Bay 12 Games Forum

RETCON TIEM
NOTHING HAPPENED

Still want to know why changing the Shattered into the Choir/Fallen/Whatever is a bad thing.

Because they're good guys now.

Merlin sighed, sitting down in the singular chair in the room. "Are there no proper dwellings in this city?"
Mat frowned, looking up from the newspaper he was reading. "Whatcha mean?"
Merlin waved his hands about as if searching for something to say, then dropped them in frustration. "I mean that every prospective home we have looked for has been either unsuitable -"
"Like that place you didn't know was a crackhouse?"
"Let us not speak of that." Merlin shuddered with the memory.
"They have all either been unsuitable, occupied, or both, and we cannot stay in this, this-"
"Hostel?"
"In this hostel forever. I have only now been given this opportunity, and I intend not to waste it."
He moved to a sitting position.
"Well, what'll we do then? You said it yourself - all the houses in the city are occupied or trash, and it's not like you can just make one out of thin air or something like that. We'll have to -"
"Stop," cried Merlin, holding up a hand. His face was animated with the expression of one who has just realized something very good.
"Repeat what you said. The last sentence."
"It's not like you can make a house out of thin air? You know you can't, right? That's impossible."
"Nothing is impossible, Matthew; you will learn that soon enough," muttered Merlin, heaving himself out of the chair. "Fetch my staff, if you please. We have some walking to do and I'd rather not have my legs fail on me."
Merlin turned around in the doorway, eyeing the room contemplatively.
"As a matter of fact, is there anything particularly dear to you here? Of so, take it with you; I doubt we shall be returning."
"Well, there's my diary, but apart from that, not much."
"Then hurry up and get it. We have much to do today."
With that, he turned around and marched out the door, leaving Mat standing there rather bewildered, before he hurriedly grabbed his diary and ran off, following.

----------------------------------

Mat stood at the edge of the yard. He blinked, raised an eyebrow, then turned to Merlin and asked, "This is your secret plan? It's a pile of junk!"
'It' was referring to the dilapidated pile of lumber at the edge of the yard where they were standing. It would have been called rotted, dangerous, and likely to fall down except that it already had, rendering such statements redundant. Merlin looked askance at Mat, having been striding around the pile for several minutes now, muttering under his breath. He blinked, and said, "Never you mind that, I'm about ready to begin; do you have the things I requested?"
"Yeah, but it wasn't exactly easy to get this. I had to swipe a condlestik from the hostel to get the last part, and I don't know how to melt it down."
"No matter, I will perform that part; now, you should retreat to a safe distance, as I do not wish you to be injured."
"Err ... how far away would this be?"
"About there is fine," he said, pointing to the edge of the yard. "Now watch closely, as you may have to do this yourself someday." Curious despite himself, Mat watched from the edge of the yard as Merlin pulled several seemingly unconected things out of the sack he was carrying - some glue, a bit of concrete, a match, a copper wire, and various plants that he didn't know the name of that Merlin seemingly kept in his pockets - it accounted for some of the smell. Finally, a steel candlestick, swiped from under the unknowing noses fo the hostel managers, though they wouldn't miss it - the lady there seemed obsessed with the things and her hamper was overflowing. He leaned forward in curiosity as Merlin dragged his staff along the ground in a cirlce, then in an angle, then more. He peered over and saw that the completed design was that of a pentacle within a circle. With that done, Merlin pulled out some sort of salt from beneath his robes and sprinkled it along the grooves, trailing little white lines across the ground. He then placed several things in the outer triangles of the pentagram - the wire, the glue, the rubble, the match, a twig of an oak tree, and a crystal of some kind - it was milky white and sharply angled. He then held out th candlestick in front of him, and shouted over to Mat, "You may want to cover your eyes now!" Shutting his eyes and clamping his hands over them, Mat sat down and wondered what in the hell Merlin was doing now. Curious, he peeked out from under his hands to see Merlin just standing there, gripping the candlestick tightly in both hands. Nothing seemed to happen at first, but as he watched, the candlestick slowly started to heat up. It was barely perceltible at first, but soon the thing was glowing cherry red, a fact that didn't seem to bother Merlin, who continued to grip it tightly, his brow furrowed in concentration. The candlestick seemed more favorable to heating up now; it soon progressed to white-hot, then went beyond that, until it was so bright that Mat was forced to cover his eyes again, and to turn away when that was not enough. The metal could obviously not withstand this forever, however, and soon it began to melt in large streams, pouring over Merlin's hands without so much as a singe. As the metal settled into the grooves on the ground, it shifted, moved by something while ti was still liquid, to run out into all the grooves of the pentacle and circle. All of a sudden, it stopped and abruptly transtioned to solid form once again, the displaced heat sendigna notable shimmer around Merlin. Mat had, by this time, turned back and was staring at him in openmouthed shock.

