>>256577
"WELCOME, TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!"

Make sure you say this with lots of dramatic flair.

>>256586

Let's go with this plan. It's pretty solid and the spear is honestly our best bet in a fight against mounted foes.

Though it might be easier to just kill the unicorns under their riders than fancy "knock them off the unicorn" stuff. Safer, too.

Also use >>258594 as your battlecry.

32-N115-ADZJ - forest Lyan 2010/11/29(Mon)05:01 No. 260622 ID: f123de
File 12910356885.jpg - (54.33KB , 500x500 , 21516554.jpg )

Best guess is we've got a bit under 60s to prepare. "Sal, we need you red again. Toss me one end of that rope."
[Red, hmm?]
"Of course. You're the bait."
[Thanks.]
"You can take it." I finish stringing up one end of the cable and give it an experimental tug.
[Fine. If you're actually planning on skewering things with your pointy stick, give me the sword.]
"You know how to use it?"
[Enough to carve up a few ponies.]

32-N115-ADZJ - forest Lyan 2010/11/29(Mon)05:02 No. 260623 ID: f123de
File 129103577391.jpg - (54.81KB , 500x500 , 21516585.jpg )

The rider in the lead slows to a stop a few meters from our trap and holds up a hand. The trio behind him halt. "You cannot hide, beast. I have the True Seeing." I can hear him pronounce the capital letters.

Well, so much for that. Sensory upgrades? A part of me is still chewing through the cryptic and Byzantine protocols this place uses, but I have a feeling it's related. I step out, but remain on the opposite side of the cable.

Not sure why they're so hesitant, but no blood has been shed yet. What now?

Come out and talk to them directly then, since the trap's busted. Ask them why they're following you, and what they want. You're kindof in a hurry.

>>260623
Stay close to cover and ask them what they want with you.

"One can only hide if there is something to hide from. Why were you following me, do you wish me ill?"

Should probably stay hidden, but be prepared to run if he tries to sneak attack you.

>>260656
This seems reasonable.

Shouldn't let them surround you closely, so try to stay at least a few steps from Sal.

"I am no beast. Are you?"

We appear to be dealing with LARPers of the future. They're probably going to get upset if we break character.
>>260656
Do this.

Stomp out. Look unimpressed. Say "The fuck are you?"

>>260726

Seconding this. Attempt peaceful communication but be wary for any trickery he might try.

32-N115-ADZJ - forest Lyan 2010/12/02(Thu)10:50 No. 261357 ID: f123de
File 129131581048.jpg - (50.59KB , 500x500 , 21516631.jpg )

I stay near cover. Right now the spear is extended to approximately my height. The extra meter of length should be a useful surprise, if it becomes necessary. "Do I have something to hide from? Why were you following us? Do you wish me ill?"

"So, it talks!" the lead rider says with mock surprise. "You trespass, you slay the alicorns of my liege lord, you create an abomination from their corpses," - I glare at Sal, who stares blankly back - "and you ask this?" Sal goes back to leaning on a tree, pretending to examine the sword.

"I am no beast. Are you?"

"You are an eyesore, unaffiliated with the Seleighe Courts. I am a Knight of the Thistle, sworn to the Lady Camberleigh, joint-steward of these lands." Cha togar m' fhearg gun dìoladh. Wonderful. He's pronouncing the capital letters again. After a dramatic pause, he continues. "...and hunter of blights."

Well, this is getting nowhere. This person is either staying in character, a jackass, or both.

Sal sends a message without looking up. [Hate to interrupt your fun. Elf behind you. 30m, closing slowly.] I steal a glance over my shoulder and reply across the radio link.
"Nothing there."
[I'm telling you, there is.]

>>261357
Well he probably hid when you gave away that you suspected his approach, you dolt.

This is the future. I'm sure Sal can somehow share her senses to your exothingy well enough for you to backhand punch it as it approaches.

>>261357
Tell Sal to deal with the Elf, non-lethaly, if it becomes a threat.

Tell Thistle Knight that you're a newly arrived traveler. You simply wish to reach your destination as quickly as you can. You didn't know that the alicorns belonged to someone, when they attacked you while you were resting you assumed that they were wild predators. You defended yourself and found a way to make one useful in carrying supplies for you. If they simply let you be on your way then you will be out of their lands pretty soon, and you will send them recompensation when you have reached your destination.

