The Last Oddetsey

[NWOWWE]

"Maybe there is a libary nearby with history books or something... If people don't wanna talk about it, it's bound to be written down somewhere, right?

"Not to seem overly pessimistic, but it's always possible they've tried to cover it up completely. It wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened. I've seen it. All the same, it would be worth a look I suppose."

[Max]

"That item does have some value yes, and Sprondinkles is happy to provide customers with information for free, Sprondinkles hopes that such generosity will encourage them to make good trades with him. So, where is your home and what information may Sprondinkle help you with?"

I come from earth in the 22nd century, I would like to know what's going on round here, why I have been taken here and is there any way of getting back home?

[alex_holt]

The Cucumberoo happily hands Marisa the last few editions of the newsletter - though the contents are fairly banal, if you are looking for something particular in there you may be able to find it.

"I mean, it's a cover up of some sort - it was widely announced that Doomforall stopped the black hole, and there were parties in the streets and whatnot, but then, suddenly there was a media blackout for a few days and no one has heard anything about the Lord since... None of the beings or ships who went up there returned, and that black spot appeared in the sky, and then that Gryphon turned up and was on the infonets, and shortly after that all the Powers started turning up to maintain the shield."

He lowers his voice conspiratorially

"The psycorps have been drafted to stop widespread panic, but the Church found out and let its members know..."

__________________________________________________ _______

SPOD:

Sprondinkle fills you in that you are probably a faller, and that as this is an alternate dimension, "Earth in the 22nd Century" is a fairly meaningless description. It is possibly to get home, but only a few beings in the history of the World have managed it and that was pretty much all in ancient history that that travelling happened - Frank Goacher, Lord Doomforall and Professor Vengeance. Sprondinkle is very clear that he wouldn't like to be messing around with anything left over by them.

Other than that, he reveals you are in a neighbourhood known as the Devil's Sock Draw, and that pretty much the same is going on here as has always gone on here - vandalism, graffiti, muggings, drugs, dub-step, watching The Only Way is Essex and other despicable crimes.

[steven_mcg]

"It's been going since not long after the King Industries affair a few hundred years ago, some of the scholars studying that found some parallels between that event and two other previously, and the two previous ones matched very closely a prophecy on an ancient ipad unearthed on the far side of the city. The thing is the tablet was older than either of those events, and both shared in common Professor Vengeance. The tablet also spoke of a third coming...err you see the translated version on the wall at the far end of the room.

This is Earth Zero, of Multiverse Zero and this is the Metropolitan area of New Melded, biggest city on the planet.

Ah, finally, we're getting somewhere. Earth Zero. Yes. How very 'Crisis'-y. I can work with this. Probably.

The tablet's back there, is it? Hmm, that's definitely worth investigating. I'll read that in a minute.

(Melded. That rings a bell. Wasn't that where Phil Harmonik claimed he'd gone after he spontaneously combusted that night on stage? Damn it, I must get that old time machine fixed! I haven't caught up on my future symphonic rock in ages.)

As for the other stuff, its all from the prophecy, but I guess you've noticed the giant shield outside... it looks an awful like the end of something.... all I know is somewhere went wrong during that black hole problem two years back and then the powers of the multiverse started gathering here to try to stop whatever it was

Mm, yes. Always tricksy things, black holes. If you don't know what you're doing, your space armada goes right down the plughole and you spend the rest of your life as some monstrous spaghetti man! But that's only bad for a galaxy; a universe at worst, surely. How many dying stars do you have to pee off to threaten every universe in every reality?

Errr my tailor goes by the name of Goldenrod, he's one of those Moon-Dwarves who lives a few streets away, he's made a business of growing living metals into clothes, and the church is very keen on them!

Excellent. Must make a note of that. There's no telling what an epic quest beyond time and space will do to one's Sunday best, eh, vicar?

I'll put you all on the newsletter right not.... what format would you like it in...we do written paper copies, psychic broadcasts and super deluxe mail, although we do need large donations for eligibility for the latter, and its very slow..."

Well, providing this tip still has email, just send the subscription request to prof.vengeance@hatemail.co.uk. I'll confirm once I get back and the time machine's up and running again.

"Are you guys Fress....I mean Fallen? Errr... two years ago there was a black hole heading towards Earth Zero.... the great Lord left seclusion to go stop it, but then something happened... no one is willing to say what.... and well.... *he walks a few steps out of the church*.... well that...

