Hey guys. I've been fiddling with the widget that handles the site's chatroom client. I officially registered the channel with Mibbit, so if you use the app or an IRC client, our channel is officially:

#TheFirstAge

Since the channel is now registered, it should appear that I am the owner/operator. Previously, whoever was the first person in the room was automatically granted full operator status. I am attempting to make this process more secure.

If you have any problem with the chatroom loading, working, operating, etc please post it here so I can be made aware of it.

I am likely to continue to make changes and tweak things over the next few days. Full apologies if this causes interruptions to the chat room functioning. If you find an interruption, just keep refreshing until it comes back, it's likely that I am just working on it.

Ever since he'd nearly OD'd on the stuff he sold, Peter had found himself regulated to selling to the low crowds and making less than he should. Vlad had a new found friend and he seemed to take the best clientele now. Peter spit at the thought of Yuri. He really didn't like him, in fact he despised him.

Peter walked the streets looking for one of the newer clubs that had cropped as they did these days. They came and went as tastes changed. Sometimes they were here for years, others not long at all.

A man standing against a wall, grabbed Peter's arm. "Looking for a good time."

Peter laughed and shrugged. "Get lost." He tried to pull away but the man's grip was too tight.

The man smiled, "You got me wrong pal. I'm looking. Got any of those little blue pills?"

The irony? He did. But Peter didn't like selling to the kid on the street. He didn't know them from a whole in the wall. Getting a kid killed had made him leery of selling to those who were not his usual clients.

Peter sighed, he did need to sell the rest soon, or Vlad was going to get angry. "A grand for 5." Peter pulled out a paper bag, and pulled a small baggie out of it. He held it out on the palm of his hand.

It happened so fast, Peter wasn't sure exactly what had happened. The gentle click and the feel of cold metal wrapped around his hand before he was forced to move and his arms pulled behind him. The man called out, "You are under arrest."

“Twenty-four hour lockdown maggots, back to your cells and shut the fuck up,”
the gristly voice echoed through the halls of C-5. Some of the less prudent inmates attempted to protest with unpleasant consequence.

Damien detached himself from the conflagration and focused on the power of light. He was sat upright on his bed against the wall and stared with a blind gaze at the sliver wall. He felt the flow of elemental might from his fingertips to toes. It was marvellous; so much more so than he had first thought. With each step forward his hunger grew for deeper knowledge.

He also felt the flow grow stronger although the progress was capricious. Sometimes he spent months without gain before his capacity spiked. It was but one of the mysteries he had not yet pierced. Each discovery was accompanied by numerous questions which he met with undaunted perseverance. He had felt the pull of oblivion at the precipice of the raging light but neglected to bend to its will. The power was his. He used it as he wished and no other way.

It had been weeks since his failed appeal and the end of his penance but he had yet to secure an opportunity worth taking until today.

A crack of thunder pealed overhead and the light allowed him to feel the earth tremble beneath the violent storm.

Damien smiled.

“Good boy, Oakland. I don’t know how the Warden tamed you but I thank God that he did.”


His gaze flickered to the armoured woman. Her face was split by a vulgar grin that twisted her otherwise pleasant features. That one took perverse pleasure in taunting her subjects.

“Not up for a chat? You’re not reading one of your books,”
she let out a short, sharp yap of laughter. “And you have all the time in the world.”


Damien pursed his lips. She had disturbed his concentration. “Do you have nothing better to do?”


Her laughter irritated him and worse, she knew it. “I could stand around while those other fucking perverts fantasize about raping and cutting my throat but I’m not in the mood for that today.”


“You are going to kill me, what makes you think I care?”


“Don’t be like that, Oakland. I don’t want to kill anyone. Death is too good for some of you fuckers.”


Damien was inclined to agree. Death was not the worst thing one could inflict on a person.

CODE 241. CODE 241, blared over the loudspeakers. The woman looked disappointed but signalled her acknowledgement before one last glance at Damien. “Looks like you got your wish, Oakland. Damn architects! Which genius decided to put a prison on the fucking ocean?”


Damien rose as soon as he heard the guard’s footsteps fade and approached the seamless cell door full of light and power. With practiced precision he short circuited the lock with a carefully placed and controlled flame.

It slid open with a satisfactory hiss and Damien made his way out of the cell without a second glance. He had all he needed from this cursed hell-house within him.

The optical panel which protected Section C-5 was easier to bypass despite what he had thought. As another growl of thunder shook the ground under his sensitive feet the panel sizzled and the heavy steel slid open.

A pudgy pig-faced man rounded on him in surprise when he heard the door open. “Wha-?”


