Winding Ivory [continuation]

[Levenfish]

Some of the highest quality armor in the world and they couldn't get her a helmet.

BB: I literally dodge everything by virtue of endless save-load abused practice.
BB: Besides, everyone knows helmets are useless.



I really don't think I had Zaniah be on Vaneti's side. They know each other. But she's not on her side.

BB: I've noticed from my time as a figment of your imagination.
BB: Do you ever not constantly scheme? Do you ever just stick to a plan and go with it without any frills?

No.
That's boring.



Anyway, here's Vaneti hiding from Soheil like a bitch. Thirty years of studying the blade is no match for a thousand years of smashing face for the empress.
Besides, he has reinforcements coming.



....when did I crop this? This isn't the full image.

BB: Those fucking things.
BB: Is it actually relevant?

No, but it's scary-looking. And something about establishing exactly what sort of monsters the trolls use to maintain their country.



BB: Really?



BB: The bag again.



Yes, the bag again.

BB: Shut up.

I warned you about the bag, bro.

BB: You actually didn't. The gag doesn't work. How dare you stand where he stood.

[Levenfish]

And then they run. I think.

BB: Alright spit it out I know you have something on your mind.



If I'm reconstructing the events properly here, they decide to cut the power to the caverns, which will kill all the grubs in the process, but give them the opening they need to escape.

Also, I had ideas on the rewrite.

BB: What happened to keeping it short?

It's boring. I don't want a short story.

BB: But you've never so much as taken a writing class in college.
BB: Arrogant to think you can write better than people who've studied it.



Everyone's gotta start somewhere.

BB: And here's not it.

And I'm not in college. What do you expect from me? This is what I got. And I'm not going to be talked down by myself.
Wait no, I'll only be talked down to by myself, it's everyone else. But you're not me but also me and god I hate you.

BB: Same.



There's a few panels cut after this due to gore.



Wait, the flowers.



BB: Did they just kill a bunch of grubs for nothing?



Yes.

BB: So what did you have in mind?

With the Ivory's metaphysical algorithms beginning to deviate from Paradox Space's own fluctuations, Her Imperial Crown does an emergency division of Justine Kimberly, culling the tainted knowledge and saving her life at the cost of her powers and training as a Mage of Light.
Unfortunately, she must be fucking high, because she then commands her own Denizen, the long-since imprisoned Yaldabaoth, and most of the Incipisphere's players, to bring her to an end. This onslaught will only end with her death, or Yaldabaoth's. But have no fear, because the Empress is a psychopathic bitch on designer drugs, and she assigns a trio of players to train and protect her.
A training exercise, she call it.

BB: That's... so Sburb's finally involved this time around.

And just like Sburb, her trial by fire sets off a series of events that promises to see everything changed forever and oh god this sounds like the part on the back of the book than an actual explanation.

BB: So how do all the other characters tie into this?

Well someone had to be the other players.

BB: This trio's the Furies?

Justine needs friends. Everyone needs friends. Besides, Sburb's a great framing device to gather all these characters together. Easier to explain it in something like Homestuck or Danganrompa or insert an isekai here than in... other things I can't think of right now.

BB: You're so literate.

[Levenfish]

They keep fighting,



And as you can see, I am the greatest at fight scenes.



Ever. Not a one. Eat your heart out, someone whose name I can't be arsed to look up for 30 seconds just to make the joke work.

BB: You say that like it was ever good.
BB: How's the writeup?

Taking my time. I do better when I sit back and edit. Though the forums seem to move slowly so that I can skip a few days to edit.
Things are growing. Let's not say more. Less talking, more showing and doing.

[Levenfish]

BB: Anyone alive?

Been a bit busy as of late.

BB: How's the writing?

The apex of cybermancy, and the carapacians use black powder guns.

BB: That means nothing to me or anyone else without context.
BB: You can't just namedrop technobabble and expect it to impress anyone.



BB: I see why you wanted the bait.

I don't understand what happens here either. But this is after the caverns.
In fact, I can tell you exactly where. Near the... Dneiper, if I recall, in Crimea.
Something Vaneti wants to steal.



BB: So...

Orion dresses up as an anime reference and drops the People's Elbow.



And then runs away with the briefcase.



After some more art of them switching the files in a restroom stall, Orion has a gun and uses it to silence the man.

BB: With the gun, instead of the bullets.

There was probably a bad pun made somewhere.

[Levenfish]

BB: Welcome back to the land of the metatextually livin'.

How have you been?

BB: Had dinner with Pilgrim. It was alright.

Did you two—

BB: Yes, and that's all that needs to be said.
BB: The draft still goin'?

10k words and counting.

BB: Care to share?

Hell no. If my prior performance is any indication, I'll need to rewrite it at least three times before it's any good.

BB: For your standards, or others?

Learn by doing.

BB: I understood that reference.



Anyway, so there's a briefcase. Some sort of deal for ah, something, I don't remember.

BB: How rivetin'.







Anyway, then Vaneti started taking hearts.
In fact, just made him a Maid of Heart.

BB: Is there a reason for that?

It's an observation.







