Mice chase cats, dogs chase dinosaurs, all in cartoon format around your head and you wake...

Sitting up with your eyes open.

You're in the middle of a sidewalk, and people around you have their mouths open in gasps of surprise.

*Magic. I can breathe again, boss. I'll forgive you for not slaughtereing those morons in the last world if you let me kill someone in this world.* Ajax says in your mind.

PT

Magic?  Excellent...  I bet these people have never seen someone verse in...  Meh.

I get up take a look around, check to make sure I've got all the books, and then proceed to find a place to sit down and read all of them.

You find an 'Irish' pub with Oriental (with red wigs) waitstaff that are attempting a brogue. Its called 'Ye Olde Country'.

One thing you notice is the abundance of verser familiarity feelings in multiple vectors.

The pub, which goes beyond fake to Faux!! gives you a quiet place to read, and sip a drink.  You've finished the first book, and moved into the second when light glows at the front doors, which open and an overpowering radiance comes in.

A man is standing in the midst of the blazing light, and the waitstaff is on their knees bowing to him.

PT

Pfft, the angel's was better...

I continue to read the next book.

"LEAVE US!" Booms out, and the waitstaff hustles out of there.  The man unclicks something, and then twists a dial, and the light dims.  He puts a harness on a chair by the door, and walks out of the light with goggles pushed back up on his head.

He looks relatively ordinary now, except for the energy rifle on his back, and the robotic whip at his hip.  He's a bit chubby, but mostly he's just broad and well-muscled.

He smiles and grabs a whiskey from behind the bar before he comes over to your table with two glasses in his other hand.

"My name's Hiram, but the locals call me Hercules. So, worldwalker, verser, gatesman...You landed in my district, and that means I get to try to recruit you in on the deal.  I could use another demigod to take part of the workload, and of course, split the loot with."

He smiles.

"See me and my friends, from Phi Epsilon Delta out of Toronto University in His Majesty's Canadian Imperium have ourselves a sweet setup...you too can become a god, for 29.99, or actually a demigod and get ten percent of the take."


PT
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:46, Thu 18 Sept 2008.

"We're versers,,, you actually expect me to have cash to pay? Pfft....  The proposition sounds interesting.. explain a bit...  what do you mean by gods and demigods?  How exactly are you one?"

"Well, I'm not, but that cash thing was a joke...y'know late night television...you can buy this for only 29.99...maybe they don't do that where you're from...Anyways." He stops and gathers himself. "Me and my fellow frat brothers arrived here, and we told the locals we were the Greek gods come to Earth, and then we put on a show. A little magic, a little telekinesis, some tech they'd never heard of...and presto...we're gods, and they're donating 1% of the GNP of the planet to us in exchange for our 'divine' favor."

He busts out laughing.

"We've done it before in other dimensions too. Anyways, its a great gig. But you have to spend some time 'blessing' the openings of hospitals or whatever you're supposed to be god of, and occasionally go to parties and wow the locals with your great powers...and we've had other versers arrive here too, and so we recruited them to share the workload and part of the profits."

He looks at you and your sword.

"Hmmm, you could be Tyr, or Lugh Longhand, or Mars...Most of the major Greek gods have been taken already, but we still have lots of Roman and Nordic god names open to use."

PT

"Have you ever even met some of the greek gods?  I met one..two actually.. and worked for both of them.  Well.. I worked for one, fought another... but ended up working for him in the end.  Is Ares taken?"

"Yeah, Mark the Man, big rugby player guy, he's Ares. He has the whole Yislat mega-island up near the Artic for his domain. Hades, Apollo, Athena, Dionysus, and Hephaestus are already taken of the Greek pantheon....Course Athena's a demigoddess in our scheme since only members of Phi get to be the major gods. That caused a little religious confusion, mind you. And no one gets to be Zeus...we save his role as a backup in case of emergencies, like we make a mistake and anger the people big time, why then Zeus can step in, and 'overrule us' lesser gods."

