orioncayge
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 770
Trainer Class: 
Arena Points: 20
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Post by orioncayge on Dec 13, 2022 22:46:24 GMT 9
A crack of lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the gray sky of the Surging Steppes for but a brief moment. Several seconds later the low rumble of thunder washed over the grasslands as Orion found himself pondering his options. Several days ago all hell had broken loose, one moment he'd been playing beer pong with bros. The next, he'd been fighting for his fucking life with the player base against some sort of resident evil styled raid boss. It'd been one hell of a spectacle, but he'd personally pushed himself past the point of breaking, and given his "boon" the safety mechanisms of the game had failed to kick in. Instead of jettisoning him out when his pain thresholds hit their limits he'd pushed beyond, and with that he'd managed to help snatch victory with his mangled fingers.
Yet at a cost.
His fingers still ached with phantom pains long since gone, something that chased him outside the parameters of the game as well. It was known as Phantom Nervous Injury Syndome, and while he was no stranger to it. His profession as a virtual fighter allowed him to push himself to his limits over and over, waking up from false death after false death without fear of permanent physical injury. Mentally, not so much. Yet every ring he'd ever stepped into had clear cut rules, thresholds that would jettison you before any real lasting damage could be done. This time, he'd pushed into a level of pain he'd never endured before, and this time the after effects were clinging to him like an ex lover with codependency issues. The last thing he needed was to suffer more permanent injuries.
That meant evolving.
However, unlike his lovely pokebros, he couldn't just flash white and play some hype ass music and then become Cayge Master or something cringe like that, no, he needed to find additional ways to grow stronger yet stronger. A simple solution stood out to him, the Armorer class. All he needed to do was forge some sick gear, and not only would his team get stronger, but so would he. Wins all around if he said so (and he did say so), but how to go about getting some sick ass metal drip? It's not like Iron just jutted out of the ground or anythi-
Wait.
So here he was, walking towards a single spire with profound purpose and violent intent, pickaxe in hand ready to mine and craft his way to success. As he found himself at the base of the spire, he would wait for a surge of lightning to pass through it, fizzle out, and then with a grunt he would bring the pick down with a mighty clang, sheering off a chunk of metal with the strike. He would repeat the process, waiting out a strike of lightning, then sneaking a few strikes in, waiting, striking, over and over like clockwork. Each hit a loud klaxon alarm, carrying through the wind unobstructed for any to hear.
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Tuesday
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Battle Legend
The Creed
Posts: 1,602
Trainer Class: 
Player Name: Martín 'Mars' Marzán
OOC Username: Stells
Arena Points: 138
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Post by Tuesday on Jan 5, 2023 19:26:48 GMT 9
Great minds think alike... or fools seldom differ. Thunder and lighting make of the Surge Steppes their kingdom, the air heavy with ozone and static. Where the weather may deter the actions of many, intimidating them into staying as far as possible from Asper's Route 3, the blonde Alchemist moves with assurance. Bold, some would call her. Determined, she would call herself. She has a goal. A purpose. A mission now that the events that had taken place at Bronstanton Manor have revealed the painful truth to her. Tuesday is simply not strong enough just yet, and relying on her Pokémon has never suited her. If she's going to get stronger, she'll do it herself. Most Pokémon simply can't be relied upon. Just look at her newest companion: a small vibrantly pink child that in a matter of seconds goes from being excited and awed by the rising metal spires all around them, to being terrified of a nearby lightning strike. It trembles, hiding behind Tuesday's leg and shaking its rattle-like hammer. "Keep walking." Tuesday demands, her mismatched gaze inspecting the spires near them. Not good enough. Yet, it's Tuesday herself that pauses at that very moment, her cat ears perking up at the sound that closely follows that of thunder. Metal upon metal? A hammer? Whatever it is, it's loud. Curious as to who may have had a similar idea to hers, Tuesday follows the sound. Lightning falls a few metres ahead, and its then that she's greeted with the sight of orioncayge standing by a spire. For a short few seconds, she watches silently. "That'd be much easier if you got one of your Pokémon to help, you know?!" Tuesday instead for it to be a rather dramatic appearance, but given the fact that she has to shout to be heard over the sound of the storm around them and that her Tinkatink waddles over to the Black Belt, the effect is lost in its entirety.
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orioncayge
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 770
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 20
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Post by orioncayge on Jan 7, 2023 18:13:06 GMT 9
Orion kept up his work with a near hypnotic rhythm.
Swing, Clang, Grunt.
Swing, Clang, Grunt.
Swing, Clang, Pause.
He would always be baffled by how real this all felt, the texture of the wooden shaft as he hefted the tool overhead and sliding his hands down it with each strike. The way the steel met steel, how the jolt rattled up his arms and set his teeth on edge. Wind whipped and howled around him, pulling heat from his body and tearing at it in the same gusty strike. How sore his muscles would grow over time, how his tender fingers would strain against gripping the handle for so long. It was breathtaking how free he felt.
