2014 II rper of the year first knockout round
Kyrusia V.s. Vipra
2 heavyweights of Future tech roleplay on international incidents make up the first match of this 2014 II rper of the year awards. Kyrusia and Vipra, both rp veterans, are known for their long posts with imaginative, twisting storylines, and both have an abundence of rping quality.
Kyrusia
Using puppet: Sciarviat Syndicate
Have you ever wondered - truthfully - what it might be like to live, to play, to lie your head down as an individual free from the troublesome woes, the responsibilities, and the social mores of society at large? Have you ever contemplated, if but a single moment of respite from the strife, the tribulations, and the unending obligations of reality were given to you, what you might accomplish? Have you ever wanted to meet, to know, to touch that inner part of yourself which friends, family, and employment force you to keep hidden, disguised, and shoved away - neglected - like some misbegotten toy?
I know you. I know you. I've seen many like you; the many, the hive, the bustle - individuals who jostle and struggle but to scrape by for a moment's peace, fighting and clawing but for a few fleeting, vestigial seconds of freedom from the burdens that weigh heavy and apparent. I've seen them; I've met them. Years ago I, too, once was like you: a man without purpose, living my day-to-day, menial, meaningless existence like it was what I was born to do. As if I were born to lie at night, awake, by some partner I cared little of, in some apartment I couldn't afford, waiting for the sun to rise on another day so that I might toil in an office simply so I could continue with another day in that life. Then another, and another, and another...
But, remember, my friend, that I know you, and like the countless, broken, hollow men who have came before you, I learned about you. I met you: the real you. The you which dwells just beneath the surface, screaming for a moment of liberation; shouting, yelling, sobbing into the blackness of this life, treading the waters of feeble responsibility and hollow altruism, secretly demanding something. Something so profane, so sacred and secret, that you dare not speak it aloud; something you wish for, something you demand in the silence that societal obligations and moral ethos force you to undertake for fear of labels and penal penalty.
My friend, I offer you something else. Something different. Something glorious.
I offer you a place. I offer you a sanctuary where, regardless of your homeland, of your tastes, of your predilections, you can live, you can play, you can indulge freely and without judgment.
In a word, my friend, I offer you "liberation".
Now, before you judge my offer too harshly, my friend, consider this... Consider your life. Consider the day; perhaps you're sitting at a desk, wondering why you clicked on this bit of media; perhaps you're in your home, browsing, wondering whether you can suffer yet another year in silence with a spouse, a partner, to whom you feel you barely know; maybe you're even en route right now, wondering if this was all some Faustian mistake. Consider that, even if it were - even if it were your soul I sought to claim, to rake back to the depths of the inferno as penance for the glee and merriment you seek - would it be worth it? Is it worth your soul, this offer I make? Perhaps... But I will tell you this: I seek not your soul, nor your heart, nor you to abandon your life - its security, its safety, its mundane pleasantries and quaint charm. Unlike a common man of confidence, I do not seek to hide my intentions nor my desires.
Here, in this heaven - in this paradise - all that matters is the almighty specie: the dollar, the credit, the greenback. We don't ask questions; we have no desire to know, because we have no desire to judge. We neither care for your preference, your orientation, your gender, your sex, your nationality, your culture, your religion, nor even your species; in this heaven, all that matters is the price - the value - and the surety that you, my friend, are waiting and willing.
For the right price, in this sanctuary, you can obtain almost anything, my friend. Good entertainment, good company, a good time: all are things which are available, ready, waiting for you to embrace, to indulge, to accept that part of you which society demands, incessantly, you hide, you shield, you obscure for the sake of its benefit. You are an individual; you are the maker of your own future, the author of your own fate; embrace that simple truth, my friend, and the cosmos shall unfold before you.
