“Glendale forces have cut through our flank!” A panicked blood covered corporal shouted to his commanding officer who was standing atop a battlement, looking down off of a cliff edge at the battle ensuing below.

A detachment led by the recently subdued youngest Baldwin brother was storming the ranks of the Skleros units holding the pass up the cliffside. With his enhanced vision the leader could make out a golden spark at the front of the pack carving through soldiers.

“To think the day has finally arrived where Glendale’s failure has teamed up with Zulenka’s outlaw.” The Commander said with a sigh.

Commander Jonathan Skleros, current head of the family after his previous members were murdered, sighed and knew this day would come. After all, his younger sister had married that ingrate of a low-class Saiyan and entered the Zulenka family. With the action his father had taken against her son this was the only possible outcome. His eyes drifted to a hefty explosion that ripped through all the way to the 4th and 5th Cohort lines towards the rear.

“How did he get a Glendale to join the fight? Least of all that one…”

Broly dropped to the ground, smoke billowing from his hand where he had launched the immense energy blast that had ripped through several ranks of men. The battlefield was swarming with combatants, the youngest Glendale’s personal guard keeping most of them away from him as he led his forces towards the gate. The current male heir to the Zulenkan Empire had approached him with an offer.

Sanctuary.

Toma Zulenka, a disgraced outlaw among his fellow Saiyans, but currently the only male heir to his name approached Broly and offered him amnesty from his own family in return for dealing a significant blow to the Skleros family who had tried to have his son killed.

He accepted.

The young Glendale ducked under the right cross of a Centurion before taking his extended arm and pushing it upward with a sickening crunch. The officer screamed in agony as he was thrown into his onlooking men. Toma had kept his main force stable and was pushing the entire battle back against the cliff. Broly’s small, but skilled band of soldiers had successfully punched the core and were finally making it back into the 6th and 7th cohorts. The soldiers that the Super Saiyan was so easily crushing were green and frightened that the battle was turning against them. As the back of the main Skleroi force was being pushed against the gate, Broly unleashed another immense blast of energy that ripped through the steel door and obliterated every soldier in it’s path.

Followed by his heavily armored royal guard, the young Glendale charged up the cliffside path and around to the complex entrance. As he rounded the corner the manned turrets opened fire, but before the gatling cannons could get up to speed they were each struck with an orb of orange energy.

The outstretched crimson-flame engulfed hand of Toma Zulenka appeared out of the corner of Broly’s vision.

“Thanks.” He said, a grin forming on his face as he righted himself.

Toma laughed, the crimson aura around his body flickering wildly.

“Don’t mention it, kid.”

The two led their forces through the complex gate and into the compound where Jonathan Skleros was waiting for their arrival.

“Gentlemen. Surrender now and I won’t pike both of your heads on our capital wall.”

Broly ignited his golden aura and unleashed a battle cry as he tapped into his unused power.

“I see you’re decided to join the common soldiers Glendale. Not using your Legendary form?” Skleros prodded.

“I thought I’d give you at least a slim chance of beating us.” Broly shot back, hatred oozing through his words, his aura growing in size.

“You overestimate yourself boy!” Jonathan shouted as his energy exploded into view around him.

Quickly it turned gold, his hair becoming spiky and blonde. Lightning crackled around him as a thunderous rush of air was expelled from his body as he ascended for a second time. Toma grinned and squared his stance, preparing for the fight ahead.

The Skleros commander launched an energy blast at Broly with blinding speed, forcing him to cross his arms and take the hit. Toma shot forward with a crimson blur and pushed his opponent's outstretched arm to the side. The two vanished in a flash of energy. When the smoke around Broly cleared he found that he wasn’t standing in the middle of a Skleroi Compound anymore. The young Glendale found himself standing on the lip of a brilliant white marble fountain, the water misting his dirtied body. Around him stretched an open and overly white expanse of nothingness. As the Saiyan went to step down from the fountain his world faded to black, causing him to collapse backward into the shallow water. Before his vision was a faceless man, thought somehow he knew he was smiling.

