Character Chatroom

Vanna: No, I like him! I'm done with secrets. They're frightfully stressful. Besides, I get to narrate my book, so the readers know my big secret anyway - and now all my friends do too.

 

The Rishnaran: Very well. Why don't you talk to him? He's rather confused about all this.

 

Vanna: Hello, Dav. How are you? You seem a bit confused, what specifically do you need clearing up?

 

Dav: Well, I just don't really know what I'm doing here. Where am I?

 

Maddox [to Dav]: [rubs back of neck awkwardly] Yeah, I'm a... bit unclear on that part too. [shrugs] Honestly, I'll just take the brief respite from all the training and fighting and sh*t that goes on in my day-to-day life and not question it. Unless we're all trapped in here like in those creepy-as-hell elevator movies where everyone dies, [starting to panic] or maybe we're in a horror move where the witty, smart, ethnically ambiguous comic relief character dies first, screaming, [actually panicking] I'm the witty, smart, ethnically ambiguous comic relief character and I really don't want to die... then again I'm not black but I for one have learned not to trust my luck-- [curls up into a ball on the floor, a wall of earth closing up around him like a little cubical, doorless house] [muffled] Anyone else want to hide? I've got room.

 

Dav: Maybe this is a dream and I should stop overthinking it. I've never had a lucid dream before. Actually, no, I think I might have had one as a child...

 

Dav: And why would I do that? [jokingly sneezes a flame] Dopsa. Where did that come from?

 

Dav: What's ketchup? Are you implying I'd eat you? I'm not a monster. You're clearly sentient. I wouldn't eat a Teradrak and they're about your size. Course, Teradraks are dragons, not aliens.

Why don't we ease the tension by properly introducing ourselves? Nothing builds trust like exchanging life stories with total strangers. [sits so he matches the others' height] Shall I go first?

 

Vanna: *Sits down and curls up* Topping idea, old thing! Maddox, calm down. I watched one of those films when my mum didn't know and it wasn't the least bit scary. It was called "Devil" and there was this crazy guy who flipped toast to see if the Devil was there. I think we're in a common room-type set-up, although I thought this was supposed to be on the Internet.

You know, I kind of miss ketchup...

Anyway, Dav, go ahead.

 

Dav: Alright. My name is Davard Natrash Arrissa. I'm thirty-two years old. I was born on Narz 20, 4000. On the Draganese zodiac, they have a creature for every day, and I was born on the Day of the Daktar. So it makes sense I'd write a book about them someday.

The Rishnaran: I was born on the Year of the Dragon.

Dav: I have an older brother named Khazardi. We call him Khaz. He's an adult now with two kids. He's really young, but he's kind of like a cranky old drake. He's alright though, and Aunt Kara's fun to be around. My dad's name is Nat Arrissa. He's a... Well, loads of things. He's an inventor, but that doesn't pay the bills, so he has a different job in every city we move to. I'll get to that later, the moving part. Anyway, right now he's not doing anything since we're kind of refugees now. But he's got lots more time for inventing things now. I'll get to that later to. My mom's name is Rastira Arriven Anrissa. She's just as adventurous as Dad. The reason we move is because Mom and Dad both have an incurable wanderlust. We change houses every two years or so and go on vacation lots. We're well connected and I can speak three different languages. That's my family in a nutshell.

So, a few milestones: when I was twenty I was looking for daktars, and I was making that metal screeching noise they make-- you know, vvvvwwwooorrrrrp, vvvvvwwwwooooorrrrrrp-- when I walked past a tree and made the noise and this daktar popped right out of the tree! I didn't get a good look at him, but he had greyish hair and a dark suit on-- and he had a lot of hair above his eyes. He looked pretty ticked, like I'd woken him up from a nap or something. Anyway, he just pops up and says, "Shush!" and pops back down again! And I start digging through the tree, and I hear him scamper down and start running through the forest. So I'm yelling at him to come back, but I can't see him, just hear him. And then I hear him make the noise in the meadow, and I fly towards it, but there's just an empty clearing. It was strange. But that was when I decided I wanted to write a book about daktars. I've been collecting all the daktar lore I could find and forming my own theories. But I've never seen another one, because they're really good at hiding.

When I was twenty-two, we moved to Ekrevar where I met this dragoness named Narta Arsetvisha. I had a crush on her, but she didn't reciprocate. We moved a year later. Then I realized she had inspired the plot of my book. (It didn't have a plot before then. I was trying to come up with one.) I wrote her a letter about it, but as far as I knew, she never got it, and I never heard back because we kept moving.

