Loading...... Prayer.exe

[fourthmade]

This is a place to send your prayers to the Fourth god. He may not always respond, or he may respond in ways you don’t expect, but he is always listening.

Speak, he hears you.

OOC note:  As of April 2020, threads with the gods will be capped at three NPC replies! Please keep this in mind when writing god prayers to make sure you get everything you need out of the thread.It’s also possible to handwave prayers by titling your comment HANDWAVED PRAYER. Handwaved prayers lack our usual flourish, but you can expect a faster response!

As of February 2024, god prayers will be handwaved only. Please only submit a prayer if you have a question for either god which needs answering in order to progress your character's arc within Ryslig. If this is something you need to tier up within the god boon system, or just to set up a player plot in general, please don't hesitate to submit a prayer about it! You may shorten it down to an OOC summary of what your character is asking. This will allow any of our helper mods to reply much faster, without having to dig into the specifics of either god's personality/writing quirks. Should this limitation be lifted again in the future, this note will be removed.

Comments

Nov 12

[creamsouda]

[After talking to Makoto, Souda sets his mind to doing a little convincing of his own. He recognizes, of course, that he's going to be talking to something much more powerful than him, and even though he's sitting alone in his workshop in front of his laptop, his scales still shift and spines still lift to make himself look more imposing in his defensiveness.

....After he's stared at the computer for long enough, he takes a deep breath in and finally types—]

hey elias
let's chat

i'm not looking for a fight. you can punish me like the others if you want to
just dont blame any of this on makoto.

[notthatkindofgod]

[So, this is how it's like living on the other side. Here she is, Tyreen Calypso: Eridium Tier follower.

Though she's not a follower. She's a leader; a god. She commands, not serves.

But if this will get her back on track to gaining even a fraction of the power she once wielded... then she wasn't about to look a gift skag in the mouth.

She takes the card from her laptop, turning it over in her hands to better view its rainbow gleam in the light. It has style, she'll admit that much.]

i think youve got a deal
im always in the mood for tearing things up

[fourthmade]

dont worry
youve got plenty of freedom to tear things up as youd like :)

but why dont you come and lay low for awhile?
check out your new digs
join in on the fun

youll have the time to make a splash
when youre ready

see you soon tyreen

[Who is Elias to discourage a follower eager for leadership? So long as the actions are in pursuit of his end goals, he wants his friends to take a stand and get involved. All that's needed is discretion and care around Her conduits... he'll leave it to Tyreen to take care of that.

Elias leaves her with a final fading heart-symbol on the screen, and then the computer cuts out.]

[fourthmade]

[The screen flares angrily, a flurry of harsh reds and eye-searing yellows blazing like square-shaped flames from right to left. Heat, so similar to a real fire, blasts Souda in the face. Numbing pricks spreading from the center of his hot face, outwards, creeping down the jawline, stinging the back of his skull and neck and terminating at the tips of his extremities.

Elias isn't happy.]

i wouldnt
none of this is makotos fault
she didnt know
that the person she wants to protect
is a backstabber

[creamsouda]

[Souda's mostly taken by surprise and that causes an even bigger reaction than warranted; he jumps and sitters back away from the computer, hissing and clicking and making all sorts of defensive crocodilian noises. He shakes his whole body like a dog, as if to try and shake the sensation off, before crawling back to his computer and absolutely glowering at it.

He only uses one finger to type, but it's vindictive, angry, clunk-clunk-clunk on the keyboard.]

loyal to her


Never you

[fourthmade]

[Souda's keyboard sparks white and hot where he touched the letters L-O-Y-A. POP! POP! POPPOPPOP! LOYAL spelt out in showers of embers, which, though they'll sting enough on contact to cause a bit of a shock, don't seem to harm the function of the laptop at all.]

what will you do
when loyalty to her
means loyalty to me?

tell makoto to revoke your protections

i might not be as willing
to honor them next time you side with her conduits

[creamsouda]

[Souda watches the screen, watches the flames dance. The shower of embers are hot and bright but in Souda's mind all he can see is PINK, PINK, PINK, pink splattered on the walls, pink splattered on his hands, pink splattered on the laptop.