He shakes his head at your question.

"Nah, never met one, although Hephaestus gets awful mysterious when you ask him that question. Personally, I'm not sure they're not really people like us."

PT

"I personally met Ares and Thanatos.  Perhaps if I versed the current Ares... I would take his place... or perhaps if any of you have heard of me, you would simply give it to me... Or better yet.. I will be Zeus.  Of course there are other possibilities...  Like I said... maybe you've heard of me... My name is Avahur."

At first he looks like he wants to laugh, then he looks cautious, then he smiles.

"Avahur, I've never heard of you. Some of the others might have, though. We can't let you be Zeus, however, I personally have no problem if you whack Mike the Man. He's an arrogant snot anyways. And then you help me out, give me something, and I'll sponsor you as the new Ares. I'm pretty sure the others won't mind."

You notice his right hand is near the cuff of his left arm, and you can see a shape of something up the sleeve of his left arm. He's waiting.

PT

"Eh... I'll be Thanatos, the god of death.  We should shake on it."

I offer my hand.  As I offer my hand I produce large amounts of heat in that hand, he slightest spark would cause an attack, but since no spark is present, and I don't intend on creating a flame... just the heat, the hand shoould look normal.. or so I believe.

Once he moves his hand towards mine I grab and squeeze in a nice, firm, handshake.

OoC: Actually... as I as typing this I had a thought...  if it works I could cause someone to have a stroke...  or maybe cardiac arrest...  By using heat energy to gradually raise their body temperature, and then use water and like..cold energy so to speak, to cool it down rapidly.  If the body can't handle the change it will go into cardiac arrest... at least I'm pretty sure it would.  Now it is a matter of combining the element and messing around with magic, and I might be able to learn some new things..

You produce the heat, and he takes your hand to shake it.

"Ow!" He tries to jerk his hand free, but you grimly hang on.

He doubles up his fist and clocks you hard across your right cheekbone. You feel like you got your bell rung just a little bit.

"Let go, now!"

PT

"Play with fire and you'll get burned.  What's up your sleeve?  Not trust me?  I would recommend not doing anything funny... and just explain yourself now."

I snap my fingers and produce a flame as I wait.

He's starting to sweat.

"Its a snapper dagger with vibroblade." He tells you unhappily. "Look, its not like you're making it out to be. Trust has to be earned. Besides, you were the one that came here and started talking about doing in Ares."

There is a whining note in his voice now.

*Let me kill him.* You hear roar through your mind.

PT

"You can't even begin to imagine the power of the gods. Yet, here you are acting as them?"

I get up and start to walk around in a wide circle..

"Well...I told you I worked for Ares and Thanatos before... I met both of them, and let me assure you, ares has quite an arm.  He managed to throw my friend and me across an ocean... we flew through the air for atleast 10 minutes before we landed.  We were tasked with defending the city of Troy and prevent it from falling.  We succeeded, and I became known a Achillephon, since I was the one that killed Troy's enemy's champion, Achilles.

I was givin my own island to rule over by the king, and in battle I versed out.  I eventualy versed back to that world, 3 years in that world's time later.  I ran into the god of death and mortality, Thanatos.  We fought a couple times, I managed to deal a decent wound in him and after some business... me drinking from the river Styx, and such, I started working under him.  My job?  To bring people back to the underworld that should have died and managed to escape death."

I pause for a moment as I wander in my wide circle... stopping to look at him.

"I eventually burned to death and versed from that world.  Now, I've had people out to kill me, that is not news to me, but they at least had the skill to be secretive about it, and would consider trying to catch me off guard.  You're way of doing things is flawed... It wouldn't be so, if you attended my military academy back when I first created it.  You would have learned quite a bit, but unfortunately, you didn't."

I give Ajax a healthy amount of energy.

I continue my walk as I move closer to him, grab my sword and attack.  Ajax in my right hand, with a flammas jacio spell ready to shoot with my left.  Slice into him with Ajax and follow it up with a strong blast of fire.

