“I, Lernea of Lerna Springs, being of sound mind and memory, do hereby declare this instrument to be my last Will and Testament, revoking all previously made Wills and Codicils by me. I make these provisions to express my gratitude and responsibility towards the community and those who have been faithful and true in their service to me.”
Faqenham paused. “There’s a three hour version and a three minute version. Fischer?”
A color screen covered the climbing wall, showing a pre-operation Lernea the Hydra. Each head had their own line to read.
“First: I bequeath the Hydra Hydro energy plant to the local government, with the understanding that profits shall be used to enhance the infrastructure and well-being of the town's residents.”
Loud cheers outside.
“Second: I bequeath the Lerna Springs bottling company to the employees as a cooperative, ensuring the continued prosperity of our community.”
Different loud cheers outside.
“Third: I bequeath the bulk of my library to the town of Lerna Springs, to be made a public library and center of learning.”
Mild applause inside.
“Fourth: I’ve asked my executor to prepare envelopes for several hundred receiving specific items.”
Louder applause inside.
“Fifth: All remaining investments, properties and securities go to the Stymphalius group.”
Puzzlement inside while Octavian lifted a wing. A light rain started outside.
Faqenham cleared his throat, a hee lacking a haw. “Here’s Lernea Prime’s more private video.”
The hydra head avatar with a golden key appeared alone. “My head has been diagnosed with cancer. I have a month to keep it from spreading. My sisters, I apologize for keeping you subservient all these many years. With a few minor exceptions, I leave everything to my sisters.”
The harlequin’s mind lurched from one distraction to another. Ico updated the outside map. The inside map of attendees and positions grew as the d120 hovered within peripheral crevices. Sightlines for the robobirds, bullet points for a speech, minimal pheromone utility against mixed species and a set of tensors for portal evacuation fought for Non’s attention. He could close his eyes, but he couldn’t close his nose.
║ I HAVE MY SENSES BACK AND AM SUMMONABLE, BUT PICOID HAS LOCKED OTHER PORTAL ABILITIES.
║ THE CAT ON THE ROOF BURGLED OUR CABIN. HER NAME IS PALATINA AND SHE’S SENT MESSAGES TO OCTAVIAN.
Names and profiles of mercenaries appeared as Icosian sifted through the local server.
The donkeytaur lawyer ended the video. “The will for a multiple entity such as a hydra presents numerous challenges. I thank the law firm of Marshall, Chase and Paine for their assistance. If you look under your chairs and mats, you should find an envelope addressed to you.”
To Non Sequitur featured Lernea’s huge-clawed script.
The robobirds split up a much thicker sheaf of papers.
As others opened envelopes, Non followed suit, finding a foolscap page in Faqenham’s cursive mentioning the deed for Our Park and a complete set of Martin Gardner’s Mathematical Games.
║ 343 HAS OUTRIGHT TAKEN YOUR XEROX ALTO ABILITY. A DATA STREAM FROM DAP’S LAIR HAS STOPPED.
All four robobirds suddenly looked in Non’s direction.
The harlequin equine jumped to his hooves and clambered up the climbing wall. The gathered dignitaries pointed and gasped. Fifteen meters up, he pushed open the skylight as a shocked feline stared at him. The taur stuck his hand above the opening, summoned and spun his staff to knock the feline over, then hauled himself up onto the slippery roof. He kept a hoof on the attack cat. “Stay there.”
║ I SUPPRESSED A CAPTURE ORDER FOR YOU. PLANNED RECIPIENTS CIRCLED ON MAP.
Ñ̰ SHARE THAT WITH FICHET. I’LL PIED-PIPER PEOPLE AWAY. AT LEAST THE RAIN STOPPED.
Down below, a boar swung a rifle in his direction, so Non lacrossed his d120, modifying the vector enroute to shatter the arm and firearm. Seeing no other immediate threats, the equitaur staff-rappelled down the back wall of the Lodge, almost joining the four robobirds rushing out the back door. The laser-eyed avians closed distance as Non vaulted a privacy wall.
“Imagine our surprise seeing you here,” said Claudius.
“I know, right?” Non backed up more. “You’re free and fully funded. You’ve won!”
Octavian had no humor left. “What did you do?”
“I solved Dap’s murder.”
Titus tilted its head. “Explain!”
Octavian didn’t care. “Non, what did you do to our base?”