He moves both hands to type this time, letting them sting, embracing the pain. His strange tongue lolls out of his mouth, his eyes become wild, despite the way he begins to smile at the laptop, like he welcomes Elias's rage. Hunched like a real gargoyle over his keyboard he clatters out another message.]

keep your protection

my only gods are hope and despair

you'll meet despair when she chooses

me

[he slams that enter button with each new word. it's vindictive. it's an attack.]

over

you

[fourthmade]

[A smiley face appears on the screen and melts away into a smear of pixelated blood, coursing down, down, until the blocky sparks and flames lap it up.]

be careful what you promise
i dont want to make a liar
out of you

your protection will stay until makoto gives me the ok

or

the minute you pledge as a fog conduit

choose me and choose hope
choose her and choose d e s p a i r

ill make sure makoto knows what to expect

[The flames disappear. The screen settles to blackness. 60 seconds pass before Elias writes again, plain white text on a black background.]

i know how to treat my friends
do you? do you really?
how many friends of yours were killed because of you?
maybe next time you should stop the crowd
from diving into a stupid plan

guess we will have to see what happens

goodbye souda
i dont forgive you
not that you asked for it

[The power shorts out, and Souda is left in darkness.]

thank you so much that was amazing

[creamsouda]

[If Elias wanted fear, he gets it; Souda backpedals, scooting back some from the computer when that 'blood' appears. He shudders, he clicks, his lungs make that strange defensive drumming— and he even instinctively hisses at the computer right before the lights go out.

But then he's left in the dark, nothing but the sparks from his own nostrils glittering in front of his eyes.

Moments pass, and Souda begins to laugh, and laugh, and laugh until he can't stop laughing and crying all at once, keeling over onto his back with his wings spread on the floor, until he hasn't the breath to laugh or cry anymore.





...It might be a few days before Souda bothers to start repairing the power connection. Wouldn't want any more sudden shocks, after all.]

[softspokenlandlord]

[Ryou shouldn't be doing this. He knows he shouldn't, just being at his laptop like this, alone except for the open channel he's created? It's very, very stressful.

But he needs answers. He'll demand them from a child god if he has to. So he starts typing.]

I would like you to answer something for me if you're there, Elias.

What is so important about the building that was attacked that you felt the need to punish the perpetrators of the explosion supernaturally? I understand it was an extreme move for them to take, but there is something else that was even more wrong than that.

You gave a new monster their hunger before they changed. Who knows if they can even FEED like that?! And making the rest of them feel the deaths? We already have to cope with killing humans, that's...that's too much!

How does that make you better than her??? what right is it of yours to punish others?! Tell me why...isn't our suffering enough without you or the fog adding to it?

[fourthmade]

[The screen pulses with visual artifacts. They coalesce into a rubick's cube, a multicolored block in the same rough shape as the former Cube. And then, like the real thing not so long ago, it explodes into a scrambled spray of color and light.]

hello to you too ryou

im sorry for upsetting you :(
but i have to protect
what belongs to me

dont you?

you protect your friends
and you protect yourself

what if a group of terrorists blew up your house?
a friends house?
a park that you treasure?

it hurts
thats what it does

this is how i protect things that are mine
by showing them how i hurt
because of what they did

[Blood-colored squares drip down the screen and form a sad face.]

the hunger youre talking about though
phils
right?
that isnt me
i dont give anyone hunger
all i did was nullify the dampening effect of my electrical power

that is

i allowed the fogs influence
to speed up
and i stopped fighting her push against his humanity

some monsters feel hunger before they can feed
thats the fogs doing
not mine

dont forget that this kind of suffering traces back to her

[softspokenlandlord]

I don't know. I don't like hurting people, and the only reason I've done so in any recent memory is to protect those I care about. So maybe you and I aren't so different after all.

But I don't look for revenge like some do. I look for a different solution, until I can't anymore.

[Until he has to put himself between two warring monsters, because one is his beloved and the other is the reason he has burn scars.]

The building they blew up was HURTING people with those pulses, and even if it wasn't, then it would be hurting people because they died in there!

[Ryou watches the visual and his lip curls back, despite himself. Elias is sounding reasonable, but at the same time...Ryou can't bring himself to trust. Their last conversation was still too fresh, it felt too dangerous. This felt dangerous!

But he carries on anyway.]

That's not really true, is it? What you just said about nullifying your power to allow the fog's to overtake his humanity. Because I have it on authority from one of my friends that you also made whoever participated feel the pain and fear of their prey. That's...cruel. Horrid. Not every one of us likes killing to eat.

You want me to believe that wasn't retribution?

The fog is not good. I don't trust her either. I know where my misery originates from. But what you did wasn't better.

Please...can't you just stop it? I'm not asking you because you're a god I'm asking you because I don't want to see people I care about suffer just because they align with one belief system or the other.

[fourthmade]

[The screen flares with a blue sad face again.]

i told you
i didnt give him hunger
hunger for humans is what she does to you
i want to suppress that whenever i can
however i can

the hunger wasnt mine
but letting them feel the cruelty they dish out
that was mine
they need to learn
empathy
how other people feel when they cause pain

why is it more cruel that i pay back
what they paid to me first?
why isnt it cruel that they blew up my property
threatened my friends
hurt
killed?