If I get a chance to say it...

"It looks like I need to continue my job as the god of Death."

OOC: Its fairly obvious whats coming, but not completely so, so I'll roll for perception on Hiram's part. He sees it.

Yes, the sword strike is a '98', a botch which means you lose an attack.

===========

Hiram sees the approaching doom, and slides his right hand under the table.

You lunge with Ajax, and bury the tip of the blade into the back of the booth next to Hiram's head.

Hiram whips his hand up with his robo-whip, and aims for your head. It slams you across the face, splashing blood like a burst baloon. You stagger, and unleash the fire spell.

Whoomph!!

Hiram screams once, and then vanishes.

The dazzling light in the room is gone. Hiram is gone. The booth is on fire, and you jerk Ajax out of the blaze as he curses you in your mind. Huge drops of blood are spattering your feet.

PT

Eh... I figured that might happen... always be prepared.  Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

I take Ajax's sheathe out and put it behind my back, then sheathe ajax, making sure that none of my blood gets on his blade.

Well, Hercules is dead...  time for me to do my job as the god of Death.

You walk out into the street, and there is a street full of worshippers with their heads bowed to the ground. They start to look up puzzled when Hercules in his blazing glory does not appear.

You do see Hercules' flying 'chariot' parked twenty feet away. It looks like some sort of technological device overlaid with sheets of mother of pearl and enough gems to sink a battleship.

You now have a plan...do the god of Death thing...how are you going to go about accomplishing this plan?

Hmm... in order to resume my duties as the god of death I need to send people to hell that should have died but escaped death for whatever reason.  I drank from the river styx.. soo.. hmm... maybe I can recall some memories and... "unlock" so to speak the abilitiy to send people back...  if not then I'll just go about my duty... starting with the other versers in this world.  Maybe I can learn a trick or two on the way...  But now I need to deal with these people.

I create fire in both of my hands.

"My name is Thanatos, I am the god of Death.  Hercules and I just a small discussion, and he had to take care of important matters elsewhere.  I am not sure when he'll be back, but when he does, there will be feast waiting for him.  Some of the others and myself will be preparing it.

Anyway, I have business to take care of, you can come back inside and go about your business."

I keep the flames burning and head back inside, dismissing the flames, and proceeding to read the rest of the books.

There is much murmuring of awe, and fear from the crowd, and one of them thanks you loudly for your kindness which seems like some sort of signal for the rest to get up. But you're heading back inside as they move on.

No one follows you inside.

It takes a couple hours to finish both books, but you're aided by the Chinese waitresses in their red wigs who keep your drink cup filled and bring you snacks.

A few people do come in, but they are seated on the far side of the restauraunt to give you quiet to study.

Add @1 to your Basic Psi Theory.  You now have a number of techniques described for shields, probes, and bodystealing. You also have some techniques described for strengthening your willpower.

I get up, thank the waitresses and such then move towards the door... not leaving yet. I get an idea and look into the distance down the road a little bit.

I close my eyes, envision myself there, and teleport with my gear to that area... to show off a bit.

I look around for a place in which I can practice and train my abilities.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:07, Tue 30 Sept 2008.

You teleport way down the road, and then wander around until you find a shabby storefront that advertises training.

"Learn Comblag Magik! Use Sword! Kill your enemuys!"

Inside, its a dingy desk with a tired woman reading a romance novel behind the counter, and out back its a series of small rooms. Some are set up for shooting alleys...

"Here you can throw fire or shadow." The woman announces with a throat-cracking yawn as she kicks aside some wadded up paper in the main hallway.  She shows you the small dojo rooms with much patched mats which stink of hundreds of hours of sweat.

"Here sword, spear, knife, whatever." She says with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

Once she gets back to her chair she turns to you with some more energy.

"Twenty marks a day, or seventy marks a week, or 350 marks a month."

On the TV to your right in the lobby you hear announcers discussing the arrival of a new god or demigod? They think you're 'Tyr'.

