for some reason i always thought she had 3 not 6 rings xD

it's cool to see how Dion evolved from all the ideas and how old the concept of the Dark-skins is compared to her

and her character is quite realistic ^-^ I can't wait for the story to continue!!!


:< don't let her die... why do the cool characters always have to die? ;__;

Because Splat enjoys seeing his fans squirm :evil: ...I mean, all good things must come to an end, yes.

It was really interesting reading about her and how your ideas evolved and she was created. She's a great character and as Sci said, realistic.

you really should read Glory Slig ^^


back to the topic:

I <3 tragic thats why Stivik is one of my favorite characters after all ^^


(but i still don't want her to die xD simply because it's always like that. It's like some sort of unwritten rule that the coolest character always dies. And now we even expect her to die...R.I.P.)



but in the end it's up to Splat what happens to her anyways...:p

Everyone dies. It's not a question of 'if' but of 'when' and 'how'. And I will follow all of the four main characters to their deaths, whether at a ripe old age or premature.

Dionysia does own 6 rings, but she doesn't wear them all. In fact she doesn't wear any of them most of the time 'cus she doesn't want greedy sligs or glukkons seeing 'em and trying to nick 'em. Pretty sad she has these beautiful things that she never gets to use :p But no, she wouldn't wear all six 'cus she likes it better with less. Three or four at most. (Originally it was four but you two are convincing me that three is better :p)

Sometimes a story has a will of its own, but I don't want her to die before her time.

ok thats truuuuuee :p if you follow them all to their deaths thats another thing xD

B...b...but... What about the new chapter?? :'(

My week off for Christmas.
Also, you haven't replied to the last one yet. (How was/is America btw?)

EDIT: Oh and Nexy, if you get the chance, work your magic on Dripik again and get him to start W@RF 10, or this story will grind to a very firm halt before the end of the month.

Right, so I finally got caught up with the story again, after being gone for several months; and I gotta say Damn Splat.

This story is what encouraged me to take a look at my character that my brother had used and set lose in the world of W@RF, and inspired me to actual think of what made that butchered character tick.It is also what made me excited to try and write my own story for Ark (which sadly fell apart rather quickly, but never mind that).

Your writing is compelling with most of it driven with dialog and action rather than description, and it works beautifully with nothing becoming over dull by excessive detail.

While I tried to read through all of W@RF, I stopped at some parts and jump past others, making it so that I never got a clear idea of what or why things happened the way they did. Reading these last few chapters, and the thoroughly helpful links, gives me a welcome glimpse into the world that captivates me so.

Bravo Splat, continue the great work.

Glad you like, Ark, and it's good to see you back :D

There are four more chapters of Part 6 (including this one) and they were... hard to write. I've done a lot of rewriting but they're still rather... lumpy :fuzconf:
Maybe you'll know what that means. I think this is fairly ok, though a lot happens and it does feel a little rushed in one or two places. It is the last chapter of part 6 to cover any amount of time; the rest all take place within 18 hours. I'm working on them as I go, but... Well, I'll let you guys judge :p
EDIT: I've just rearranged a part of this chapter to try and remove the time-jumpiness, but I haven't read it to see how effective it is 'cus I'm lazy, so it's a bit hit-and-miss.

Time is running out; everything that's happened in the last 12 chapters are drawing together! Soon many of the mysteries will be revealed, and Anni's life will be forever changed!

On mit das show!



Nick had come back to the boss’s office alone an hour later – he wasn’t quite sure where Math and Anni had run off to. Then he had told Arnie all he had found out about Stivik, and his theory that Stivik might be a Cartel inspector.

Arnie sat, considering it for a while, “I’m not the only glukkon with a no-beating policy,” He said at length.

“Yes sir,” Nick said patiently, “But you are the only glukkon who runs the Rupture Farms where Abe began his reign of terror; that sort of draws more attention to you.”

Arnie growled, “Odd, I can’t escape that little fact, can I?”

Nick didn’t answer.

“Well I can’t say I agree with you,” Arnie went on, “But I suppose it could be a possibility.”

“If it is true, sir, then what this guy’s seen is you holding a trial over a slig beating a mud – yes, I know that was just ‘cus I broke your rules, but I know he thought it looked dodgy – and Anni trying to sneak out of the factory. Oh, and the main grinders breaking down.” He suddenly realised that at least two of the three things on this list were his fault, and scratched his neck awkwardly.

“Well it might be a good idea to try and keep him busy, just in case. What do you say to having him help on the grinders every so often?”

Nick hated the idea, but if it kept the factory from being shut down… “If you think that’s a good idea, sir…”

“Well it won’t do for all the time, but every so often. Seven was saying that you wanted our new big-bro’s help from time to time.”

“More than that if possible,” He replied hopefully.

He left the office half an hour later after a long conversation about grinder repairs and suddenly wondered when things had stopped being about Stivik.


A week later, Kix was in the kitchen, doing the washing up, while Dean was cleaning. Kix looked somewhat distressed.

“She was crying again, today. Trying to hide it again, but she’s not much of a liar, is she?”

Dean shook his head and said nothing.

When Anni had ended her hostility with Nick, she had been buoyant, but her happiness had been short lived as Stivik had begun hunting her. Stivik was passionate in what Kix was sure was a very genuine hatred, so much stronger than the casual arrogance that had led Reg to abandoning Bud or attacking her. It was tearing the girl apart.

And then the vykker had arrived and a bad situation had turned worse; Kix had spoken to Dek, and he seemed unusually respectful for a vykker, actually quite concerned for his patients (he had wanted to check up on her after hearing she had been dealt first aid by a slig, even though it was a long time ago). But Anni acted as though he was the embodiment of evil; she was terrified of him and furious when she had to go near him.

“I don’t get it,” Kix said aloud, “What’s her problem with vykkers?”

Dean made a little non-committal noise.

“Oh,” Kix said, only half-trying to keep the disdain from her voice, “This is another of those things I’m not allowed to know.”

She looked over her shoulder at him and he was looking at her apologetically. She sighed and rolled her eyes, turning back to the sink.

“Look, Kix… It’s not easy to tell you this. I mean surely there are things about yourself that you don’t want everyone to know? Anni just…”

“I know,” She said bluntly. She knew she should be nicer about this, but she hated this feeling of exclusion. “But come on, what do I have to do to prove myself?” She said awkwardly.

“Maybe you should ask Anni.”

She made a dismissive noise in her throat. “Yeah, ‘cus that’ll make everything better when she’s this upset.”

Dean sighed, “Alright… Look, there’s a lot of it and it’s really complicated. But even when we got her, Anni hated vykkers. She wouldn’t go to medical check-ups, she wouldn’t do anything. Sometimes I think we might have been sent here to get her away from them.”

“But why? Surely she told you something about it?”

He nodded, but he didn’t want to give away too much, like he had with Nick. He wondered what he could tell her. “It started… She had a friend, who was hurt. This is the same as you and Reg, really. Her friend was hurt and they tried to help her, but-”

“Her? This friend was a girl, too? Why did they want all these female mudokons?”

Dean shrugged, looking the other way, “They’re cheap aren’t they? Anyway, they said they would help her friend, and… They did something to her and to Anni, and it really hurt Anni, and the other one died. That’s when it started I think, but there’s a lot of resentment. You know how vykkers can be; they don’t treat you like real people most of the time.”

Kix looked unhappy. “Well she can keep out of Dek’s way can’t she? I mean, there’s only one.”

Dean nodded, “I guess. Maybe once she gets over the shock, she’ll be ok again. If Stivik gets off of her back. Him being mean to her is encouraging Razor, too. Odd, I’m sick of sligs.”


Groll was some distance above the ground in a cherry picker that he was deciding could have been better set up. Stivik was below, looking uncertainly at the controls.

“Alright, that was…” He swallowed, “Very good.” He braced himself, “Take me left just a tiny bit, will you?”

Stivik very carefully prodded the controls and Groll jerked alarmingly. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Right, that’ll do. Just stay down there and keep an eye on things, will you?”

Stivik glanced to the other side of the room where Nick and Sev were bolting an enormous section of grinder rail into place; the mud, Floyd, was red faced, hauling with all his strength on a rope, evidently holding the section in place while they attached it.

“You sure you’re ok up there?”

“I’m fine,” Groll called back, already attaching new sections of pipe to replace the broken ones they had taken out while waiting for the parts to arrive. The wall was marked with tracks of spray-paint showing where the new pipes fitted.

Once Groll got used to the cherry picker rocking whenever he moved, he got on alright. Work progressed, Stivik moving the basket around whenever Groll needed it, slowly becoming used to the machine’s awful controls.

At length, Groll heard a call, “How’s it coming?”

He glanced down at Sev, who had left his work with Nick to check up on their progress. Sev was a fairly straight-forward slig who was as qualified a mechanic as Nick. “Nearly done,” Groll called, “Another half an hour.”

Sev nodded, “good job. We’re gonna see what we can do with the catwalk tomorrow when Boogie’s here.”

The middle floor catwalk was hanging wonkily above them, and they had all made a habit of not walking under it. So far none of them had gotten close enough to see how bad the damage was. Nick was hoping that they would be able to fix it back into place without having to replace any part of it.

“Nick’s definitely going then?” Stivik called up to him as he resumed work.

“Yeah, in another three weeks. Sev’ll take over at the grinders once he goes and I’m just hoping Arnie hires another mechanic before the grinders are finished, or I’m going to have all the rest of the factory’s repair work to catch up on on my own.”

“You found someone to pay you more than Arnie?” Stivik called over to Nick, who was clambering down from the grinder rail.

“Sort of. They’re paying me more ‘cus of Math, otherwise I would have been better staying here. I asked Arnie for a pay-rise, but…”

“Grinders breaking down, hiring a vykker and two extra sligs, repair costs,” Stivik listed.

“Yeah, all that. I wanna get as much of the grinders done before I go, though. Leave on a positive note, you know?”