..."Well, no one is entirely sure, he's been around for much of the entire length of the world as far as we can tell, he has used several aliases, but the ancient texts mostly refer to him as Lord Doomforall... As to whether he is a messiah... it seems to vary with account, the oldest references are to that of a unifying conqueror, but in my own lifetime he has only been seen a few times to avert apparently seemingly unstoppable disasters, and has otherwise remained in solitude."

Doomforall!

Doomforall, Doomforall, Doomforall! It's always bloody Doomforall, the smug sparkly bastard! He's not even a proper villain, just some mopey twerp with a bathrobe and a Paul Daniels magic kit! Since when did he get top billing in the Church of Vengeance And Some Other People He Vaguely Knew?

"I mean, it's a cover up of some sort - it was widely announced that Doomforall stopped the black hole, and there were parties in the streets and whatnot,

Yep, that sounds like His Lordship all right. He stops a black hole and people throw him parties. I try to pull Scotland closer to the Bahamas and suddenly it's a "crime against nature"! Feh!

but then, suddenly there was a media blackout for a few days and no one has heard anything about the Lord since... None of the beings or ships who went up there returned, and that black spot appeared in the sky, and then that Gryphon turned up and was on the infonets, and shortly after that all the Powers started turning up to maintain the shield."

He lowers his voice conspiratorially

"The psycorps have been drafted to stop widespread panic, but the Church found out and let its members know..."

Hmph! Good riddance to bad rubbish! Wouldn't be surprised if the silly sorcerer accidentally threw the sun down the hole too. It would explain the rotten weather so far.

So Doomforall pops round to save you lot like the broody little "anti-hero" he is when he suddenly vanishes into thin air leaving everyone in a mad panic while the whole place goes to plop? Oh yes. That sounds like my Doomsy all right - and if he's involved in this, that can only mean headaches for everyone.

Right. Where's that tablet then? I'm finding out what the hell this prophecy is and then going to club the gent responsible for all this right round the napper till his grandchildren feel it.

[kodster]

( ...oh dear... *awaits the reprecussions from the Prof's rant*)

[NFX]

Twitch had been hovering near the door for the duration of the conversation between The Professor and the cucumberoo. He, like much of the group, had been dutifully listening in, but while Eudial, Leland and the other human seemed to be mulling over what information had been imparted, Twitch's expression remained oddly fixed. Much like his magnet to the door handle, which he still hadn't noticed. The cucumberoo and The Professor seemed quite content to have their back and forth banter, while Twitch remained by the door of the church, able to wrap his feathered head around not one single word of what was being said.

"There's just one part of this I don't quite fully understand..." he told the group, crest folding itself down a little, "...everything."

[playzooki]

(errrr.... what do i do????)

"could i have a newsletter too? Ill have the email one."

[alex_holt]

"Well, the Grand Cathedral is the other side of the city... but the trains haven't been running since they diverted the power into the shields so you'll have to find your own way there. Also....errrrr....."

He hesitates as if Vengeance's rant has actually convinced him of his authenticity

"Well we had some strange deliveries the other week, we are only a small church but we were told to house some relics until someone came to get them, and that it'd be obvious who they are for. There is one for you Almighty Vengeance in the room to the back of the church, that seems to be operated by some sort of elaborate scanning and such, and there were 16 boxes and nine keys - of which you may have one each, apparently the key will be destroyed when you open the box of your choice."

Vengeance's room appears to a polished metal sphere hovering at waist high and with markings to place hands upon it.

The room of the others consists of a number of heavy duty metal caskets with a keyhole in each, they appear to have pictures representing the same lesser prophets as had statues outside, plus five others, in total:

An Elven looking woman with scarred arms appearing to cast some sort of spell
A stereotypical australian, complete with cork hat, a boomerang in one hand and a skewer of shrimps in the other
A Vampire who gives the impression of thinking he was very cool with bleached hair, shade and a katana
A human man with lightning coming to one hand and extracting a fish from his pocket with another
A huge samurai troll who looks even more muscled than usual for his species
A despairing looking zombie
A strange catfish like creature who looks far more intelligent than a catfish like creature has a right to
A dagger wielding hispanic woman
A cybernetic assassin looking man
A Metapenguin
A young boy surrounded by electricity
A the most French man any of the party has ever seen
A marrowak
A Rock Musician
A dinosaur
A rapier weilding elf

Spod and Aurelias keys won't be available until they visit here themselves.

[kodster]

Eudial blinked. Keys? And who were these statues? Intriguing... specifically the Elven looking woman and the hispanic woman stood out most... if only to Eudial. She was taking in the words of the creature slowly, as if trying to put it all together.