BB: Of what, exactly?

It's a classpect as given to someone by someone else, regardless of whether they fit it. Of course it's not going to be a perfect fit.
Instead, it's an observation on the poor sap that's also half-fungus and also mind controlled by an angel.

BB: Yeah I don't actually know classpects that well.
I remember Michael was a Heart player? So was... no, that's about all I remember.

BB: Be honest. Is it worth reading into?

Not really, no.











Ah, I remember now. This was to recapture Auriga Alanat. She'd make recurring appearances again.

BB: Right, the death cavalier.

You can tell this was long before I had a coherent plot arc.

BB: You've taken to the austere approach with glee.
BB: Cut away until there's nothin' left to chop.

Well, not too austere. But generally, yeah, less is more.



BB: Cicada 3301?

Young me was edgy. Current me could maybe take a crack at that in five years.

BB: What do you actually do in the real world when you're not busy talkin' to yourself via audience surrogate trope?

Work—

WONDERFUL. PC crash in the middle of an update. Truly, we are back in 2014.
We're back, Bernie. We are truly back.

[Levenfish]

BB: So. How's the draft comin' along?

Delayed. Hijacking a battleship's harder than it seems. Need to read up sci-fi sometime.
Anyway, on with this. So they get hired to kill someone.

BB: Mm hmm.







The operation is a success, but then somehow Justine gets kidnapped while Orion has no idea what happened.
Naturally, it's an extradimensional angel responsible.

BB: Of course it is.

Vaneti doesn't do much since he can't. He's the one that brought the angel to the planet after all. It still has power over him.



And the patriarch of the Kimberly family.

BB: This house, what's it modeled on?

A place I visited for a few weeks in my youth. It was practically a mansion.



BB: Is he goin' to be around?

Not in the draft. Justine never actually gets out of the Medium.

BB: Because she won?

Because it doesn't matter. But that's a story for another time.





Deceptions only work once, after all.

BB: So you're going to omit things.

Lots of things. All the things. Omissions within omissions.



BB: He looks lonely.

Why wouldn't he be? His wife's not there and neither are his kids. Or the hired help. What's up with that?

BB: Wasn't he supposed to die later on?

At some point, Justine would head to Germany where Gazardiel and Vaneti were building all manner of ships to go destroy the Continent. Think the second Captain America movie.
But given the target, Jeremiah's also there to head off the threat. They reunite just long enough for Vaneti to off him in front of her.

But we never got that far. Damn forums crashed.

[Levenfish]

Meanwhile, in a gulag.

BB: In Ukraine?

Well there's no guarantee it's still in the Ukraine.

BB: But you wrote it, are they there or not?

It's irrelevant. All that matters is that there's a prison, she's in there, and so is an angel.
There's not as much relevance for angels to this, so think Gazardiel would just be a straight up horrorterror.



BB: But he already is.

Different names. Names have power in mystical circles, and I have hot takes on the grimdark.
Memeviruses. Physical corruption is good and all, but what about mental corruption? Knowledge is power, and power is dangerous.

BB: As long as it's not a setup for some dumb meme.
BB: It won't be relevant later, and then no one'll understand.
BB: I think we both know timelessness helps.



The monomyth endures. Anyway right, so Justine.
There's not a whole lot.



There was probably some exposition about her past here, but I can't remember most of it at this point. Been like, what, six years?



There's deliberately not a time period given here. This is where she gets converted back to a biologically female body.

BB: Why did Gazardiel do that anyway?

She was uniquely qualified to be a battery he could use to power something to open a rift back to his home.
If there were more specifics, I don't remember, but it's probably tied to how she's telekinetic later on.



There are different circumstances for their entanglement in the rewrite. But ah, the nature of it is both integral to the story in its form as a secret, and it can always be rewritten.

BB: You're falling behind.

Sitting down with a few hours to write.
Never gonna happen.
Just gotta claw out time whenever possible.

[Levenfish]

BB: Looks like something from real life.

Barbershop. It's not actually clear where this is, in hindsight. Might be Justine's mind, or some third party place. Cause it definitely ain't the angel's mind.



Don't ask me how much time I spent on that.

BB: How much time?

Bernie asked, who was a pill.

BB: Mm hmm.



BB: Definitely from real life. Why did you think this looked realistic?

Meh. Had to try. Anyway, they're discussing...

I don't know what they were discussing. Something non-sequitur.



BB: Related to the surgeries?

But couched in vague terms, per usual. There's a lot of influences that come together to make this not really noteworthy.



BB: She was born without arms or something, right?
BB: Well, I was, and so were you, so I'm not going to guess how someone like that would think.

Exactly.

[Levenfish]

BB: You've been gone for a while.

Yes, getting a cold in the world's current state will do that to a person.



The scientist and the angel scheming about something.



And of course, Vaneti, Orion, and co are here to mount a rescue.

BB: This looks familiar.

I'm not very original.





Why have such a big place for such a little thing?
I don't know either.

BB: Because he can. That's usually reason enough.



The crew are in and fighting their way through.
And of course, Justine wonders what all the ruckus is.