Anni was walking with none of her usual boldness towards the ground floor station where she had been told by Seven to help unload a train. She was passing the main lifts when a slig came tearing round a corner towards her. She looked up, startled, but relaxed when she recognised the new slig, Arthur. Arthur was somewhat scatter-brained and probably as aggressive as a meep. “Hey,” He said as he saw her, “I’m supposed to be going to the slaughter room and I don’ have a clue where it is! Do you know?”

She smiled, amused, and nodded. Rupture Farms was only a small factory and she wondered how he would survive in a bigger place, “You know where the warehouse is? Well if you go in there, there’s a door to the left that takes you to the meat storage room, and the slaughter room is through there.”

“Thanks!” He said, looking relieved, turned to run past her and muttered an, “Oh, hi.”

She looked over her shoulder to see who he was speaking to and then leapt back glowering. Arthur paused, puzzled by her sudden movement, but she was looking with hate at Dek and Stivik, who had walked up behind her. She hated herself for not hearing them coming.

“Is there a problem?” Dek asked stiffly, returning her glare.

Stivik laughed, “Don’t mind her; she’s just a crazy mud.”

The words seemed to ring in her head and she clenched her jaw.

“Well,” Dek was saying sternly, “She ought to be taught some proper respect!”

Stivik grinned broadly and Arthur suddenly stepped in, “Come on, kid; you can show me the way.”

He grabbed her by the arm and steered her away from the pair. She heard Stivik laughing as she went, or was it just her imagination?

“Hey, are you alright?” Arthur was asking, shaking her gently by the shoulder.

She shuddered, feeling like she was waking from a dream, “Yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s alright, but hey, careful next time. That vykker’s not all that bad, but you know what they can be like, right?” He smiled at her and hurried off. Looking unhappy, she walked slowly back towards the station.


Good progress was made on the grinders over the next few weeks, and when Nick returned to the bunks at the end of his last working day he was confident that Sev and the other could get finished within two weeks.

It was an odd experience for him, leaving the factory that he had called home for the last three years. Anni was at the station (again) when he left, though for once he didn’t chase her away. She was crying as she hugged Math goodbye while they waited for the train to arrive, and Nick had an odd feeling of unfinished business, like he had left so much work still to do. He thought of Stivik; Arnie hadn’t really taken his worries about Stivik seriously, but then maybe he was right not to. Stivik was just a thug, though rather cleverer than most thugs, admittedly.

To his surprise, Anni threw her arms around him before they left. He pushed her off but she was laughing through her tears, and Math was grinning cheekily. Nick glared at him. “Stay out of Stivik’s way, alright? And try and keep out of trouble.”

“I will,” Anni nodded tearfully and Nick had a last thought.

“Keep an eye on him, though. If he does anything strange, tell Arnie.” She nodded again.

“I’ll miss ya, Anni,” Math said firmly and gave her a hug. “Don’t worry about Dek, ok? Don’t let him bother you. You don’t have to worry about vykkers. Just be yourself, alright? And be happy!”

Nick wasn’t sure that ‘being herself’ was the best advice Anni could receive but she seemed glad to get it. He nudged Math forward and boarded the train behind him. “Good luck,” He said.

“Odd bless,” Math added and a moment later the door slid closed.

There were no windows on the train but Anni stayed on the station until it disappeared from sight. She walked to the cafeteria, needing the comfort of her friends.


Ten days had passed since Nick and Math left and Anni’s mood was at its lowest, no doubt pushed lower by Stivik’s bullying. Dean was at work in the kitchen that afternoon when Razor entered the cafeteria.

Razor stalked around before poking his head into the kitchen, “Where’s that little friend of yours?” He demanded.

Dean felt a slow, sinking feeling, but didn’t show it to the slig, “She’ll be working with Javi or Kix, won’t she?”

“She should be, mud!” Razor growled, “But she’s run off. You don’t know where she is?”

‘Damn it Anni, what trouble are you getting into now?’ “Haven’t seen her, sorry.”

Razor swore and stormed away.

“Hey,” Dean called, “You’re not allowed to hurt her, remember!”

Razor yelled some Sliggish curse back at him and left.


Stivik had once again been relegated to working the cherry picker controls and, as this involved a lot of standing around doing nothing, he was bored out of his mind. He was leant back against the wall, watching Floyd the mud hold the enormous grinder blade steady while Sev welded it together. Above Stivik, Groll was also welding, securing the catwalk in place. The grinders would take maybe five more days to finish, assuming nothing else went wrong with the blade (he grinned savagely at the memory of the last time, when they had picked it up to put it on the rail and it had fallen to bits).

“Move me over, Stivik!” Groll yelled from above and Stivik jumped out of his daydreaming and fiddled with the controls. He was only as bad at working this machine as everyone else was.

“Hey,” Came a call as he was sinking back into himself. Razor was walking into the room, “Any of you guys seen Anni? She’s run off from her post."

Stivik rolled his eyes as the two other sligs made various sounds of denial.

“What are you gonna do to her if you find her?” Groll called down.

“Oh,” Razor replied, “Just have a friendly chat. You sure you haven’t seen her round?”

“She’s not been here,” Sev called.

Razor shrugged and walked back to the door. As he was leaving, Stivik shouted, “Hey, Razor!”

Razor looked back at him.

“If you find her, give her a ‘friendly chat’ from me, too.”

Razor grinned at him and slipped away.

An hour later Boogie came to the grinders and took over from Stivik, who headed towards the cafeteria for a drink when he ran into Razor, who was looking troubled.

“What’s up?”

“Still looking for the brat.”

“You haven’t found her yet?!”

Razor glowered at him, “What do you think?”

Stivik rolled his eyes, “You’ve got your radio? Great, get me a brew and I’ll go up to the office and see if I can find her on the cameras.”

Razor grunted assent and headed to the cafeteria while Stivik rode a lift to the middle floor. Razor joined him in the security office ten minutes later, “You found her?”

“Not yet. Who’s the mud Arthur’s been showing around?”

Razor shrugged, “New one, replacing Nick’s pet? Hey, there she is!”

Stivik nodded, “That’s her at work a couple of hours ago. Five minutes from now she’s gone, so- Hey, there she goes!”

Flicking through cameras, they followed Anni’s progress from the production lines on the middle floor to the ground floor, and then down a passage behind the grinders. “That leads to the derelict part of the factory; there are no more cameras down there,” Stivik reported. “Let’s get down there.”

Razor hesitated, “Aren’t there supposed to be wild animals living down there?”

“You’ve got a gun, haven’t you?” Said Stivik, who was emptying the bullets out of his and pulling some tranquilisers out of his locker in the room.

“Does your gun load different kinds of ammo?”

“It’s a special one; some vykker hooked me up with the licensing. Come on.”

“Look Stivik, it’s near the end of the work shift. In half an hour it won’t matter.”

“What are you scared of?”

“I’m not scared!”

“Then come on! You want a chance to teach Anni a lesson, don’t you? No one will see anything we do down there.”


The final 24 hours of Part 6 have begun.





On another note, I am actually quite worried about things now. I am still waiting for W@RF 10 to start and until it does and the story progresses, I can't really start writing anything more than the first chapter of Part 7. And then when W@RF 10 does start, I will still have to progress Anni's story in the RPG a way before I can start writing here.
I am really foreseeing a long hiatus for this story starting in three more weeks and so I'm apologising in advance. If you want to minimise the wait, PM Dripik and tell him to start W@RF 10! I really wanna get back to writing this story and I think writing my plot summary of the RPG will be so much harder for the second half. There are a lot less sligs hanging around for a decent amount of time for one thing.
Reply!

You know, I was going to say things are getting tense, but I could say that about a lot of the chapters :p Which is a good thing, it's good cause it keeps us readers on the edge of our seats!

I liked this line near the start
He left the office half an hour later after a long conversation about grinder repairs and suddenly wondered when things had stopped being about Stivik.

I guess Nick got more than he bargained for in his meeting with Arnie :p

And of course, as usual I liked the scenes featuring Groll :p You sure know how to get all the comedy out of him :D
And good ole' Arthur, aggressive as a meep XD He's the sort of slig Arnie needed in the factory. Although I remember when the RP filled up with heaps of "nice" sligs it kinda caused problems, but Arthur was good.

There were a couple of bits that did seem slightly rushed, but I guess there's not really much you can do about it. It still seemed to flow ok though. Looking forward to your next chapter :D

nice chapter ^^

poor anni ...whoa but still... -I can't wait for the next one!!! :happy:

I like how you described Arthur aswell xD

Uh-ohh, if they find her Anni's sure in trouble, plus now she has this new Vykker who can intimidate her :o Nice chapter!

Glad Arthur was such an instant success :p I'm sure Munch's Master would be proud :D

Yeah, Arnie has rather more power in the story than in the RPG. I do like how he cunningly steered the conversation onto what he thought a more practical topic :p

Time for Anni's woes to increase...
I attacked this chapter viciously after I uploaded the last one and am at last satisfied with it.
Bad shizzle... And Anni's mystery is about to get even deeper. And time is ticking away...
(On the topic of scrabs in this chapter, it may well be that the scrabs in Abe's games were so much more vicious than the scrabs in MO because they were all females ready to breed - it's my chosen theory, anyway.)



Anni had slipped away when Kix’s attention was elsewhere. She was feeling sad, and lonely, and above all she wanted company where she could just be herself, out of the way of anyone else. She went to find Somi.


“Come on, Razor!” Stivik growled two hours later.

“We won’t find her down here, anyway. I don’t know why you’re bothering.”

“Hey, I used to be a scout. I’m used to hunting down animals. Finding some mud will be child’s play.”


Anni had wandered through the derelict part of the factory, looking for Somi. She had long ago realised that she wouldn’t find the paramite just by going back to the place where she had first hidden her. Somi was now nearly fully grown, was strong and intelligent and though Anni had never seen them, she almost certainly had a pack of her own now.

She was wandering for only fifteen minutes when she heard a hiss. She spun round and grinned, “Somi!” A moment later, the paramite had leapt into her arms, knocking her over backwards, and the two were rolling on the floor, Anni laughing for the first time in weeks. They chased each other, they sat and Anni talked, then they played again. Nearly two hours later, Anni was running with the paramite down an empty corridor somewhere in the basement when the paramite came to a halt and let out a hiss. “What’s wrong?” Anni said, concerned.