Damien acted quickly with a brutal club of Air knocking the man to the ground. Blood began to pool around his fractured skull but Damien pressed on. He ignored the shouts of the inmates who saw him pass through the orderly halls. They howled their indignation and pleaded for their freedom but Damien had no intention of confederacy. If they wished for their freedom, they could attain it themselves.

The thunder grew louder and more frequent overhead and alarms started to buzz forcing Damien to quicken his stride. The next two guards he encountered were armed with loaded machine guns but had little chance to use them as he swept them from their feet with unseen hammers before they had spied him.

His heart beat faster in his chest despite the prevailing calm that came with the light. It was in part fear but the larger portion was the thrill of escape. He had waited patiently for so long.

Like all the most brazen ideas, Michael's formed in the shower.

His discharge was finalized with extreme efficiency. He hoped the man had not actually run, but was grateful to be up and moving around. The wounds were already healing well and the residual pain was bearable.

His wounds required re-bandaging after showering and a nurse gave him one last check-over before she were satisfied.

"Everything seems to be going well. You will find a new uniform in the side draw, then you are free to go."


Michael nodded but did not move. "Thank you, but I don't need a uniform at the moment. Could you have something unassuming - something local - prepared?"


The woman looked doubtful but minutes later he was dressed in a brown shirt with long billowing sleeves and a pair of baggy cotton pants. Hardly practical but fortunately he had no need to be practical.

If he was being practical, he would have been on the first plane out of Mecca away from this mess. As it was, he contented himself with the prospect of hunting a mist monster he was not sure could be killed.

His heart dreaded the thought but his mind revelled in the challenge.

And what was a greater challenge than defeating an unbeatable opponent?

"Please inform Dr. Weston that I am ready to speak to her when she is available."

Edited by Michael Vellas, Mar 1 2014, 10:31 PM.

Aria had been spending more nights out and less days awake. The couple upstairs were driving her crazy. Every night for the past month they were either fighting or making up. Both were equally hard on Aria's state of mind. So she took to sleeping during the day and wandering the streets at night.

The frigid air of winter allowing Aria to carry both guns and swords with ease and hiding them from view. She got less strange looks this way. Her long coat bundled around her shoulders and legs and a wool cap barely allowing her green eyes to show beneath them. Sadly Aria had yet to find a pair of gloves that would be long enough to cover a good share of her forearms, and allow for the movement required to wield a sword or pull the trigger of a gun with out getting in the way. But she was overly picky about that, she remembered Father Dimitri claiming that she was impossible to shop for. She smiled at the fond memory, there were so few of them growing up.

For the past few nights Aria had been walking the streets of Moscow in a pattern following the streets like a grid, walking the alleys and marking gps points in here wallet of man hole covers and various other objects of note that could be used by the Ijiraq for means of escape. Those things to be checked later.

It was tedious work, and not at all relaxing. She sought one thing and one thing alone, the hunger she had felt the night she'd met Dane, a very strange man who could wield the power of the gods. Aria shook her head as she remembered the feeling. She had yet to find it again. But it didn't matter really if she did find it. She had no way of killing it on her own. The moment it would see her it would vanish in puff of mist and Aria would have to find it all over again.

The newspapers were far from helpful and she'd yet to get permission from the Atharim to gain access to the police reports to see if there was a pattern. Aparently she didn't rank high enough. Red tape was tricky but she'd get it if she bothered them enough. Maybe the hacker girl, Katya was her name, could find the answers for her? But she had not heard back yet from the girl.

Aria's mind wandered as she focused on the hunger. There was nothing but her and the emptiness of the world. Focusing on one thing zeroed out the others, it was the only thing that seemed to help her relax these days. Hunting the Ijiraq was almost better than a good nights sleep.


Edited by Aria, Feb 28 2014, 01:40 PM.

As the days passed, the Moscow winter grew angrier. Snow frequently pounded the streets. Wind whipped Dane's coat from his legs, and his walks around the city's many parks became less frequent. The shops of the Enlightenment district became a haven, especially the one beneath Aria's home. Every day which passed when he did not see her curled a little more tightness around his heart, until it hurt his chest to draw another breath. When came the day when he nearly beat his driver to death with one of the golf clubs right in the middle of the Ritz's gift shop, he knew the time had come to set his mind to other tasks else he was likely to snap on the next person he saw.

