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11-14-2013, 01:22 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-28-2021, 09:40 AM by Bob Schroeck.)
As the last of bandits de-rezzed, Kirito paused, then sheathed his sword. Before he could turn to face the site of the battle again, though, his impromptu partner in the fight said, "So. I suppose you're the famous Black Swordsman, then."
Sighing, Kirito wondered for a moment if he had just finished one fight only to find himself launched into another. Still, it hadn't sounded like a potential challenger. More like mild surprise. "Yeah," he said as he turned around, and then froze.
Although Kirito gave little thought to his reputation, he knew of it, and used it to his advantage. To do so, he had to listen to the news and rumors that spread through the surviving players trapped in the game. And there was one figure who threatened just as much to become legend as Kirito himself. In the medieval setting of SAO, where the limits on technology had been hard-wired into the game world, there was one man who somehow possessed a motorcycle. A man whom hundreds swore could use magic in a game which did not have a magic system. A man who rumor said had reached the 100th level of the world accompanied only by an unarmed sidekick and then returned to help other players break free of the game.
Kirito had never believed that he existed.
But he was looking at him right now.
"And you, you're the Grey Rider," he managed to say after a moment's shock.
"Oh, for gods' sake," the tall man in grey motorcycle leathers groaned as he swept off his grey helmet. "I'm Doug Sangnoir, millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht." He held out a hand.
Kirito blinked. "What?"
"You broke him, Doug," said the girl sitting on the motorcycle some distance away. Kirito flicked his eyes to her, and realized two things about her -- one, she was the first PC he'd seen since the "opening ceremony" who had glasses, and two, she looked more like one of the game's original idealized avatars than the more realistic scan-based images which had been imposed on the players. He looked back at "Doug", and realized that the man in grey was the exact opposite -- although the image projected into Kirito's brain by the NerveGear helmet was theoretically perfect, this man somehow looked more real than real, like a high-def image overlaid on a standard-definition background. He had a status display like every other PC, but instead of green fill on his HP bar, there was a red "OVERFLOW" error message, and his level read "DIV/0".
"What are you?" Kirito breathed.
"Trapped, just like you," Doug replied. Walking over to the motorcycle, he added, "I just entered the game differently, in a way which makes me ineligible for the 'win condition'." He opened one of the cargo boxes on its back end and dropped the helmet into it.
"Can you say 'Mainframe all over again', boys and girls?" the girl added snarkily. "Nice try."
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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If this keeps up, Eimi's going to end up wanting an android body...
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Doug's going to offer in DW13.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
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Ooooohhh...
Ah, yes - Eimi's objection to changing bodies in Loon and Ladies from Avalon was that she wasn't asked directly - once that bobble happened, she got stubborn in the way teenagers do and refused to consider it ... then.
--
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Quote:He had a status display like every other PC, but instead of green fill on his HP bar, there was a red "OVERFLOW" error message, and his level read "DIV/0".
![[Image: DivisionbyZero_zps8f22291b.jpg]](http://i1272.photobucket.com/albums/y382/DHBirr/DivisionbyZero_zps8f22291b.jpg)
When I saw that "Grey Rider" line, I instantly flashed back to Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales. Although I really doubt Doug is the "spitting-tobacco-juice" type.
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Quote:Ebony wrote:
"And this, Frederick," I shouted at the tuxedoed doctor as I leapt into the crowd after his frenzied monster, "is why we do dress rehearsals BEFORE doing an Fred Astaire dance number with our creation!"
To be fair, it's pretty clear that Frederick rehearsed -- it wasn't until the stage light blew out and the audience got hostile that things began to go wrong.
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Quote:jonathanlennox wrote:
Quote:Ebony wrote:
"And this, Frederick," I shouted at the tuxedoed doctor as I leapt into the crowd after his frenzied monster, "is why we do dress rehearsals BEFORE doing an Fred Astaire dance number with our creation!"
To be fair, it's pretty clear that Frederick rehearsed -- it wasn't until the stage light blew out and the audience got hostile that things began to go wrong.
There's a rehearsal, and then there's a Dress Rehearsal. The first is where you go through your lines, get everything blocked out, and coordinate with your musicians. The second is where you do it RIGHT BEFORE you do your actual production, so you can make sure that nothing is wrong/broken/malfunctioning. (Strictly speaking, there's a Technical Rehearsal, too, where the stage manager and techs make sure that all the lighting and such are working properly as well. Which they clearly didn't do.)
Ebony the Black Dragon
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12-02-2013, 10:43 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-06-2021, 10:15 AM by Bob Schroeck.)
"Minchin better hope she never meets me in a dark alley," I growled softly as I ducked back down below the ridgeline.
"Be at peace, my friend," Ram Dass whispered, laying a hand on my arm. "Justice will come to her in its time," the lascar continued. "Kharma will not be denied."