There was something in the paramite’s body language, some fear. She approached the animal and crouched down beside her. “What’s wrong?”

There was suddenly a bang and a shriek from further up the corridor. Anni twisted round and stared. A huge, angry she-scrab was walking towards them, its head raised in a warning. Anni’s eyes widened as she dropped to her hands and knees beside Somi. The scrab stopped, looking uncertain, and even in her fear, Anni let herself smile. The smell of Somi that she had rubbed all over herself as they played was making the scrab see two paramites, instead of a paramite and a mudokon. It would think twice about attacking, but if it was hungry enough…

Somi let out a hiss, ‘Stay’, and began to back away. Anni didn’t dare copy the call, doubtful that she could make the sound convincingly to fool the scrab. But she edged back with Somi, hoping the scrab wouldn’t follow them.


Stivik was moving confidently through the derelict factory, winding down towards the basement, following his instincts. Razor was skulking after him, looking around nervously. Stivik was disappointed in him, “If there are any animals around we’ll hear them before they attack.”

“Well you might trust your instincts, but I don’t. Let’s find the stupid mud and get out of here. I’m not sticking around.”

“Not even to have some fun with her?”

“Don’t be an idiot. It’s dangerous down here, Stivik!”

Stivik snorted, “Your gun’s the most dangerous thing down here.”

As they wound down to the basement, they fell silent. The light was fading and Stivik was beginning to feel the intensity of the situation, too. But he was enjoying himself. It had been years since he had done anything like this, and even if it was only for ten minutes, even if he was safely inside some industrial walls and not really out in the wild, he was taking all he could from it. “There’s something up ahead,” He said under his breath. He put his head round the next corner.

He was looking down a dark, derelict passage, and quickly spotted Anni on the ground at the far end, deep in shadow. There was something beside her that he couldn’t see in the dark, but he guessed it was just some heap of junk. Between her and him, though, was a cow-scrab, from the look of it ready to breed, which would make it fiercely aggressive, viciously territorial. It was standing threateningly over the mud, and he was amazed it hadn’t already attacked.

Then he felt Razor close behind him and before Stivik could stop him, he yelled, “Hell, Stivik, that’s a SCRAB!”

He shoved Stivik viciously aside and he sprawled on the ground, cursing, “Razor!”

The scrab spun around and charged at them. Razor started firing, his aim wildly off as he panicked completely. He caught the scrab in the flank just as it neared them and instead of attacking it stumbled and crashed into Razor, throwing him back.

Stivik rolled over and shot at it with his tranquilisers. It stumbled and turned to face him. “GET OUT OF HERE!” he yelled to Razor, and then realising that Razor wouldn’t respond in his panic, added, “GO GET HELP!” He didn’t want or need assistance, but he had to get Razor the Hell away from here. The other slig gave a chirrup of confirmation in Sliggish and ran for it.

The tranks he had loaded into his gun were intended for nothing larger than a mudokon or a paramite. They would have a very slow affect on the hormonal scrab, and it spun around and reared over him as he fiddled with his gun to load the next trank.

It was bearing down on his with its sharp, bone-tipped feet when Anni leapt onto its back, taking him by surprise. She clung on for all of two seconds before it shook her off and she dropped to the ground, disorientated. The scrab, momentarily confused, turned its attention to the prone mudokon. It raised its head to the ceiling and roared, long and high, and Stivik realised what it was going to do next. His pack had known the scrab’s lethal power by its slang-name of ‘shred attack’.

It was charging towards Anni when something else hit it, something dark and dusty, and Stivik scrambled to his feet, staring now. It was a paramite, clawing at the larger predator, hissing and howling. Anni let out a scream, “Somi!”

Stivik raised his gun and heard Anni yell, “Don’t! You’ll hit her!”

“That’s the idea, grhzz-wit!” He roared and fired. The trank hit the scrab in the neck, and it stumbled suddenly, before it could use shred attack. Anni yelled something and the paramite jumped towards her. He raised his gun to shoot it but she threw an arm around it, crouching down low, and leapt under cover. The scrab howled again and stumbled towards him. He hurried backwards and it suddenly dropped like a stone, lying prone in the middle of the passage.

Stivik was breathing hard, hating himself for being so unfit. Odd, he smoked too much. Tilic and Dekas would never have let him get away with it. “Anni?”

He got no answer.

“Are you hurt?” His voice sounded rough, ragged. Odd, he was so out of shape. Dekas would have beaten him to within an inch of his life if he could see him now.

Down the passage he heard the muffled sound of sligs’ legs and Razor appeared at the end of the passage. He stopped and took in the scrab, “You got it?”

Then two figures appeared behind him; the hulk of Boogie and behind him, Dek.

“Come on, Anni.” Stivik called, “We’re getting out of here.”

“Hell, there’s another one!” Razor yelled suddenly and fired with his gun. Stivik heard a shriek and the paramite came leaping out of the shadows and passed him, nearly ploughing him down. Razor raised his gun to shoot it again as Stivik turned to do the same, but Anni yelled, “Leave her alone!” And threw herself into Razor’s way, distracting them both long enough for the paramite to disappear.

“Huh?” Razor said thickly, “It’s a wild animal, Anni! It was gonna attack you or something.”

“It’s not hurting anyone,” She said fiercely, and then she caught sight of Dek, standing behind Boogie. “What are you doing here?!” She almost screamed.

Somehow Dek managed to ignore this and snorted, “Forget the paramite. Is that a cow-scrab?”

“Yeah, it is,” Stivik said nonchalantly, approaching it carefully, “And it’s not in a happy mood.” He was grinning, enjoying Dek’s attitude to Anni’s attention-seeking.

“If it’s in heat, then it could be rather valuable, from a scientific view-point. I think we should take it with us. Razor, check it’s unconscious.”

But Anni let out a feral shriek and threw herself at the slig; Razor yelled as he was thrown to the ground and Anni pulled back, now gripping Razor’s gun, “Get away from here! Go away!” Anni yelled savagely, pointing the weapon at Dek.

Growling angrily, Stivik raised his gun, “Idiot mud!” He fired and the trank hit her in the back. She twisted around and moved to push herself to her feet but the anaesthetic was quicker to act on her and all she managed was to hiss furiously through her teeth before she slumped backwards, landing on top of Razor.

Razor let out a disgusted yell and a moment later pushed her off of him, scrambling to his feet and flapping about like her touch had contaminated him with some disease. Stivik rolled his eyes, wondering who he thought he was impressing. “Did you kill her?” Razor hissed.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Stivik snarled. “She’s just unconscious. I think we should all get out of here before more trouble comes. And I’m taking that girl to Arnie; that’s the second time she’s pinched someone’s gun and I’m not letting her get away with it!”

“It’s too late to bother Arnie, now,” Dek said, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed the time but it’s rather late. Bring her up to my lab.” There was a glint of greed in his eye which Stivik liked the look of. “The scrab, too.”

He nodded, smirking, “I’ll carry her. Boogie, you want to help Razor bring the scrab?”

Boogie glanced back at Dek, who nodded, and the big-bro strode forwards, filling up the corridor. He lifted the scrab by the waist and hauled it up, “Grab its neck, Razor,” He grunted.

“Don’t hurt it,” Dek cautioned as Stivik picked up Anni and flung her over his shoulder like a sack of meat.

“What are you gonna do to the mud?” Razor asked.

“Take a look at her, make sure she’s not ill. And there are cages in the lab I can keep her in overnight so you can tell Arnie about her in the morning.”

“Sounds better than she deserves if you ask me,” Razor grunted.


Stivik was leading the way when the three sligs and the vykker, complete with their unlikely cargo, emerged into the main factory. It was dark; the main lights in the production areas had been shut off for the night.

“We’ll take the executive lifts; it’ll be quicker,” Dek told them, who, as a vykker, was the only one other than the glukkons and Seven with permission to use them.

“This girl’s starting to stir,” Stivik said a few moments later as Dek pulled the lever to call the lift down. “Weird, the trank should’ve lasted longer than this. Maybe the dart was bad.”

“It won’t be long now.”

Razor laid down his half of the scrab and worked the pulley to pull the company up the lifts, since Dek couldn’t work the glukkon voicelock. “Hell, now she’s giggling!” Stivik growled as they reached the middle floor, “Right in my ear! That’s as creepy as anything!”

“Hurry up, then,” Dek barked irritably and led the way towards the labs. He opened the door and led them in. “Put her on that table, and strap her down if you can manage that. Boogie, there are some cages through that door where you can put the scrab.

She was murmuring to herself as Stivik laid her down on the table, then singing shakily, “I drink to you… I drink it from… I drink… too much… It comes out of my…”

He rolled his eyes and tried to ignore it as he strapped her down. There were short leather straps and buckles at the edges of the table for the occupant’s wrists and ankles, assuming they had them. He slid them on rails along the table edges until they were at the right distance for Anni, locked them in place and began strapping her down.

“It comes out of my…”

“Shut up, you freak,” He muttered under his breath.

In a deep voice, very different from her own, she said it again, “It comes out of my…” And then in her own voice, high, timid and scared, she muttered a word he didn’t catch.

“She’s strapped down,” He called to Dek, straightening up.

“Good,” Dek replied and came over to examine his work. He had been loading drugs and equipment onto a trolley. “Pull that over here for me, will you?”

Stivik obediently tugged the medical trolley over. There was a large gas cylinder on it, attached via a tube for a mudokon-fitting gas mask.


Anni could hear Dek’s voice, and it made her want to scream; the sound of the vykker was utterly repulsive. Terror coursed through her; she couldn’t move or see, and they could be doing anything to her. Something was tickling in the back of her head and suddenly it exploded like a supernova. Pain shot through her head, like she hadn’t felt for years. She wanted to scream with all the air in her lungs, to shake, to thrash, it hurt so much. She wanted to cry out, to weep, to beg.