The pantacle was set. The catalysts in their positions.
Everything was ready. Only one thing was missing:
The magic.

With a sudden wumph, the steel lines intermixed with salt lit up with a green glow. Small flames appeared on the, flickering and flaring as they grew higher, illuminating Merlin's face in an eerie green light. The surrounding area seemed to darken as the flames grew higher, leaving the flames the only illumination for a few meters. Suddenly Merlin began to speak, and not in the contemplative, thoughtful, quiet voice he normally used. Instead his voice was strong and clear, ringing straight through Mat's head and out the other side. Yet despite the volume of his proclamations, Mat couldn't seem to fit them together in his head; they slipped away from him and he was left with a vague feeling of loudness. He looked over at Merlin and saw the flames continuing to build and dance, and there they began spinning around as though they were a tornado. As the flames got taller and taller, they gradually roose up above Merlin, obscuring him but for his voice, still shoutng words of power. All of a sudden, the dilapidated pile of rubble that was the house in front of them began to glow with a light blue cadence. Slowly at first, but soon speeding up to an appreciable rate, every piece of the house lifted up, still wrapped in the blue effervescence, and rebuilt the former house crumb by crumb. The fire around Merlin continued to whilr, though his voice had silenced itself. When the last piece of wood had built itself back into the house, Merlin bellowed one final word, and the area around him seemed to ... stretch, and then fold, and ... Mat's brain couldn't process much beyond that point, so he just shut his eyes and looked away. After what seemed an eternity, the light came back, the fire died down, and space stopped doing ... that, leaving Merlin leaning on his staff in the pentacle within a circle, in front of a reassembled house that still looked pretty crap. After a while, Mat spoke.
"What WAS that?"
Merlin chuckled, turning to face him. "That, Matthew, was what I call a ritual."
"Was it magic? It was, wasn't it? You just did magic!"
"Well, what else could it have been? That I have an army of invisible dwarfs tending to my every whim, hmm?" This seemed to amuse him, as he broke out laughing. Mat waited until he'd quieted down and asked, "But won't ... all that, what you jsut did, won't that attract attention? It's risky even turning on a light in some part of the city, not to mention ... that. And you didn't do all that much for that much fanfare, did you? I mean, pillar of flames, darkening the surroundings, that loks like top-level whizbang but all you did was rebuila a shack? What else -"
"Ahh, pipe down, Matthew, you are making my head shrink from your assault!"
"Sorry."
"No, it's all right, lad, and it's good that you're curious - otherwise you wouldn't have known what I did, now would you, eh?" Mat looked up at Merlin, seemingly now in front of him and smiling. "That's good! Shows you have potential. But you are right, you know," he said, nudging Mat forward, toward the rebuilt house. "Why dont' we go have a look?"

