"...Or the bullet. Before I explain what is meant by the cat or the bullet, I would like to clarify something concerning myself: I'm a powerful deity. That's my personal belief. Just as Aaron Aaronovitch Aaronov" - you nod in his direction - "Is a father who cowardly bumbles about meaninglessly, but at the same time takes part in the life-and-death struggles to try and bring about peace to this godforsaken world; and Dr. Alexei" - another nod - "Is a brilliant scientist, who heads another organization fighting for Truth; well, I myself am a p--"
You are interrupted yet again, this time by an enormous flying shape in the sky. It flutters intermittently, uncertainly, circles your position a few times and then glides down and lands on the side of the building, wings flat. It appears to be some sort of gigantic moth. Another familiar face slides down the creature's back and joins the audience: it's Jack Aaronova! Showing similar disregard for your monologue, she addresses you all:
"Listen to me! None of this is real! You're all inside another simulation, I have proof!" She rushes over to you and demands to know how you managed to exit the simulation when you were in it before. Lacking the patience to entertain her ridiculous brain-in-a-vat style musings, you reply condescendingly that you'll tell her all about it, just as soon as you're finished your speech.
"I am a powerful jokestress, not a scientist, nor a father, but a playful goddess; and I believe in action on all fronts by whatever means necessary. If we don't do something real soon, I think you'll have to agree that we're going to be forced either to use the cat or the bullet. It's one or the other in these apocalyptic times. Find that cat or be forced to destroy everything. It isn't that time is running out - time has run out! And this time it's not g--"
Despite no particular sound, everyone is distracted and looking at something behind you. Sighing in frustration, you turn to see Jacqueline coming up the hill. She looks to be in rather poor shape. Alexei rushes over to her, muttering to her urgently. You cannot hear what he's saying from here. Never mind. You'll see this soliloquy through to the end even if it kills you.
"This time it's not going like it went last time. We're not going singing We Shall Overcome. We're not going with friends. We're going with grim comrades. We're not going with round-trip tickets. We're going with one way tickets. And if you don't want us going down there, we'd better find that fucking cat. The undead aren't going to wait. If we wait too long, brothers and sisters, we will be responsible for letting a condition develop in this world which will create a climate that will kill us if we don't destroy it. It's the cat or th--"
Something nuzzles against your leg. You look down, only to see Theodore looking back up at you innocently. "That's him!" exclaims Conundrum-chan excitedly, "And we have Jack Aaronova as well - now we can celebrate Christmas!"
Decorate a Christmas tree
Be Jack.
Deck the halls with bowels, if you know what I mean.
^^^^ (Jack Aaronova)
>>819
Swallowing some internal frustration, you set about helping prepare for Christmas. Using your qilinbian, you cut down an appropriate looking tree with a long, flat trunk, which should do as a substitute altar. You decorate it with one of the disposable cloned Jacks, who is wearing a rather lovely pink and white chequered dress. She smiles innocently, showing no fear or comprehension of her impending doom.
You had until now sought Theodore as only he and Jack Aaronova knew the correct Christmas ritual, with which you could put a stop to the recent unholy happenings. You had of course found Jack Aaronova back at >>720, before you settled on this plan, when you were just looking for Jacks to slaughter for skill points and mana. You subsequently had great difficulty finding her again, and so instead focussed on the more easily locatable Theodore (whom you knew to be in the possession of Continue-chan). Now that you have both of them, and a suitable sacrifice decorating the tree, there's nothing to stop you celebrating Christmas.
>>820,821
You are now playing as Jack Aaronova.
This is your moment. You are the high priestess, and it's Christmas time. Brandishing your trusty ceremonial stone knife, you begin to dance around the tree, singing "I've got a brand new pair of rollerskates, you've got a brand new key, I think that we should get together and try them on to see!" before plunging the knife up to the hilt into the sacrificial Jack's heart. Her life is extinguished instantly. With a twist, you pull the blade back out, run it across your lips and kiss her good night. Then you hack her head off and let it be consumed by the infinite void between your legs.
For killing a sapient being in a ritualistic manner, you have gained two skill points and one hundred mana.
There is a slow, prolonged silence. Rupert's headless corpse twitches, shudders and begins to rise to its feet. Everyone backs away, before noticing something extraordinary: to the east, the sky is becoming visibly lighter. In the space of a few seconds, the sun breaks over the mountain ridge and shoots up into the sky, returning to its rightful position in the heavens. You all stare, enraptured by the aching, cloudless blueness above, not even watching as Rupert's body collapses back to the ground.
Living or undead; man, woman or tentacle monster; you all gather around the warmth of Conundrum-chan's burning hair and rejoice in your simple continued existence. Nothing could possibly ruin such a beautiful moment as this, you think to yourself.