She couldn’t move. She lay as still as a piece of wood while inside she burned. She managed to open her eyes a crack and saw Dek descending on her with a gasmask. Stupid vykker; she and Nova had started becoming immune to that stuff that vykkers used when they were still tiny. What did he think he was doing?

Darkness closed in.


“That should keep her down for a good while,” Dek said, straightening up.

“Boogie’s having trouble locking the cage,” Razor said, wandering into the room. Dek didn’t look round until he heard the flick of a lighter.

“I won’t have smoking in my lab!” He barked, spinning around.

Razor looked affronted, “Come on, you guys invented them.”

“It interferes with the instruments and it smells like death.” Vykkers didn’t mind selling things that poisoned their customers, but they themselves all intended to live as long as medical science would allow; all vykkers feared death, having seen so much of it. “If you’re going to smoke, get well away from here! Well away!”

Razor looked like he was going to argue, but Stivik spoke first, “Go on. It won’t be interesting now, just drawing blood and seeing what colour it turns. He won’t hurt her, not until Arnie’s heard what she’s done.”

Razor grinned, “Keep her simmering,” He said with a nasty grin and stalked out of the lab.

Dek huffed and turned back to Anni, picking up a huge, empty syringe from the trolley as he did.

“Dek, how do I lock this thing?” Boogie called through the open door to the store room with the cages.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Dek growled, standing over Anni and waving the syringe around impatiently. Leering, Stivik turned to watch Boogie struggle as Dek peered through the door, trying to see what Boogie was doing wrong. “Turn it counter-clockwise! No, not that way! See, now that bit sticking out should slide into place. Got it?”


Anni’s eyes opened slightly and she saw a vykker standing over her with a syringe. She realised her arms and legs were strapped down. Her heart began to race; as quietly as she could, she tried to pull herself free but the straps were too tight. She felt a scream building in her throat but just before it burst out, another force took hold of the scream and sent it in a different direction, soaring towards the ends of her limbs. Her hands and ankles suddenly burned, painfully, and she snatched them away.

Stivik let out a roar, “GTRZ! GRHZZ! WHAT DID- HOW DID- HELL, SHE HAS POWERS!” She raised her head and saw him scramble back from her, bang into a medical trolley, sending its contents crashing to the floor and lift his gun to point at her.

“What are you jabbering about?” Dek yelled and turned to face the terrified slig.

“She has grhzzing powers! The straps! She’s burnt them! She summoned fire out of the air and burnt through the straps!”


How's THAT for a cliff-hanger?! I didn't know she could do that! Did you know she could do that?! Did she do that?! What just happened?! Find out the answers to these and other questions (or not) in the next exciting installment of...

I would like to leech off of your sympathy for a moment on the topic of that scene in the basement with the scrab, for two main reasons.
First, the scrab in the story bears little resemblance to the male, vykker-modified scrab from the RPG that was created by Jarnww, which had the abilities to think rationally and speak. :dead:
To make it worse, almost the entirety of that scene was deleted by a hacker, who hacked into the forums and screwed everything up so badly that Alcar had to load up a 2 or 3 three week old backup of the forums, after 2 or 3 weeks of very intense RPGing. Pretty much the whole encounter, until Anni is carried out of the basement, was deleted and I don't really remember what happened. I think Sev was down there but I don't remember why or when he left the others. Boogie didn't appear until later but I don't remember how he got drawn in. I do remember that Anni somehow got Stivik's gun off of him and was threatening to shoot him; apparently (judging by T-nex's later posts) she was protecting him from the scrab somehow (which, as noted, had the powers of intelligent cognition omigoshrofl). Dek jabbed her with a tranquiliser syringe, which is what knocked her out. I rearranged a lot of that as you saw, and did my best to batter it into a feasible shape, but it was a painful experience. I dunno how Razor made it back so quickly with Dek and Boogie, but who's to know, eh?

Eh?



Remember how Anni dealt with that scrab. Pretending to be a paramite, what a clever girl! :p

And as a final note, just think about how terrified a slig would be of a mudokon with powers; imagine how you would feel if you found out that someone you really hated and had even been bullying had powers to summon fire or worse still, to completely take over your body, to force you to kill your friends and even kill yourself.
Anni's gonna have her work cut out explaining her way out of this one!

If you don't reply, Stivik will be even angrier!!!
And time is ticking...

I really don't know how you find the time to write all this. I find it hard to even make time to read it. But it's good, so all's well.

Ooh, have you read it all, Meech Munchie? :fuzgrin:

Wow, I'm really happy you liked it so much, Sci! I was a little worried about this one.
Only two more chapters and your theory may (or may not) be confirmed!

On the topic of two more chapters, I have a slight problem because in 10 days' time, I'm going on holiday for two weeks. This means that there will be one more chapter of Part 6 left to post when I go away. I will probably be taking my laptop with me and might be able to post while away, but it will be slightly hit-and-miss.
So either I can post the last chapter early or risk making you all wait an extra two weeks to read it.
Hmm...

I am Posting this Chapter a Day Early.

Sort of for reasons mentioned in my last post.
Right, as I said I am going away on holiday to Jordan at the end of this week and so may not be able to post the last chapter of Part 6 for two weeks, unless I post it on Friday. So here's the deal!
If I get four (or five, if I feel stingy on Friday) replies or more to this chapter before Friday, then I will post the last chapter of Part 6 before I leave.
Otherwise, I will try and post it next week from Jordan, but this may not be easy and if I find myself unable, you will all have to wait an extra 2 weeks. I won't be taking my laptop with me, I've decided, so that will complicate things slightly if it comes to that.
So yeah, if you want to know what happens, post! Anni is glaring at all you people who didn't reply to the last chapter! Grrrrr...

Anyway, must get on! Big revelation is coming this chapter! Anni's in danger and she's not the only one. This chapter has been written and re-written and I think I smoothed out the worst of the kinks today. Also, I forgot to mention it last week but we are now in W@RF 5.
On mit das show!!! (Mein Deutsch ist nicht sehr gut.)



Anni was sat on the floor in the corner of the lab, far from the door but also far from Dek and Stivik.

Dek was leant back against the table they had strapped her too, looking stunned. Stivik was still furious with panic.

“She was unconscious,” Dek muttered, rubbing his eyes, “She couldn’t have woken up so soon.”

“She was waking up from the tranquilisers way earlier than she should have! She shook them off; she did something!”

“Oh please, what could she have possibly done?” Dek asked grouchily.

“The same thing she did to those straps! They didn’t set fire to themselves! She did something!”

“Calm down, Stivik. She’s never shown any signs of powers before-”

“So what?! Maybe she’s kept them hidden, kept them secret.”

Anni let the shouting drown out, wondering. Had she done it? Could she? She had never had any powers before; she had never done anything strange. Could they have been living in her all this time, secret, untouched? Another idea occurred to her and she whispered to herself, “Nova?”

“You’ve got to do something about her!” Stivik barked, making her look up. Dek was slumped back against the table again and he waved a claw.

“This is beyond me.”

“What does that mean?” Stivik growled.

“I mean I was hired to be a doctor, not to make decisions about how to deal with disobedient mudokons!”

“So go and tell Arnie; go and tell him now before she does anything else.”

Dek glared, “I’m not going anywhere. You go and tell him! She’d be safer left with me than with you!”

“I don’t care about her safety! I’m not leaving her here unguarded-”

“Boogie’s right there!”

“Oh yeah, a big-bro with his mind turned to mush by steroids and a vykker who I bet has never held a gun in his life. No thanks, no way am I leaving a dangerous mud in your hands.”

Boogie ignored Stivik’s insult. Dek glared, “She is my patient! I’m perfectly capable of keeping her in check.”

“Have you dealt with a native mud before, let alone one with powers? I didn’t think so.”

“Hey,” Anni yelled, jumping to her feet, fists balled in anger, “How about you both stay here and I’ll go and tell Arnie?”

“Shut the grhzz up, mud!” Stivik roared, then to Dek, “I’m not leaving her.”

“Fine!” Dek yelled, throwing his arms up. “Fine. I’ll go and talk to Arnie and come right back here, and if you do anything to her while I’m away it’ll be your head!”

Stivik sneered triumphantly. While they were distracted, Anni glanced at the desk behind her and grabbed a syringe from a rack there. With all her heart, she wanted to be out of this room. She had to get out!

She heard the door close and turned quickly; Dek had left and now Stivik was leering at her. She looked back hatefully, holding the syringe behind her back. Boogie, big and impassive, slumped back against the wall beside the door to the room of cages.

The three of them waited in silence, unmoving from their places. Minutes passed by sluggishly.

There was a bang from the cage room, and all of them jumped and turned. Boogie looked through the door. “The scrab’s awake,” He said uneasily.
Stivik shrugged, impassive.

“I… I should check its cage is properly closed,” Boogie said, sounding uncertain.

“You locked it, didn’t you?” Grunted Stivik.

“Uh, I think so, but…” He glanced over his shoulder at Stivik, and then at her, and then stalked into the other room. She looked over at Stivik. He was grinning madly and walking towards her. She glared at him.

“Tell me how you did it, mud.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Uh huh, sure. Then tell me how you kept it secret so long.”

“I said, I didn’t do anything! I don’t have powers; I’ve never had!”

He was right in front of her, leaning over her, smirking, “You think you can get away with this now? You attack me, then Razor and now this. When Arnie hears about it all, I’m gonna watch you die. I might even kill you myself.”

Anni suddenly lunged at him, bringing her arm from behind her back and ramming the syringe she picked up into his side. He yelled in anger and pushed her away, then swung his gun at her. She was caught on the shoulder and thrown to the ground. She crawled out from under him and he grabbed her by the arm, but she pushed him off easily, scrambled to her feet and ran to the door.

Boogie was there, drawn by Stivik’s yell, blocking it, glaring at her. She drew to a halt, looking up at him helplessly, “Please let me go?”

“Nice try, mud… Hell! What have you done to him?”

She turned around. Stivik was lying on the floor, writhing and gasping for breath. She stared, open-mouthed.

“What did you do?!” Boogie yelled, shaking her by the shoulder.