In this paradise - in your paradise - your comfort, your desires, your privacy matter. Your will is God, and I am but the messenger to the heavenly host; I am a mediator, an arbiter, the key-holder of your dreams, and all you need do is say a word. Speak it, and it will be so. Does that sound enticing? Right now, has your blood grown hot with anticipation, your flesh shrill and taunt with even the notion that such a place exists? My friend, are you drooling? I wouldn't blame you; many a man, in the history of this universe, has died and killed for even the prospect of such a proverbial Eden of desire. But you... You have it right before you. No great journey, no great trial, no great test of your will or intellect, after all: has your life not been such already? Why should further demands be laid upon you simply for a chance to escape them?
No, my friend. No such trouble. You see, this place, this sanctuary, this bountiful garden lies as largesse, waiting. All you need do is but muster the courage to reach for it. Welcome to paradise; welcome to Eden; welcome to a world where your dreams have come true and, where with but a word, they become endless, timeless, and eternal.
Welcome to Losieda. Won't you come play with us?
Saturnalia sunshine
Vipra
An extract from the beginning of the short story surviving
Allurus, seventy years before Vipran Unification
The artillery rained down relentlessly, the boom and thoom of exploding shells having changed from psychologically jarring to white noise over the course of days while Yizinni Vevemiman scrambled through the sewers. At first it had just been an immediate respite, the young atoran girl having managed to pull open a manhole and throw herself down into the filthy network of tunnels before a tank could round the corner, but had since grown into her little network. There were others down here too, having the same idea to escape the worst of the shelling, and every now and again she heard the echo of stomping boots and gunfire as soldiers cleared sections. At first she had been terrified, any twelve year old would be, and vomited the first time she had had to pick through the gore and remains of fellow partisan for such basics as rations and bullets.
Yet it became her home sweet home, vile and filled with disease, the girl losing some of the colour to her blue skin while under the shaking roof of the sewers. It was a foul and putrid place, bodies unceremoniously dumped through manholes after being stripped of their kit by both sides as feasts for the insects while they festered. And yet the catacomb of filth was Yizinni’s saving grace, nooks and crannies for her to hide in around every bend and tunnels small enough for the child to fit through without being followed. And she had to hide, for whenever the artillery broke there would be the trundling grind of tracks overhead and the thump of boots that signalled new arrivals. Though they wore markings of the nations they served, all Yizinni had to see to know their allegiance was their facial features and the colour of their skin. The Farthii and Krachii were as bad as each other, both having attacked her people before, but now it seemed they were set on turning the Horusii lands into extensions of their own realms and leaving her people as one of the many exterminated ethnicities. So she fought them both, as her mother had told her to do.
Yizinni was huddled around the decapitated and hollowed torso of a soldier woman, picking through the empty pockets of the atoran body’s torn shirt in the vain hope that maybe those that had hacked her up had missed something. Before she could finish searching, the artillery stopped. Casting her head up to one of the drains, catching flickering light, the child soldier abandoned the body and yanked hands black with blood from sticky fabric, stomping through puddle and huffing the moist, squamous, air as she started to bolt through the sewers. Even as her worn boots sloshed through puddles of urine and decayed meat, she could hear manholes being opened and soldiers dropping down. Turning a corner into a darker part of the sewer, she saw a glint in the distance and froze. There were already soldiers here, walking past her favoured cubby hole. She hadn’t been fast enough.
Panicking, knowing she couldn’t turn around, the partisan child hid behind the corner and fumbled at her jacket, leaving her carbine leaning against the wall as she fished two grenades out of pockets she had made with a staple gun and loose fabric. They were ones she’d found on her first day, and she had hoarded them for something like this. Pulling a bundle of cloth out of her pants’ pocket, she began to tie the heavy spheres together while footsteps drew closer, the splash of water under the feet of heavy soldiers making her heart drum in her ears. Fumbling the knot she almost gave up, wanting to run and hide, but she knew there was nowhere to go, marching boots echoing from the other end of the sewer tunnel as she redoubled her efforts. She begged and pleaded for a god, any god, to help her as she finally tied the knot and tried, in her head, to guess how close the soldiers were. They were definitely close, very close, she swore she heard their breathing but they couldn’t be that near yet.
feather and bone
And now, for the first of many a time, I would like to open this match with a first vote:
The Greater Vakolicci Haven votes for Vipra.
Who will you vote for?