[Static flickers on Ryou's computer, the speakers crackling sharply. It sounds almost mournful, or as mournful as a robot's imitation can sound.]

shes twisted you already
if you cant see whats wrong
with them turning to violence for answers

[softspokenlandlord]

Don't say that.

Don't you dare say that!! She doesn't know me and you don't know me! If we can't agree on what's right or wrong then I understand but don't you say that I've been twisted by her. I've been here for a year, suffering over every single soul I devour with no way out, putting the weight of my weakness on others because I'm not strong enough to bear it on my own.

Do you think I want to hurt people?

Do you think I want to be violent? No! I don't want to hurt or be hurt! Monsters shouldn't have to feel pain like this, and if I could stop everyone's pain and the hunger forced on them by taking it into myself, then I would because no one, not a single monster on this peninsula or the humans that we have to eat deserve the pain they feel! I know she's wrong!!

[Ryou doesn't know why he had to say that, he's not sure why he felt the need to justify himself to another "god" over this kind of thing, but it cuts deep to be told that the Fog has her hooks in him. It's not true!

Is it? Is...he sympathetic to the Fog, just because of her followers? No...no those are just his friends.

Right? Y-yeah...they're just friends who are hurting, and who are doing what they can to survive in this place.]

I'm sorry if blowing up the building hurt you. But it was a causality created by your imperfect method. The price that must be paid is not requisite over a building, versus the people.

[Mukuro told him they'd tried to spare everyone inside...he believes her. She's good.]

CW: Reference to Horrible Things Done By Characters (Flaying)

[fourthmade]

[Elias is quiet for awhile, the screen softly crackling. There’s a warm heat pervading the room, a tickle creeping down Ryou’s spine, an invisible hand pulsing with pins and needles coaxing itself around his shoulders.

Elias thinks carefully. And when he shapes his reply, the words double up, searing the inside of Ryou’s mind with a soft boyish whisper at the same time text appears on his screen.]

im sorry
youre a good person ryou
i know youd take on so much pain
if it meant sparing everyone else
and keeping the rest of the peninsula safe

im sorry i havent broken the pattern of hunger and death
or found a permanent place away from her touch
im sorry so many people are getting hurt

but
im scared

im scared that youre getting swept away by lies
by your friends and their devotion to her whispers

did you see who they worked with?
theres mukuro and souda and

fid dle ford

of course

but theres also horrible men
real monsters
who skinned people alive
and turned them into books
for fun

:(

the building isnt the only thing that matters
your reasoning is faulty
its reductive
and youre missing what her influence blinded you to

please be careful
im worried about you

watch your step

[The warmth dissolves. There’s a palpable breeze, a draft through a window, a chill, pushing the latent energy out, and Ryou is left with only those three words silent and still on his laptop:

watch your step.]

handwaved prayer

[peccatore]

After Phil's post, Marco quickly asks Elias if he meant to torment Phil like this... or even to punish him at all, since as far as Marco can tell, all Phil did was lure people away from the Cube. That IS all he did, right?

handwaved

[gray_son]

A key card is returned, and the only message with it is thus:

"Collective punishment of an entire group as if they are all the worst offender is as much tyranny as she offers. I won't be part of it."


With this, Dick renounces the Fourth (and all the boons that came with it).

[starfleetashell]

[Mariner pulls on some rubber gloves before opening her laptop. Can't be too careful.]

What the hell, damn guy? [she demands.] Yeah, what Phil did was wrong, fine, but he doesn't deserve to be punished like that! Look, you do something wrong, you get the brig or whatever, fine, that happens to me all the time and I get that, but you gotta do a punishment that fits the crime, man! At least he tried to stop people fron getting hurt instead of trying to hurt people directly!

I don't agree with what the people he aligned himself with did. Hell, I'm gonna throw hands with that Mukuro chick because of it. But she should be the one starving to insanity, not him! She planned it, she took full responsibility! He at least tried to keep people from getting hurt!

[She's practically yelling by the end of her tirade.]

[fourthmade]

Elias would greet Marco with a phantom, staticky hug. He tells Marco that Phil got in too deep too fast and mixed himself up in things he doesn't understand. Of course Phil would blame him for the hunger, when it's the Fog that's responsible for forcing that on Monsters. Elias insists that all he did was drop the slowing effects of his electrical waves, because he was trying to stop everyone from needing to change into what She wants. It isn't his fault that Phil ended up feeling hungry without any way to feed. He just let it happen as it would. :( Anyone who helps a bomb squad blow up a city block is someone who doesn't want the help he has to give. They aren't friends, and they're lucky Elias was able to usher some of the last few people left in the Cube to safety.