I turned over and laid back against the slate shingles that made up the roof. "I'm not a patient man, Ram, and I like to see justice served somewhat faster than in the next life. How a woman like that could be allowed to run a school..." I shook my head disbelievingly.
The two of us had crawled up onto the roof of our employer's home, bringing along with us a wide variety of items in an attempt to surprise and delight a sad little girl who worked as a drudge in the school next door. The plan had been to wait until after she'd fallen asleep, then enter her attic room via the large window that looked out onto the spot where we now sat. Once in, we would quickly and quietly redecorate her dark garret around her then vanish back out into the night. The idea, as Ram had proposed to our boss, would be to make it seem as though a magician had bespelled her room and turned it into a wonderland.
Thomas Carrisford would have been just another member of the Victorian British aristocracy had he not been consumed by guilt over the death of his friend and partner Ralph Crewe in India. Worse, Crewe had had a preteen daughter who'd been attending a boarding school somewhere in Europe at the time, and whose name Carrisford had never learned. Still weak from the disease which had briefly put him in coma and had killed his partner, Mr. Carrisford seemed to cling to life solely so that he could find the girl and hand over her half of a vast fortune that he and her father had acquired together.
He was spending a good chunk from his half of that fortune searching for Miss Crewe, and each failure seemed to eat away at him a little bit. The idea of bringing a little joy and magic into the life of the nameless scullery maid next door had animated him like nothing else had in the months I'd worked for him, and he'd eagerly bankrolled the entire crazy idea.
Which had led to Ram Dass and me sitting in the dark with our interior decor supplies as Miss Minchin, the school's headmistress, burst into the little scullion's room and viciously destroyed a get-together she was having with the school's other little drudge and some of the students who had befriended them. As the other girls scattered, I could only hear the most strident of Minchin's imprecations, but what I did hear was ... nasty. No adult should ever treat a child like that.
I hazarded another glimpse over the top of the roof to see the girl burrowed under her threadbare covers. "There's no excuse for Minchin's behavior, Ram," I continued. "But even if I reported her to the police, the class differences alone..."
"Indeed," he rumbled. Oh, yeah, Ram had heard his fill of my disgust at the less pleasant aspects of Victorian England.
Laughing at myself under my breath, I nodded to him. "Right. Anyway, I think our little beneficiary has finally nodded off. You ready?"
He nodded. "I am. Let us do this." And a moment later he was opening the latch on the window with a slender blade inserted between the sashes. As I made ready to hand him the first bundle of furnishings, I checked to make sure my personal additions to the project were still there. The idea was to make her think a magician had refitted her room. What better way than to leave her a couple gifts of genuine magic?
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
-- Bob
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I have to admit, when I saw you go back to the 19th Century for subject matter, it made me want to envision a steplet based on The Peterkin Papers by Lucretia Peabody Hale, written beginning in the late 1860s.
For the benefit of anyone who never read them, the Peterkins were a family of basically pleasant, energetic people (you certainly couldn't call them lazy) with a kind of ingenuity -- but a total lack of common sense. They would often go through various Rube Goldberg sort of measures to accomplish something, failing dismally, and then think to consult "the lady from Philadelphia," who was visiting their small town and known to be very wise. Upon hearing them out, she'd promptly suggest the common-sense solution that would've occurred at once to any normal person who was mature enough to understand the problem. Spoiler: That horse isn't going to pull the buggy anywhere until you untie him from the hitching post. (In fairness to the Peterkins, everybody else in their town seemed to be equally afflicted, as is clearly shown in the very first story, "The Lady Who Put Salt in Her Coffee.")
The problem with a Peterkin steplet is that the solutions are so obvious; there'd be nothing -- nothing reasonable and sensible -- for the Loon to do that the lady from Philadelphia couldn't do at least as well. Still, I kind of like the idea of him working for her during his stay in that world. Being so wise, she has of course discovered his secret ... and perhaps once in a while her sense of humor makes her consider letting him add his wackiness to the Peterkins' latest dilemma rather than fixing it right away. Not that she'd ever do it, but she thinks about it from time to time. This wouldn't be a particularly active steplet, but might be worth a snicker.
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Heh. I don't know the work in question, but your description is evocative enough that I couldn't help but laugh at the idea. Now I'm going to have to find that book and read it. Gutenberg Project, perhaps?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Bob Schroeck Wrote:Heh. I don't know the work in question, but your description is evocative enough that I couldn't help but laugh at the idea. Now I'm going to have to find that book and read it. Gutenberg Project, perhaps? Yep.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/ ... C+Lucretia
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A Canadian Historical Stop
12-15-2013, 12:16 PM
"Not possible, Crabtree. Too much infighting in Ottawa."
