Character Lounge

[e_voyager]

the PDA began to display a partial schematic of the building. the elevator arrives and in it was a security camera and a bores looking mail fox with 3 tails. he stepped off the elevator and turned down the hall clearing the way for Boogey. as Boogey prepared to step on the elevator the PDA flashes the word Caution and went dark.

[Stygian]

Inside was what once must have been a fine entrance hall, with some few columns on the sides and a broad set of marble stairs with finely crafted rails leading up some thirty paces before you. But like the rest of the place, it was deserted and abandoned, ruined with time. Cracks went through some of the columns, and the one nearest to the right had a large chunk torn out of it, exposing some other stone and armament rods of steel under the thick layer of grey marble. Statues looked down on you with sad faces, as if insulted and angrily asking what business you had entering their place of rest. The faint draft drew up some dust and danced with it and a piece of cobweb through the room, glinting in the pallid blue moonlight that trickled in from a ruined skylight. And yet, from the look of the room, the style, the polish that had not quite faded, the doors that stood half-open upstairs with modern locks and still in good condition... The place could not have been abandoned for so many years. Decades, perhaps, but not more than a few.
   Stygian simply walked across the hall, his boots leaving traces in the dust. He stepped up the stairs and went to the back of the ramp upstairs, at the end of which was a large elevator in what must have been the centre column of the house.
   "Let's see then... Long time since last," he said, and ran a palm over the smooth stone wall on the other side of the elevator from the maneuvering console. After a moment, he seemed to find what he was looking for. He traced with his fingers in some pattern over a stone. It seemed to leave little green trails, forming a complex symbol of some kind. Then, he pressed it into the wall with his hand. It clicked sharply, and slid up, revealing another console of some kind. Stygian just looked at it, then made some rapid moves over it with his fingers, and shut it again.
   With a rough but low sound, the doors to the seemingly non-functioning elevator slid aside.
   "Step up, meine damen und herren," Stygian said, and motioned toward the elevator.

[Boog]

Boogey glanced at the PDA, and then glared up at the camera. He quickly typed out an argument into the PDA.
This is a memory. It's not my memory. I don't remember it. Ergo, I am not here. I know that I am here, but the memory has no way of knowing that. If it works, nobody in this memory should notice Boogey stepping out of the elevator.

[Gareeku]

Grinning at Aisha's comments, Gareeku suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. With his instinct taking over, Gareeku suddenly whirled round, glaring at Karl with a fierce expression, his hand enveloped in a bright white flame. Upon seeing who it was, Gareeku stepped back, the white flame disappearing.
"I would reccommed you don't do that again." Gareeku said, a look of disapproval on his face as he spoke. "Hmmm. Yes, we do."

Stepping inside the mansion looked around. A somewhat sad expression appeared on his face as he observed the state of place.
"A pity...had this place not been neglected it would be stunning..." he muttered, following Stygian to the hidden elevator. Raising an eyebrow as he looked at it, Gareeku decided to step inside anyway.

[KarlOmega1]

Karl: Okay... wont happen again...

*Karl then steps into the elevator*

Karl: secret elevator, eh? I likey...

[Aisha deCabre]

At about the same time Gareeku whirled around, Aisha had jumped with surprise upon hearing Karl's voice.  Her hand shot to her belt and grasped the hilt of her sword.  But on seeing it was Karl, she just sighed and stood up with a somewhat embarrassed smirk.  The human's senses were pitiful.  "I miss not being able to hear someone coming," she muttered and turned around into the house with the other two.  "Glad to see you found us easily, Karl."

The mansion's once-grand interior was still a sight to behold indeed.  Her eyes wandered across every dark corner and broken column, taking in details that were otherwise obscured by dust and cobwebs.  The statues were reminiscent of the ones back in the Lounge mansion, constructed to look down upon visitors with just as much life and pain in their weathered stone gaze.  She nodded at Gareeku's comment.  "Yes...it's sad...but then I guess it was good that we came when nobody else had taken it as their home."  Her voice was low, almost like she didn't feel like disturbing the restful but dark serenity of the place.

With the visitors' feet kicking up more dust than what was necessary, Aisha cupped a hand to her face and sneezed, eyes opening just in time to see the elevator.  I wonder what we'd be doing here anyway...she thought, following the men up the stairs and inside.