Izmailovsky Market was a bone yard of abandoned stocks, hollow niches, and empty paths of late, but then came a milder Saturday and weeks of absent tourists flooded the quaint little aisles. The Market wound its way like a parasite through the guts of an old russian fortress. The center of which was identified by the traditional russian architecture of wooden, painted onion-domes. One half of the interior grounds was devoted to the stalls for locals to hawk every single kind of thing imaginable. The other half was filled with playthings. Children flocked to this park-like atmosphere where they crawled, scrambled, climbed, and ran through the various pieces of equipment. It was here where Dane claimed a spot on an empty bench and nibbled away at a warm tart purchased at one of the food stands from the market. The scene reminded him of the morning he sat in the shade of London's Tower Bridge, but here were no nannies wheeling wee ones along the Thames. Here, the children were scrawnier, the women older and uglier. There was not a sophisticate in sight. Sleek coats were absent, only to be replaced with bulbous, puffy apples with legs. No woolen caps were slanted across a lovely brow. Here, scarves were tied around wrinkled faces. A homeless man urinated on the trunk of a tree in the distance. The place was revolting. The best thing about the place was the tart, and even that tasted like stale pastry microwaved too hot.

He wiped the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief - there were no napkins in a place like this - and dumped the trash of his treat on the ground. One of the children, a boy of about nine years, jumped from the high arc of a swing carved from the shape of a laughably giant chicken. He landed nimbly on his feet and came running to Dane. If the boy had a parent watching him, they were oblivious to the sudden change of trajectory.

Dane carefully folded the handkerchief to a tight square and tucked back in his coat. The boy planted himself in front of him, blocking the view.

Dane leaned to one side, "I say, lad, you're blocking the view."


The boy snagged the bit of discarded styrofoam and paper from the ground and shook it beneath Dane's nose. "You littered. You're not suppose to litter. Don't you know that? Or are you as stupid as the way you talk?"


Dane was rather taken aback. He glanced between the so-called litter and the way the child's face was all squished up. The boy wore one of those hats with the flaps down his ears. The way his mittens were folded back to expose his fingertips made for a perfect line to aim for with an ax. His nails were dirty.

Dane leaned forward, a grin split his lips into a wide smile that creased his eyes. "Where can I get a hat like that?"
His own had been lost in the graveyard the night he met Aria, and his ears were cold.

The boy rolled his eyes upward like he could see the hat in question. He shrugged and pointed across the way toward the maze of stalls. "They sell them in the Market."


Dane took to his feet. "Do you think you could show me?"
He took the trash from the lad, who again looked surprised. "You're right. I should not litter. Littering is bad."
Nothing happened yet, and he was already feeling better. This was going to be a fantastic day after all.

"I guess I can, but I have to be right back or mom will be mad."


Dane nodded. "Fair enough. We don't want mom to be mad."


And together the two strolled toward one of the many tunnels digging its way through Izmailovsky Market. On the bench where he had been sitting was a card wedged between the slats. It was hand-painted with a tiny Mockingbird.
Edited by Dane Gregory, Feb 28 2014, 07:32 AM.

The familiar ding sounded an open line from the cockpit. Nikolai didn't break focus from the screen to answer it, "Yes?
"

The pilot's calm voice responded. "We are thirty minutes from touchdown, Ascendancy. I expect a smooth ride the rest of the way."


"Thank-you Colonel,"
always formal, Nikolai closed the line as he glanced at the window far to one side. He'd glanced frequently over the past few hours, until the fall of night finally eased his anxiety. The far-distant land below was dark and empty of light as the seas. More than preferring to fly at night, he felt cloaked in the evening. More in control. Although the notion was likely childish, even if most children feared the night.

He returned his attention to the screen. His speechwriter had sent the final version of the address he would give first thing in the morning before the talks. That meant several rounds of read-throughs, and paused only to add his own notation.

Deep in thought, this time a knock broke his concentration, and his brow furrowed with brief worry. He turned in his seat just as the door opened to admit the EoA Chief of Staff. The man had served his position for too many years to know the Ascendancy did not like to be disturbed when he was practicing speeches except for the most unusual of circumstances.

A grim frown creased his eyes with anticipation. "What is it, Viktor?"


"News from Mecca, Ascendancy."
He placed a transfer device onto a reader pad embedded in Nikolai's desk. A live feed from an Al-Jazeera news agency was suddenly overlaid on a fresh screen. "A Special Forces team has attacked Al-Hasan during prayer and in open view of the public. Initial reports say dozens are dead, and hundreds are injured. The mosque where he was located was nearly burnt to the ground. We don't know whether or not Al-Hasan yet lives."


Cold blue eyes drank in the sights panned by the camera while Viktor explained. "Who were they?"


Viktor cleared his throat. Nikolai rose to his feet.

"That's the problem, Ascendancy. We don't know. Our information says the team wore Custody uniforms. Vegas to be exact."


Nik blinked as though he didn't hear it right. Viktor wasn't sure which was the worse news: the impersonation of a Vega team or that he couldn't confirm the impostors' true identities.