Quote:“My name is Omni. This is not the world you know. This is the Omniverse. You interest me, so I have made you part of it. The Omniverse is a place that reflects the wishes of those who are part of it. But! There are rules. I will explain them only once, so listen carefully.”

Omni hands you a glimmering orb in which all the colors of the rainbow coalesce. “This is Omnilium. It’s what ties the Omniverse together. Without it, you are nothing. With it, anything you desire can be yours. But you will need more than this. If you desire it enough, you will find it. You will find that using it comes naturally. Just think of what you desire most.”

“You will not be alone in the Omniverse. There are others. Of course, they, too desire Omnilium. Do not fear death. For as long as you interest me, you will be reborn.

“That’s all you need to know right now. You’ll figure out the rest soon enough. I’ll be watching … and waiting.”

Something strange is happening when I edit my roster. I'll change text to bold and center it, hit update post, and it'll center but not bold. Then I'll remove a space between a title and the paragraph below it, bold it, and hit update. The title will unbold itself and the space will have remained there. I've tried for the past 10 minutes to get a certain format to work in my Roster yet it's a feedback loop of being bold and too far apart or not-bold and the right distance.

I have no idea what's going on.

"Bah. Can't believe ya just gave up on yer quest! Ya coulda' been sit'n in tha Mithr'l Halls, gulp'n mead with th' King'm self!"

Hogard grumbled. He stares into his tankard, sloshing the cheap ale over the edges with gentle sways. His dwarven gut demanded the brew, but his mind was already too numbed to risk any more debilitation. "I wanted to live." That was the simplest answer, but he doubted his drunken friend would accept it. Hogard was not the most battle-worthy Dwarf, and he knew that. Too many years shirking his training had left him subpar. He had chosen to spend his time sneaking off with friends, sneaking ale before he had even an inch on his chin. Troublemaking, generally, but all in good fun. It was not that he disliked fighting, there was nothing like taking down one of those ugly, smelly, stupid trolls. He was just... a bit short sighted.

The drunken dwarf next to Hogard just laughed. "But wha' kinda life are ya liv'n, if ya just run'n all th'time, ehh?" He was speaking low as he could manage so that no one overheard him. Despite the alcohol causing his whisper to be more a raspy rumble, the commotion in the tavern kept it pretty well cloaked. "All ya need is a good ol' weapon, an' a few hunt'n buddies." The older dwarf brought a hand down against Hogard's shoulder in thundering pats of consolation. "Yer young. You'll find yer place soon anuff."

The force of the gesture shook him, but he was used to it. "I hope so. Here, have one on me. I'm not feeling up to drinking tonight." The tankard was sat in front of his friend as he stood. Hogard gave him a returned heavy-handed thump before turning for the door. 

"Jus' remember what I said, m'boy..." The concerned words of an elder, if Hogard ever heard any.



Hogard decided to take a long walk to clear his head. Eventually he found himself standing in the snow. Bitter cold wind gnawed at his cheeks and threatened to pierce the warmth of his short beard to bite at his chin. He squinted to look around, but saw little in the ups and downs of white. A guard here, a rock there... Could have been a guard, if I hadn't been so foolish. He was sure the word he was actually looking for was childish, but in his self-scolding, he did not want even the ability to rationalize. He was a child, childish in any other culture would have been fine. But not here; he was foolish.

Every step crunched in the snow as he walked. The sound, when combined with the roaring of wind in his ears, deafened the world around him. He did not wonder too far, he knew better than that. If a troll band attacked, he could call out to the guards and start a chain of warnings all the way back to Dwarfholm in a matter of moments. Was that why he instinctively came out here? To play Guard? No. He honestly had no idea why he felt he had to be alone. Probably just a melodramatic mood urging him to be... well... dramatic... 