PT

"Oh? It is interesting how confused mortals can be... confusing me with Tyr, but no matter, that issue will be resolved soon enough."

The former comment was more to myself than anyone, though I said it normally...

Then, turning to the female..

"Well, our names both begin with T, so it is understanding how you can confuse us I suppose.  Although, confusing the god of death with Tyr is a bit off, I must say..."

After a moment or two..

"Oh... you say something? Sorry, I'm busy taking care of business elsewhere in the world right now, so going back and forth gets a bit hectic at times... you said something about a price?"

She gulps and you can see beads of sweat form on her forehead.

"My lord, um, your deificness, um, yeah, your deificness, we would of course provide you with a place to train..." She pauses catches a breath and stops stammering. She's a bit confused about why a god needs to train, but just as obviously decides that asking that question could result in divine displeasure and a sudden trip to the Afterlife.

"Your divinity, may I show you to our best training room?"

Assuming that's satisfactory, she takes you to a room which is larger and less stinky than the others. There are a couple guys in it, and they don't want to leave, but she speaks to them quickly and desperately, and with big eyes they scoot past you and race down the hallway away from you.

Its still a pretty cruddy room.

PT

"Thank you."

If there is a door or whatever that is open that we walked through, I use some magic and close the door, if it was just an opening then I leave it as is..

"Well, I'm going to do a bit of a warm up, feel free to stick around, it seems rather boring up front anyway."

I await a response, then say "florae", and create a flower which I then proceed to change colors with "colos" and after deciding on a color, blue, I proceed to create about 15 or so flowers which I then proceed to levitate around me with "pendeo."  After all 15 are up and levitated, I move them to the center of the room and use the flowers to create an outline of a door, changing all the colors of the flowers to brown.

Then, I proceed to say "aperio" and use magic to open that door of flowers.  Then using a strong gust of wind I proceed to hit the flowers an instant after I stop levitating them, which would scatter them around a bit.

I then concentrate for a moment and shoot fire and burn each of the flowers turning as needed to hit all the flowers.

"Well.. that was a good warm up. Usually I can do it all without the trigger words, but sometimes I like to use them when I do things that are a bit more consuming with energy."

There is a door, and since you invite it, she stays. Pretty soon a dazed smile graces her face, and the tiredness drops away.

"So beautiful." She says at the end. You feel energized and loosened up from your workout. It was just hard enough to stress you a little bit, and make you break a sweat.

PT

I start removing my armor and such, and when I reach my shirt I take that off, and remove armor covering my legs until I'm just in my pants, removing my boots and socks as well.

As I disrobe I explain, "Well, it is going to get a bit hot in here... playing with fire does get the temperature to rise...  that and it will become a bit steamy in here when I create it..."

As I disrobe she would obviously be able to see a well built body with runes on the chest and on one arm, along with multiple scars from sword slashes received back before he became a verser.

Once I fully disrobe to the my pants and such, I use my arms and say the word and make my gear and such levitate and move them off into a corner.

I then proceed to create a steady stream of water from my hands until there is a small pool around my feet.

After giving a slight wink to the female, I create fire in my had closest to her and slam it into the water, creating steam/ a mist of sorts...

"Working in adverse conditions helps us train, divine as we may be, we have encountered exceedingly strong mortals that have learned some of our divine capabilities.  So we need to train to make sure that we can't be overthrown. That would be bad, and who knows what evil could happen to the world if that happened..."

OoC: Side note... Avahur still looks 26...  even though he'd be nearing 29 if he aged...  How old is the female?
This message was last edited by the player at 19:44, Thu 02 Oct 2008.

She enjoys the show.

"Then they are far from me. I'm just the desk clerk in a ...I don't want to offend...but frankly a crummy little dojo and firing range run by a fat slob. I'm glad you came here Thanatos, you're the most interesting thing thats happened here, since...well...ever. Having a B movie Kung Fu fighter like Shaper from 27 Steps of Doom doesn't even begin to compare. And that was the most interesting thing before now."