“Me? I was here. Is your base Dap’s labyrinth?” He took a deep breath and got a notification.
◊ PETRICHOR. AN EARTHY SCENT FROM LIGHT RAIN ON DRY SOIL. THIS WORD IS ON YOUR FAVORITES LIST!
The scent profile, top words list and odor magnification blinked for his attention while Octavian telegraphed a wing swipe. Non barely blocked with Icosian and rolled with a painful kick to his side by Claudius. Non continued his away vector, tumbling down a boulder, but Octavian kept pace. Non dismissed the scent notes just in time for Tiberius to block his escape.
A wing swing bloodied Non’s ear and sent his head flying back. As the equitaur reeled, Octavian laughed. “You’re so full of yourself. You need to recall that pride goes before the fall! Remember how easily we beat you before.”
‘I sandbagged you before,’ Non didn’t say. But now, he was genuinely afraid for his life.
Octavian waved Titus to a flanking position, but Titus and Tiberius had suddenly stopped moving.
“Titus? Non Seq! What did you do to them?” Claudius demanded. Not waiting for an answer, it kicked the equitaur’s upper torso, sending him careening down a rock wall.
In his harlequin training, years ago, he’d reached a stuntman level in falling and taking hits. Muscle memory helped him to go with the flow. If he could dodge, that would hurt less, but he’d reacted fast enough to prevent rib fractures. Midfall, he realized Claudius had stopped moving. More adroitly than planned, with help from his vector staff, he managed to land on his hooves.
Octavian swung the deadly metal wings at him with fury. “What did you do?”
Non barely blocked. “I didn’t do anything!” He jumped atop the log balance and ran towards his cabin.
In front of him, a lemur held a bamboo staff, waiting alertly, looking sharp in white shorts. According to his map, Hapalos. The lemur waited like a black knight on the stream-spanning log.
‘Finally someone easy,’ thought Non, prematurely. He tried to force rush past the simian opponent, ready to use a sweep with Icosian as a side option. Instead, Non ran into a staff attack, a hard whack to the junk in his front pouch. As the shock blinded him, the lemur followed with a hit on Non’s barely healed arm. The taur already keeling off the log, Hapalos assisted with a hard shove.
Shallow water barely broke a one story fall. Above, Octavian and Hapalos argued.
“He’s mine! I sent out orders!”
“He’s rude. I saw no orders. Are you rude?”
Non rolled off the nearby cascade and into the pond below. A hundred meters away, his shower bucket swung in the breeze. Through the pain, he had trouble getting his mental controls to work. Activating Gish Gallop would let him move faster. As he scrambled out of the pond, he mumbled a whisper about his most recent injury, but botched it.
Ā̱ YOU HAVE A BUST OF PALLAS?
║ WOULD YOU LIKE STRAW MEN SENT OUT? FAKE COPIES OF YOU? LIKE WE PRACTICED FOR THIS CONTINGENCY?
♫ YOUR PHEROMONE UPGRADE SHOULD ONLY BE PERFORMED IN A CALM ENVIRONMENT.
His thoughts and mental actions clouded amidst the agony. As he limped home, he meant to lucidly explain and handle things. ‘It’s a front pouch injury. Not a bust of Pallas, a busted phallus. Nevermore. Yes, please turn on straw men while I get an assist from a movement vector. I understand my Appeal to Nature upgrade requires serenity.’ Instead of that, he blindly mashed the activation button for a Gish Gallop attack upon himself.
Once upon a midnight dreary... Non’s pattern turned dark under an octameter blackbird.
Ā̱ I SAW A WALL OF TEXT FOR THE RAVEN. DID YOU JUST FLOOD YOUR OWN MIND?
Another petrichor notification appeared, which didn’t help anything.
Ñ̰ AS I PONDER, WEAK AND WEARY.
Ā̱ I APOLOGIZE FOR THAT SHOT. OKAY, DETAILS FOR COUNTERING A GISH GALLOP. NORMALLY, CHERRY-PICK A SINGLE ITEM. THAT ALSO HELPS WITH YOUR VERSION. THINK OF OTHER WORKS BY POE. SAY LINES AND ALTER LINES.
That, he could do. Non cherry-picked Icosian for greater power.
║ THANKS, BOSS. I SENT OUT THE COPIES.