Almost absent-mindedly, she took a key and stood looking between the two pictures and respective boxes. Back in the other room, the Elven woman's statue alone had seemed to give off a powerful aura, but Eudial also sensed a burning willpower from the hispanic woman's statue. They were just statues, how could this be?

After some deliberation, Eudial went and opened the Elven woman's casket.

[NWOWWE]

Gaunt looked closely at all the caskets. This whole thing seemed absurd. At any rate there didn't seem to be much in the way of determining what the casket would contain so he decided to pick one at random. The one with the Metapenguin seemed to mentally call out to him and he took the key and opened it.

[playzooki]

Playzooki didnt know which to choose. He waited, until other people chose boxes so he could narrow it down.

[NFX]

Twitch was in way over his head. Still all but clueless as to what was going on. Still, sticking with the group seemed to be the way to go. At least they were all in the same boat, more or less. As he examined the caskets, he was drawn to the drawing of a strange looking bipedal creature with a skull with ears for a head, and a bone in one hand. He wasn't sure why, maybe it looked somehow friendlier than the rest. It certainly looked friendlier than the catfish type thing. Smug piece of <expletive>.

Grabbing a key with his magnet ("Whoopee, it finally came in handy!" his inner monologue read), he flew towards his chosen casket, lowered it towards the keyhole...and missed. Coming down to land, he picked up the key in his beak instead, and - after a few moments clumsily trying to align it correctly - opened up the casket. Not having hands was becoming quite the nuisance for him, it turned out...

[alex_holt]

The three who look their keys opened up their chosen caskets and found that they all contained a basic set of utility items:

100 credits (around £100)
A com system connected to each other for communicating at a distant
A watch counting down to a specific date (which would appear, in real world terms, to be the same day as Midnight GMT on the 30th of April)

Each container also contains one other item:

Eudial's casket contains a blood stained knife that appears to be a powerful charged battery of magic, albeit of a kind that causes her skin to itch. It would seem to be of a holy nature so using this energy would presumably be super effective against any sort of unholy things.

Leland Gaunt finds that his container contains a waistcoat, which seems to grant immunity to any level of cold you could find on earth, and also seems to have a finely made telescopic harpoon hidden in an inner pocket along with a number of tiny marble sized smoke bombs.

As Twitches casket opens it initially seems to contain a huge skull of a Marowack which must weigh as much as Twitch himself, however, even as he looks at it, it reforms into a far smaller helmet that would fit as a helmet on his own head, and seems impossibly hard.

[kodster]

Eudial blinked rather rapidly and carefully removed the bloody blade from the casket. She clearly felt the weapon exuding copious amounts of holy energy... so much so that it was irritating her skin... a lot. Wait, why a holy weapon? She was evil! Was this going to be like a double-edged sword, so to speak? Quickly she sheathed it to her black beltline and tried really hard to ignore her heavily itching wrists now, pocketing the other objects as well.

"I feel... weird," said Eudial lamely. Then she went on, more loudly, "But whatever. I see we have a time to go by, now. This cannot be just a coincidence." She looked at Gaunt and the others.

[NWOWWE]

Gaunt removed the basic supplies from chest. Some currency! That could come in handy if they were able to find some kine of shop or barter location. He had the bargaining skills Arab traders could only dream of after all. The communicator was a nice little tidbit. The watch now. It was counting down to to a specific times. Countdowns. So now they were on some kind of time limit.

Then he saw the waistcoat. It seemed a bit underwhelming at first, but he put it on all the same. Instantly even the slightly chilled room felt perfectly temperate. He removed the coat. The temperature went back to normal. He put it back on again. Perfect. Well now. Then he looked in the pockets. There was a collapsible harpoon. A fairly rudimentary weapon, but it was better than not having anything at all to defend himself with anymore. There were also some small marble like objects in another pocket. A swirling smoke was within them. Smoke bombs. Again fairly useful for someone like him who didn't favor fighting.

He turned and saw Eudial fidgeting uncomfortably with a bloody knife. There seemed to be a sense of goodness that was radiating from it that was slightly irritating Gaunt even from a distance. As useful as a knife could be (especially a powerful one) he didn't want any part of that blade.

"So, a countdown now?" Gaunt said. "It's more than we new even seconds ago, but I'm not sure I'm relieved that we still don't know what it's for. I'll welcome the supplies though. I've been thinking about buying a new coat for years."