She smiles and it lightens her care-worn face. She looks to be in her late twenties, perhaps early thirties. She's had a hard life without much in the way of hope, and doing a job she quite obviously hates.

"I'm Kendra. I don't know all that much, just have my green tassel in Jeet Kune Do, but I can hold punching bags and target gloves with the best of them so if you want to, y'know practise your kicks and stuff..." She looks embarrassed at daring to suggest an idea to a god. "Course I don't know any magic, cept how to activate charms."

PT

"Well.. yes this place is quite crummy...  I don't mind though... it somewhat reminds me of home...before I became a god...  All of us were human at one point, but someone very powerful was looking to destroy all the gods, and so they went in search of replacements to become gods in their place.  They proceeded to team up, and when one was killed, his divine powers and abilities were transferred to his replacement.  The gods teamed up and, while dieing in the process, they killed the person seeking to destroy them all.  So now, myself and the others are gods.  I still have a lot to learn though.  If you aren't ready to receive a certain ability of the god before you, then you must train until you are physically and mentally able to handle it."

I take a look around and then levitate some of my gear away from each other so that I can retrieve my shurikens and throwing knives from my pouch.

"I'll be doing some of that a little bit later, I'm working on my targeting.. I haven't thrown these in a while so I'm a bit rusty.  Would you mind stepping out of the room for a little bit?  I wouldn't want one such as yourself to be injured.  Also..  Can you do me a favor and see if there are any people that would be interesting in some hand to hand combat.  I'm looking to work on it as well."

Once she leaves, I move to the center of the room and create 15 flowers (I have 19 shurikens) and levitate them up around me.  I then proceed to take note of their positions and quickly move and spin in a circle, targeting them through the mist and throwing a shuriken at them. My goal: Get better at targeting and throwing them.

Her eyes grow huge.

"The gods told us nothing like this when they arrived three years ago. They said they had created this universe, and created us, and now they had come back."

She leaves when you invite her too, and a few minutes later a man with a white and torn gi, with a single black tassel on his belt enters the room.  He observes you.

"I am trained to be a first master in Tun Bu Wrestling. If I may demonstrate?"

He bows and over the next five minutes demonstrates a wide variety of falls, most with the intent to help the enemy hit the ground first, joint-locks, and pins, and disarms. It is a reactive and slow martial art that lures the enemy into attacking and then uses his errors against him.

He is fairly talented, but nothing extraordinary.

He stops and bows again.

"If I could be of service, my lord, you have only to command me."

PT

"I've wanted to try this for a bit.."

I take a basic defensive posture for jujitsu, going to size him up a bit, since it's the same style of fighting that he uses...

"Come on, let's spar a bit."

You and he are about evenly matched. You're a bit more skillful and physically able, but he's not far behind in either area, and so it tends to come to about one fall out of three that he wins.

You train with him for about an hour and a half, and in the process you learn a few new tricks. His Tun Bull Wrestling is reactive like your Ju-jitsu, but it has a flair, a style, a drama that shows up in some showy, intricate moves that if they work, work very well indeed. Of course, they mostly don't work, but his style is well suited to retreating and trying again.

You both stalk each other around the room, and spend at least half of the time just waiting for the right moment. Its a duel of preying mantises.

Finally, you're both tired, and he bows.

"My lord, I fear that if I continue, I shall injure myself. However, if you will it, then I will continue."

OOC: +@1 to Ju-Jitsu as you see your skills in a new light, and you've picked up a few tricks to add to your skills which are now 2@4.

PT

"Very nice.  Take a break...." Exhaling  and inhaling in a few deep breaths..."Well, time to work on moving a bit..  feel free to sit around while you recover.."

I stand still in the center of the room and close my eyes, recovering energy for a little bit preparing myself for what I do next..

I turn in a circle taking in the measurements of how things look then take several steps forward so that I am staring at the wall in front of me.  I then proceed to visualize me back at the other side of the room so that I'm looking at the wall in front of me, but with the wall behind me at my back.  I concentrate and attempt to teleport backwards, so that I am staring at where I am standing right now...