So now it gets really weird, because this month, my cousin Ginzaekh showed up to the door with a bunch of dragons and suddenly my dad says time was turned back. Apparently I don't remember it because I died the first time around. Ginzaekh said Narta got my letter and we met her later. I wish I could have remembered that. Then I find out Mom and Dad are wizards, uncle Ginzaekh was a wizard, Khaz is a wizard, and our friend Har Arsaks is a wizard, and Narta's dad is a wizard. Well, I was really mad when I found out Dad knew Narta's dad and didn't get her letters to me, but there wasn't much time to argue because Zarakharn came and we had to leave the house. The emperor is apparently also a wizard, and he looks really young even though he's a hundred and sixty years old. So now we're living with Mom's friend Digdit, whose house is apparently enchanted to be impenetrable. I never would have guessed. But now all the Shazarians-- that's what Dad's group of wizards is called-- and their families are living with us, which means Narta and I get to talk every day! She's a painter. She's really good. Probably better at painting than I am at writing. You should see her work. It's incredibly realistic.

Well, that's me. Who's next?

 

Alec: Sounds good! My name is Alec Shorman, and I am a Lawful Evil egalitarian. Not something you see everyday, though apparently conservatives like to think that egalitarians are Lawful Evil for infringing on their "freedom" to deny other people's freedom to –

Charlie: Focus.

Alec: Sorry boss. See everyone? My black lesbian boss tells me to do something, I don't care that I'm a straight white guy, I care that She's My Boss. Let me see... I enjoy Dungeons and Dragons, especially as the DM, and before most of Charlie's operation was destroyed in a turf war, I tried to get a lot of the other cooks, dealers, and enforcers interested in playing D&D in our free time as a team-building exercise.

Which is also part of what's going to make me so good at elemental powers now that we know that magic exists in the real world. In D&D lore, Magma is the paraelemental combination of elemental Earth and Fire, Slime is Earth and Water, Smoke is Air and Fire, and Ice is Air and Water. In the school of real-world magic that my friends and I are starting with, Earth and Fire magic make Metal magic instead (Amy's taking that one), Earth and Water make Crystal (Charlie's taking that), and Air and Fire make Lightning (I'm taking that one), but Air and Water make Ice just like in D&D, and I'm the one taking it in addition to Lightning. Our mentor tells us that the personal touches that a mage adds to their rituals are as important as the technical details, and I love the fact that the combination that matches D&D is also the combination that the D&D nerd was gonna be taking anyway.

Charlie: My name's Charlie Petersen, and I cook drugs to pay for my chemistry classes. I like the peace and quiet and being able to focus on doing just one thing perfectly.

Alec: Hence she's taking Earth and Water magic.

Amy: My name's Amy Carmine, and I pretty much spend all of my time thinking about death. My favorite game has always been Sid Meier's Civilization III, my favorite play-style has always been world domination, and I've always loved learning about military history. Like how one of my favorite songs is the Confederate marching cadence "Richmond is a Hard Road to Travel" because it reads like a School House Rock special about the early Civil War battles, only if it were written by Michael Bay.

I even have a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's book about guerrilla warfare – and believe me, that was a fight with my parents convincing them to let me get a book written by a man who was a psychopath, a tyrant, a mass murderer, and worst of all in their minds, a Chinaman and a liberal –

Alec: Holy shit, did they actually say that?

Amy: No, but the subtext was pretty clear. Anyway, I loved watching the Military Channel with Dad before I ran away at 15, and my favorite episode of History Channel's Modern Marvels was the episode about Barbarian Battle Tech. I even considered modding my copy of Civ III to create a "Huns" civilization whose special unit would be the Hunnic Horse Archer: replaces the Horseman and has higher attack and defense than normal outside of Jungle and Marsh terrain, but lower attack than normal inside of Jungles, and Marshes: Hun's recurve bows were a devastating super-weapon when they were dry, but that the glue holding the strips of wood together couldn't get damp. Absolutely terrifying on a Dry map, notably above average on a Normal map, crippled on a Wet map.

Charlie: Hold on, "Modern Marvels" is on the History Channel?

Alec: With an episode about "Barbarian" Battle Tech?