Merry Christmas. God bless us, everyone. Good night to all, and to all a good night.
Put skill points into Aerokinesis, I have the feeling this isn't over.
>>823
You smile into the distance. What a pleasant Christmas this has been. You express your boundless gratitude towards the infinite pantheons of named and nameless gods, at least one of whom has blessed you with light and safety in return for your Christmas offering, and also take the opportunity to offer your hope that the abnormally long night has not been too disagreeable for anyone present.
At the same time, you are aware that all is not by any means back to normal. Perhaps most immediately troublingly, you saw how Alexei reacted to Continue-chan's even attempted attack upon Jacqueline; how would he react if he knew what you did to her?
You place two skill points into aerokinesis, unlocking the following skills:
You hear a loud grinding, scraping noise of metal against stone from within the building. All of you turn to face the entrance. Continue-chan shrieks and struggles to free herself with even greater desperation than before. She almost makes it free, before a vast torrent of metal implements tears up the stairs and out of the doorway, through her and the Jacks restraining her, and into the centre of the clearing in front of you all. It morphs into a vaguely humanoid shape and comes to a halt. You can see it is composed almost entirely of blades, weapons and general implements of murder and destruction. Barring some bloodstained surfaces near the head, the whole mass gleams brilliantly in the sunlight.
You feel a tug at your pockets. The torch you picked up at >>737,738 along with the screws and butterfly hinges from >>745,748 tear free from you and join the mass. They are quickly joined by a pen from Conundrum-chan's pocket, a nail file from behind Aaron's ear and the antimatter railgun from Alexei's grasp.
Just as suddenly as it appeared, the metallic humanoid disassembles and flows away into the jungle, leaving behind a trail of torn down trees and a shocked silence. Looking in its wake, all that remains of Continue-chan and the Jacks around her is a smear of finely cut pieces of flesh and gore, none more than a few centimetres across. They are quite obviously and irrevocably dead.
Follow the trail of torn down trees
Eat the dead pieces of Jack.
>>825
Without a word, you straighten your shoulders and begin walking after the monstrosity, seeking answers no matter the cost. You make it only a few steps before Ariadne appears in front of you, arms crossed, with an expression on her face somewhere between concern and anger.
"Jack, stop. Just stop. I know what you want to do, but this isn't the way. You've played the lone wolf long enough. We... we need you, Jack; we need everyone we can get. We will get that... thing that killed Continue-chan, somehow, but not until we're properly prepared. So please, Jack, come back to us?" She extends a hand in sororal comradeship. Reluctantly, realising that she'll just follow you and bother you the whole way otherwise, you take her hand and turn back. "They don't call you The Pontiff for nothing!" Conundrum-chan says to Ariadne with a smug smirk.
>>826
Well, you may comply for now, but you don't have to be civil about it. That Jack Conundrum-chan really is quite insufferable, and the overly intimate way she addresses your sister makes you want to grind your teeth. Well, you'll show her! You take her head in both hands and begin to lick her face and neck, lapping up all the dead bits of skin and dust on her. She accepts this turn of events with impressive calm and coolness.
Meanwhile, you, Conundrum-chan, Ariadne, the androgynous person, Stove Stove, Jacqueline and Alexei form a circle, while Aaron heads inside, and the remaining Jacks play amongst themselves. Alexei stands and speaks. "Aaron and I just arrived here from the Control Tower. Jacqueline brought us there a few days ago, and it's full of supplies, tools, weapons and everything else we could possibly need. We should all regroup there. Aaron is just going inside to check on the teletransporter; hopefully it's still all right. Even if it is, however, there's only substrates prepared at the other end for Aaron, Jacqueline and I, so the rest of you would have to take the long way around."
Ariadne helpfully observes that the giant moth should be able to take at least some of you - but you certainly can't bring all the Jacks that way. Alternatively, you could try trekking over the ridge (which would be slow, and you might not make it before nightfall) or going via the underground service tunnels (which would be quicker, but possibly dangerous). If you really want to go to the Control Tower at all, that is.
Aaron calls from the upstairs window that the teletransporter is working fine, and Alexei begins to head inside. Jacqueline hangs back, shoots you a meaningful glance, then follows. For whatever reason, it seems that she has not told Alexei what you did to her. You are grateful, but apprehensive. A few seconds later there is a blue flash from upstairs and they are gone.
You notice smoke rising from the horizon to the north.
Form a party with Conundrum, Ariadne and a Jack-clone (for later sacrifice, if needed.) Fly on TiMothy to the Control Tower. If we're too heavy, use wind powers to assist its flight.
Ask the androgynous person what sex is.
Play as the androgynous person.