Is there anything nice you could kick towards them near? If so move over towards it, if you can get one of them to focus on dodging it then a follow up of a nice telescopic spear to the face should catch them by surprise. If it comes to a fight that is.

Here's a scary thought: These guys have been in character in their simulated fantasy so long that they forgot it was fantasy. I'm not entirely sure how to best deal with it if that's the case. Tell him you're an outsider and rather lost, and reanimating creatures isn't your usual way of things but it seemed like the best option at the time. Say you mean no harm to him, or to the elf approaching from behind you.

Loudly announce that you are a renowned Klingon warrior and that you demand to be treated with respect and blood wine.

You need to flatly tell them that you were literally dying of hunger, you were not aware anyone owned the unicorns, and sending someone to stab you in the back is nothing short of cowardly. You are going to leave and never return, sorry about the unicorns.

>>261357
"A hunter of blights? So they knighted the gardener?
Your beasts attacked us; we claim the right of defense. As far as trespass goes, it is not your place to stymie our passage."

Ask Sal if you she can feed you her vision, then whip around to insta-kill the one sneaking up behind you.

"Or ply an assassin with a numbers advantage."

Okay so we're in an RP-PVP habitat.

I can't decide if telling them we're foreigners is a good idea or not. We *should* tell them we're unaware of the situation here though.

Also, try radio-ing at them. Maybe there's an OOC chat?

32-N115-ADZJ - forest Lyan 2010/12/04(Sat)22:03 No. 261900 ID: f123de
File 129152901692.jpg - (52.31KB , 500x500 , 21516640.jpg )

"We just arrived and we're ignorant of your rules. When your alicorns attacked we assumed they were wild predators."

"Ignorance is no excuse."

"Sal, did he hide?"
[No, he's still right there. Stopped for a moment when you turned around.]
"Feed me your ultrasound."
[No problem.]

32-N115-ADZJ - forest Lyan 2010/12/04(Sat)22:06 No. 261904 ID: f123de
File 129152919788.gif - (485.80KB , 1240x300 , 21516673.gif )

I'm feeling in sonar, 360 degrees of overlapping dopplers and echoes, competing with my other senses. Close my eyes. Need a moment adapt to the data. Keep them talking.

"How about self-defense? Your pets attacked us while we were passing through peacefully."

No response. Don't think he buys it. Starting to get mad. "We'll be gone soon. I was dying of hunger when I arrived and had little choice. We don't mean you OR your friend behind me any harm. Sending someone to stab me in the back is nothing short of cowardly."

"You greet us with snares and ambush, and call US cowards?" he scoffs.

This isn't working at all. Maybe I can just radio to talk to him for a moment, let him save face talking out of character silently.. no, blocked. Finagle.

[All right, the surprise is in location.]
"No time for games, Sal. Say it."
[Forgot my pet? I can take this guy behind you out. Without killing him, even.] Brief pause.
[...and I don't suppose you noticed they're waving a bunch of metal around? We need that, Lyan.]

Do I explain what's going on and let them know I'm not playing their stupid game any longer? Or let Sal spoil their ambush? I can't see any other way to avoid a fight at this point.

I still say you should announce that you're a mighty klingon warrior. If irritatingly roleplaying the wrong way doesn't make them break character and call a GM, nothing will.

If that doesn't work, it'll at least provide a distraction while Sal unicorns them. While it's doing that, throw some knives at their mounts while you charge in and chop off their heads.

>>261904
"You outnumber us and were on the hunt, don't play at- *sigh* You know what? Fuck this. I'm done playing around with your society of creative anachronisms. We're here to visit a friend, and indulging your fantasy world is too much effort. Just leave us alone."

>>261904
Spoil the ambush. They're a bunch of annoying elven pricks and he's not going to let you simply leave. Time to get in a first strike.

Hmm, they're still a bit far off, need to get them closer. Lets try some insults, starting with that the trap was actually cowardly of you, if you had realised it was only 4 faggot elves then you wouldn't even have bothered with a weapon, follow up with calling their lady an alicorn fucking syphilitic whore and that you're not going to come over and sodomise her no matter how much she begs. That should push them nicely over the edge. Use the trees to your advantage and see if you can get them to get in each others way and stuff.

Oh, and keep your balance with the spear. Quick jabs should be useful, aim at the torso and the throat, swipes to unseat them can also be good. And stabs at the alicorns, there is alot of exposed throat on them, should be possible to get in a nice stab or two.