"Conference room. Now."
His order cut sharp and cold. The speech was abandoned as Nikolai strolled from the room. Words of unity were worthless to him now.

A pair of land warriors sat a top the table staring back at Katya. She hadn't told Aria yet that she'd gotten past the first layer of security. It was a typical government encryption that she'd already had the access to, such was her job after all. This particular pair while one of the newer models was still sporing something older. But that wasn't the interesting part. The goo\ggles held another security layer that Katya tracked to the Baccarrat Mansion. Its base signal when turned on always went back there. It wasn't even clever about it's execution, it was simple to follow. Clearly their IT guys needed a bit of an education in modern security.

But the Baccarrat Mansion was just that a house full of men and women and glass as it was their foundation. No reason for hitting their servers, at all. So why had this woman given her a pair of goggles that linked to a rather benign building? That was what Katya wanted to find out. There had to be some record somewhere of what that building.

There were many places to go and many places she could easily just walk into to see permits and such, but where was the fun in that. Katya sat down at her computer and cracked her knuckles above the laptop screen before getting down to work. A good place to go would be the permit office.

Not overly complicated to get into. A little bit of typing and few opened backdoors later Katya was scrolling through a long list of permits for the Enlightened District. They all had indicators as to public and private. On the GUI side of their program Katya knew that those marked private would not be accessible easy, she filtered through those. If the Baccarat Mansion was hiding something, she'd find it in one of those files. She hoped.

It didn't take long for Katya to realize that someone had just opened a few of the same files she was looking at. They held the tale-tell signs of opening through a back door administrator. Curiouser and curiouser.

Important subject at hand. Anyone game for a thread? Jaxen or Dane. I promise to be nice. *grin

Damien Oakland

D.O.B: 20th October 2015, Augusta, Maine, USA.

Location and Occupation: San Quentin State Prison, California, USA. Inmate on Death Row

Appearance: 6'2 with a medium muscular build. Long dark brown hair with dark facial hair framing a youthful face weathered and hardened.

Psychological Profile: Egotistical, dominating and ambitious are the three words that come to mind when people describe Damien. He has always burned with a desire to make something of himself which has not dampened by his time in prison. Damien is a man of principle and philosophy. Of HIS principle and HIS philosophy and he accepts nothing that strays from his belief.

Abilities: Channeler.

Biography:

Damien was born in small the northern state of Maine, USA into a close-knit family. At the age of 2, his parents were forced out of work by the turbulence of the times and would have languished in poverty. However, his father received a lucrative business opportunity from a friend in the Custody.

As a result, Damien spent the greater part of his life in comfort and peace on a private estate of modest means outside of London. Owing to his ambition which bloomed at an early age coupled with an unrelenting confidence, Damien attracted the notice of many of the prominent citizens of the Custody, but found himself at the same time shunned by the upper echelons because of his modest wealth and obscure heritage.

Damien finished his secondary education and spent two years at Oxford studying Political Science before tragedy struck his family back in Maine where his grandfather was murdered leaving his grandmother heavily in debt and unable to pay for treatment for Behçet's disease which rendered her incapacitated.

Damien and his parents rushed back to Maine just before his twentieth birthday, unable to both support his education and his grandmother. It was not without trepidation that Damien left Oxford, but found that he was unable to support himself.

Back in the USA, he took various menial jobs to support his family. His determination (and no doubt other reasons) attracted the eyes of the daughter of a Senator, Elissa Davis.

At 23 Damien was struck by an inexplicable sickness which no doctor could determine the cause. Frequent fevers and sudden euphoric fits of near insanity came to a head on the fourteenth of Feburary 2038. He planned a surprise Valentine for his girlfriend and awaited her return from work.

As she returned, unsuspecting, Damien was struck with a violent fit of euphoria which increased his daring nature to dangerous levels. Instead of the surprise of chocolate and flowers, he proposed to Elissa. Her father objected and an argument began between the two men, when Damien was filled with indignant rage.

Damien has no firm memory of what exactly happened, but both Elissa and her father were immolated and the house destroyed. Although the evidence was circumstantial and his rage-induced state not warranting first degree murder, the man's status as a Senator coupled with a string of suspected bribes Damien was sentenced to death at the age 23.

He was transferred to the maximum security prison of San Quentin where the long and arduous process of appeals began. Thoroughly disillusioned, Damien grew disgusted at the corruption and brutality that he witnessed.

His spirit was never dampened by impending death. He continued to study, taking an interest in Justice and Philosophy and quickly became notorious amongst his fellow inmates as a dangerous and implacable adversary.

For the past 7 years Damien has nurtured his new-found gift and shaped it to his will with an impressive determination, however, his ambitious nature grows impatient and burns for freedom.