We work well together." Jarlen smiled for the first time since the mugging had started, teeth, strangely, all white and clean. "It's a good life," he rumbled. "Pays for a roof and a meal." Korb nodded, sitting down again and crossing his legs. Lizard followed suit, though Jarlen remained standing, moving into place behind him. "Still, the speciesism really is something awful here," he noted. "I had a friend who knew a lizardman that worked in one of those specialty bars. Turned out the business was a front for some dark cultist blood sacrifice operation - not that he knew anything about that. Anyway, some musclebound idiot pranced in last month, killed everyone in the place, and smashed through the back wall until he found the secret passage. And do you think he got arrested?" Lizard shuddered, flicking his tail. "I heard about that. The Bastard's Promise, right?" Korb nodded. "Terrible, terrible thing." He leaned forward, flipping open the pocketwatch on his pile of former possessions. "I'm afraid, friends," he said regretfully, "that I'll be late for an appointment should I tarry any longer. If you wouldn't mind?" He gestured at the mouth of the alleyway. Lizard nodded, standing up, and shook Korb's hand with his left claw awkwardly, the main one still gripping the knife. "Glad to meet you, friend, very glad indeed. Best of luck in recouping your losses." Korb smiled. "To you too, friend. May the marks be rich and the heroes unlucky." Lizard chuckled, and, suprisingly, so did Jarlen. The thug nodded respectfully as Korb left the alleyway. And Korb von Shwartmeyer, Duke of the city, walked down the street. It appeared that he would need to visit a tailor soon - he had very much liked that coat. So, as you may have guessed, my character is the plain, human Korb von Shwartmeyer. He's no good in a fight, though he can run surprisingly fast when it's required. His strength, rather, is in connections, politicking, persuasion, and general manipulation. He's a slight bit eccentric and arrogant, too - he really should NOT have gone for a walk through the Docks. Still, he's athletic, and his lack of fighting skill is more a matter of never having learned. He has a good head for most things, though his grasp of languages beyond his native one is almost nonexistent. Being a rather sheltered aristocrat, he has never been more than a day's travel outside the city limits.

To be fair, however, they've also had ~350 years of Sazed whispering in their ears.

Immersion/Fan Fiction/Dystopian: A reality-warping Epic that changes the 50 km or so around himself into the setting of any book he's read, complete with characters, landscapes, even languages. The only things unaffected by the change are humans. The thing is, though he can't precisely control the actions of every character, he can trigger plot events in the future, and the characters will do what is necessary to bring that about, even if they seem like kind, good, nice, or even heroic people to the real-world people they meet. The Epic himself can posses any one of them any time he wants to, of course. He particularly likes ten-minutes into the future novels - it can be nearly impossible to tell who's a character and who's a person in that case, leaving everyone open to suspicion.

A small, frog-like creature from the Stormlight Archive.

Well, I don't know if Innate Investiture is what interferes. So far, it's just been direct and ongoing interaction with an aspect controlled by an opposite Shard that halts an Ascension. Sazed had no Hemalurgic spikes, and neither was he burning metals. All his power was keyed to himself, not to one Shard or another, and so accessing it during the Ascension (the copperminds) did not drive out Ruin or Preservation's Investiture. Besides, his was something of a special case, as I suppose that the vast amounts of opposing Investiture rushing into him at the same time were doing something different than the previous Ascension, which was a calculated act by Preservation.