The real equitaur hobbled around the cargonet obstacle as three spry equitaur copies merrily trotted in other directions. A kobold with a crossbow chased after an unusually happy fake equitaur leaping hurdles.
With most of the sensors for his team either back at the Lodge or distracted, his fog of war got worse. Poe stuck in his head. While arriving at his privacy fence and shower bucket, he recalled the jester story Hop-Frog.
“Never be predictable.” Octavian stepped from behind the fence to kick Non off the short cliff. He bounced hard on his cabin roof before landing on his porch.
Suddenly there came a tapping. “'Tis some visitor,” Non muttered, opening his chamber door.
Inside, Picoid perched atop a pile of old books and strange metal parts, rapping into one while consulting a robotic sagittarius serpentarius user manual. “You opened the door while supine? Anyways, we face a grim task. Have you seen Octavian?”
“You will never defeat me!” The secretary bird slammed down near Non for a coup de gras.
A block with Icosian let Non roll to his hooves, somewhere, the scoop had detached. What should he call a former female with a male name in a genderless body? “Sir or madam, your forgiveness I implore.”
“Never!” Octavian gestured into the cabin. “You went to Dap’s lair! You stole my books!” The bird kicked, but this time Non blocked. With gritted teeth, Non hit Octavian’s chest hard enough to dent it, then smashed Octavian’s left wing, causing the robot to back off. He head-gestured to the rare books.
“The many quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore?”
“I took these books, actually,” Picoid volunteered.
“Do not nevermore me!” With a wing swing, Octavian reinjured the taur’s leg. “You will lose, Seq.”
The harlequin winced, but the new pain let him escape from Ravenholm for a moment. “I ran away. By most standards, I’ve already lost. I’m not afraid of losing. The big guy in a troupe takes falls. I have no idea what you hope to win.”
“Respect! I have leverage now! Dap found an entanglement exploit if we could shed our hydra body.”
"You committed hara-kiri to gain a flaw in quantum theory?”
“Yes! Sagittario’s existence, the sentient part, is just a fragile shell. It once gave extensive sector access to a predecessor planet. They figured out how to bring chaos to the ordered pattern on the event horizon’s firewall.”
“You KILLED us all to SPIT in the eye of a GOD?”
“Past the picoid on the jamb a glowing hydra hologram opened up her diaphragm.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Shut UP, Non!” The former Lernea Five scoffed. “It’s trickery. Swampy is dead!”
“We’re shadows now, Octavian. Both of us!” yelled the former Lernea Three.
“You should have given us our freedom, Swampy.”
“You just needed to wait two days!”
“You should have told us that!”
“Tell you of my vulnerability while you plotted to kill me?”
“My word. You killed Dap!” The realization struck Octavian as Picoid flew to the desk.
The hydra avatar shifted to a catoblepas head with a downcast expression. “Yes, I did. As this disk, I got left in the room with Dap. I’ll lose everything and serve a sentence as a hologram in the new library.”
“You call THAT a punishment?”
With a tap, Picoid turned Swampy off. “Despite the death-by-woodpecker canon, I didn’t kill her.”
A few moments of not getting attacked allowed Non to process the action. “She hasn’t earned a sad and certain verdict of a final curtain. You, however, had a clever Ragnarökian endeavor.”
The mechanical bird glowered at Non. “Leverage. That’s right.”
Picoid landed on Octavian’s shoulder. “That’s wrong. Your sisters understood this and made deals after I gave them offers.”
“I KNEW they’d chicken out. But you’re just a woodpecker! What can you do?”
Picoid stuck his beak deep into Octavian’s metal feathers. “I can read a manual.” The robotic bird’s neck, arms and wings went limp. The red eyes dimmed as the head clanked against its chest.
Octavian could still speak. “What did you just do?”
“The former Icarians helped us make the first back-up planet before they destroyed their home planet. Then a group of them enacted your plan and incapacitated Sagittario for two weeks. The gravitational lens droppage sterilized this planet.” Picoid jabbed the abdominal area. “We’re on the rebuilt planet. Dap set you up as pawns in a blackmail scheme. If your leverage had been triggered, you’d have died instantly.”
“So I’m going to die now?”
The mottled orb 343 joined them. “No, you’ll live on as Galactic Core Sector Five.”
“But I don’t want that!” The mechanical bird sparked and smoked.
Non sighed. “Could we perhaps negotiate a less eternal final fate?”