[e_voyager]

the argument works and the camera does not record him. as the elevator opens and Boogey fines himself face to face with a middle age human stand there staring at him. "come one  we don't have all day. my lab id this way" the human turns and walks down a hall and past two guards. the guards nods and take no note of Boogey as the human opens his lab and Wait's

[Boog]

"Greetings. Eric Valen, right?" Boogey says, taking a seat in said office, "Tell me, Mr. Valen, do you recognise me?"

[e_voyager]

" please Boogey i know most things in this world. as soon as you bother the kids i knew you were here" the human entered the lab. the door stayed open. in Boogey's hand the PDA seems to vibrate and Boogey notices that the human Eric's tone is far colder the he remembered in the outside world. as Boogey followed the human having little choice if he wised to talk with him he thought about what he said. " I know most things in this world." if he ore the fox soul created this world shouldn't he know everything about it?

[Stygian]

"Not really secret, but altered. The best secrets are hidden in the most obvious of places." Stygian looked a bit annoyed, but let Aisha in with a bow and stepped in behind the already closing doors.
   "Deeper," he said with a commanding tone. The elevator shuddered, and then sank. It went on for quite a distance, then stopped with a thump.
   The doors rolled aside, revealing a dimly lit hall that looked like some huge, tall-roofed underground garage or machine shop. Metal structures and machines stood to the sides almost everywhere, except in the farther part of the room. There instead were a number of shapes covered under large black tarps, one of which was significantly larger than the others, at about the size of a yacht. The other ones had to be cars and motorcycles.
   Stygian walked out and immediately stepped to the side, walking along the wall toward another set of doors.
   "This is where I keep my own operation," Stygian said.

[Boog]

"I'd like to request that you do not speak down to me," Boogey replied calmly, "You've shown that you know my name, but that doesn't answer my question. Do you recognise me, E? Do you know who I am?" He checked the PDA, thinking that the vibrating was another message, and mulling over what Eric had given away. The concious mind, the part of the mind that most people actually use and control, is only 10%. I operate there and in the other 90% that makes up subconcious thought. If he doesn't know everything going on in what's technically his concious mind, I have an upper hand in that I can simply check. He, however, wouldn't appear to have that option.

[e_voyager]

"Yes i am E. Eric is a paradox life that i may never have had the chance to live. " E noticed the vibrations PDA. in the blink of an Eye it appears in his hand. "So you found away around the null logic barrier by hitching a ride with a being that can. i honestly don't think you could do that. " he squeeze he PDA and it flashes." so  that's the trick. you sent only a small part of yourself in here as a finite state machine. i bet you didn't tell Boogey or anyone else about this back up plan. what plan was it anyway?" the PDA plays possum. he looks at boogey. "i'm not sure What you expect of me Boogey but i have not sleep in almost a week. i'm very busy" he sets the pda on his desk and jumps for Boogey wishing to be free of E. but e stops it. with on hand he rubs his fans and temples collapsing into a chair that appeared behind him." have a seat Boogey. tell me what brings you to my mind and before you get any ideals this is a fully autonomous simulation that ive created downs to the chemicals in the lab. even the children are independent of me but they especially Estavon report to me anything that is of concern. not tell me What Brings you int my sealed of mind? i lest the others almost ten million terabytes to play. that should be enough." the PDA makes another bid to escape and this time e lets it.' it is display the about of time that has  run locally since the simulation because. 6 months 12 day and 15 hours. the space allotted for this ares is 280 million terabyte with the average of 2 to 3 million gigabytes for every entity. their is also a message hiding in the data of highlighted letters that reads. " he's unstable. be careful."

[Boog]

Boogey typed back, Perfectly sane people usually are. Don't worry, it would appear that makes three of us.
"If you know what's going on, you know why you can't stay here. I can exist in minds; it's my natural habitat. However, you can't. You'll change. You'll grow sick of living, assuming you don't just die of neglecting your physical body. You'll get sick of it..." Boogey glared at Eric and drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, "Just like that vixen is sick of it. Have you ever seen a soul go stale, Eric? Someone who has lived their life and is being forced to continue it unnaturally? The results are often quite horrible. She can't live like this, and neither can you."