Orion's gaze shot to the Pink Gremlin approaching him, unsure of the strange fairy's intent Orion would simply discard the pickaxe to the side and pat it's head. "Hey lil homie where is your..." his gaze would shoot upward scanning around for the trainer before his gaze settled on Tuesday . Another fucking catgirl, or course. Wait, he was fairly certain he knew that catgirl, he'd met her somewhere? He racked his mind, running through the catalogue of pretty anime women that inundated this game's player roster. Then it clicked, she'd been at the raid, right along the front lines with him and the rest of the greenhouse gang. It dawned on him that her lips were moving, but any and all words escaped his ears, drowned out by the crack of lightning and the howl of wind.
"WHAT WAS THAT?" He would howl over the wind, hoping that she would have a better chance at hearing him. "I DIDN'T CATCH A FUCKING WORD."
He would quickly pocket his small pile of ore, unsure of how much he would need for his little DIY project and would try to close the gap between them. Before long he was towering over the petite catgirl, cracking his neck and stretching his arms. "We've met before yeah? That sick little soiree that got a little heated, no?" |
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Tuesday
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Battle Legend
The Creed
Posts: 1,602
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Martín 'Mars' Marzán
OOC Username: Stells
Arena Points: 138
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Post by Tuesday on Jan 15, 2023 19:10:23 GMT 9
Despite the affiliations that may display themselves over her head — right under her username — Tuesday has always favoured solo play. Relying on others generally doesn't usually work out well for the petite Alchemist, and she honestly would rather not even completely rely on her own Pokémon to begin with. That in itself is part of why she had chosen to make some of the changes she had chosen to make today. However, true as all of that may be, when her mismatched eyes fall upon the spire Orion had chosen, a single thought crosses her head: Not bad. Out of all the rising deposits she had seen on her way here, this one seems like the purest, and it makes her wonder if orioncayge had done his research before he begun doing what she assumes he's doing, if he's innately good at this sort of thing, or if he had just gotten lucky. Regardless, a decision is easily made. "Yup, that right about sums it up." She responds, a bemused smirk tugging at her rosy lips. Thunder cracks nearby, as if to say that there seems to be disaster in the horizon whenever they run into each other. Still, Tuesday is calm. "Good to see you when not in the middle of Pokémon-zombie apocalypse."A storm seems like a minor inconvenience by comparison. Her gaze drifts towards the spire, next to which the Tinkatink now stands. The pink gremlin looks up to the tip of it, staring intently before raising her hammer. Bang! Bang! Bang! It's as if lighting were falling in rapid succession, metal rings against metal — the ore being dented by the sheer force applied. Tuesday nods towards such a sight. "You're mining for ores, right? How about we work together? I can make the metal be more malleable for a bit and then you just gotta hit it as hard as you can. Easy as that." Tuesday winks as if to emphasize just how easy it would be, grinning with confident radiance. But, how does she intend to pull of this sorcery? Well... Alchemy, actually. Something perhaps soon made clear when she takes off her adorned leather gloves, revealing digits of golden tips. Part of the inside of these gloves would be gold as well, for such are the things one must deal with when having the subconscious ability to temporarily transform any inorganic material she touches.Leave it to someone like Tuesday to still always find its advantages.
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orioncayge
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 770
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 20
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Post by orioncayge on Jan 17, 2023 20:45:52 GMT 9
"The Apocalypse tends to make for bad first impressions...or maybe the best ones?" The fighter would frown as he contemplated the line of thought for a moment before shaking his head. It would appear that once again their goals had lined up, and his attention would be robbed by the little pink...goblin thing going apeshit on the spire sending small chunks scattering across the windswept grass, the soft glitter of the UI informing him that those chunks were in fact loot twinkled like the raindrops that seemed perpetually threatening to fall. He didn't quite recognize the pokemon aside from goofy memes he's seen scrolling twitter, but it certainly seemed to be getting the job done.
"You know, they say many hands make light work. I don't mind joining forces with you again, I'm-" He extended his hand to shake hers in greeting before pausing and chuckling. "Ooops, almost Midas'd myself there huh? The name's Orion Cayge, a pleasure to meet you..." He paused to inspect her username. "Tuesday." That...was a peculiar name especially given that it was in fact Tuesday right now. What a strange coincidence, but surely there wasn't some greater gimmick involved there, right?
"If you soften them up, I have no problem going to town on it and breaking as much as we can."