You teleport, reversing your position so you're facing the opposite way. The Tun Bu practioner blinks, and then you do it again, and this time he's got both his eyes on you. You keep on practising this new modification to your skill.

The man gets up after about twenty minutes of this.

"My lord, it occurs to me that there are ways to integrate this 'flipping about' into your fighting style. It could be...devastating if a method was found."

OOC: +@1 to teleport for new use.

PT

"It could be done.. but it is a recently acquired skill I haven't had time to excel at yet.  When I get it down so that I can do it as a simple reflex, then all my various fighting styles will improve..."

Looking around for a moment, I ask him..

"Want some water?"

If he agrees I go over and produce water, having a steady stream flow into his hands, then create some for myself...

OoC: Don't forget that I created some steam in here. raising the temperature and training in this area helps to increase stamina.

He drinks, but does not seem especially overawed by this display of power.

"Nice mineral tang, my lord. I've seen another do this, but the fountain he summoned was bland." He looks around. "And there is no fire."

OOC: The steam makes things harder, which is good. In Multiverser, there are two ways to gain higher levels of skill. One is finding new uses which tends to have some risk, to boot. The other way is long periods of practise...if you're amateur 60 hrs. in a two month period, and 120 if you're 2@ (although raising the difficulty of the task can lower that time.).  And of course, time spent is the general way to raise basic attributes.

This is to say, you'll have flashes of insight, and long periods of hard work if you train with the Tun Bu wrestler.  Unfortunately, the other 'gods' are not about to allow you the several months training.

IC: The door blows open and a man surrounded by blinding light stands in the middle of the room. The light dims, and you see a slim man in a track shirt and shorts with Nike shoes, and small wings attached to the shoes.

"I'm Mercury. You may leave." He points imperiously at the wrestler who backs away nervously. "You." He points at you. "Zeus summons you to Mount Olympus. You may take Hercule's chariot if you have not sufficient power to reach there on your own."

Yup, he's a verser.

PT

"Ahh, Mercury, it's been a while.  How are you doing?  Surely you remember your good buddy Thanatos..  After all, who could forget me, the god of death...

Anyway...  Mount Olympus?  I wonder what Zeus wants with me... well, let's head outside, and not disturb these people as we gods take care of business."

I prepare flammacio as I head past him to head outside, and when I get like right next him I cast it.

My hands are by side as I walk with the flammacio in waiting in my right hand.  I walk past him so that my right hand is adjacent to his body as I walk past.  When we are right next to each other I use flammacio to burn him, then draw my sword with my left hand bring it about and slice him a couple times, aiming for his head, neck, heart, and arms.  Trying to get any and all of them...

Mercury smiles back in a fairly good fake.

"Ah, Thanatos, of course."

He drops the smile and it shatters on the ground like a broken icicle. This is a man who doesn't need many friends, and who sees the world through frozen glasses which is the way he likes it. It makes him feel superior to be in control.

You do a credible job of maintaining a poker face despite his suspicious glance at you. After all, he knows you killed 'Hercules'.

You whip your hand up, but he's simply faster. He takes one step and he's halfway across the room. You fling the fire spell, but in his swerving run you go right as he goes left and you burn a spot into the wall.

The Tun Bu wrestler is running for the door at full tilt.

You sword is out, and Mercury is laughing at you from the far side of the room.

His 'glory' turns up and you find it hard to spot the details of his body, let alone look at him directly.

"Time for the god of death to die." Mercury says.

PT
OOC: You beat him on deceit, but he beat you on fast draw, and being Mercury he has some speed and superrunning to go with that fast draw. He crossed half the room in a quarter of a second with him blurring in your vision he was going so fast.

"HAH! There is a reason I'm the god of death. I'm just doing my duty of sending those to hades that escaped death, just as I did back in greece for thanatos himself.  So yes, I'm out to kill all of the other versers like back when I saved Troy from destruction at the request of Ares himself.