I say we let Sal do its thing, and fight these guys. We DO need that metal, and if we go out-of-character they might call in things worse than just a few riders.

On the other hand, if these guys are nice they might actually help us out if we tell them we're refugees. ...no they won't. It's been long enough that people will have heard by now about the basilisk, and they'd try to kill us as fast as possible to prevent it from infecting this habitat. Also, pirate copy. I guess you could ask Sal about it tentatively but I'm pretty sure they'd just go "that's stupid and crazy, let's kill these guys."

USE violence ON elves.

Sal keeps telling you you're stronger than you think you are. Maybe this is a time to test that. You should try asking again though, just one more time. Don't bother with radio, it's time to break character. Tell him something along the lines of "Okay, stop the fantasy roleplay for a minute, please. We came here by solar sailor, we haven't been scanned yet, and we needed the metal so we could keep ourselves from dying. Leave us alone, this is important."

Have Sal take down guy without killing him (since Sal seems pretty confident of that), then break character as others have suggested and try to get them to stop.

If outright going "fuck your stupid LARP, leave me alone" doesn't work I'd say we've pretty much done all we can to resolve things peacefully. It might be worth using the guy that Sal will presumably catch as a bargaining chip, but it might also be safer to just stab everyone and be done with it.

>>261904

"An ambuscade, if promptly discovered and surrounded, can repay the intented mischief with interest." -Vegetius

You and Sal and Sal's pithed unicorn have them where you want them. They've opted into a full non-consensual PVP role-play habitat; they will not listen to anything that breaks character, not while they're watching each other. If you had one of them alone, maybe he'd listen, but since they came in a group you've got no choice but to repay their mischief. With interest.

32-N115-ADZJ - forest Lyan 2010/12/08(Wed)01:42 No. 262869 ID: f123de
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"I have one last thing to try."
[Suit yourself.]

"All right. Stop." I open my eyes and look him in the face. "I'm not part of your Seleighe or Unseleighe Courts. We're not registered, we're not playing your stupid game, and we're leaving."

"What?" For a moment he seems more surprised than insulted.

"Crash-landed here. We're not part of your system." A contralto voice from my left. Sal?
"Since when can you talk?"
[I prefer radio. Futzes with the ultrasound something awful.]

"Well..." The elf holds up a hand and mutters a string of nonsense syllables. He stares at us a moment, and his eyes widen slightly. "How in Oberon's name did that happen?"

"We're just here to visit a friend and we're gone again." I'd like to know how Sal plans on pulling that off. "We could also really use those weapons you've been pointing at us," it continues.

He looks affronted. "Just hand them over? You have no idea how much honor we would lose!"

Murphy. Guess this is as reasonable as we can expect. "Fine, then. I'll fight you for them."

"I thought you said you weren't playing."

"I'm not playing. Use your mount and lance if you like. I'll try not to kill you."

Hope he takes the bait. I've - finished rewiring and I can feel my surroundings, even with my eyes closed. It's still confusing, since I'm seeing myself from Sal's point of view. He's about 10m away, and on the wrong side of the snare. I have a dagger ready to drop into my hand.

"Very well. I accept."

>>262869
He accepted, throw the dagger at his head.

Not at his head, we said we were gonna try not to kill him. Actually we probably shouldn't do anything sneaky like that, the others might get pissed off.

Make it a straightforward fight. Honorable. But uh... use your sword. It's what you're good at.

Throw the dagger past him, or make it fall short, and run up and waggle your sword at him using it as a distraction.

>>262905
Well we could throw it so it hits with the hilt then. Lyan is after all a very good thrower of things, should be very doable.

Wait, what? What are we going to do with a couched lance?

This is silly. Just leave.

>>263093
We need metal.

32-N115-ADZJ - forest Lyan 2010/12/11(Sat)02:11 No. 263604 ID: f123de
File 129206225942.jpg - (52.72KB , 500x500 , 21516771.jpg )

The words are barely out of his mouth before I throw the dagger.

At this range I could hardly miss. Two full rotations...

32-N115-ADZJ - forest Lyan 2010/12/11(Sat)02:12 No. 263605 ID: f123de
File 129206232588.jpg - (52.57KB , 500x500 , 21516772.jpg )

Solid hit with the butt of the knife and he goes over backwards. Drop the spear and I'm running before he hits the ground.