He would then watch as the woman strolled over to the tower and leaned forward, pressing her fingertips to the steel between a pulse of lightning and letting her class work. Slowly at first, but as the resplendent tone overtook more and more of the localized chunk of the spire the faster the infection seemed to spread. Once a sufficient patch had been softened, the catgirl would clear the space for Orion to go about his work. Taking a wide stance, the fighter would roll his neck a bit before taking a deep breath and focusing. He could feel the strange warrior ki that his class had developed roil internally, and with another deep breath he let it manifest in a subtle shimmering aura around his body. The crackle of energy filled the air as he hefted his pickaxe into the air and brought it down with a mighty CLANG sheering through the considerably softer metal seemingly with ease. He would pause as lightning struck the tower once again, filling the air with the scent of ozone, before raising his pickaxe again and repeating the action, his blows echoing through the steppes like thunder.
"Out of curiosity" he would manage between swings. "How much of the stuff are you going to need you think?" CLANG "Because I'm not sure how much I need" SMASH "And frankly if we take too much we might topple this spire." CRACK "And the last thing I need is to accidentally spawn a secret raid."
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Tuesday
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Battle Legend
The Creed
Posts: 1,602
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Martín 'Mars' Marzán
OOC Username: Stells
Arena Points: 138
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Post by Tuesday on Jan 26, 2023 1:09:13 GMT 9
"Ha! As far as I'm aware, Midas only works on inorganic stuff. Nice compromise, but totally not how the myth goes. So, like... better safe than sorry, right?" The class hadn't come with an instruction manual or anything of the sort (go figure), so naturally, Tuesday had done some testing of her own. After all, in Ovid's original retelling, Midas turned even his own food into gold, which some say resulted in him dying of starvation. Later versions even had him turning his own daughter into a gilded statue by accident, which is definitely a big no-no. With all of that taken into consideration, Tuesday can't blame Orion for his caution. "Really cool name, though. Who's your Artemis?" She teases right before stepping closer to the spire, allowing the rhetorical question to to hang for a moment in this air charged with both ozone and static. They're like the embodiment of that saying: one works smart, the other works hard. It's not that either is actually better than the other, but that with their strengths combined great things can be achieved. The strike of thunder rings in the distance, the CLANG of a pickaxe meeting gold resounds nearby, and enjoying this cacophony of sounds, Tuesday comfortably sits on a rock, having already done her part. Her tufted tail sways lightly, and her mismatched gaze goes from fallen ore to ore, the golden sheen of some already beginning to fade into the darker shades typical of iron. "Hmm... Let's see..." She muses when orioncayge voices his question, and tapping a few options on her UI, she opens her journal — which appears as an actual physical journal. "Somewhere between thirty five and forty pounds usually makes a full armour, but I'm pretty small, so thirty or so should do... accounting for mistakes. Gold is heavier than iron, though, and measured in a different archaic pound system — troy — that I hope UNOVR didn't implement..." Orion probably doesn't need to know all that for his question to be answered, but Tuesday says it anyway. Clearly, she had done her research. A hand pats the head of the Tinkatink by her side, the Pokémon watching Orion as if eager to join him in the potential destruction of the spire. "I think there should be just enough for both of us, but it's better to wait until they turn back to collect them."
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orioncayge
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 770
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 20
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Post by orioncayge on Feb 19, 2023 12:56:34 GMT 9
"At the moment, I have no Artemis really. My family has a thing for myths and legends, pops got named Troy after the Prince. My grandfather has a masters in Mythology and Folklore and a small obsession with stories of herculean feats and such." CLANG. "So I got the name after the great hunter, but in reality my dad just wanted me to be a star." CLANG. He would work his pick up and down until the wily woman had finished working out the weight they needed. Doing math like that in her head was a feat he was unlikely to repeat, the wily whims of the numerical tended to elude the steely cayge that was his head. History? Easy, Trivia? Trivial, Poetry? Like breathing. The finer things like math and science tended to make his head hurt, and while he could apply these things to works of the mechanical, in abstract it might as well be a headache waiting to happen.
Once the work was seemingly done, Orion would banish the pick to the ethereal hammer space that was his inventory, wiping some sweat from his brow and turning to his newfound companion and their gremlin pokemon.
"I'll trust your math, beats having to sit there carrying twos and minding the parenthesis and shit. PEMDAS and all that shit, never made a lick of sense to me, but you don't need it when you're kicking the shit out of someone or something."
He would watch the gold glisten and glitter in the faint flashes of light from the sparks overhead. A sense of accomplishment brewing in his chest as he realized that he'd done all of that, with her help obviously, but he'd ripped out enough gold to pay a small army to sack a township and declare himself lord.
Maybe even a duke.