“Maybe if we call in all of our favors.” Picoid looked to the orb.
Octavian moved its head slightly, causing a new series of sparks. “Non, use your favors! I saw you solved the Secrets of the Hydra quest. We have a job for someone so clever.”
Picoid rapped her back, causing the legs to collapse. “Like your job for Rumbler? Me?”
Octavian’s voice lowered, HAL-like. “I wanted to learn more.”
Picoid tapped a new spot. “A noble goal you will soon attain. A googol seconds. Forever, more or less.”
Octavian stilled as a pale pink orb lifted up out of the shadow. The mottled orb added a glowing leash before they both vanished.
Non recited the entire poem to clear his mind, then waved to Ariesta. “I’m ready for therapy.”
“Kneel down, you’re eight feet tall. Mike, could you look at Non’s ear and arm?”
Gamer Mike, the Our Park medic, usually played Wellion the Healer. “Is this the first time I’m actually healing you? The ear isn’t serious.” He used a penlight on Non’s eyes. “What’s your father’s name?”
“Which one? Am I being evaluated for a concussion? Lagen Cruciger.”
“I’ve signed back on,” said the woodpecker. A rotating image of the equitaur appeared in the air. “Mike, here’s a list of known injury locations.”
“That helps, thanks. Guys, please keep Non talking.”
“I gave 343 your Alto thing, sorry,” said Picoid.
“Do I want to know why you needed that in Dap’s lair? ”
Picoid wing waved and affected a put-upon Obi-wan. “These aren't the droids you're looking for.”
After a glare at Picoid, Non turned to Gamer Mike. “You can go about your business.”
The next few minutes involved a series of easy questions. Mike and Ariesta discussed the adrenaline cycle, which Non had a hard time following, but he could still answer the questions. Various forms of pain brought the world back into clarity.
“Have I been acting loopy?”
Mike chuckled with a serious expression. “Don’t worry about it. Just gentle ministration after a defenestration. Several doctors studied your body scan and prescribed rest. You’ll be in pain tonight.”
“Thanks, Mike. I’ll take it easy.”
“If you’re still a gamer, I’d be glad to run something at the lodge in memory of Lernea.”
“A game would be great. Can I play an equitaur?”
“Sure. I’ll send you and Ariesta an invite. See ya!”
As Mike left, Ariesta moved in close. “Do you need a hug?”
“Always.”
She squeezed him around his waist. After stifling a wince, he rubbed her back. “Thanks.”
Investigators arrived with Grassleaf. “I understand you have some priceless books, heavy water and and a deactivated robot? We brought carts and archival crates.”
“Yes. Dap had them in her labyrinth. It’s a restricted zone, now.” Non guessed the last part.
The ponytaur mayor nodded, then shook Non’s hand. “Thanks for moving the fight away from me and others. That could have gone very badly.”
“When I knew I couldn’t prevent a fight, I had movie flashbacks. Pulp Fiction events like Travolta shooting LaMarr in the face. Then I recalled Bob Barker walloping Adam Sandler in a harlequin role, so I opted for Happy Gilmore over John Wick.”
The ponytaur laughed. “Thank you?”
Ariesta poked the equitaur. “References like that might be one reason for our low gamer ranking.”
“Maybe.” Non lifted the recording device, turning it on and handing it to the mayor. “This is Swampy. A special Lernea 3 project. She knows a lot about the library and those books.”
A hologram of a green catoblepas head appeared over the disk, speaking with a gravelly, nasal, slightly feminine voice. “Hello, Mayor Underhoof.”
Grassleaf appraised the disk. “I know a library thing or two. What’s 777?”
“Are you testing me? Cinematography, in Universal Decimal or Dewey. PN 1999 in LC. There are also several Icarus systems,” said Swampy, gruffly.
Noticing the gallop of tiny hooves, Non knelt to catch a bright green filly who splatted wetly against his sore front. With all the enthusiasm of an overfriendly waterlogged dog, she gripped her fronds and legs around Non with cold, wet drippy love. “DADDY!”
Mama Naga’s snakes now had two cameras as she slowly approached. Not to help Non, no. Mom was lining up camera shots.
“He’s over there. I’m your brother, Non.” He saw an aequorin glow in some of her fronds. “Guys, while you pack up priceless books, I’m going to move a very wet filly away.”