>>828
You and a few other cute girls form a loose granfalloon and, with some difficulty, persuade TiMothy to leave his perch on the shaded side of the building. He lazily makes a few stabs at your spinal fluids, but seems generally quite lethargic. Well, he's probably not diurnal, after all. A little aerokinesis eventually convinces him to relocate to the ground, let you board him, and reluctantly take flight again.
>>829
Before leaving earshot, you feel a slight prick at your conscience at leaving behind Stove Stove, the androgynous person and the remaining Jacks. Just to give them something to ruminate over in your absence, you ask them a controversial philosophical/linguistic conundrum. The androgynous person perks up and begins enthusiastically pontificating on the biological role of sex, the XY, X0 and ZW sex determination systems, sexual reproduction as it relates to genetic recombination, before changing tack and discussing the difficulties in defining sex and gender, and how the terms fit into the physical and psychological phenotypes of human sexual dimorphism. By the time they get on to sex in anglerfish, however, you are long since gone, fluttering away westwards.
You are now playing as the androgynous person.
You are standing in a clearing in front of a somewhat damaged building, next to a large brontosaurus corpse. The remains of your former mistress, Continue Masturbation, are smeared unceremoniously across the ground at your feet. Stove Stove is nearby, being stroked lovingly by one of the cloned girls under your protection. Lacking any particular instructions to follow, you are just about to settle down and calculate Mersenne primes for a few millennia, when you notice another human emerge from the building. It appears to be the one referred to as Jacqueline. How odd; you had thought she had teleported away.
Enthusiastically discuss science with Jacqueline.
Kill Jacqueline.
Eat Jacqueline.
Board Stove Stove
>>831
Completely ignoring the piece of paper she presents to you, you tell Jacqueline about the entire glorious spectrum of the natural sciences from first principles. You start with particle physics, moving on to nuclear physics, then quantum physics, valence bond theory, molecular orbital theory, physical chemistry, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, cell biology, physiology, genetics, evolution, ecology, neuroscience, computer science, electromagnetism, classical mechanics, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, atmospheric physics, astronomy, cosmology, and relativity.
Though you intended it to be a discussion, your partner contributes little other than insistently waving some silly piece of paper in your face, so it turns out to be more of a lecture. Or set of lectures. When you get to a minor digression on quantum chaos, she apparently gives up and wanders away back indoors. You continue talking, raising your voice to make sure she doesn't miss anything. After almost an hour she returns, tries to distract you with more paper, gives up again, tries to show her paper to Stove Stove and nearby clones (without success), paces back and forth in a line, and finally curls up in a ball against one of the walls of the building, pressing her hands over her ears as hard as she can. Well, you hope she enjoyed the discussion as much as you did!
>>832
Your preliminary diagnostic procedure indicates that she is already dead. That is to say, when you tackle her to the ground and begin throttling her with all your might, you cannot feel any pulse and note that she does not seem to be choking or having any problems with not breathing. Reflecting that your murder was complete before it even started, you bathe in the warm glow of a job well done.
>>833
You begin gently gnawing on Jacqueline's hair. Unfortunately, you lack any pharynx, oesophagus, stomach or digestive system in general, so you are forced to stop when your mouth is full. You admit that you aren't particularly good at recognising human emotions, but you notice that she does seem somewhat distressed about something.
>>834
Spitting out your mouthful of hair and leaving the rest of Jacqueline as a snack for later, you flick the concealed switch on Stove Stove's underside and climb inside. The inner walls conform to fit your shape, and an automated voice recognises you as the pilot. A visual display appears, overlaying a view outside, reading:
COMPUTERISED SYSTEMS ONLINEMECHANICAL SYSTEMS ONLINELIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS ONLINEWEAPONS SYSTEMS ONLINEINITIALISATION COMPLETE: MOBILE SUIT 002 ("STOVE STOVE") ONLINE
Stove Stove stands tall; a monolithic, gleaming obsidian humanoid, bristling with advanced weaponry, with all power at your fingertips. Jacqueline and the nearby clones look up at you with expressions of silent appreciation. Or possibly abject terror, you aren't quite sure.
Make Stove Stove disco dance, then destroy everything and everyone in sight.
Set course for the Palriga Canal!
Confrim Ao Oni's Facebook friend request.
http://i.imgur.com/sqHmSxG.png
>>835
Find out if the computerized systems are only running free open-source software that respects the freedoms of its users.
P.S. Relatively speaking, this thread is a beefer at "1046 kb".
Where are you located?
Post a post that doesn't suck.
a post that doesn't suck.
A suck that doesn't post
Inspect the brontosaurus corpse for anything useful!
(・∀・) Uhhh grandpa why is our plane heading into that tower?
Cast "Dominate Your Competitio"
Investigate why this particular thread has so many posts that sucked.