Something sundered his thoughts. There was a sound that did not fit. A wet slurp. The next thing he noticed was his foot: it was stuck. His gaze dropped swiftly. Just beneath a thin layer of snow was something thick and squishy. "By all the damned nations! What beast set this trap!" Stepping in dung would have been the perfect way to make this day worse. Luckily, it was not dung. Sadly, it was potentially much worse. The flash of anger quickly turned to fear as the substance began to creep up his leg.

"What trickery is this?!" His first instinct was to step back and try to yank his foot free. The mass follows, pulled free from the snow. It slowly continued to creep up his leg, with something hard and sharp scraping along his thick leggings. "Begone! Begone!" 

Panic had set in firm when he heard the faintest whisper. "I don't want to die." All at once, the slime goes limp, its form sliding back down into the snow, after echoing the words of the old scout.

As Oswald walked down Mean street he saw, Mickey in a pair of shackles and chains. He sighed and hopped to him shaking his head slowly. “I’m sorry this had to come down to you being stuck here alone. But you did try to thin the wastelands. And i can’t trust you anymore.” The sorcerer had created a book to let the other toons escape out of, thankfully.


Mickey glared at Oswald then decided to belittle him. “First you take my heart, then you use my master’s brush. Now you are leaving me here alone? You really did deserve to be sent here.” Oswald stopped in his tracks, clutching the heart he gained from scrapper Mickey in slight pain as mickey knew he hit a nerve with the rabbit.


Oswald’s face darkened as he chuckled, and started to talk cheerfully. “If you want i can leave the mad doctor here, to do whatever he feels like.” Mickey had shut his trap after the threat, because he knew the mad doctor would want to dissect the mouse.


Oswald ripped into mickey further, behind the safety of Mickey being locked up.  “Oh gosh, Mickey was that too mean? I didn’t know. Next time you should be nicer to the toon’s who worked with ya.” He spat into Mickey’s face, then continued. “Even horace horse collar, hates you. Even Big bad Pete is better than you Mouse morally. I can’t believe that you took the popularity . . . I rightfully earned! With all you did to us Toons, i don’t know why HE liked you more, than i?!”


Ortensia saw Oswald getting really close to snapping, and rushed to calm down the rabbit. “It’s fine Oswald, they are just . . . angry.” The cat gave a look that could force most creatures to flee. “Even if he did cause the Thinner disaster.” Mickey chuckled and spoke in a sing-songy voice. “Well i will have to let you know that i enjoyed thinning so much the first time so much, that i decided i would do it again; you know who my first thinned person would of been? It would be you kitty.” Mickey laughed insanely after that some of the blot coming off of him even after all this time. Oswald clenched his fist, Mickey or anyone else could mess with him and he really didn’t care. But mess with his wife and they messed up.


Oswald slapped the mouse causing some ink to come off of him. He pulled out the mouse's brush and painted a piece of over his mouth. Oswald was brimming with rage at this point and was essentially yelling. “Shut up, or i will thin you!”


Mickey laughed as bombs of thinner started to go off. “I was busy while you were looking for me, Rabbit. Now i will get my wish for it all to go away.” Some thinner hit the chains and he smiled as her ran out and away from the bombs. Pulling out a gun that had a huge thing of thinner it used for ammo. He thinned the way out and walked through the book to his home.


Oswald saw his wife jump in the book happy that she escaped but then a thing of thinner covered him, making him black out; but before he said a few words. “Ortensia! Don’t worry about me, i will find that mouse, and bring him to justice!”

Quote:omniverse starting proper

Quote:“My name is Omni. This is not the world you know. This is the Omniverse. You interest me, so I have made you part of it. The Omniverse is a place that reflects the wishes of those who are part of it. But! There are rules. I will explain them only once, so listen carefully.”

Quote:“This is Omnilium. It’s what ties the Omniverse together. Without it, you are nothing. With it, anything you desire can be yours. But you will need more than this. If you desire it enough, you will find it. You will find that using it comes naturally. Just think of what you desire most.

Quote:“You will not be alone in the Omniverse. There are others. Of course, they, too desire Omnilium. Do not fear death. For as long as you interest me, you will be reborn.


