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3,676 checks

Don't forget the one in the chamber.

A BALLISTIC CUCKOLD.

Why aren't you armed, again? This man has already used his weapon on you once.

A massive sign marked 'NONCE' flashes red in your mind.

There it is. The moon.

One postcard, no fax. The meeting place, your home turf. Before you is an operant gone way off script.

EMTERR is trying to defect Luz's most valuable cultural export. The play of plays!

The key appears to lie within the mangled plastic of the fracture-point. You'll need to prune a few millimetres before what's left can fit together.

Very hard to tell where the fracture point is. The plastic is simply too disfigured.

Covered in white, gooey spiderwebs of glue.

It cools in real time, re-solidifying before your eyes.

That thing's not surviving a gunshot.

You can hear the prayers of the tribespeople echoing up from the pass:

Except your self-doubt.

May death be at your back, and may the stars direct your hand.

Looking at it does not fill you with positive feelings.

Gripping the barrel in a plastic vice.

A twelve year old child in the gun-crafting colonies of Dream of Rustam makes the exact same movement.

Brother death. Salud.

Simple: the strike of a metal pin ignites the bullet's firing cartridge. Having nowhere else to go, the energy from that contained explosion pushes the bullet out of the gun's muzzle.

If you hit the bullet hard enough it flies towards your enemy.

See? The Opera provides.

From the profoundest, most autistic depths of your self, a sense of universal harmony and order wells up.

Clang. A can clattering down, cutting through the Bazaar's noise. Patrons walking around, sipping cold coffee.

The mould that emerges looks... less than impermeable.

A clotted, sickly rainbow sludge, haunted by the tenuous remains of discernible shapes.

Unmade back into synthetic polymer, the primordial soup from which a race of anti-lifeforms might emerge.

Around you, night drags the day out of sight.

She's looking at you. Don't look back. Unsuturable wound.

Another drop of phantom blood in the clear waters of your soul.

Spines of ice bloom across your ribcage.

WHAT WILL YOU SAY TO THAT CRUEL ANGEL --

Spare her this knife, at least.

Slash these ties clean. It will make it easier to not look back.

The first time she's reckoned with another person turning against her. The real her.

Her voice is pleasant, as ever, but it fails to grip anything within you.

Slightly self-conscious all of a sudden.

She won't. The knife will stay in her.

You have a picture of this girl in your pocket. The postcard.

The first tram ride into Portofiro, HOLOCENE at your side, face turned to the window, giving a twenty minute answer to one of the world's most common questions.

The prospect twists your gut in terror.

Not too different. You both sculpt the world -- one from the dark, the other in the light.

Hit her with that memorable chorus, lodge it in her head:

They're turning on each other. Exploit it.

She is less certain with every passing hour.

Sixth generation Luzian fighter jet. Deployed in most of their 'Reunional Military Actions'. Serious rapid gear.

The purple plane wouldn't help.

ULTRA VIOLATOR.

She's in one now.

3,676 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 51 of 74