“I… I…”

With an impatient curse, Boogie shoved her aside, ran over to Stivik and yanked the syringe out of him. “Oh you little bitch!”

Anni found herself trembling and breathing hard. What had she done? She hadn’t even thought. Stivik suddenly fell still, horribly still. What had she done to him? What if she had…? She stumbled back and fell over. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real. She felt like she was going to faint. She might be a…

Boogie picked up Stivik, out of his pants, and heaved him onto the table. His gun, attached by a thin wire to his mask, hung awkwardly, its barrel resting on the ground. “Go and get the vykker!” He roared at her. “Go and get him, now!”

She turned and ran.

She found him standing outside the boss’s office, looking irritable, evidently unable to find the glukkons. As she bolted towards him, he looked up, surprised, “What’s-”

“It’s Stivik! I…” She gasped for breath, “I injected him with something… I wanted to get away…” She gasped tearfully, “He’s unconscious…”

Dek stared at her incredulously, and then yelled, “Well, come on!” They raced back towards the lab.

She burst through the door a few seconds before Dek, “What’s going on?” He demanded.

“He’s not breathing,” Boogie said, “He stopped about a minute ago.”

“What did you inject him with?” Dek yelled.

She started looking around the floor for the syringe but then Boogie held it out. “Here.”

Dek glanced at it once and then yelled, “Oh, you STUPID GIRL!” He raced towards the other end of the room and pulled a huge syringe out of a drawer, and then he ran back and injected it into Stivik’s chest.

“Listen, Anni,” He said raggedly, then put his hands on Stivik’s chest, “You feel this, where his ribs part at the bottom?”

She reluctantly reached out her hands, trying to avoid touching Dek’s claws until he swore impatiently and she let her skin touch his, suppressing a shudder.

“Right, I want you to press down there, sharp and hard. Do it now.” She did so. “Harder than that, idiot! Now, do it twenty times.” While Anni tired herself out, he started unbuckling Stivik’s mask. “When you’ve done twenty, you check if he’s breathing. If he’s not, you do it twenty more times, understand?”

He pulled the mask away and Anni got her first look of a slig’s face – the sunken, ugly, puffy eyes, the wrinkled, shrivelled skin, and the tight, cadaverous cheeks. She tore her eyes away and found she had lost count of her presses. She started again from one.

Dek was rifling through more drawers, pulling out a stethoscope. When Anni paused in her compressions to check Stivik’s breathing, he put the metal disk on his chest.

“Alright, twenty more.”

The physical exertion of the compressions soon had her exhausted and oblivious to what was going on around her. Her world became aching arms, sweaty skin, putting her head close to Stivik’s horribly ugly face to listen for the sound of a breath.

On the fifth check, she yelled, “He’s breathing again!”

Dek shoved her forcefully aside and checked for himself. “At last,” He muttered and began bustling around Stivik with stethoscope while she stumbled away and slumped to the floor in a corner, looking up at the slig. Her heart was racing; her momentary elation was sinking. Dek was pulling a machine up beside Stivik’s bed and fiddling with the controls; what if it didn’t work? What if he died? That would make her a… a murderer! The very thought made her sob aloud and soon she was crying heavily; she couldn’t stop herself.

“Boogie,” Dek said suddenly, “Take Anni through to the other room and put her in one of the cages, well away from that scrab.”

She looked up in surprise, her vision fuzzy with tears, but was too tired, too frightened to object as she was pulled to her feet and led into the next room. She heard the scrab howling as she entered, but it seemed to be coming from far away. She was put in a cage not quite big enough for her to lie or stand straight in, and she curled up against the bars.

When Boogie returned to the lab, he found Dek dropping two chill pills into a glass of water. “Are those for him?”

“They’re for me,” Dek replied without humour and downed the water, looking faintly disgusted by the taste. “Stivik should be ok, now. There’s nothing more I can do for him, anyway. Another hour and he should be back on his feet.”

“You locked Anni up to keep him safe?”

The vykker snorted, “To keep her safe. I can guess what Stivik’s first thought will be when he wakes up.” He hurried over to the corner where Stivik had collapsed and picked up his gun, before stashing it away in a cupboard. “At least this way I can make sure he stays away from her.” He started putting Stivik’s mask back on his face.


The scrab had settled down to sleep and Anni was leaning back against her bars, just beginning to doze, when she was woken by a shout. The door banged open and Stivik appeared, leaning heavily against the wall. “Where is she?!”

“Stivik, calm down.”

“CALM DOWN!? ARE YOU ALL LIVING IN SOME FANTASY LAND? SHE TRIED TO KILL ME! THAT’S TWICE!”

Another headache was building in her head, not agonising but none-the-less horrible, and she raised her knees to her chest but gave no other reaction. The scrab stirred.

“It’s too late to do anything about her, now.”

“Too late? Having her here’s putting the security of the whole factory at risk! Deal with her now before she kills us in our sleep!”

“I’m not disturbing Arnie now,” Dek said firmly, following the slig into the room. The scrab rose to its feet and rose threateningly to the vykker. Anni smiled darkly.

“Then get rid of her now. Any sane glukkon would! If Arnie doesn’t have her killed then he deserves to be killed himself! What have you done with my gun?”

“I’ve put it away until you calm down!” Dek growled. “Look at you; you can’t even stand without support. You need rest, before you exhaust yourself.”

Stivik turned his hateful look to the vykker but Dek stared back with equal resignation and eventually Stivik growled, “Alright, but you keep the girl locked up here all night!”

“Yes, yes. I’d like to have a proper look at her in the morning, anyway,” Dek grumbled. Anni snarled.

“Good. Don’t let her out,” And Stivik stalked away.

“Get some proper rest,” Dek called after him, then, “Boogie, go down to the cafeteria and see if you can bring up some food for the mudokon. If any of the other mudokons ask, tell her she’s hurt and I’m keeping her here over night. Tell them she mustn’t be disturbed.”

He left the room and she sat, watching the scrab sullenly, until Boogie came in with some food for her, which she took and ate ravenously. While she was eating, Boogie, under Dek’s direction, stunned the scrab with a Snuzi and moved it into another cage, which had wheels. She glowered at Dek as he gave the big-bro instructions.

“We’re putting it in the lab’s other store room so it won’t disturb you in the night. It’ll be quite comfortable,” Dek told her as Boogie wheeled it out, evidently meaning to comfort her.

She glared, “You should let her go,” She said bluntly. He dismissed her with a flick of a hand and left, taking her empty plate.

When he returned for the last time, he brought a bundle of luxurious bedding, “This is from my bedroom,” He told her as he fed it through the bars of the cage. “I imagine it’s rather softer than what you get in your bunks.” She didn’t reply but remained sullen as he pushed a pillow through onto the floor (the first feather pillow she had seen, let alone used) and placed a battery powered lamp just outside the cage where she could reach it. He switched it on and straitened up. “I’m going to bed, now. I’ll check up on you in the morning. Your friends know you’re safe. Do you want any sleeping pills?” She gave him such a malicious look that he left in a hurry, flicking off the light as he went through the door. The pale blue-white light of the lamp filled her cage but deepened the shadows around her.

She put together her bed, wondering if Javi, Dean and Kix would believe what Boogie told them, that she was hurt. Would Javi and Dean let Dek keep her alone all night?

She lay down and turned off the light, but sleep wouldn’t come to her. Even with the sheets she was cold, and so lonely. She shuddered at the thought of her isolation. She wanted so badly to hear the breathing of other people around her. She wanted to know Kix was in the bunk above her, just a call away. She curled up, feeling tears come to her eyes which she struggled to hold in. What would happen to her now? Would Stivik come for her? What would Arnie do when he heard of what she’d done?

‘Anni,’ Said a voice in her head, making her jump.

She lay very still, barely breathing as she strained her ears to listen.

‘Anni, do you want to be trapped here forever?’ There was chastisement in the voice, and anger.

She swallowed, “I know you made that fire,” She said to the empty room, and then groaned, “Why did you do it? You just got me in more trouble!”

She opened her mouth and spoke in a deeper voice, “We can’t live here. We’re not meant to be here. We shouldn’t be trapped, in a cage, in walls.”

She squeezed her eyes closed, and said in her own voice, “They’re stronger than I am. I can’t get out.”

“They’re weaker! Weaker than us! Weaker than the power we have!”

“Power? That doesn’t mean anything! What does that even mean?”

The voice spoke again, softer, tinged with icy desire, “There’s more to come than just fire… Oh, so much more! You have no idea, Anni…” Anni shuddered. ‘Just let me take control when I want it; it would only be for a short while.’ It said, now only in her head.

Anni, shook her head, her eyes tight.

‘Just for a short moment. And we can have all we dreamed of.’

Anni shook her head again, “I’m scared,” She breathed.

The voice was silent, though Anni strained to hear. Slowly, sleep crept over her, like a shadow.


Now wasn't that revealing? :eek:



That line comes from the W@RF RPG (I won't say where just yet 'cus that post gives far too much away). It is possibly the single most important line in the RPG for the creation of this story. srsly! The whole of Anni's story comes down to that line; what led to it? And what will it lead to?

Also, if you really, really want to tick off a slig, what's the best way to do it? :p I'd say using spiritual powers and stabbing him with a syringe would do the job fairly well. Stivik is not a Happy Bunny.

Everything's coming together. Time is running out. Everything in Part 6 will unite in the next chapter and the rest of Anni's secret will finally be revealed. So post, or you might have a long wait!

The fucking quote button won't work, so I'll just copy/paste....ahem..

"How's THAT for a cliff-hanger?! I didn't know she could do that! Did you know she could do that?! Did she do that?! What just happened?!"

OMG... no wai!!!1!!one I was never expecting that! Nicely written chapter :D Boogie makes me laugh to myself, typical brawn and no brains xD
Now to read the next chapter!

Another well crafted chapter, Splat!

Hey, it's not my fault I have a real-life as well! :p That was good filler for the hacked period, I really don't remember what happened there. But see, I told you a while ago that we got hacked and lost some of the RPG :p

And once again you're making things logical like with the explanation behind "shred attack." Good stuff.