The others are turning to face me and lifting their lances. His mount rears, lashing at the air.

I get to him while he's down and this is over without any killing. Damned pony is in the way. Around it or through it?

Around. It may take a few microseconds longer, but they may not be willing to listen to you much longer of you continue to kill their, well, I guess they would call them their companions.

>>263605
Through it, you don't want the damn thing to be in the way when you try to get him to surrender. Might try to kick you from behind or something.

>>263605
...given you dropped you weapon, how on Earth is "through" going to be faster? Did you turn into a Synx when I wasn't looking?

Whichever is faster. If you appear over him in a shower of his ex-mount's sparkling blue blood, so much more for the effect of a decisive victory.

>>263633
He's got a sword. With a monomolecular edge. We have seen what that does to the horsies. He can pretty much bisect the damn thing in one stroke.

>>263634
For some reason we gave our sword to Sal, the person who's really calling the shots here: >>260622

>>263638
That's the sword with the forcefield edge that can cut through anything and not be broken by anything this side of a nuke and can act as an assembler.

The sword we currently have is a monomolecular blade made out of incredibly hard carbon materials. Not as sharp or as durable. But should be more than enough when wielded by a sergal that can throw rocks hard enough to crack the skull of a horse.

>>263638
Nope, he's got it again. Also, go around the mount. No killing it, we've already established they don't appreciate that.

32-N115-ADZJ - forest Lyan 2010/12/12(Sun)06:00 No. 263871 ID: f123de
File 129216244649.jpg - (71.96KB , 500x500 , 21516774.jpg )

As much as I'd like to do otherwise... don't want to antagonize them further with another dead alicorn. Duck beneath the hooves, roll when it tries to stomp, and I'm crouched atop of the knight with the diamond blade at his throat.

"Yield."


I'm perfectly within my rights in this habitat to kill him where he lies.
The same can be said of his angry friends with their lances pointed at me.

How do I handle the victory?

>>263871
Say thank you and pick up the lance.

>>263871
With some dignity and self confidence. Should be somewhat clear to them now that if they had attempted to attack you then it would have ended badly for them, they might gotten you down, but there would be a lot less of them around to enjoy their victory.

Help him up after he has yielded and then take your rightful gains. Move on a bit and then set up the sword and do something useful with the metal.

Teabagging Lift him up and pull him back, with your blade against his throat, so his pals are more in front of you than around you. Make use of your excellent peripheral vision.

Tell them you'll be happy with the one lance, and they can all fuck off.

>>263871
Don't kill anyone unless you're forced to. You said you'd try not to kill him when you were "negotiating", as it were, so doing so now might be seen as a breach of your honor.

Self defense is fine, but being a douche ain't cool. :)

Just ask them if they accept the victory and are willing to honor the terms of the agreement now, or if you'll need to go to the extreme of defeating every one of them before they admit it.

>>263871
Put the blade away and help him to his feet.
"Sorry, but we're in dire need of metal."

Ask the others if they want the same deal.

32-N115-ADZJ - forest Lyan 2010/12/12(Sun)22:57 No. 264106 ID: f123de
File 129222342940.jpg - (70.89KB , 500x500 , 21516863.jpg )

A slight nod. Blood streaming down his face from a broken nose. Hate to do it like this, but...

"Say it."

"Yield." He turns his head and spits red. "Thought you weren't playing our game. Can I get up?"

"Do any of you wish to dispute?" Realize I'm baring my teeth and force my lips closed. "All right." I stand up and hold out a hand to help him to his feet. "I'm not playing games. We're in dire need of metal." A moment's thought, then, "here." I reverse my sword and hold the hilt toward him. "An apology."

[Very smart. Arm the people that were trying to kill you.]
"It's just carbon. Disposable. They wouldn't attack me now that I'm unarmed - it'd be dishonorable."
[You forgot that you're about to take his weapons?]
"You'd protect me."
[From your own stupidity? Ha.]

It flashes by in a moment while the knight stands there staring at my offer. Finally he takes it and turns away. The lances lower slightly as I collect my spoils. "Is there anything you can do to help us out? So this doesn't happen with everyone we run into?"

"I will let others know that you are off-limits, but I suggest you run fast and far. You will not be well-loved in the lands of Camberleigh, nor any of the Seleighe. Not sure if it's meant as a threat. He says it as a simple statement of fact.