Tentatively, Mat stepped forward, one foot after the other, towards the shack, so insignificant yet so tantalizing, promising unknown yields and imagined bounty.
Mat stepped forward. Then again, and again, and again, until he was at the door. He reached out for the doorknob, only to be stopped by Merlin's hand on his shoulder.
He turned around, an inquisitive expression on his face. Merlin smiled when he saw that, a smile that bore the weight of the world.
"One last thing before you enter, lad. You must be sure."
"Sure of what?"
Suddenyl Merlin seemed very tall. His solemn face gazed down at Mat, encasing him in shadow. When he next spoke, it was in a sonorous tone, deeper than any he'd heard.
Do you wish to continue along this path?
Mat gulped, and asked, "What path, Mer?"
The path of the arcane. The Wizard's Way. The secrets of sorcerors and mages, of gods and men. Should you choose to accept this path, know this: it will not be easy. There will be challenges placed in your path so great as that no mere man could overcome them - but I have seen the fire stiring within you, Matthew Anderson Peters. I have seen your soul straining against the bonds that this world, so long asleep, has placed upon you. I see the world awakening - and you with it. If you come with me, you will have the ear of gods, kings, and those from other places. You will tavel far, see wonders beyond imagining, perhaps pay prices dear. Should you choose to accept my offer, you will become my apprentice, the first that I, Merlin, he who schemed to concieve King Arthur of Britain, I who foretold the Saxon king's fall, have claimed in over a millenium. I do not give tese offers likely, and if you refuse now, it is unlikely that you will recieve it again.
Do you accept?
Mat gulped, shivering in the wizard's shadow. This was the Merlin? The fabled archmage of legend? How dangerous could this be, to accept an offer from a man who engineered the reign of the greatest king who ever lived? What plots could lie in wait for him in those eyes?
On the other hand, the promise of harnessing the elements of the world, of travelling to places unknow, to do great things? There was no way he could pass that up, not if he were given all the money in the world. He took a deep breath, wiped his hands on his trousers, and stuck his open hand out toward the wizard and said, "I accept." The wizard's face was unreadable for several seconds, and then it broke into a smile filled with joy. He shook Mat's hand gladly, saying, "Thank you, Matthew, I knew you would accept, but I just had to make sure - didn't want to overwhelm you or anything - but let's not worry about that now. Go on; open the door." Mat turned around and slowly stuck his hand out, gripping the doorknob. He hesitated a moment, took a closer look at it - just an ordinary doorknob - turned the handle, and walked in to face -
Amazing was the only word he could find for his surroundings. From inside the ordinary door, this ordinary door with the wood slightly damp and the paint peeling off, was an immense floor of marble, stretching back some distance before terminating in tow sets of stairs, each curving around to form a platform from which one could watch the door open from a height. Mat idly noted as he stumbled in that the doors were higher on the inside than on the outside, and appeared to be carved wood, about 10 feet high, with images of dragons and other wild beasts upon them. THe whole place was lit up by two chandeliers, all crystal and gold, shimmering with light, on a ceiling high above. Two corridors headed off to the sides of the stairs, one going left, on going right. Striding past him, Merlin turned to him, spread his arms wide, and said grandly, "Now THIS is a house! What do you think?"
"Bwuh - I - egh - I -"
"It's all right, son, just don't drool on the floor." That said, he pulled Mat in by the shoulders and heaved the door shut, leaving them standing in the opulent palace.
"Just one thing, first."
"Yes?"
"Won't somebody have heard that and come looking for whatever made all that noise? What if they look in here?"
"Never fear, Matthew, I accounted for that. Did you happen to look at the neighborhood around here? See very many people?"
"Well, no."
"That's because the gang violence that all those drugs brought about drove everyone out of here, into better parts of the city. With no people, the gangs had no one to sell to, so they moved on as well. No one lives here now, and no one will come looking. Besides, if anyone other than you or I - that's why I asked you for that snippet of hair - opens the door or climbs in through the window they will find only an ordinary shack with nothing inside. Our house is for us alone - remember that. Now, come with me. I have something to show you."

They walked through several hallways and went through a very imposing door before descending down a set of stone stairs into a cavern that seemed illuminated with purple luminescence. As they got closer to the ground, Mat saw why - the ground there was littered with purple crystals, each no larger than a finger that were scattered around the sand floor of the cavern. He reached out to touch one, but stopped when Merlin let out an exclamation.
"I wouldn't touch those, lad, not yet - they're too delicate for now. Just remember, if a task seems beyond your strength, you may attempt to harness the crystals here, but only after asking me, is that understood?" Mat nodded.
"Good. Just remember that."
Afterwards Mat suddenly found himself very tired, and peering out one of the windows in what appeared to be a sitting room, noted it was nighttime. Merlin, noticing his yawning, chuckled and guided him upstairs to an enormous bedroom with an amazing bed specked with stars and moons. Jumping into the bed, he wished Merlin goodnight and lay down happily on the bed after he'd left, contemplating all that had happened that day. On that thought, he'd hate to forget it... Changing into pyjamas from the drawer in the corner (just his size), he pulled out his diary from his pants pocket and began to write.

Today the most amazing thing happened to me...

Full Act: Merlin creates a 'bigger on the inside' house in an abandoned part of the city. From the outside, it appears to be a wreckes shack, but from the inside, it is an opulent mansion, fully stocked with amneties of all kinds, posessing electric lighting, the whole shebang. If anyone but Merlin or Matthew attempt to enter, they will find only the interior of the shack.
Within this mansion is a cavern filled with crystals that glow with inner energy. They will porvide Merlin with 1 Full Act every 4 turns, though they may produce Acts faster if more power is channeled into them, but if Merlin fails to use the Act when he recieves it, it vanishes and he has to wait for the next Act it produces.

Zilch Act: Merlin takes on Matthew as his apprentice, schooling him in the ways of wizardry with a greater focus now that their needs of shelter and food are met.

Just you wait until I start violating physics.

Reanimate as Gregory McVampire
Summon Mole-People and Crab People
Berate GM for not explicitly saying I'm dead

TEAM UP WITH VORTHON AGAINST FURTUKA

BITE HIS THROAT OUT

"Screw this. I forgot how boring mortals are.
Hey, DZA! I could use a smoothie myself."

Begin DZA and Xantalos' Quest for the Smoothie Shop!
This will not turn out like Harold and Kumar.

Brit rescues kids by wrestling shark while on vacation for stress.  Gets canned.  As if stress is a physical ailment or something that would prevent him from being able to do that...

Wait. Wait.
He got FIRED for WRESTLING A SHARK?! What the hell kind of company is that?