I'm guessing you've never met a god... well guess what, I have and have foguht toe to toe with them as well.  Messing around with Avahur is never a good idea."

Ajax, it's time to kill, we're going to kill a verser... which means you'll get some new powers..  so don't fail me now, let's kill him.

I give ajax a moderate amount of magical energy.

Then with incendo prepared, I stare at mercury as I speak and teleport to be adjacent to him and slash at him with ajax, prepared to release incendo at him if he moves again.

I spend time walking around and memorizing the room.. seeing how it is to be in every position in the room, so that it will make teleporting a thousand times easier to actually have seen it than to visualize it.  I continue doing so until he get's back.

Hmmm... maybe I should consider trying to become a diplomat if I ever got the chance...  I do recall that putting traing and fighting aside and instead fighting with words can help to discovering new ways to do abilities...  yeah... maybe if I'm lucky I can try that out for a world or two...
This message was last edited by the player at 16:45, Tue 14 Oct 2008.

You have the room thorougly memorized so that you can 'see' it even with your eyes closed.

The door blows open like a strong gust hit it, and something man-shaped streaks in. Things fly off from him. He hits the brakes, and waves with a hand full of metal rings as he turns to run the other direction.

You see eight grenades flying through the air in every direction.

PT

"PENDEO!"

I yell the word to levitate objects, and move my hands to "catch" all the grenades and bring them together in the center.  As soon as that is done... "INFLO!" to create a very large gust of wind, which will hurl the grenades out of the room.

Then, I proceed to teleport over to my equipment and start putting my armor back on.

Straining hard to see all the eight grenades that are bouncing off walls, you reach for your power, and catch them. Without pausing for breath you summon a wind, and a weak trickle of a breeze whispers past your face.

You reach for power again to try...

Bawhoommmmm!

Eight grenades explode, and fling you against the back wall which cracks under the strain. You slide down to the ground out of breath and with black spots in front of your eyes.

The world seems distant, beyond a pane of glass, and its hard to think. You don't feel any pain, and looking yourself over, you see that you've been dotted in at least five places by grenade shrapnel, but nothing life-threatening it seems.

I reach through my pack for the triangle box... knowing I've got a lot of crap to deal with now, and I'll need to be healed..

Once I'm healed... I get my armor all the way on, grab my gear, and envision the diner where I met hercules and try to teleport back into the diner.

You're healed, armored, and teleported back to the diner.

The waitstaff sees you, and does the full prosykinethes on the ground. The other diners blink, and then bow as well. The only one waiting is a toddler who stares at you perplexed before his mother jerks him down to bow as well.

"Lord Thanatos. I am the humble owner of this restauraunt. How may I be of assistance?" One of the waitstaff says from face down on the tiles.

PT

"Two things.  First off, we aren't gods.  Although the thought of it is nice, it isn't true.  The 'gods' as it were are all like me, we are all versers.  We die, we go onto the next world, and can learn different abilities and so on, dying and doing the same thing on different worlds.  I've died over 20 times, one of the times, I worked for the actual Thanatos, and for the real Ares.  I've also fought with thanatos.  Now, hard to believe?  Sure.  All of you, cup your hands, transfer energy to them and say 'aqua'.  Try it, you'll eventually get it.

Second, I'm gonna be killing some of the other versers, because it was my job when I worked for thanatos.  Plus, I just enjoy killing people.  So, this place is going to turn into a battlefield...  I recommend you leaving this place at once."

I wait for them to leave, assuming they don't have a thousand questions, then I memorize this place so that I can easily teleport to anywhere in this room and to that training room freely to avoid people and to fight...

They stare at you surprised and puzzled, and then it turns fearful and they quickly and in relatively orderly fashion leave.

You memorize the room. (+@1 to Memorization.)

Nothing happens for a bit, and you decide to get yourself a small drink, and a snack from the kitchen.  Coming back with a fizzy strawberry drink and a bowl of pretzels, you sit down to eat and drink and study your psi manuals since there's nothing better to do.

