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Post by Evangeline on Nov 21, 2008 22:55:42 GMT -5
"In my world, our class are known as "Users" Zoe answered.
Jessica took a deep breath. "My neighbor, Mrs. Coates, has an inlaw who performs civil weddings and other such ceremonies. They're called "celebrants" here."
Mairi looked to her with raised brows. "I think I know that woman, it's Pauline Garret. Isn't she the one that barmy breeder engaged to "marry" his mare and stallion, and she actually took the job? There isn't a combination or number of humans known to creation that she HASN'T taken on, as long as they were all consenting adults."
Bree had a HUH? expression on her face.
Rachel remained impassive. She had swung that big, juicy bait right in front of Aron's eyes and he went for it! She countermoved with her knight, taking out Aron's bishop.
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Post by elizar on Nov 21, 2008 23:12:56 GMT -5
"An interesting choice of name there." Stefán said. "I would like to learn more."
Marisa was silent for a second. "Why does she do such diverse groups?" She asked. Maybe it was better to look at motivation than actions.
Aron didn't seem to flinch at all by what had happened to his lone bishop. He had needed that for the zugswang, but with him gone, and no other clear idea of how to make a zugswang, he went for an all-out offense, beginning with positioning the rook for a kill on a knight.
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Post by Evangeline on Nov 21, 2008 23:28:06 GMT -5
"Our world has a higher level of ambient magical energy." Zoe explained. "So while users aren't widely talked about, they're a fact of life." She scratched the wolfbike's "ears", reached into her jeans pocket, and gave him a treat. "It might have also had something to do with the origin of our peoples, though we don't need it to keep on living."
"Mrs. Coates puts it this way." Jessica rubbed the back of her neck with both hands, "Some fowk loch tae keep provin' tae th' warld hoo open-minded they ur," she quoted in a dead-on imitation of a Scottish accent. "If you want it done as soon as possible, she might be your gal, even if she's mainly doing it to shock everyone else with the novelty."
Rachel responded by moving her own remaining rook onto Aron's, now that the posturing was over and the blood match had begun.
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Post by elizar on Nov 21, 2008 23:40:15 GMT -5
"Any supernatural critters in your world?" Stefán asked.
Marisa thought for a moment. "I would like to have it before I really start to show." She said. "Having a kid out of wedlock is something I really pictured myself doing."
After few turns of Aron and Rachel drawing wooden blood, Aron retreated with his single knight to weakly defend the king. Would his knight fall, he would automatically lose. Now he was simply buying time.
It lasted few turns until Rachel got him in a zugswang. Had he been playing it on a board, he would have pressed onto the king and make him fall, but somehow, having the computer announce his defeat with a text pop-up took the charm away.
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Post by Evangeline on Nov 21, 2008 23:50:55 GMT -5
"That was nothing to be ashamed of." Rachel told Aron over the radio. "You have a great aptitude for improvisational tactics."
"We have spirit-beings." Zoe told him. "Daemons, entities bound to objects or places, and elemental spirits, such as those who inhabit rivers or lakes. Most of them are inoffensive, but the ones that are bad are absolutely rotten."
"It might be worth a bit of craziness now to get it firmly on paper." Jeffrey concurred.
"Would you like me to make inquiries?" Jessica asked. "That way, nobody knows exactly who or what until the very date."
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Post by elizar on Nov 22, 2008 9:47:50 GMT -5
"I'm not a sore loser." Aron said. "I mostly want to play it on a board, as I like the tradition of toppling the king when losing." He said and looked at the crowd. They had taken over the program and used it to display the move history.
"Last time I remembered, I'm no Bobby Fisher. What's with the attention?"
"We have more of the mystical creatures, at least in Iceland that is." Stefán said. "If you take a look at my mind working, the scarring that causes migranes from time to time is caused by an Icelandic Elf. If you've seen Lord of the Rings, it is not the Legolas kind of Elf, but more nasty, living in hills instead of forests."
"We need to keep this quite low key at the moment." Marisa said. "The later the media discovers this, the better. Does Coates advertise her jobs or can she keep it low profile?"
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Post by Evangeline on Nov 22, 2008 14:05:23 GMT -5
"Her cousin," Jessica gently corrected. "Yes, she can be discreet about it,". "With luck, they won't find out anything until the day of the event." She glanced towards the taurcats, one of whom was sharpening her claws with a file. "And I don't think they'll want to mess with your friends."
"I don't think I would care to meet them either." Zoe shook her head. "The myths tend to obscure the reality."
"I think she had you when she used the queen as bait." One of the waterfront guards remarked. "That takes some guts to just throw it away like that."
Rachel wasn't saying anything right now.
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Post by elizar on Nov 22, 2008 18:54:19 GMT -5
"While myths tend to paint something with blood and ichor, I think they painted too much sunshine and happiness on our elves." Stefán said. "I'm curious, how would you go about finding Steinþór?" He asked, more or less to maybe answer her with 'been there done that' to help her not bother with the more obvious solutions.