“That’s all you need to know right now. You’ll figure out the rest soon enough. I’ll be watching … and waiting.”  

I don't know how you have the OM System setup or what it's control panel looks like, but this idea can be accomplished with a simple equation regardless. 

I had an interesting thought about player established factions. What if each Faction had a treasury account that was given a percentage of OM earned by each member actively posting. I haven't crafted what actual percent would be deposited compared to item price. It wouldn't detract from a player's OM it would simply be a separate transaction that added funds to the Faction treasury for funding things like Base Improvements or Items for encounters. It would not be usable on anything character related. There would be a specific requirement before you could use the treasury feature in a Faction. Perhaps a length of time after the Faction is formed or require the Player Faction to achieve some form of recognition. You could even gate it behind a base upgrade the leader has to buy called "Faction Treasury Account." 

Thoughts?

Alright, so I have a thought about using Fusion as a prerequisit for a Buff instead of as a move in and of itself... So Fusion states that it combines the power of the creatures that fused, but what if it was not used like that 100% of the time. 

My question is this: If Zenith fuses with a Prime, can it offer slight buffs instead of its full Stats? For example, a move that bestows its Survivability to that which it bonds to. Another move that bestows a healing factor (which I intend to get later,) based on the Host's Defense (then combined defense when full Fusion is active.)

To simplify, can there be two levels of fusion, where the "Lesser Fusion" can be maintained constantly, while the "Greater Fusion" is an "Active" ability. Fodder could be that it is painful to fuse with the Symbiote at that level, and very tiring being it both induces and feeds off Adrenaline. Fodder and Mechanic wise, I don't see rules against it...

Kelly dreamed, drifting on a cloudy sea of disjointed recollection: memory without sequence or context, snapshots of another life. Lucidity dawned slowly, but even after the traveler became aware he was asleep he remained caught in the flow, helpless to affect the outcomes of his past. As time went by Kelly's awareness became more acute, and the memories grew less distinct, degrading from their initial cinematic clarity until all he was left with was a collection of vague impressions and emotional echoes. Finally, the sleeping psychic fell into a state of dreamless vigilance, alert but at rest in an undefined void.

'You're forgetting something important...' 

Consciousness crashed down on him like a collapsing mountain.

“Ah... I see.”
 
Blue saltwater as far as his eyes could see, and a bright sun that thankfully his helms spokes shaded his eyes from. Beneath his heavy steel boots, sand that made it just that more difficult to walk around, even in his armor. Though, with only ten percent left, the augmentation was beginning to slow down, and Ratione could now even feel the plate’s weight on his body.
 
“Yeah, you’ll sink like a boulder if your power cuts out while we’re treading water. Might as well ditch it now.” Janna waddled through the sand, being forced to take higher steps. The glowing white archway stood behind them, with that familiar, uncomfortable hum.
 
Ratione sighed, and issued the command to his suit’s on-board computer. There was a few minutes of hissing, popping, and clicking sounds as the pressure was released from the suit’s hydraulics system.
 
Once everything relaxed, Ratione could barely move his body as his butt slammed down into the sand, legs sprawled outward. The next ten minutes was spent removing simply his leg armor, first coming off as a pair of boots that were themselves split into three different sections. Next were his front and back facing greaves, then his upper leg plates and skirt.
 
All the while Janna stood watch, rifle in hand, for at least the first minute before laying face up in the sand and sunning herself.
 
After a few grunts and cussing, Ratione managed to disengage his vambraces and pauldrons. Next came his collar, then his front and back breast plates thunked into the sand. The Novan stood tall now, without his helm or suit for the second time since his arrival, only in under armor. The jumpsuit covered everything but his head, even a thick collar wrapping around his throat. He stuck two fingers inside and stretched it out, taking a deep breath of the salty air. His chest expanded, pushing the thick padding outward and stretching the fabric. He closed his eyes and his small ears twitched back and forth to seagulls squawking at each other and the waves crashing against the beach. All the while Janna observed the display by arching her neck backwards and staring at her companion with upside down and wide eyes.
 