I remember that original argument between Dek and Stivik too. I think in the RP he was a lot calmer, but of course it's a lot more realistic with him being utterly freaked out :p I guess Anni's just lucky that it won't be long now till he leaves, or I'm sure he'd eventually find some way to kill her

Now, if I post two more times in a row does that mean you'll have five replies and you'll post the next chapter before you go? XD

No.

And, ya know, Dryadri's was more of a reply to last week's chapter so I dunno if that counts. :devil:

But I'm glad you guys liked. I shortened the argument between Dek and Stivik a bit since they repeated themselves a lot, and Stivik did the whole manipulative thing I've since given to Krik. I wonder how well you remember the events of the next morning? :pipe:

I'd just like to say that in the RPG, this was the first time Anni slept since arriving. It's been a very, very long day for her :p

That sounds familiar...

The chapter was good. Tension was well sustained throughout.

on the one hand you make me want to write... on the other hand you make me wanna stop writing for ever! :p

but hey this was great! :D not just great, it was amazing.

Well, Dryadri's didn't really count 'cus it was really about the chapter before last, and I'm very disappointed that Nexy didn't post... :fuzsad:


But four is four. And I don't want to risk leaving you hanging for two weeks!

Tick tock; time's up, Anni.



Stivik had an internal clock that he could set with a will. Long years of training meant that just by wanting to wake early when he went to sleep, he could guarantee that he would be up before anyone else.

He opened his eyes and examined the four other occupied beds in the slig bunks. Razor, Groll, Sev, and Boogie. Seven and that moron, Arthur, would be on night shift, but he had done night shift with Seven before and knew that they always ended with an hour drinking coffee in the cafeteria.

He slipped out of bed and wriggled himself into his pants, and left the bunks without waking any of the others.

He knocked gently on the lab door, just in case, but Dek wasn’t in there; he was still asleep too, doped out on chill pills and sleeping pills. Stivik chuckled softly to himself and headed to the door to the store room with the cages. It was locked but the key was in the pocket of a lab-coat hung on the door. Sometimes vykkers were too clever for their own good.

He opened the door, leaving the key in the lock. He quickly noted that the scrab was gone, but Anni was curled up in her cage. She stirred as he closed the door behind him.

“Morning, princess,” He sneered.

She squirmed, then sat up quickly and looked at him furtively, switching on the lamp Dek had left her. “What do you want?” She growled.

“Just came for a little chat!” He said, raising his hands mock-defensively. “Just wanted to talk things over, like sensible people! Like, how did you make that fire last night?” He smirked.

She glared at him.

“Come on, mud. No one else is gonna be awake for another hour at least, especially that vykker. We’ve got plenty of time to fill, so we might as well talk. How did you make that fire?”

“I don’t know!” She growled. “I don’t know how I did it; I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“Oh really? Never, in secret, hiding it from everybody?”

“Oh, don’t be an idiot,” She grunted. “I don’t know how I did it. I’m not the one you should be asking.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” He sneered.

She glared at him. “I used to work at a lab; can’t you guess the rest? Vykkers do experiments on mudokons, don’t they? And sometimes they don’t think about what they’re doing,” -

Vykkers were crowding around her; she couldn’t make out their faces. It was all a blur until Nova stopped screaming, and then Anni cried out her name.

Nova was begging, “Not Anni, please, not Anni! Hurt me! Do anything to me but leave Anni alone!”

Anni felt a pain on the right of her forehead, like a bee-sting, and then another on the left side, and then Nova started screaming again. “Nova-AARGH!” Pain suddenly gushed through Anni like a flood. She tossed and she shrieked until her throat felt raw. The pain stopped and Anni stopped screaming. She realised that Nova had gone silent as well. “Nova?” No answer. “NOVA?”

- “They don’t care what they’re doing.”

“Oh, so you’re one of the vykkers’ freaks?” Stivik laughed, “I might’ve guessed. Well guess what, mud; vykkers don’t give people voodoo powers. It’s not possible. It doesn’t happen. How did you do it?”

“I don’t know!” Anni yelled, more and more frustrated, “How many times!” Then she added more quietly, “I don’t even think it was me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Stivik scoffed, “You think Dek has powers and burnt you free? Oh, or you think it was me? Yeah, that makes sense!”

“Oh, don‘t be stupid,” She muttered unhappily.

“Anni,” Stivik said, grinning and shaking his head, “You are either the worst liar in the world, or you’re completely and utterly insane."

She glared at him, “Oh, you wouldn’t understand. You never could, because you don’t listen and you don’t care about anyone else but you.”

“Wouldn’t understand what?” He asked, still grinning, “Some experiment the vykkers did to you to give you magical powers?”

She looked at him nastily. “You don’t even care, do you? You’re just asking me to try and upset me. You don’t know anything.”

“Come on, try me,” He smirked. “I’m interested, really.”

Some mad instinct made her think that maybe he would listen, that he might even understand. Odd knew that she wished that she could. She lowered her eyes, “Well… Like I said, the vykkers don’t care about anything, do they? I had a friend, called Nova, and she was hurt, so the vykkers tried to help her.” She breathed deep, raising her eyes and meeting his gaze, “They said they’d help. They took us down and put us on tables and… there was a machine…” She swallowed hard. “And they stuck something to my head. It was supposed to help, to make her better, but it hurt… It hurt so much.” She turned away, staring into the dark corners, her eyes prickling. “And Nova… She… she was gone…”

She was silent for a long time and Stivik, strangely, didn’t interrupt. She finally took a deep breath, “But it’s like she wasn’t gone, because since then she’s been in my head. I hear her sometimes. She talks to me, like last night. And… And she made the fire. She said there’s more…”

She trailed off.

In the poorly lit room, Stivik stared at her for a long time. “Odd,” He said at last, and she started, turning to face him as if she had forgotten that he was there, “Those vykkers really messed with your head, didn’t they?” He chuckled, “You really are totally insane. You totally believe every word of what you just said, don’t you? Voices in your head?” He laughed aloud.

She glared at him, pulling her knees up to her chest, “I said you don’t care. Just go away; leave me alone.”

“No-can-do, kid,” He smirked, “Three times you’ve attacked a slig, and the last time you tried to kill me; I’m not leaving you unguarded after that!”

“Well maybe if you weren’t so horrible and you didn’t make me hate you, I wouldn’t’ve done anything!” She snarled, anger building in her belly.

“Well maybe if you did you job and didn’t spend all your time trying to cause trouble, I wouldn’t have to bother you!” He smirked.

She glared at him with loathing, and then remembered Nick’s suspicions about him. She decided to try and make him give it away, so that if he did take her to Arnie she would have something to use against him, “Me, a trouble-maker? At least I don’t go out of my way to hurt people!”

“Uh, you’ve lost me,” He said mildly.

“Don’t pretend,” She snarled, “Nick worked out what you are.”

“Did he? You sure this was Nick, and not one of your voices?” He said, beginning to laugh.

Anni’s conviction was slipping away but she said as forcefully as she could, “You’re just here to make trouble for Arnie, to tell the Magog Cartel how bad he is!”

“Me?” He laughed, “I don’t need to make trouble; you make enough trouble for everyone in this factory! Odd, I hope the Cartel does send someone to snitch on Arnie! I’d love to see him get what’s coming to him!”

“What’s he doing that’s so wrong?”

“Ooh, that’s a hard one; you’ll have to let me get back to you on that.” He smirked, “He’s giving muds grand ideas about freedom!” He said with conviction, “Letting muds like you think they can just stroll right out of here!”

“So what?!” She demanded, “What do you care if I leave? Why does it even matter?!”

Stivik stared at her like she really was mad, “Oh come on, Anni. Even you’re not so naïve as to not know what happened last time a mud in this very factory got some funny ideas and decided to leave here! The worst rebellion we’ve ever faced and that mud murdering everyone in reach!” He glowered at her. She was silent, “Oh sure, what does it matter if a hundred sligs or glukkons get slaughtered if a few muds run free?” The humour was completely gone from his voice now, “For every mud Abe ‘saves’ there are a dozen corpses, and does he care? I’d bet everything I own that your precious saviour’s killed more sligs than any slig has killed muds!”

“Maybe,” Anni said with hate, “But sligs as a whole have killed more mudokons than mudokons have killed sligs! You know that that’s true! And you know why mudokons like Abe think we’re better than sligs; it’s because every slig thinks sligs are better than muds! You just hate to think anyone’s better than you, don’t you! Sligs get money, they get power; what do we get? Nothing, we get ignored, we get beaten, we-”

“You get food, a bed, and you get protection! Odd, you could all get private palaces with acres of land and you wouldn’t care would you? No, you’re always the suppressed, pathetic people aren’t you? Oh, don’t we feel sorry for you?! Gtrz! You never think about all we give you. You get food and shelter; you should be grateful! But no, all you muds can do is pine away for the ‘good life’! Hah! I lived out there half my life and I know how hard it is to find food and stay alive!”

“I DON’T CARE HOW HARD IT IS OUT THERE!” Anni shrieked, tears of frustration on her cheeks, “I don’t care if it’s dangerous! I don’t care if it’s cold and if it’s harder to find food; I don’t care if I’d have to work ten times harder every day for the rest of my life! I don’t want to spend the rest of my life behind bars! I just want to see some beauty in the world! I’m sick of grey walls and blood and boredom! I’ll take the bad if it means I get a taste of the good!” She stopped, breathing hard, “You keep saying that you’ve been out there, but then you must know what it’s like!” She pleaded, “There must be good things out there! Something must be worth it! Nick said you worked out there for seven years and only stopped because you were hurt! I bet you’d still be out there if it wasn’t for that! There must be good things out there! It has to be worth it or why would you bother to try?!”

He was staring at her. “You don’t… You think you’re clever! You think you know all there is to know, don’t you!” His voice began to rise, “You don’t know anything! You don’t know anything about what it’s like out there,” He was shaking so hard she could see it clearly, even in the fading light of the tired battery lamp. His breathing was heavy and ragged as he bit, “You are nothing to this world! I could kill you right now and no one would even care! You don’t matter a bit to anyone!”