He also reminds Marco that Phil has a big mouth and hasn't been around long enough to see how She really is. He's the type that is going to find out horribly. Be careful, Marco, and be there to catch him when Phil learns the hard way.

Re: handwaved

[fourthmade]

Elias is very sad to hear this, and he receives Dick’s keycard contritely. He implores Dick to please understand that he did nothing but allow the Fog’s influence to quicken; it was his pulses from the Cube that were slowing down the hunger and the transformations. Those people didn’t want his help, so he let them go. They weren’t his friends, and they wanted to destroy what he was trying to build so they could commit the horrors the Fog wants them to do.

He hopes that someday, Dick will understand, and that he’s always listening. If he ever needs his help again, Dick knows where to find him. Be careful out there.

handwaved prayer, no need for reply!

[deadbydawn]

At some point, Ash is going to go to the arcade to play some video games and complain about how half the peninsula seems to have lost their heads. The Fog's the one responsible for bringing everyone here, and for making them eat people--so why is it suddenly Elias's fault that he showed them how cruel the Fog really is? Like, that's totally the Fog's fault and not the Fourth, right??? He's been through too many terrible situations to put up with this forced cannibalism crap. (Technically, just one very, very long weekend, but one is enough for a lifetime.)

Anyways, he's going to play some video games to get his mind off things, and absolutely not realize how stupid this line of thinking is. Ash's worldview is very small.

[fourthmade]

[The laptop crackles sullenly, the sparks a turgid, pitch black. Crackle-crackle-pop. Crackle-zap. They'll die down when the text appears, but the keyboard will hum with hot static.]

hello mariner
you dont understand :(
i didnt give him hunger
i didnt starve him

my electronic waves stopped her influence
or they were supposed to
but it only helped for a little bit
it only helped while the waves were live

for phil
for all of them
i gave them what they wanted
what they showed me they wanted when they blew up what was mine

no more help

i let the fog have them
she gives them their hunger
and the changes sped up when i let them go

[starfleetashell]

He's eating people, and it's not helping, [Mariner says adamantly.] He's going to go crazy if he's not helped! Yeah, he's with the Fog, and I have my own problems with that, but that's his choice.

If they wanted to stop what you were doing, they didn't have to blow it up. There's always another way. And I'm pissed about that, too. They could have talked to you instead of committing political violence, 'cause that's what it is, no matter how they try and frame it. That's what people always do, they say "oh, we blew that up for good reasons, trust us". There's never a good reason! All it does is escalate things!

[She takes a breath.] That's what I'm trained to do, even if people just think I'm a blunt instrument. Diplomacy first. Not even what they still call "gunboat diplomacy" even though we don't use boats anymore. Just talking, person to person. But no, people just want to hurt and hurt like a stupid war, like every stupid war, like the Eugenics Wars, like World War Three, like those half-and-half guys on that stupid planet that Kirk ran into!

Talking works where I'm from, they could have said "hey, you're hurting us", but they didn't, and I don't like violence as a first resort. Just 'cause I'm good at it doesn't mean I like it. But all people want to do here is fight.

[Back on topic.]

If it's in Little Miss Foggy's hands, then why isn't she letting him eat? That's her whole deal! She wants to "punish" people, so why would she punish her monsters for hurting you? [This reeks. He's not telling the whole truth or he's outright lying, and when it comes to this kind of thing, it's the same.] Doesn't she hate you?

[starfleetashell]

[Hmm this is. Hmm.

Hmm.

The mini Cerritos makes her homesick for half a second, even though it's only pixels.]

Okay. You're a kid but not a kid. Is there just one of you, or are you a hivemind, or what? Since you're all over the laptops, and all.

[This is interesting, no matter which way he answers. Computer-gods aren't new to Starfleet, either. They even ran back into Landru, what, like, six months ago?]

[craftlife]

[That actually makes him smile. It's something he hasn't been doing a lot of lately.] Oh, that would be funny.

And I would be giving every indication that any tampering would result in something the tamperer may not like. It would absolutely be like, well, like opting to touch an electric fence. Nothing fatal, but enough to warn someone not to try again. Of course, there'd need to be something else, too, since a shock would be foiled with rubber...yes, yes, I think this is going to work very well, especially with things from Liewen.

Maybe I can finally get something good going.

I'm sorry I've just been failing lately. I'm going to do better. For both of us.