Chadius: TOA Summary 7/2/07

• Returns to TOA HQ
  • Emero gets an embarrasing ID photo taken
  • Updates Zii on the tournament, thinks he's legit.
  • Puts the Golden Fork in a safe deposit box
  • Head to the South African portal
  • Expect MISTIC resistance
  • Zii will send teams to the other locations to slow the MISTIC teams there

• Black Tiger drives through South Africa to Zimbabwe
  • Stops in village, 1 mile away from the cave
  • Nu'mair villagers warn them away from the cave.
    • Treasure hunters go in, never come out. Well, the ones who do emerge go insane.
    • A group of men in metal suits went in yesterday.

• Party goes to cave entrance
  • MISTIC battle armor scraps outside
  • Ceelie sticks her head in to see if there are any MISTIC agents
  • Poof! dissapears!
  • Group follows, dissapears as they enter the cave.

• Lily wakes up in bed
  • Mom says hi and offers some pancakes
  • Dad congratulates her on crushing a rebel force

• Diiman arrives at the world premiere of "Don't Tread on D"
  • No one's here! Nobody!
  • Diiman starts talking to himself

• Ceelie wakes up on a dresser next to a toy chest
  • Stressed lady walks in, trashes her toy chest. None of them are Bluey!
  • Ceelie tries to comfort her, but the lady thinks she's hallucinating
  • "Helen, switch to decaf," she tells herself.

• Li is in an empty room
  • The "hater in the mall" appears and calls him names, Li is confused.
  • The hater disappears, Li's old master demands Li trains with him to gain approval
  • The mission: fight monks until sunset

• Viveka's in a wide open plain.
  • She sees a path that keeps trying to hide itself
  • A voice tells her not to exit! And why can't it eat it?
  • Viveka escapes and appears deep in the cave tunnels.
  • The scream is getting louder, Viveka heads in that direction

Mission Report: Lily

We returned from Rome with the Golden Fork and one of the competitors, Emero. Emero has been inducted into TOA and given an ID card. We had a briefing with Zii about the tournament.

Zii seemed more interested in the other competitors, and less so in the actual tournament. As a rundown, there were twelve competitors. Five of them were from our team: Li, Tara, DiiMan, Viveka, and myself. The others were Dan, Isaac Dyode, Madam Ruff, Slashz0r, Rick Holden, Pol, and Emero. Zii said that TOA had tried to recruit Madam Ruff in the past, but that she prefers to work outside of our structure. He was very surprised that Pol was at the tournament.

I separately briefed Zii on the information I'd acquired from Isaac Dyode's orders from MISTIC. Among them was information on what other MISTIC teams are pursuing the other items, so we are more prepared for the opposition we'll face when we go after them ourselves. However, more important to me was the information on the advanced systems that MISTIC believed are mimicking humans. Given my encounters with Anastasia and what I've observed of Lucy, Zii is going to look into the matter more closely.

It was decided that we are next to go to the caves in Zimbabwe to gain the next item in the series. The closest TOA portal is in South Africa. From there, we will take the Black Tiger on another off-road trip to our destination. Because of the imminent threat of the items being acquired by competitors, everyone decided that they needed to get their beauty sleep and go the next morning.

The drive was long and bumpy. I spent most of the time contemplating AI additions to my bike, and, in turn, the Black Tiger. I could probably make it smarter than Diiman. If he gives me the chance to work on it, I'm making his car into a gay guy that hits on him constantly. Srsly.

We arrived at the closest settlement outside of the caves. There were both human and Nu'mair villagers there. They spoke English, and recognized Diiman. Of course. They warned us that the cave was cursed, and that treasure hunters that went into the caves either never emerged, or were totally insane when they did. Also, a group of men in metal suits went in yesterday. This is a little confusing, because the leader of the MISTIC group is supposed to be a woman, but perhaps they were just being general about it.

We got to the cave. There were scraps of battle armor, definitely MISTIC-made, scattered outside of the entrance. Ceelie stuck her head in to see if there were any agents inside, and she disappeared. Literally. Diiman immediately dashed after her. He was followed by Tara and Li. Vivi and I debated entering the cave as well. I called Zii to check on what to do--going into the cave or waiting outside were really our only options. So I think we're both going in...

Light level increased. Reading: indoor daylight.
Humanoid movement detected. Humanoid voice detected.
Humanoid recognized as: Mother.
Mother says: Get out of bed. Your father made pancakes. 
Food desire increased. Reading: hungry, but picky.
Mother says: We made syrup from the trees out back.
Skepticism level increased. Reading: snarky teenager.
Database query: Ceelie. No information found.
Teleport to dining room? (Y/N)
Teleport successful. 
Humanoid recognized as: Father.
Subroutine "smalltalk_Meal_Breakfast_Family" initiated.
Father says: Congratulations on crushing the rebel forces.
Memory replay: battle plan from ##/##/####
Self-worth level increased. Reading: Daddy's little girl.
Database query: WTF is this shit. Lolcat macros found.
Database query: Rebels, home, self, ... Processing...