[e_voyager]

Eric sighs. " i didn't mean to keep here here so long."  he turned in his chair looking one a screen that appeared to be a large window. he smiled how little Boogey knew about him saying he couldn't live in here. then he though about poor starlight. he'd been fooling himself he knew. he'd hope to make a place where she could be happy for a few weeks while he discovered how to remake her a new body. a body like the one she had but one with out the limits of life and death that she endured. "I never planned for this to last Boogey. i figures a few weeks and i'd be done but it's been months you see but i'm so close to success." the lab around them come into focus and bogey and see complexes models and reality bending equations everywhere. there were even a few models that appeared to be  examples of digital matter yes as Boogey looks at all of there he sees that the have one thing that stands out among all others. these bodies were made to live with out ageing significantly but all of them had what appeared to be a self destruct option. he was out of his mind, he had to be. here he was trying to bring a soul back too the physical world so that they could live together and he was putting in death as an option for each of the forms? he looked closer at on of the forms it had some stats. Birth capability positive, life span projected 300K Terran years, regeneration high ,auto resuscitation positive be limited, permanent death option? positive.  rebirth option negative. zombie proof negative.  tied to a star to power and rebirth negi... Boogey is interrupted before he can finish" Boogey do you know what a soul is? not the theoretical stuff but what a real soul is?"

[Boog]

"Eric, and I'm certain that you are Eric and not the E I'd otherwise refer to you as, I AM the theoretical stuff. But allow me to hazard a guess," Boogey turned toward Eric and held his hands up where they could be seen. There was a slight shimmer of fractal patterns between them; a glimpse of what Boogey really is, "A soul is the emotional responces, inner power, will, or whatever you wish to call it. It's what allows one to see beauty in things, and what they mean, and allows one to disagree as to what that beauty is. It is something meant to go through life once, beginning, middle and end, and then go on to what happens next. I know you know this; otherwise, you would not have made bodies that can die. Death is a necessity that you have denied that woman, and putting her in one of these will not help. She'll either leave almost immediatly, or simply not have any purpose. She's lived her life. And the fooling yourself bit isn't past tense." He spat a drop of argument venom into the middle of one written down sheet of equations, which it went through like a baseball through rice paper, "You still are."

ooc: E, with all due respect please try not to auto my characters responces or thoughts.

[e_voyager]

( ooc sorry about that. i guess i've been too forceful and letting my charters reflections of his own thoughts push at yours. )

Eric watches as the equation folded and dissolved. "No it is past tense but you are right i am Eric" Eric smiled. "you know that equation took me almost a month to reach that point? but back what a soul is" Eric pressed a button on his desk. "Cancel my appoints for the rest of today" " yes sir" "did you know that machines have souls? most of them lack the ability to express the but there are there. a soul as i have learned though my learning is not by any means complete is a living summation of an entity. it allows us to question ourselves to grow and to ultimately die." Eric looked at Boogey again as if wondering something "Do you know i spent time as an infused soul at one point.? it was for about a year before i gained that mechanical body that you know so well. you know that the first time it was destroyed i was fearful that i would die. to die before i knew who i was frighted me. tell me have you ever feared death since you entered your present state?" Eric  looks around as if trying to an fly in the room. that something was bothers him showed plain on his face.

[Boog]

I'm a thought entity. If it can be thought up then there's one of us that incorperates it. Of course there are machines with souls.
"Oh absolutely," Boogey smiled, "From day one. At the start of my existense I was made up of a philosophers theory, a writers idea, and the memories of a young man who may or may not still be alive. By the very laws of reality, I'm for the most part impossible, and the only way I survive is by the fact that people believe their senses more than logic. One day I'll be out of people who know what I am, get disproven, and I'll die. Or another thought entity will eat me, and I'll die. Or the various concepts that compose me will stop having anything to do with one another, fly apart, and I'll die. And that's just the tip of the iceburg. Since then I've gotten a bit more confident in my ability to survive, but that doesn't change the fact that I am in no way immortal. Everyone dies and everything ends. Death is something to be afraid of, yes, but not constantly." Boogey let himself take a good look at Eric's concious thoughts, trying to discern what he was about to do.

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha had kept quiet during the elevator ride down, staring at the doorway with the oncoming interest of anything more to come.  She was grateful that, at least, they were slowly descending out of the somber atmosphere that the rest of the house held.  There was a smirk on her face.  This place seems to be almost as extensive as Karl's lounge...or, if it was even his place anymore with the add-ons...