Take the time to collect our things - Sal's optics, the cable, spear, and knife? Or just move?
Stop soon to fabricate and use this offline brain-scanner? Wait until night falls and do it then?
[Or I could just carry you all night.]
Or Sal could carry me.

>>264106
Take the optics, spear... wait how did Sal just respond to what you're thinking? Hacking as usual I see!

Yeah get the stuff. The cable could be left behind I guess since it's disposable and a little time-consuming and we need to run. Sal carrying you all night... interesting prospect. Not sure on that. Might want to build that backup device.

>>264106
Collect your things, and consider telling them that something destroyed your habitat.

>>264106
You certainly want to grab Sal's optics, unless they're replacable with surplus materials. The rest is all just carbon, isn't it?

>>264106
Collect all of your stuff. Might be needed again in the future. Fabricate the brainscanner when you stop for the night. Oh, and remember how these people smell. You have a very useful additional sense now, you need to learn how to use it, part of that is remembering what smells belong to a place and what doesn't.

>>264114
Do not tell them this. Get Sal's eye, and you need to use the brain scanner as soon as you can.

Clarifying: I want to work on the brain scanner when night falls.

Is the Sal-possessed thing yours now, or will they want Sal to undo its hoodoo to give it back?

32-N115-ADZJ - forest Lyan 2010/12/16(Thu)09:11 No. 264765 ID: f123de
File 129251946255.jpg - (49.22KB , 500x500 , 21517048.jpg )

"We need to keep the alicorn a bit longer. Is that going to be a problem?"

"On your heads be it." It's the answer I expected. Still, as we're turning to leave one of the riders turns to watch us leave and wishes us luck.

[Still can't believe this is what we're fighting to protect.] Sal sounds bitter as we backtrack to retrieve its eye. I'm not sure what to say. [You did all right back there. Thought we'd end up fighting them all.] It pauses. [It's what you would have done before.]

[...of course, if you had we'd be swimming in raw materials right now and I'd finally be up to spec again.]

The day passes uneventfully - both of us lost in thought, perhaps. I'm wondering how Sal ties into all of this. I'd like to know how it bypasses all the safeguards on my sword. I'd like some sort of ideas for stopping the basilisk beyond our "plan B."

We make camp a few Ks after darkness falls.

32-N115-ADZJ - 220km away Lyan 2010/12/16(Thu)09:12 No. 264766 ID: f123de
File 129251953771.jpg - (27.13KB , 500x500 , 21594031.jpg )

"So. It kills me, maps the physical structure of my brain, then attempts to revive me while reversing any other damage done by the process."

[Yep.]

"Sounds a bit primitive."

[It's what we've got.]

This might be the last good time time to try for answers for a while. Otherwise, we're ready to start with the backup.

>>264766
Answers to what? I can't think of anything obvious that Sal would (alternately, could) actually give you an answer for.

But perhaps someone else can?

I was just wondering... the Basilisk corrupts anything it's recorded onto, be it a Network node or a living brain. What will it do to the backup? Will it be safe to use? Or will it just preserve your Basilisk as-is along with the rest of your noggin?

Another question is if the basilisk will destroy the backup device.

Ask Sal if it likes you better now than... before. Also ask if there was any reason for you to have created the Basilisk. Did you hate the habitats?

That reminds me. Sal never did say how they knew us before. Now seems like a good time to press the issue.

>>264766
Guess you could ask Sal about the you of before and how well Sal knew you.

Alright Lyan listen up. When you can, make some more storage devices and send your brain cycling through them. If that keeps them from being destroyed, you may have a quick solution to the virus, if only a temporary one. Alternatively, what about hardwriting your brain? Inscribe it on something a bit bigger, like a sheet of practically invincible material.

32-N115-ADZJ Lyan 2010/12/30(Thu)03:09 No. 267795 ID: f123de
File 129370736970.jpg - (27.46KB , 500x500 , 21594045.jpg )

What will happen to the device? To the backup it creates? I can answer that one for myself.

The device itself will probably be damaged - not rendered unusable, but infected nonetheless. Nothing about that should keep it from capturing an image of my brain. The way it works is pretty primitive - it doesn't create a state vector that could be simulated on compatible hardware. It, well, basically creates a blueprint that could be used to rebuild and reconnect the neurons. The first test will be whether I wake up after using this thing.

"Sal. Before I use this thing..."