The old man looked down to the yordle, who quickly righted herself. She stood with a ram-rod straight back, placing her fists on her hips and looking out to the shimmering waters and islands ahead. “We um. We should go find a harbor, and a boat.”
 
Ratione went to where his belt and skirt lay, unsheathing his sword but quickly letting it slip from his fingers as it fell apart into several pieces.
 
The former pirate raised an eyebrow as her partner reached own again. “Well I mean... not like you could have carried that thing around anyways.”
 
The Furtumin shook his head. “No, not my hand-and-a-half, but this-“ He hefted a weapon the yordle had never seen before, nothing that any of the strange sorts she had come across in the Omniverse ever wielded. It was simple, but... great at the same time.
 
“What the hell is that?”
 
A grip long as his own forearm, wide first guard, false edge and short second guard, along with a blade still longer than the sword’s original form rested on Ratione’s left shoulder as the hand on the same side wrapped around the pommel. The Novan stood with both legs and his whole body straight, sunlight casting its warm glow from behind him and the rays shooting out from his body’s outline. In total it was longer than even he was tall.  “This, my friend, is a great sword. Hopefully I will not have to use it.”

"What the hell is this?"

"You think one of those Primes got liquified?"

"Nah... They are supposed to be immortal, and always reappear right here, no matter how they died."

"Is this... is this a prime"

"Maybe..."


The two scouts were kneeling at the fountain, peering at the odd mass before them. What they saw was little more than a blob. It looked like a glossy black mass of fresh ink. "Touch it," one of the scouts suggests. She was a young woman, clad in basic leather armor and armed with a shortbow. Her companion was older, his short beard streaked with a bit of gray and his eyes as sharp as an eagle's.

"I don't think that would be wise..." He pondered. He removed his steel helmet, ideas forming. "Maybe we could scoop some of it up... It looks mostly liquid..." Inching closer, he holds his helmet the furthest from the rim as possible while attempting to dip it into the ooze. The sound was a faint, wet slurp as the ridge sank through the thick slime. "It feels like digging in wet sand..."

Just when he thought he had a good enough portion of the slime, the rest suddenly moves. It pulls the rest of its form up and into the helmet, fitting perfectly within the container. The older scout was confused; just a moment ago it had been utterly inert. Now it seemed to accept its place in the helmet. "I think it likes you, Jhoff. You should name it," the young scout teased. Not paying attention to her, the elder was staring at the creature; thoughtful of what exactly it was. He tilted the helmet, slightly sloshing the thick slime, watching the light of the Nexus sheen off its glossy mass. Finally, curiosity got the better of him. He touched it. 

The instant his bare fingertips touched the gelatinous creature, small tendrils leap out, clinging to his hand. Pulling itself up, more spit forth, grabbing higher on his arm. The elder dropped the helmet in an instant wave of fear and regret. His hand suddenly felt so cold as it was consumed. More and more of his arm vanished inside the creature before he attempts to claw it away with his free hand. That too becomes stuck, and the spread begins from another angle. The young scout just stared, backing away as she watched her partner seemingly eaten alive by this Prime.

"I'll go get help!" Code for "I'm out." The young scout runs away at top speed, leaving the elder to his fate. Terror struck them both, but the elder could not run. In moments, his entire body had been swallowed by the slime. The world bled to black and felt cold. In his mind, something formed. It was like his own thoughts, but they felt foreign, as if someone were invading his private little world.

He saw the form of a faceless figure sitting amidst the black. There was a murmuring sound, but he could not make it out above the sound of his own heartbeat hammering in his ears, and the garbled scream he was emitting with every breath he took. I'm going to die! I'm dead, I'm already dead, this thing is going to digest me, I'm dead! This is not how I wanted to go, please Omni, don't let it end like this!

Numbness overtook his senses. He could scream no more. The elder fainted, his slime-coated form tumbled to the white floor. The slime slid from the man, leaving him as if nothing had happened. Not compatible.

Quote:Continued from "A Complicated Business