Amy: Come on, guys, just roll with it! Seriously! Moving right along, I also found serial murder to be an effective enough form of therapy for my PTSD before I had the money for group sessions and medication, and I have spent a lot of time studying other serial killers. My closest similarities would probably be Aileen Wournos and Henry Lee Lucas, and I've fallen in love with Natalie Merchant's Tigerlilly album, but my favorite would have to be Israel Keyes.

Prepping murder and clean-up kits, stashing them across the country, leaving them for years before picking them up to use them ... on the spectrum of Organized to Mixed to Disorganized, this guy was such a pinnacle of the Organized serial killer extreme that he made HH Holmes and Jeffrey Dahmer look like Herbie Mullin or Richard Trenton Chase.

I myself am more of a Mixed serial killer: I would wait at a bar to get picked up and taken home by a guy, strip naked to keep my clothing clean, then knock him out and gut him in a frenzy before showing and raiding the fridge for anything I could take with me on the way out. More self-control than a Disorganized killer, but more savagery than an Organized.

... Oh, and to answer your question Vanna: you can think of this as being on the internet if you want I've been thinking of it as being in-person, but there's nothing that says you have to!

Alec: Wait a minute, now I have a question for Cira. Wouldn't a person in wolf form having sex with a wolf be like a person in human form having sex with an orangutang?

Charlie: Good bye.

 

Alec: Nice, I've always wanted to try out the Half-Troll template from Forgotten Realms!

Charlie: Please don't start.

Amy: Oh, so you're just a wild animal when you're in wolf form? No intelligence, just pure instinct? Not sure I would want to do that, I love being in complete control of my own actions, but if it works for you, then keep it up!

 

The Rishnaran: I'm not sure he can hurt you. Your creators will see you die as they intend you to and not here, to avoid continuity errors. However, if he were inclined to fight you, you would probably lose without magic or modern weapons.

 

Amy: What about both What if we had modern weapons enchanted to become even better?

Alec: Yeah, one of the things Amy and I are gonna do is scour the internet for unrealistic action movie stunts – absurd numbers of bullets between reloads, absurd accuracy and stopping power, dual wielding with no loss of said accuracy, carrying gatling guns with her bare hands, blowing up cars by shooting at them enough times – that she'll be able to replicate with Metal magic.

Amy: And the knives! Don't forget being able to cut down droves of mooks which axes, baseball bats and steak knives while they're wasting bullets trying to shoot somebody who's bullet-proof!

 

The Rishnaran: I doubt Dav is bulletproof. But he does have deus ex machina on his side, unbeknownst to him. If I say he lives, that's that.

 

Vanna: I wouldn't join in. I'm a skinny fifteen-year-old with no combat training whatsoever, I would get creamed. Anyway, my turn. My full name is Vanessa Melody Jane Jeanette Henrietta Beaurenice. I was born in 1920 in Kashmir, and my parents are called Henry and Melody Beaurenice. I go to St. Edith's Academy in Nottinghamshire, which is a very famous school among the wizarding community for allowing humans and witches to mix on equal ground. My favourite subject is Music, and I play the violin, the piano, and (a relic from growing up in the early 21st century) the electric guitar. I also sing, and I'm a contralto, which means I have to sing in the alto section of the school choir, and that's sometimes too high for me. My favourite mistress is the Art mistress, Miss Juniper, because she really helped me out last year and she's got a great sense of humour. As well as playing my guitar, I like reading school stories, embroidery, and playing with my kitten, Emerald.

 

Rycin: You do actually have combat training, Vanna. You play the guitar, a.k.a. axe.

 

Vanna: Haha, I suppose I could hit someone over the head with it (were it not too precious). "Axe" sounds very heavy metal, though. I'm not that into heavy metal.

 

Dav: What's a guitar? And of course an axe should be made of heavy metal. It's the best way to drive enough force into whatever you're chopping.

 

Vanna: A guitar is a type of musical instrument. It has a large, hollow wooden body and some strings pulled across it, as well as a long neck. You pluck the strings, and because they're different thicknesses, they produce different notes. I play the electric guitar, which was invented in 1931. However, mine's from 2010, so it looks very different from the ones that other people play. You connect it up to something called an amplifier, which produces the sound artificially, so you can use controls on your guitar to modify the sound. People tend to use certain settings, so electric guitars have their own sort of sound.

Heavy metal is a type of music. Basically, you play your guitar like a maniac and scream your song. I always thought it was a bit excessive. I prefer songs that I can actually sing. If we really are all sitting here, I can run and get my guitar and play some of my favourite songs, if you like.