"I tend to move in for a large kill regardless of the risk." Aron said and looked at Rachel. "You showed remarkable restraint by keeping your queen back for so long. Taking lessons from what grounded you like this?"
"Well, there will be no problem finding a bouncer, only a problem to pick one out from the whole group." Marisa smiled.
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Post by Evangeline on Nov 22, 2008 19:47:14 GMT -5
"If the reports of his last known whereabouts are correct, that would be the logical starting point." Zoe answered. "It is possible for users to track other users by their traces and emanations, but it is dependent on proximity. If his powers bear out to description, he may have escaped and gone to ground any number of places, depending on his ability to travel. I would think he may still be somewhere in northern Europe."
"I won't deny it had an influence." Rachel admitted over the shack intercom. "The next time we get a 'visit', they should find us much better prepared, and with plans already in place."
"I like Brenda." Bree glanced down the dock. "She's got the best language skills and knows how to de-escalate a confrontation. And she's made a real difference with Joy."
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Post by elizar on Nov 22, 2008 20:06:19 GMT -5
"How would go you go about that?" Stefán said. "You kind of stick out like a sore thumb."
"Maybe they will do different tactics next time." Aron said. "Maybe we aught to check with Wellington on what kind of tactics they have deployed."
"Yeah, we need to have a bouncer that can make himself, or rather, herself, understood clearly." Marisa said. She subtly rubbed herself against Jeffrey, a touch that she deployed only on few occasions, all of them followed by a private time in the clearing. Jeffrey would not go unrewarded for popping the question.
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Post by Evangeline on Nov 22, 2008 20:30:47 GMT -5
Jeffrey shivered deliciously at the rubbing, and returned the gesture with a knowing nuzzle.
"And the others are getting better at speech, following her example." Bree commented. "I still couldn't get over how one of them took a two-stroke engine apart and put it back together again, barely two weeks after learning what an engine was."
"There are other ways." Zoe's form dissolved into particles, which reassembled as a golden eagle. 'Though this is about as small as I can get.'
"I've already made the inquiries." Rachel answered. "And Julian is helping his mother work on recruiting needs. What we may be seeing is more smaller, faster armed craft from PT boat stock, and some from the diesel submarine tribes. The PT's have a certain... reputation from World War 2, but the tribal culture's mellowed out a bit since then and they'll be quite happy to turn the better balance of their mischievous tendencies towards the enemy."
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Post by elizar on Nov 22, 2008 20:42:12 GMT -5
"Helluva memory." Marisa said. She wished that she could actually make the scents, as it was also a good signal that the conversation was about to break for some private time. The sexual activity of helicopters usually was much more open business, and scent signal were much more common with them. Trying to put the same in words was off-setting and not the norm.
"I and Jeffrey will be going for a flight, conferring on few things." Marisa said, while smirking knowinly. Most of non-helicopters were not as accepting to open talk about sex as the helicopters.
"You got to work on how to appear less conspicuous." Stefán said.
"So were are going for a bee tactic in the naval battles?" Aron asked.
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Post by Evangeline on Nov 22, 2008 20:55:18 GMT -5
"All right, then." Bree nodded with a knowing smile. "See you two later."
Jeffrey needed no urging to move out with his intended.
"For now, they won't be able to field a great number of warships of our class." Rachel shrugged as much as she was able. "That may change in the future, but I would estimate at least ten years. The only other credible naval force in the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions is that of India, which hates the Caliphate's guts and concerns itself mostly with defending its own territory. So a larger fleet of smaller, faster boats make the most sense in the interim."
Zoe modified her appearance, toning the dark brown and gold tones to low-visibility grey. "I'm working on that, believe me. Shayla tells me the exact same thing."
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Post by elizar on Nov 22, 2008 21:07:29 GMT -5
((I got reminded of bees so much at the moment, that my mind was going "Oh god bees!" at me, some faint memory of something. Google told me what memory it was. I needed the laugh after falling down a flight of stairs today.))
Aron looked at the chessboard program. He wondered if Al Din did the same, making such comparisons. But he knew that he would know the consequences of war. "I understand the thing in Iraq much more now." He said. "I was at first a democrat, never really seeing why we were there in the first place, as it was Al Qaeda in Afghanistan that attacked us in the first place.
"So you disguise yourself as an animal to get around and sniff out a 'user'?" Stefán asked.
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Post by Evangeline on Nov 22, 2008 21:35:49 GMT -5
"It's one option." Zoe inclined her raptor's head as she perched on the kennel fence. "When it comes to the creatures of this world, I'm pretty much limited to the aspects of meat-eaters, because I need animal protein to maintain a flesh-form. Modifying my human guise takes some field-testing to get the desired results."
"And there are people in this world and ours who still don't get it and never will." Rachel sighed. "Not so many here now, but sometimes I have the thought that we're putting our flesh and metal on the line so that they can go on living in their illusionary bubbles."
"Hey, when did she ever meet my sister-in-law?" One of the observing dockyard workers snickered, and the laughter rippled through the throng.
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