32-N115-ADZJ Lyan 2010/12/30(Thu)03:10 No. 267796 ID: f123de
File 129370743687.jpg - (24.72KB , 500x500 , 21594123.jpg )

"What exactly is going on here?"

[I'm not quite sure what you mean.]

"How did you know me before?"

[Not saying.]

"How well did you know me?"

[We were... close.]

"How close?"

[What exactly is this supposed to accomplish?]

"You're the only person I know of that could tell me what's going on. What I was like. Why I built the basilisk. Did I hate the habitats? Our culture? And instead of helping you're content to follow along occasionally giving cryptic answers like some broken oracle!"

[Hold on. I didn't say that you DID do it, just that you had the capacity. On a... very, very short list of intelligences that do. Why you might want to do it... Murphy, I'm missing more than a Gigasecond myself.]

"How did you know to track me down? What were you expecting to find?"

[What matters right now? The past, or the future? Do you want to save our civilization? Because that's what I'm here trying to help with.] Murphy. It's been like this every time, arguing in circles. But after a moment, it continues. [There was... a fire in you. I've been waiting to see if it would come back. There are sparks, but..]

32-N115-ADZJ Lyan 2010/12/30(Thu)03:11 No. 267797 ID: f123de
File 129370747818.jpg - (23.50KB , 500x500 , 21594167.jpg )

Sal sighs, and walks toward me. [You were... not necessarily a good person.] It looks down. [And maybe that's what we need right now. I'm sorry.]

[Almost forgot. You'll be needing this.]

"Hmm?"

Sal reaches into its chest and pulls loose a small cube of its mass, then offers it to me.

[Recording mass.]

Obviously that's as much as I'm going to get out of Sal.

"Um. Thanks."

32-N115-ADZJ (animated) Lyan 2010/12/30(Thu)03:12 No. 267798 ID: f123de
File 129370753175.gif - (340.26KB , 500x500 , 21598231.gif )

Slow my breathing. Lower my heart rate. Should help the machine work. Clear my mind.

Nervous. This tech hasn't been in use for at least 40 Gs, and for good reason.

Steel tendrils slip through my veins and things start... to... slow.

White light.

32-N115-ADZJ Lyan 2010/12/30(Thu)23:58 No. 267994 ID: f123de
File 129378228574.jpg - (24.81KB , 500x500 , 21654353.jpg )

My eyes feel like they've been glued shut.

[Welcome back.]

Well, I'm alive again. I have a feeling of deja vu.

Ask her how long you were out.



AND what she did to your body THIS time.

Lyan 2010/12/31(Fri)00:28 No. 268004 ID: f123de
File 129378408473.jpg - (35.63KB , 500x500 , 21654527.jpg )

"Oh... MURPHY." I gag. "Something died in my mouth."

[Technically, it was your mouth that died. System probably didn't clean up all the decay products very well.]

"How long was I - no, wait. 60Ks. That long?."

[Afraid so. While I was waiting I ate the leftovers.] What? An summary of our assembler block asserts itself - 3kg of Al missing. Also a few more kilos of organics in the form of rations and antiseptic rinse, which I take from Sal with thanks. It does look a little better. Slightly less emaciated than previously.

There's no part of me that doesn't feel awful. I dial down the pain but it doesn't change the fact that I'm still in the process of repairing catastrophic damage to most of my tissues. It'll be at least a diem before the autolysis is full reversed. I really hope I don't need to do that again soon. "I feel like I've still got rigor mortis."

[At least you can laugh about it, right?]

Unless there's something I'm forgetting, I'm ready to get this journey over with.

Oh god what now.

Yes, continue on.

Did dying accomplish what it was supposed to?

Let's go. Dammit, that took a shitload of time.

>>268004
You need to mod that thing so it'll keep the autonomics going while you're out. It's bad enough that it knocked you out for two thirds of a day, but being impaired afterward? That's just unacceptable!
You can work on those mods while you're traveling. It's not like you can't code and walk at the same time, right?