“Oh,” She said, gritting her teeth, tears still on her face, now shaking with anger, too, “And you do?”

“NO ONE DOES!” He roared, looking down on her with as much hatred as she held for him, “No one matters! But grhzz, yes! Yes, I am worth more than a stupid, scarred, childish, head-case freak of a mud!”

She was shaking with hate, nearly speechless with rage, “Oh, you think you’re so great, don’t you, slurg! You think you’re so brilliant!” Furious tears were dripping from her chin as shadows gathered around her, “Well if I’m nothing then you’re less! I can do things you can’t imagine! The only thing keeping you safe from me is these bars!”

“Oh, really?” He cried, “Really? Well then, let’s take care of that!” He raised his gun and shot the lock on her cage. It shattered and the door swung open. “Come on then, mud! You want trouble? I’m right here! Come on! Let’s see how long you’d last in the real world!” He raised his gun, opened it and let the bullets trickle out onto the floor. Then he snapped it closed, slid it down through his hands and wielded it like a club. “Come on!”

Anger was burning her insides and her eyes flashed in the grey light. “At last,” Nova whispered as she spread her claws and bared her teeth. Letting out a sudden screech of rage she charged out of the cage towards the leering slig.

Odd, her nails were sharp! She’d been far quicker, far more ready to attack him than he’d expected and he’d had time only to leap out of her path as she came at him; her nails had raked his arm and left three ragged tears in his skin. Twisting back to face her, he snarled, “Come on bitch!” She shrieked again and ran at him but – Ha! – this time he was ready for her. He brought up the end of his gun and swung at her. Her own momentum drove the blow home and the butt of the rifle crunched into her face.

The blow should have caved in her muzzle and left her crippled with pain but, snuffling and snorting blood, she came at him again, immediately; leaping into the air she latched onto the front of him, her arms wrapping around his neck and her teeth sinking into his shoulder. He staggered back but, using the momentum, he turned it into a spin and then a charge; twisting round, he ploughed her into the wall, jolting the air out of her lungs. Gasping, she loosened her grip and he jerked free of her and brought his gun up, hitting her hard on the side of the head. She fell and he took a step back. There was a rack of syringes on the desk beside him; he grabbed one almost without thought. “Is that all you’ve got?” He taunted her. “Come on mud, you promised me things I can’t imagine.”

Nova howled with fury and leapt at him.

Blood was streaming down her face; she shouldn’t be this quick! She caught all her weight below his ribs, lifting him off of his feet; if not for the desk at his back he would have toppled and then she could have got on top of him and made use of her weight and strength, but she’d picked her moment badly. Still, his legs weren’t made for kicking and the awkward position robbed him of his reason; instead of plunging the needle into her, he punched her instead. He barely felt the syringe shatter in his fist. Letting go of the handful of bloody, broken glass, he threw his weight forward, over her back. Her stance was nonexistent and she toppled helplessly backwards; he made a clumsy attempt at wrapping his legs around her neck and succeeded in driving his metal knees into her chest as he fell on top of her.

She made a grab for his legs but the bang on her head as she’d fallen had finally succeeded in stunning her; he delivered a good kick to her ear as he scrambled away and then jumped to his feet. She was twisting round onto her belly and he backed away as she raised her head; he was startled by the way her eyes flashed red in the dim light, and he didn’t notice the shadows pooling into claws around her hands. She let out a deep, low scream from the back of her throat and lunged at him.

Sligs, by nature, were scavengers, not predators. Native to swamps where they were far from the top of the food chain, without pants and guns their only natural defence against predators was to flee, to race to the water and hope they could out-swim whatever chased them. There was something in the roar the mudokon let out, the fierce look in her eyes and the way her muscles coiled to spring that called out to the deep-buried prey-instincts in Stivik’s mind and brought them screaming to the surface; he had been planning to strike at her again as she prepared to leap at him, fetch her another hideous blow with the butt of his gun, but at the last moment his body rebelled against his brain and he dived aside; he could have sworn he felt a fiery heat wash over him as she passed within inches of him and she let out a howl of rage as her prey slipped from her grasp. A moment later he was on his feet, running on animal panic and adrenaline more than on his experience and training. She landed gracefully, cat-like, but before she could turn on him again he came up behind her and hit her hard on the back of her head. Her arms slipped from beneath her and her forehead bounced on the floor. Still running on fear, he hit her twice more and then twisted round to grab another syringe from the desk.

Her vision was fuzzy from the blows to the head and she could barely breathe through the blood and pain clogging her airways. Anni tried to push herself up off of the floor when she felt the sharp sting of the needle digging deep between the ribs of her back. Stivik pressed his head close to her ear and hissed, “Here you go, an eye for an eye. Perhaps if you’re lucky this’ll be less deadly than whatever you put into me last night.” He pushed down on the plunger on the syringe and she felt its contents flowing into her. “Do you think you’re a lucky girl, Anni?” He taunted her and then straightened up.

She called out in a frail voice and made a grab for him but he danced easily beyond her reach. She was struggling to push herself to her knees as, laughing, he ran to the door and let himself out of the storeroom.

He slammed the door behind him and leant back on it, breathing hard but grinning, and then spun around and turned the key in the lock. Then he tossed the key into the bin where it dropped out of sight.

He found himself chuckling softly. His right hand was bloody and he had other bites, scratches and some flourishing bruises. He grabbed a roll of bandages as he left the lab and was wrapping up his hand as he hurried towards the lift, still laughing to himself. Let her cook for a while, let her burn. He would get cleaned up, get more bullets for his gun, go down to the cafeteria for some food and then maybe – maybe – he would come back and see how she was. Odd, he felt so alive! What a brilliant morning!


Anni lay on the concrete floor of the storeroom. Numbness and pain had consumed her right arm, aching agony eating her muscles, and the sensation was spreading, to her other arm, down her back, encroaching up her neck…

She felt so horribly alone – the anger and power that had filled her had vanished completely and she felt so abandoned, so horribly helpless. A pain like a red-hot wire was coming from deep in her right shoulder and she realised the syringe Stivik had jammed into her was still there; whimpering, she reached up with her violently trembling left arm and pulled it free. Propping herself on her elbow she lowered the syringe round to her face as the spreading numbness made her jaw wrench with pain and her head swoon. Her eyes were blurry and she couldn’t read the label.

And then she felt one sudden, shocking heartbeat that sent lightning pain to every reach of her body. She swooned and her head fell with a thud to the concrete floor. Her arm dropped; the syringe slipped from her limp fingers and rolled quickly across the floor of the room until it came to rest against the bars of one of the cages, its label pointed up towards the ceiling.

It read,


Thus endeth Part 6.
And now you know!

“And Nova… She… she was gone…”

She was silent for a long time and Stivik, strangely, didn’t interrupt. She finally took a deep breath, “But it’s like she wasn’t gone, because since then she’s been in my head. I hear her sometimes. She talks to me, like last night. And… And she made the fire. She said there’s more…”

Which puts a whole new light on that bit at the end of Part 3 that some of you thought was so sweet :devil:

*Diabolical Laughter!!!!*

Right, this'll be the last chapter for a while, so I want some good replies! Remember that I only get a few moments of pleasure from reading your replies while you get loads of enjoyment from reading the chapters!

I will discuss the future of the story at a later date cus we're pretty busy right now.

REPLY!

Guess who caught up? :3

Sorry for the lack of replies, I know how down putting it can be when no one says anything.
...BUT!! These last two chapters were fantastic, and so exciting to read :D My mind couldn't keep up with my eyes because I was looking at the words too fast, trying to read and see what happens next xD

I loved the argument between Anni and Stivik, I kept siding with both of them because they both have such good points. The 'wild' life is indeed hard, but it'd still be nice to breathe fresh air and to know you'd be free.
You write fight scenes really well too! :D

You really had to finish this part with such a major cliffhanger, huh? Damn you Splat! xD I hope she's gonna be okay!

As a fellow writer I must say:
 

Bravo bravisimo Mr.Splat, must address you as mister because, being truthful, the story so far has been great and has me hooked up like few I have read in my lifetime (fan made speaking :3).
While everyone has his/her own style at writing (as do I and some of my friends) few times do I see any of them being good to say the truth, but in your case it is a welcome exception and a nice addition to my picks here ^^.
Have been reading the whole thing for a few hours these past two days (Am a fast reader) and finally ended with the last chapter made up to this day. I don’t want to use excessive words so lets say it is: F(Censored for the sake of the lil ones) GREAT ^^.
I would like to read the next of the chapters and get on with more of the story as soon as possible without rushing you :3 (This also includes I sould get my damn pc back and keep on writing myself) So I will be waiting eagerly the next chapter :3

Continue the good work x3! *A lot of thumbs up for you, took every character I made to do it, they had no choice because it was this or they get grounded muahahahha x3… and all that*

theeheee... :D

when I read this my opinion about Stivik changed all the time I thought he was (in no specific order): -cool, -pathetic, -a mean prick, -pityful, -an idiot, -too old, -a good fighter, cool, insane, an arsehole.... etc etc etc... but still he's my favorite! xD

... If you weren't such a good story writer I think the readers wouldn't even see Stivik the way he is ... but every reader sees the story and it's characters differently anyways :p

i would have given you +rep but i can#t xD

and the fight scene was amazingly imaginable too! (ok i played too much sf4 :p but still! xD)

poor anni ;__; now I really really feel sorry for her :crying:


I soooooooooooooo look forward to the next chapter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! http://e.deviantart.net/emoticons/e/excited.gif

Wow wow wow! I can't believe you guys like this so much!
And Uros, wow, you are a fast reader!

Glad to have shaken up your opinions of Stivik so much :p That part was really hard to get right; I knew where I wanted the argument to lead to, and some of the things that it would involve, but it was really hard to make it work. In the end I wrote a really rubbish, stilted chapter and then worked on it every time I posted a new chapter. I'm glad you guys liked the result.