Stepping out with the others, she was surprised at just how extensive it was.  The transformed human stared at the various things under the tarps, sometimes occupying her mind by guessing at what was under them.

"Your own operation, huh?" she said with curiosity as they approached another set of doors, her voice echoing off the ceiling and walls.  It was always daunting, going underground.

[Stygian]

Stygian looked back at Aisha, smiling.
   "Yeah, you can't keep a business up without equipment. At least, I couldn't. Over here is the most of it, really, and the computer room," he said, and stepped in through the thick metal doors that slid easily aside with a little drawing of another code symbol.
   Inside were two conjoined rooms, one large and in comparison with the others quite bright and full of brushed metal doors that covered the walls. In the middle of that room was a large, solid and steel-surfaced workbench, the lines between the parts of metal almost invisible, and only a few nuts and joints visible. The other room was a bit higher up, and dark. You could just make out the shape of something large and irregularly shaped at the back of it, like a pile of boxes and machinery bits with things snaking in between them, under a myriad of screens and cameras set on the walls. A single red light glowed in the dark of the room.

[Gareeku]

As they descended in the elevator, Gareeku glanced at Aisha and noticed her smirk. With a slight smirk of his own, the wolf-turned-human turned back to the elevator door. As the group walked through the hall, Gareeku was continually observing the surroundings, staying silent while Aisha and Stygian conversed. Upon walking through the door at the end of the hell, the wolf-turned-human once more observing the surroundings, the smirk reappearing on his face.

"And what delights do you keep in here, aside from the computers?" he asked as he tried to make out what was in the darkened room.

[Aisha deCabre]

"Awesome."  Aisha's impressed gaze swept across the room while Stygian gave his little tour of the place.  This was a gathering of more machinery than she had ever seen, or at least liked to see.  There should have been less ease, being out of her zone of comfort, but being a human in such a place was probably the worse that she was going to get...or so she thought.

Glancing at Gareeku, she nodded in agreement with his statement, blinking a little to get her eyes used to the brightness of the room.  "I'd like to know that too..." she muttered with a slight laugh.  Knowing Stygian by now, he wasn't to be predictable.

[Stygian]

"The things that we might need as security for bringing our friends back," was Stygian's simple answer. Then, he turned to the darkened room. For a moment he just stood, obviously thinking. Then, he sang a bit in that clear, strong voice of his.

  "I love my computer,
   you make me feel allright,
   every waking hour
   of every lonely night..."

   For a moment there was only silence. Then, there was a low hum, and dark screens flickered into life in the room, a greenish light gently spreading through it. A female voice that sounded lifelike, but had a sort of metallic duality to it answered in a smooth alto.

  "I love my computer
   for all you give to me;
   predictable errors,
   and no identity..."

   "You know," the voice continued after a short pause, "If I didn't know better I'd say you were being mean, Sebastian." The voice sounded mockingly indignated.
   "Nice to see you too, Moira," Stygian answered.

[e_voyager]

I'm a thought entity. If it can be thought up then there's one of us that incorperates it. Of course there are machines with souls.
"Oh absolutely," Boogey smiled, "From day one. At the start of my existense I was made up of a philosophers theory, a writers idea, and the memories of a young man who may or may not still be alive. By the very laws of reality, I'm for the most part impossible, and the only way I survive is by the fact that people believe their senses more than logic. One day I'll be out of people who know what I am, get disproven, and I'll die. Or another thought entity will eat me, and I'll die. Or the various concepts that compose me will stop having anything to do with one another, fly apart, and I'll die. And that's just the tip of the iceburg. Since then I've gotten a bit more confident in my ability to survive, but that doesn't change the fact that I am in no way immortal. Everyone dies and everything ends. Death is something to be afraid of, yes, but not constantly." Boogey let himself take a good look at Eric's concious thoughts, trying to discern what he was about to do.

As Boogey looks at E's aware mind he hears he's thoughts. where is he? i know he's here somewhere i can senses him and have since Boogey can through that door. E's eyes continue to flicker over the room and he seems unaware of Boogey's  investigations as he is so intent upon his own search

[Gareeku]

As Stygian sang, a slight grin appeared on Gareeku's face. It seemed that, for all the dark features that he possessed, Stygian liked a sing-song, and had pretty good voice, too. Gareeku had to admit, he was the same at times.