Still, there has to be a way to neuter the basilisk. Our best bets are probably going dumb, pigeonholing it, or abstracting it.
On the dumb end the basilisk can't damage a storage medium that's too simple for the basilisk to damage; it would not, for example, be possible for the basilisk to damage notches in a block of wood. By the same token it can't damage a read/write mechanism that lacks some minimum amount of internal storage.
Alternatively, we could exploit the Shannon limit by compressing (and possibly encrypting) the data until it no longer damages systems that store it. This results in a catch-22 situation for the worm; if it remains functional when archived then the archive will be corrupted and we can use that information to precisely identify what portions are the basilisk, at which point we can hose down those areas with random bit corruption and damage if beyond functioning. If the archive isn't infectious, then the problem of storing it is solved.
Working in the opposite direction, we can have a bit of code go through and verbosely describe the data well enough to reconstruct it without actually recording any of the data directly. If that remains infected then we can compare the original with the copy to find matching or similar strings.

If it's redundant or fractal then pattern matching will easily catch it. Beyond that there's little left besides superpolymorphism, and since that requires that the code be 'live' to adapt we can use dumb tools to exploit its inactive state to get a clean copy.

OR you could start work on a Weasel to hunt and kill the Basilisk and consume its remains.

>>268004
Ask Sal if you atleast found out anything useful from it. Would kind of suck to learn that this was a waste of time.

Also, Sal is very much evasive about your past. Which makes me think that this red thing is even more untrustworthy than it seems.

32-N115-ADZJ - forest's edge Lyan 2010/12/31(Fri)12:50 No. 268067 ID: f123de
File 129382862253.jpg - (37.85KB , 500x500 , 21663298.jpg )

How much further? Give me a map."

Sal obliges. [About 200 Km, and 3 vertical.]

"Vertical?"

-----

"Ok, I don't know much about planetary geography but I know this is ridiculous. You're SURE this is where it is?" I've long since switched to radio to save my breath.
[No. I'm sure that's where it was.]
"This is the only way to contact it?"
[It takes great stock in appearances.]

With a little luck we'll be there not long after sunrise.

32-N115-ADZJ - volcanic crater Lyan 2010/12/31(Fri)12:51 No. 268068 ID: f123de
File 129382866782.jpg - (39.04KB , 500x500 , 21710564.jpg )

"I'm not sure what I expected to find, but this wasn't it."

[Oh?] Sal squats down and stares into the magma.

"ARA! Visitors!"

32-N115-ADZJ - volcanic crater Lyan 2010/12/31(Fri)12:52 No. 268069 ID: f123de
File 12938287718.jpg - (41.45KB , 500x500 , 21710617.jpg )

A dark mass begins to slowly take shape within the crater.
Hmm. I thought Sal had a weird morphology.

I'd like to say it spoke with a voice reminiscent of tectonic plates grinding together or something equally poetic, but it's not.


"Lyan. It's been a long time."

...what kind of timescale does something that chills as a geological formation consider "long"?

>>268069
We've BEEN here before? How the hell does it even recognize us?

Say hello, ask how it recognized us so easily. Don't start of the conversation with blurting out your problems- lead into it gradually without being deceptive.

>>268078
This...is a good question, given our identity is sufficiently broken to lock us out of our own IP!

Also, sergal-meat shell.

"Hey. This is Tier 2, right? I locked myself out of my own memories and body and forgot my password again."

32-N115-ADZJ - volcanic crater Lyan 2010/12/31(Fri)20:07 No. 268141 ID: e5b41b
File 129385484457.jpg - (41.57KB , 500x500 , 21710624.jpg )

"Sorry. I don't remember."

"I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to the creature next to you."

What.

[Shit.]


End Chapter II.

Begin swearing. Do not stop until the next thread is underway.

>>268153

>>268141
"Well that explains a lot. Wait, no it doesn't.
Sal, did you hijack my identity again?"

"I thought I was Lyan. So which of us is the clone?"

Grab Sal Lyan II and coil him into a pretzel. "WHAT A TWIST."

Say "You've been Lyan to me all along!"

Of course, Lyan is Sam's xox. Makes sense why Sam stuck with Lyan so long, since Lyan is Sam, just a different branched instance.

Trapper!/KLERUSqLU 2011/01/04(Tue)19:31 No. 269249 ID: bd3722
File 129419829566.jpg - (78.66KB , 500x403 , mind-explosion-.jpg )

F*****G FUCK ....
I read this complete quest and the discussion thead in like a week ... AND I FUCKING DIDN'T SEE THIS "M Night Shyamalan-like" PLOT TWIST COMMING .-.

This is so fucking awesome.

I won't use the >"Myheadisfulloffuck.jpg"
i guess it was already used like twice.

"So, that was masturbation?"