As for progress on the next part of this story, I haven't summoned the courage to read through W@RF since coming back from my holiday about four hours ago but things are slowly moving towards the stage where I can start writing this again. I've made a few arrangements, and have set events in motion. I want to go forwards a little bit before bringing things into play (I've had this planned for a while, even though it's a really bad idea to plan ahead in an RPG, but now it comes to it, it's really hard to let my RPG characters go!) (Man, 'characters' is a really fun word to type!). Gonna miss them when things move on! But I'm getting there. I'll start summarising the RPG as soon as it seems ideal.



In other news, since a conversation I had with Dryadri a long while ago, I have been thinking about people giving theme tunes for characters. It's not a practice I usually involve myself in, but it's kinda captured my thoughts, and hey, I've got time to burn here now :(
Theme songs for characters, in my experience, don't often make a perfect fit, but never mind. There's a couple of ideas I've had.

For Dionysia, 'Damaged' by Plumb. (Who makes these videos?!)

For young'n'happy Anni, 'Wouldn't it be Nice' by the Beach Boys.
And for 'scary Nova' (for lack of a better name - “But it’s like she wasn’t gone, because since then she’s been in my head. I hear her sometimes. She talks to me, like last night. And… And she made the fire. She said there’s more…”), 'March of the Smallest Feet' by Tin Hat Trio.

If you have any ideas for tunes for these or other characters, feel free to share! I might post a compilation of 'Scary Nova' moments for your enjoyment at a later date.

Nice tunes, I particularly like Dion's. Funny, because that's sorta how I expected her to sound too xD It's really inspiring...
The one for Nova is really creepy! But then again, that's why it fits her.

wow i was stunned at how good these themes fit the characters... actually I don't think that there are many more who would fit their personaliies so well ^^ i can't really decide which is my favorite but nova's is the most interresting one i think ^^

actually this idea is so great that I think I'm going to do this with my characters aswell at some point they have their own music themes anyways I just never thought to show them in public xD

here i have one for Stivik... but when i listen to it it feels rather like an intro ...I'm not sure whether it really fits to him or not it feels as if something is missing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bSiv...eature=related

Sorry I've taken so long to reply!

I did read it while you were on holiday but I didn't get time to reply until now :fuzsad:

Anyway, this chapter was a very edge-of-your-seat one :D The way you handled the end of the chapter was awesome too, a cliff-hanger if ever there was one :p


As for theme tunes, I was talking to Splat on MSN when he mentioned it to me and I made a suggestion.

I think Within Temptation's What Have You Done works as a good theme song for the events between Stivik and Dionysia, in particular this chapter :D

As with any theme song, there's some things that don't exactly match, but I thought it was a pretty good one :p

Oh my gawd, yes! Ahem...

That fits them absolutely perfectly! Plus I love Within Temptation and that song is one of my favourites. Good spotting there.

Aye, that is a very good choice, Gretin :D And it's good to finally hear what you thought of the chapter! (I can talk; I should've posted in W@RF on Sunday.) Glad you enjoyed it :D
I know circumstances mean its not a great cliffhanger, but we can all pretend :p

Interesting that you should link to that chapter, Gretin, as it was quite heavy on my mind when I was writing the last-but-one chapter of part 6...

Spot the parallel! I wonder what I meant by that... (No, seriously. I'm not entirely sure what I was doing myself; so much of the 'clever' stuff I do in this story, I do because it just feels right.)



Sci, I like the theme, but it's not really a perfect fit, I think. It's a bit... otherworldy, and Stivik is very realistic, very unimaginative. He learnt to take things seriously as a scout and now he's almost painfully grounded in reality.

About five or sixth years ago I would've suggested 'Easier to Run' or 'Numb' by Linkin Park for Stivik, but I don't really like the band any more, so I won't :p The lyrics kind of fit, though they're a little too extreme; it's a shame they're so depressed and whiny. Those guys need to look on the bright side more! Not even Stivik is as miserable as Linkin Park!

Does no one have a piece of music horrible enough for Krik? :p

x:x .. man Im sorry for not commenting.... But I really dunno what to comment on when I wanna reply, so I always postpone it. ... :( Sowwy.


Anyway ... I listened to the theme, and I like dthe Tin hat Trio one in particular. In fact, I've taken quite a liking to the entire band :) They make great, creepy'ish melodies that I like listening to.
Even Chris says he likes them alot and wants to thank you for essentially leading him to them :D

I miss writing this story! :(

Srsly!


Things have been really slow in W@RF since Easter, what with exam season and all, I guess. But hopefully, once Gretin and Dripik find time to make a couple more posts between them, I'll be able to get on with writing Part 7 before current events in W@RF reach their conclusion. I miss this story! I now have two complete chapters of W@RF 8 written and polished and ready to post, but of course I can't post them until I've written all of Part 7 and most of Part 8! I have all of Part 8 plotted out clearly in my mind and even a loose idea of what each chapter will contain (I'm judging it'll be 8 chapters long - 9, if the seventh chapter runs on) which is frankly bizarre, because normally I just end a chapter when they start getting overly long. I really think I could speed through writing the rest of this story if only W@RF would move on a bit quicker. :( My creativity is going to waste!!!

Anyway, sorry to vent and sorry I have nothing of the story to post. But come on, W@RFers! I need you guys!

What is W@RF? I've always wanted to read this story, since it's so long, but because it's so long, I never seem to have the time I crave.

W@RF is a very successful Oddworld RPG; the four main characters in this story were created in W@RF (or Work at Rupture Farms) and after using them there for a while, I decided to write their story. The reason I'm delayed is that I'm now catching up with the RPG; this story covers the characters' time in W@RF, so I'm now waiting for certain events to happen in W@RF before I can write more of the story.

You should start writing fillers lol!

Right, events have moved on just enough (just!) for me to start writing Part 8! Huzzah! So right now I'm trying very hard to make notes of part 5; this is not nearly as easy as it was making notes of parts 2, 3, 4 and the first bit of part 5. As I explained in a very recent conversation with Dripik which went a little something like this...
(Censored to remove spoilers)



Converting these parts of the RPG into the story is going to be much harder, even if it is all better written. Already I've massively rearranged the events in W@RF 5. There was a post where Stivik is having conversations with Kix, Dionysia, Otto, and Gappiqu, all on different topics and all at the same time.

So instead of doing it all at once, I'm going to 'untangle' the plots and play them one at a time. So the first chapter or two will be mopping up after the ____, including ____ telling ____ about ____, which happens in the RPG on about page 25. Then we'll go a bit further and have ____ be ____ by the Cartel, after which he'll mope and have some of the conversation he had with ____ in pages in the high teens, low twenties. Then we go back to page 8 and have ____ arrive; ____ will cross over with ____ a bit, with events from the high teens. After that, we go to the last couple of pages of Part 5 and have ____ talk to ____ about ____. And finally go back to page 9 to introduce ____ and start his relationship to ____.

Plus somewhere in all that I've got to establish ____ as a friend to ____, describe their relationship, introduce ____ to ____ and keep ____, ____ and ____ involved.

The rest of ____ and ____'s relationship, which took place entirely in W@RF 6, I want to spread out over W@RFs 7 and 8. Also, their relationship first starts when he sees her ____ over ____ leaving. But since he now hasn't arrived when ____ leaves, I'm going to have her ____ over a meeting with ____ instead, but this happens before ____ first came in the RPG. so I've got to make ____ a new first visit, establishing his relationship to ____ and to ____, which will mean bringing in events from W@RF 6, while trying to leave enough there to give body to what happens when he actually does come in the RPG. Oh, and I've got to find a totally original way for ____ to reveal his friendship with ____ to ____ which doesn't involve him openly declaring an undying, romantic attraction.

And somewhere in all that, ____ gets ____ and I have no idea who by or why, which means I've got to work out how ____ will react to Dek operating on ____. Then Dek will need to discover ____’s ____ and I have no idea if he'll be working alone or with Slap the intern or Praetyre the vykker. An intern would work better since Arnie's supposed to be skint, but Dek would need to have the sort of relationship with this assistant as he would with a vykker. Then I've got to work out how he reacts to this and why they don't tell ____, since being distracted by a meech seems unlikely. On top of that, I've got to work out if the assistant is still there later on and either why not, or how he'll get involved in later events with ____ that previously only involved ____. Then ____'s got to threaten this ____ that I don't even have a name for. And I've got to find a way of cheering ____ out of that particular well of depression that doesn't involve a native coming to the factory, meanwhile keeping Kix, Javi and Dean involved even though they’ve long-since left the RPG.


I think when Part 7 is written I'm going to hold a competition to see if people can fill in those blanks :p

In addition to that, of the seven sligs in Rupture Farms at the end of the last chapter, only two of them will still be there by page 7 of W@RF 6, (#7 and Arthur who aren't that involved anyway) and only one new slig will have come in to replace them (who will be very involved, but one out of six...). From where I am now and onwards, there is a real shortage of players who stayed more than a couple of months; no new characters stick around long enough to have any real impact, so finding sligs to keep the factory staffed is gonna be hard for me. I'm going to have to combine various characters together I think (sorry in advance to Uros), but really I'm facing a challenge. Plus i have to wade through heaps of awful posts in W@RFs 5, 7 and 9 in particular. So on day two of converting W@RF into notes, I'm feeling very demotivated.

Plus upcoming RL things like jury duty I'm doing in two weeks and an IT course I'm supposed to be starting in one week but won't be able to because of jury duty... WAH!

I did want to give people still reading this a surprise by posting the next chapter without any forewarning, but I just needed to get this off of my chest (and, you know, procrastinate from reading W@RF 5 again).

While I'm here, does anyone mind if I use the word 'inebriated' in two or three chapters' time?

Seriously, the original version of your notes was good, but the censored version is awesome, bit like a war-time personal letter that contains sensitive information.

I can usually bring up the usual suspects (thesis paper) if I wanted to explain why haven't I read the last half dozen (or more?) pages, so I can't really give any feedback. But, to bump the "TD theme songs for characters/scenes" topic, I know a song which pretty much fits Anni and her state after Nova was experimented on. Ignore the "lip-synched dog in space" part - concentrate more on the "losing best friend for an experiment's sake" concept. Fitting or not, opinions are welcome.