George Crabtree — whom I had to admit was as passionate a fan for the fastest game on Earth in this time period — looked at the dispatch officer. A man I would swear on my life was a distant ancestor to a future Canadian head of government. "Armstrong, you clearly don't know the first thing about hockey! Sometimes I wonder why I even…"
I blinked on hearing George's voice trail off in shock, then I turned.
Were the gods having a private joke?
"I'm here to speak to Detective Murdoch," the dapper-dressed man in the top hat said.
"And you would be?" Armstrong asked.
George gaped before hissing out, "For the love of Pete, Armstrong, it's the Prime Minister!"
I had to shake my head while a part of me wondered what Sir Wilfred Lauier was doing in Toronto seeking William Murdoch.
"Armstrong, does the concept of a newspaper mean anything to you?" I asked.
The PM gave me a curious look as George snorted…
Canadian lighthouse to U.S. Warship approaching it: "This is a lighthouse. Your call!"
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"Mister Sangnoir? We're needed."
The Avengers
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That one's been done already, JFerio - with exactly the same wording, I'll note.
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I didn't remember if it had or not, Rob.
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---on mature reflection, this just wasn't as funny as I thought it was off-the-cuff.
Sorry.
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After making sure Eimi wasn't visible from the hall, I opened the door to my room and stepped out - where the person I wanted to talk with was also leaving his room, a flashlight in his hand.
I was just in time.
"May I speak with you for a moment, Mr. Carpenter?"
"I'm somewhat busy at the moment, Mr. Sangnoir. Can this wait until tomorrow?"
I shook my head. "Unfortunately, I need to talk with you before you take your walk. But I suspect you'd be interested in talking with a friend of mine, who would be extremely inconvenienced if the power was to stop for a half-hour and who knows how to travel 250,000,000 miles in less than a day." That caught his interest. "Give me a moment, and the three of us can talk while you're walking to -" Then I remembered who was listening. (It had been a while since I last watched the movie.) "- your appointment this evening."
--
Rob Kelk
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Not interested in standing still?
Do they join forces with him, try to convince him it's unnecessary (after all, Doug's homeworld and Eimi's both survived without that warning), or what?
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Eimi's not interested in being completely shut down for the first time in her life - it might kill her.
As for the second question: I'm curious as to what others have to say. I suspect they'd work with him and share tech bases - it's his universe, after all , but that's just a guess without actually having written or planned the story.
More likely, the comment about traveling 250,000,000 miles in less than a day is going to make anybody who overheard it think Doug is the man everybody's looking for.
--
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...I'm drawing a blank. What work is this?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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As DHBirr hinted, it's The Day the Earth Stood Still. Carpenter's real name is Klaatu.
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And hinting was the only reason I made the remark about standing still; I understood quite well why Eimi wouldn't care for being shut down ... although I wondered if her hard-drive might in fact be immune to what Klaatu did to electrical power everywhere. I'm assuming this is the original, not the remake -- it occurred to me that back then, he wouldn't have had any reason to set his gadget to neutralize something like a laptop, since no one on Earth had them so far as Klaatu knew. A Handwavium-treated laptop might be extra resistant, too. Nonetheless, better safe than sorry.
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DHBirr Wrote:I'm assuming this is the original, not the remake But of course!
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Bob Schroeck Wrote:As the last of bandits de-rezzed, Kirito paused, then sheathed his sword. Before he could turn to face the site of the battle again, though, his impromptu partner in the fight said, "So. I suppose you're the famous Black Swordsman, then."
Sighing, Kirito wondered for a moment if he had just finished one fight only to find himself launched into another. Still, it hadn't sounded like a potential challenger. More like mild surprise. "Yeah," he said as he turned around, and then froze.
... I know it's a completely different game and a completely different character, but this steplet was what I thought of when I saw http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/35561/#524014]the first image in this post over on the Daz3D forums.
--
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"Yeah, we got those kids out of that runaway school bus, but that was a couple of days ago and nothing's happened since then. That might have been be the last time I'll ever get to drive with him."
I shook my head. "Lisa, you've got a job as long as you want it. So does Soichi, ..." I turned to the other person in the conversation. "... and so do you, Lorna." (Why did this teenager remind me so much of Belldandy? Anyway.) "Traffic control for an entire city is what we call an 'emergent system' back home. There will always be unexpected behavior somewhere in the system, so there will always be runaway cars. Sure, complex systems can be made safer, but they can't be made completely safe."
"So there'll always be a need for us! We can keep driving!" Lisa grinned - finally.
I grinned back. "Let's stay in practice, then. You up for a few laps around the track?"
"You've got it! I'll beat that bike of yours this time, Doug!"
eX-Driver, a short series written and illustrated by Fujishima Kosuke (which is why Lorna is so much like Belldandy)
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
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- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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