“There’s Water, Daddy. There!” Feamie pointed with a frond.
Within minutes, Non stood in the pond while Feamie jumped off his back over and over and over. Ariesta sat on the dry bank, amused.
Mama Naga looked at a new shot, then showed it to Ariesta. “Think you can hold out an hour?”
“This is actually wonderful. I’ll be fine, Mom.”
At the Pelion exodus tent, Lagen and Mama Naga treated Non to a welcome home dinner.
Ᵽ I’VE LEARNED THERE WILL BE A REMEMBRANCE FOR RUMBLER IN ATHENS TOMORROW.
Ñ̰ MY BADGE COULD BE YOUR ANCHOR. DID YOU WANT TO GO TO THAT?
Ᵽ WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO GO TO THEIR OWN FUNERAL?
Non slumped. Picoid put a wing over Non’s back.
Ᵽ SORRY.
After dinner, Ariesta looked about at the party. “Aren’t you a performer, Non? Now that it’s getting dark, you should put on a show.”
“There’s only twelve people here.”
“Twelve bored people is a great crowd. Have you had a glow party yet?”
Non blushed, causing his nose to glow an organic cyanic. “Do they have those here?”
The sileni rolled her eyes, then took Non’s hand and signaled to Zack. She dragged the taur to the slab of smooth rock that served as a dry area in the big tent.
“Everyone, this is Non Sequitur the Equitaur. Zack has set up Non’s new Glockenspiel on a table for him. He’s going to perform something for us.”
Non laughed and held up his badge, then spun it on a flat part of the rock. “I’ve been ambushed. Thanks, Ariesta. Great key mounting, Zack. I’m used to laying them on grass. Nice mallets, too.”
The badge whirred loudly. “Isn’t that neat?” Non hoof-tapped on the rock as blue lines glowed on the taur’s staff and body. The whirr turned into Putting on the Ritz as Non sang for the small crowd.
“HAVE YOU HEARD SCIENCE SPOILERS ON THIS SO-CALLED DISK OF EULER’S?
SPINNING WITH SINCERITY TOWARDS FINITE SINGULARITY?
EACH TWIST A RETROGRESSION
FOR THE FRICTION OF PRECESSION
TURNING ON A DIME -- IN DIMINISHING TIME!”
The equitaur used percussion and glockenspiel after that. Feamie loved it, so he played other tunes.
Lagen wandered over. “I’m glad we’ve cleared things up, son. I’ve missed you.”
“Thanks, Dad. I just needed to embrace how much of an idiot I’ve been.”
“Happens to us all.” Lagen smiled and squeezed Non’s shoulder. “We’re all in this together.”
Non agreed. “We are still here tonight.”
Later, Ariesta helped Non to place a crate of items in a junk shed after cleaning up his cabin. A rope on the door allowed Ico to get in and out. “Did you want company?”
Non chuckled. “Having an active GenePool account removes a red flag, it seems.”
“Yeah, that was pretty weird. How’s the pheromone upgrade?”
“A petrichor pop-up almost killed me. Completely unhelpful.”
“Sorry, shoulda delayed the shot. I wasn’t expecting business. Oh, your singing’s not terrible, Non. At least equal to middling tavern acts. Got any more?”
“I’ve been told I need to build up a repertoire, perform with others and spar with others.”
“Sounds like a plan. Will you do that now? I could spar with you.”
”I honestly thought about just reading and then getting some sleep.” He picked up Gravitation and sat in his beanbag at the bookcase. “Like this.”
Equitaur reads Gravitation. [https://i.imgur.com/QBIkg3V.png]
The horse-faun peered at the pages. “Didn't you get a book from James Bond? Would he approve of you reading a book?”
“The ornithologist, not the spy. He'd be delighted that I have an ivory-billed friend?”
“I'm a qualified pheromone trainer, so I’ll check what you can aim for. My god, you're full of ads! Ad Misericordiam, Ad Baculum, Ad Populum. You already have Ad Naturam. Appeal to Nature.”
“I need to learn Latin.”
“A dead language for a lover of a dead medium.” Ariesta traced a finger along his bookshelf. “With an extinct familiar, using an obsolete weapon. Trying to impress a crowd with a piece written a century ago. Working with power set designed to fight fallacy. Isn’t that a lost battle, Non?”