Hearing the computer talk, the wolf-turned-human raised his eyebrows in surprise. This was probably the first time he had encountered a talking computer before, especially one with such an "organic" personality. Then again, when he thought about it, Gareeku found it more logical than other things he had come across.

[Boog]

Erebus? Or someone else? How many voices do you have in your head, Mr. Valen?
"Listen E, I'm not going to beat around the bush. You can't stay here, and making a new body for the woman will only end in tears. You have to face reality eventually."

[Aisha deCabre]

Well, I hope it can do that, Aisha thought, still holding concern in her mind for the others.  She wondered how they were doing, but with this kind of setup on their side, it was also easy to hold out hope.  She listened to Stygian's singsong declaration with a smirk.

Of course, she almost jumped when something responded, the dark room ahead taking on a glow along with the metallic whirring as things started up, and the voice addressed Stygian in a manner not unlike a person rather than a machine.

"Now that's neat," she laughed and settled again.

[Stygian]

Stygian smiled at them, and turned to the thing set in the wall. It turned out to be a huge computer, centered around a cylindrical core unit that looked large enough to hold a person in it, with a sort of helmet-like face holding a now green light, like an eye, set into its face between six much smaller others around it, and in the smooth seam between the two half-cylinder metal covers that held it. From the base of this column snaked a myriad of cables and wires into other components that seemed to include a supraconductive cooling system, for whispers and traces of smoke sometimes moved around and seeped off the machine. It seemed linked to every other piece of machinery in that room, and probably to the entirety of the rest of the house.
   "This is Moira, the sentient computer I've kept down here for some years," he said, not without some pride in his voice. "I should probably tell you that this stays between me and you. It's illegal here to create sentient computers that are entirely 'artificial' in their origins."
   "Paranoia, mostly," Moira added in with a voice that suggested 'she' had discussed this before. You could hear some british accentuation to 'her' speech. On all of the dark screens you could see a shadowy female face coming into view, a pair of snake-like green eyes seeming to look at you curiously from within them. "Most of the original designs turned out to develop oddities in their operation once they started to learn enough to form something like consciousness, why the third generation of home computers were made so that they simply simulate it, but keep overlapping operations and memory partitions that aren't big enough or don't last long enough for them to become self-aware. Much shorter, in fact." 'She' sounded a bit irritated at that. Then her voice turned.
   "Oh, but where are my manners? I'm Moira. Who might you be?"

   May felt her spell fail the moment it reached Mel. It wasn't that it wouldn't form around the former dragoness, but that once it did it was swiftly beaten down into submission and wrenched out until it was nothing again. Similarily, she felt the teacup behind her begin to falter in its structure, as if the place somehow realized that it didn't want magic going on anymore and fought, quite successfully, to have its own way.

[Gareeku]

Hearing Moira's question, Gareeku bowed politely.
"My name is Gareeku Manoko. It is a pleasure to meet you." the wolf-turned-human said introduction as he bowed. Moira may have been a computer, but she still had a personality, and so Gareeku felt he should, and would, treat her like any other person.

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha listened to Stygian introduce Moira with an interested gaze.  She thought, added to often more than once that day, about this world and how much different it was from the one she knew.  Her brow quirked with interest about the questioning of sentient computers and she made the deduction that it must be hard sometimes.

Still, the panther-turned-girl smiled politely and gave a bow of her own to Moira, a small flourish made with her cape.  "Aisha deCabre.  Just call me Aisha, por favor...good to meet you as well."

[Joat]

May goes with a desperate plan. She knows that the gang intends to kill them or worse, rape them. May prays, hoping for divine intervention. While she is doing so, she kicks the gang member (the one with his gun pointed at Sathariel) in the male’s weak spot and attempts to grab the gun.

The mysterious woman far away (the one who was scrying on Sylver, if you recall) hears the prayer. She thinks, “To answer or not to answer? Meh, why not. I’ll help them help themselves.”

*OOC: Now we know (sorta) who the woman is.*

A Feather Fall shield (intangible and invisible) appears around Mel, Sathariel, and May. The shield is not noticable even to the target, but it renders all projectiles within five feet of them harmless by taking away their velocity. The shield does not seem to be affected by the force that is trying to prevent the use of magic.

*OOC EDIT: Unfortunately, this power is a double-edged sword as you may soon see.*