You're careful to limit what you eat to enough to give you energy, but not enough to burden your stomach.

An hour and a half later, you hear multiple sonic booms high over the city. You check and yes a verser is coming. There's time for a bit of stretching and then you see a glowing light at the door.

"Brother, it is I Ares, I have come to drag you to Mount Olympus to face Zeus." The harsh and vigorous voice booms out from the street.  He's got electronic amplification.

PT

"First off... Hercules explained to me that no one is allowed to be Zeus... so I'm sure it is simply a bunch of you guys in a circle going to verse me at the same time.  Second, why did you decide to be Ares?"

I grab my gear and slowly walk towards the street, starting to speak when I get to the door of the restaurant.

You see a dazzling figure in the middle of the street.

"Flee, flee, before the wrath of the gods!" Ares booms out. Those few on the street comply with haste. The light dims, and you see a man you'd categorize as a Rugby player in a suit of power armor.

He grins and speaks in normal tones.

"Of course, Thanatos. We can't have you going around and whacking us, although I have to admit tis pretty funny you zapped Hiram and freaked Mercury out. He's always on about how much of a big bad supervillain he was. Now me, I just like to have fun."

He slips on the helmet, and you can see on his chest where the helmet had shadowed.

"USMC Lunagrad Battallion Five Hvy Infantry 414" and on the helmet "Eat Hot Plasma!"

His armor looks like its been badly battered.  He pulls out a tribarrel energy weapon from his back.

"I like to fight. Ares is god of war, so Ares it was." He shrugs in the big metal suit of power armor.

PT

"I worked for both Ares and Thanatos.. and when I heard Ares was taken.. well, I was slightly disappointed.  But during my time working for Thanatos, I recieved a glove that alerted me of when someone that should have died, but escaped death was nearby, and I had to send them to Hades.  Thanatos came for me, when I visited that world a second time.  It was interesting.  Now, I do agree with you on one thing, I love fighting."

As I speak I draw my swords, Ajax, and the ninja-to, and concentrate on the area just past him.  When I finish speaking I teleport to the area just behind him and slash his face, neck, etc. and thoroughly verse him.

Your not concentrating as well as you should and the first time doesn't work. He pulls out his gun.

"Shouldn't have brought a knife to a gun fight. Nice story, by the way, sounds cool. Lets get it on!"

He raises his gun, and you t-port.

You teleport behind him and start swinging your blades, and before they hit he's doing a well-practised twist, duck, and roll which ends up with him eight feet away and his gun pointing in your general direction.

You...

He fires first.

He's too eager. Three funnels of plasma leap from his gun and blow up a car down the street to your left.

PT

I give ajax a hefty amount of magical energy.

Ajax, turn into your human form... we've got a verser to kill.

I put the swords away, and draw the (Really hi-tech) smg and trace the phasing rune on my chest.  I proceed to move around a bit and shoot at him.

Ajax....human form? Details please?

PT

OoC:

You see an explosion of fire around Ares, and he flips end for end through the air. Ajax, in his human form, pounces on him gleefully, and finds that Lunar Space Marine armor is quite tough.

The man grabs Ajax about the neck with his left hand, and starts squeezing even as Ajax pummels him. You can hear the servo assisted fingers whining as the man increases the pressure on Ajax's neck.

PT

*flashback "SPACE MARINES...ATTACK!"*/end flashback*

woah.

I put my smg away and take out my pistol.

I move around and take careful aim at Ares's head, then shoot.  If there is no clear aim, I shoot anyway and watch the results.

He rolls away from your shots, and throws Ajax at you. Ajax doesn't reach you as the armor is not that strong, and Ajax rolls back to his feet furiously.  You fire again even as Ares pulls out his plasma tribarrel...

A clean miss on your part....

Bwoooommm.....

He hits you high in the chest.....

PT
00C: De dice did not like you, although you missed botches.

===============

And next world....