“In Aristophanes’ play The Clouds, Fallacy wins. The play was part of the trial against Socrates. He wound up drinking hemlock. Even though fallacy wins in the short term, reason always wins in the long term.”
“You shouldn’t know thousand year old plays, Non.”
“So are we doing pheromone training? I’m still not quite sure what it means to have you as my Amanuensis. I also don’t know what level of shenanigans you did for Lernea.”
The equine satyr sighed. “Forgeries, mostly. Phony provenance. Seduction and entertainment. Low level missions for Lernea which I reported to Don Smiley as a double agent.” Her fingers followed patterns on Non’s chest. “An AI named Sophis offered a position to work for you. I felt you’d reject either sidekick or minion. But I knew you’d consider amanuensis pulchritudinous.”
Non winced at the pairing of pleasing polysyllables. “You’re a double agent?”
Ariesta traced both hands on Non’s chest. “Don Smiley promised to use his resources to find my parents once I’d proven useful enough to him. Your law firm found them and got them to Athens. Dad is at the hospital under the care of your advisors. Don Smiley suddenly doesn’t have leverage on me anymore. I was supposed to seduce you and report on you.”
“Glad I could help?” Non felt relief at her admissions, but also felt like flogging himself for falling for a flagrantly flawed femme fatale. “So still good for gaming and therapy? Is this a pheromone lesson?”
Ariesta moved a black splotch on the stallion’s pectorals. “I've always wanted to mess with this.”
“I'll need to report all this to GCC.”
“My stoic savior. Admit it, knowing these danger makes you feel safer. Availability bias. Your mind has taken a mental shortcut. Since you can fix the danger with a report, you feel safe.”
“An accurate statement that now seems unsafe. Are you using pheromones on me?”
She leaned in to kiss him on the nose. “I am. What sort of manipulation am I trying for?”
“Lust? Not sure that works when you’re slamming down so many cards on the table.”
“Yes, my courtesan training suggests a more flattering dialog. But many classic seduction ploys involve fallacy, which you seem keen to. And you’ve got a groin injury. ”
“You’re a courtesan, too?”
Ariesta dismissed the question. “Meanwhile, you’ve been tasked to destroy Icarus. This villain quest of yours, Non, it’s so big! There we go, I said the line.”
“I'm hoping to get out of that.”
“As your amanuensis, I checked. You can’t escape tasks from our supermassive overlord. Since you unraveled the plans of Dr Mayhem and gained a lot of attention from Sagittario, the task falls to you. I actually pondered abandoning you before you even got home. But I like you and you need help. The benefits so far have been great. And I like the idea of Icarus Two being in a safe zone.”
“I found out earlier we’re on Icarus Two right now. I’ll mention that when I report this whole thing to the press.”
“Non, I’m a therapist. Do you know how crazy our local black hole is? If you really want to destroy the planet, that’s a good way to start. But relax! I’m your amanuensis.”
The door opened for Ico the collie, who sniffed at the air. Ariesta began interacting with Ico, her fingers gently running over the dog's fur.
Non joined in with the patting. “Thanks for being honest with me. I’m fairly messed up myself, clinging to obsolete things. My lifetime has forged me as a pastiche of non sequiturs. Friendly attention of any sort both alarms and amazes me.”
“Hopefully you haven’t been burned too many times. Other than all the bad stuff, have you enjoyed the magical mystery tour here on Icarus so far?” She traced one of his equine ears.
“Sans E, the first and last half of Magical Mystery Tour is from the first and last half of the alphabet. But yes, I like it.” He traced her equine sileni ear in return. “I’m trying to let my guard down, but I should have suppressed that first thought based on the whiff of annoyance.”
Ariesta laughed, then tilted her head. “That’s good, I’m glad you noticed that.”
“Tycho, grab the Scrape plan and the existing list of safe goal planets, but don’t show anything for twelve hours. Ariesta, I have a big bed over there I’ve wanted to sleep in for weeks. Care to join me?
Ᵽ I NOTICED YOU’RE STILL AWAKE. I’M IN ATHENS.
║ NON AND ARIESTA ARE ASLEEP. THE SILENI GAVE NON A LESSON ABOUT PHEROMONES. ICO HELPED TO CORRECT THEIR MISTAKES. I’M UPDATING HIS CHARACTER SHEET BEFORE GOING INTO RECHARGE MODE.