"Any idea on how long this is going to take to shift back?" |
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Tuesday
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Battle Legend
The Creed
Posts: 1,602
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Martín 'Mars' Marzán
OOC Username: Stells
Arena Points: 138
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Post by Tuesday on May 3, 2023 3:58:13 GMT 9
A sense of understanding washes over her when hearing Orion talk about his family's fondness for mythology, amused by how even people who seem to be polar opposites can end up coming from backgrounds with similarities like these. It's nice."Ha. I get what you mean, my family's similar in that way... Dad named me after a god and used to read me Greek epics as bedtime stories. In hindsight, probably not the thing to read to a kid, huh? And then people wonder why I minored in Classical Lit." Tuesday laughs, a sound too short and too light to last in the assault on the ears that are thunder and clanging. None of this is information she'd usually share in UNOVR, eager to keep her real identity hidden, but maybe this conversation with orioncayge had struck at something deep within her... or maybe she's hoping such information will become irrelevant as they keep chatting. Plus, it's not like people often make the connection that 'Martín Marco Marzán' just means 'of Mars' three times (obvious as it might be), nor do they know much about his interests beyond making tons of money.With the ores having been mined out of the spire, the Alchemist stands, jumping off the rock she had made her seat. She walks closer to the chunks of iron of fading gold sheen, inspecting them with her gaze, and by her side, the Tinkatink follows with wobbling steps. The Pokémon is clearly eager to hit the ores with her little hammer-rattle, but Tuesday stops her. "All in due time, little one." Once again, she pats the steel fairy's head, then turning to look at Orion again. "They're already shifting. Looks like a good enough amount too."Is that it? Is this where their business concludes? It technically should, since they had fulfilled their deal of helping each other with mining the ores, but ever too fond of making conversation, Tuesday speaks up once more while carefully selecting her own ores: "Thanks for the help with these." She picks up an ore once the golden sheen has completely faded, inspects it, and lets it disappear into the vastness of her inventory. "Out of curiosity, what do you plan on making with these?"
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orioncayge
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 770
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 20
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Post by orioncayge on May 8, 2023 4:40:18 GMT 9
"I dunno man,"
Orion's eyes lit up when the Catgirl mentioned the fact that she also shared a similar familial experience. Clan elders passing along epics of yore, filling the impressionable mind with ideals of being a hero and a healthy fear of karmic retribution. It was a core experience in the fighter's life, and he frankly wouldn't have changed a bit of it. "I think my pops telling me all about heroes n stuff gave me a pretty healthy understanding of like...basic good and evil? If nothing else it made me want to grow up to be strong, maybe have people tell my story after I'm gone ya know? Some Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyun stuff, scrappy guy who pulled himself up by his bootstraps to defend the lil guy?"
Shrugging, he would follow the catgirls lead and scoop up a healthy amount of the spire's steel into his inventory. They really had gotten more ore than you could shake a stick at, Ore Galore if you will. He could probably outfit his whole team with sick ass gear and more at this rate. His mind swirled with ideas of protective plate helping preserve his poke pal's weakpoints and all sorts of sick ass tech he could teach his team to tear down terrors with. Then once again Tuesday proffered a question, as if she was reading his mind and the fighter smiled.
"Ah, well, ever since the whole affair with uh...the Briarbeast I've been a bit worried about protecting both myself and my team when we get into the thick of it. I kinda have a cheat code going right now that's pretty sick, but it won't last forever and it isn't without consequence. Might as well focus on getting my team as strong as I can and doing everything I can to stomp on goons when they show up, so I'm gonna use this stuff to make gear with the Armorer class, so hopefully by the time the next raid comes 'round I'll be strolling in with me and my own looking like power rangers or something."
It sounded a little silly, frankly, but the aesthetic of it tickled the inner innocence that Orion was trying to resuscitate by playing this game in the first place so why not embrace it with an unironic sense of zeal. He could be all serious and boring outside the game.
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Tuesday
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Battle Legend
The Creed
Posts: 1,602
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Martín 'Mars' Marzán
OOC Username: Stells
Arena Points: 138
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Post by Tuesday on May 9, 2023 13:18:59 GMT 9
She gets it. After all, they had both been there: right in the frontlines when the Briar Beast had attacked. That experience had also been the reason why Tuesday had decided to unlock the Armorer class, as admittedly taking aggro would have been a hell of a lot easier if she herself had been a tank. Plus... it suits her aesthetic. Heroes, armours, and elegant weapons. Who says a catwoman can't be a knight in shining armour, right? "Power Rangers, huh? That'd be fun. It'd sure make the raid a hell of a lot more interesting. You should get them each their own colour of bandana to match their armour." She smirks, because bandanas seem to undoubtedly be orioncayge's thing. It's not bad branding, as far as style goes. Even Tuesday herself has a couple of bandanas of her own! She finds herself looking forward to seeing all those Pokémon in their new battle gear, and that thought in itself sparks an idea. After taking a moment to look at the plentiful iron fruits of their labour in her inventory, Tuesday looks at her companion again, this time grinning radiantly. "Actually, I was planning on going to work on some armor after this. Wanna come with?"Why not, right?
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