NAME: NON SEQUITUR. NICKNAME: NYAH (Ñ̰). CLASS: HARLEQUIN. RACE: EQUITAUR.
CONCEPT: AGENT FOR THE GALACTIC CORE CORPS, MATTERS OF TIME AND SPACE.
TROUBLE: ESCAPIST, EQUIVOQUE, FRENEMIES, SECRET QUEST.
+4: MATHEMATICS, PHYSIQUE.
+3: ACADEMICS, ACROBATICS, ATHLETICS, NOTICE, PROGRAMMING.
+2: DECEPTION, FIGHT, INVESTIGATE, LOGIC, NATURE, PERFORM.
+1: CONTACTS, CRAFT, DIPLOMACY, EMPATHY, MEDICINE, STEALTH (0), SURVIVAL, WILL.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: ARPANET+, MAPS++, WEATHER, VECTORS+.
ACTION STATS: 🎭 DRAMA 2, 💡 IDEA 2, ❤️ CARE 2, 🏃 EVADE 1, 💪 BODY 3, ⏱️ ASAP 2, 💥 GRIT 3
FALLACY ABILITIES:
👃 APPEAL TO NATURE: USE PHEROMONES TO ATTRACT, REPEL, CALM OR AGITATE OTHERS.
🎲 APPEAL TO PROBABILITY: IF YOUR PLAN HAS RESTRICTIVE PARALYSIS JUST PLUG IN PREDICTIVE ANALYSIS.
🍒 CHERRY PICKING: IDENTIFY AND AMPLIFY SPECIFIC ATTRIBUTES OF ANY ABILITY, ITEM OR COMPANION.
🔗 COMPOSITION: SYNTHESIZE TWO OR MORE OBJECTS OR ABILITIES, HARNESSING THEIR COMBINED STRENGTH.
➗ DIVISION: SYSTEMATICALLY DISSECT OBJECTS OR ABILITIES, UNCOVERING AND UTILIZING THEIR COMPONENTS.
🌫️ FALSE IMPRESSION: CONTROL UP TO TWELVE GRAYSCALE SCREENS ON NON-UNIFORM RATIONAL B-SPLINE SURFACES.
🔀 GISH GALLOP: RAPIDLY RELAY NONSENSE. ALSO, ENHANCE MOVEMENT WITH VECTORS.
👁️ PERSPECTIVE: POLARITY & BODY UPGRADE. BETTER SCREEN EFFECTS. EYE-TRACKING FOR OBSERVERS.
🔥 STRAW MAN: CREATE ILLUSORY GRAYSCALE SIMULACRA FOR YOUR NEXT LARGESCALE HORSE OPERA.
🏹 TEXAS SHARPSHOOTER: USE ICOSIAN AS A VIRTUAL BOW WITH ILLUSORY ARROWS. SUMMON A REAL ARROW FOR 5♇.
🌌 WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY: A TWO LOCALITY PORTALITY WITH A HIGH MORTALITY LETHALITY.
[https://i.imgur.com/uXeGxay.png]ARGUMENT SKETCH: I WISH TO REGISTER A COMPLAINT.
🎼 COORDINATION SEQUENCE: HARNESS THE RHYTHM OF BEATS FOR COMBAT MANEUVERS AND PERCUSSIVE FEATS.
COMPANIONS:
║ ICOSIAN (536870912): BADGE (BLOCK), SCREENS (POLARIZE), VECTORS, INERTIA, RAISING THE BAR, INFORMATION OVERLOAD, MEASURABILITY.
Ᵽ PICOID (841): ENTANGLEMENT, BONDED TELEPATHY, SPEAK TO BIRDS, PECKING ORDER.
⸎ CORONIS (799779977): MASKED MAN (PILOMOTOR ROTATORS), SPOTLIGHT (AEQUORIN BIOLUMINESCENCE), EIDETIC MEMORY, FALSE IMPRESSION, FALSE DICHOTOMY, TRUST YOUR GUT (REGENERATION).
Ā̱ ARIESTA: SILENI BARD AMANUENSIS. LIAISON FOR LAWYER AEGIS (MARSHALL, CHASE AND PAINE), APPEAL TO AUTHORITY, BURDEN OF PROOF, MOVING THE GOALPOSTS.
ENCHIRIDION: GCC, MTS, LAW, PORTALS, MAPS, BASE, TRAINSETS, MATH, FALLACY, DICEBAG.