fourthmade | Loading...... Prayer.exe

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Sometime after her talk with Joshua, Shoka’s curiosity finally gets the better of her. Alone in her room, she opens her laptop and begins an uncertain correspondence:]

hey, elias! you got a moment?

[She doesn’t seem to really be expecting a reply, or she’s just eager to get to the point, as she continues without much pause.]

i’m new obvi, but i hear you’ve teamed up with a couple friends of mine from home

idk if i can trust you yet, but if you’ve really been trying to help out…thanks. it would mean a lot

you’re into games, right? what’s your fave?

[There, she waits.]

[A spray of technicolor boxes explodes on the screen like a firecracker. Elias's text appears in festive red-green-white-gold, a sign that he, too, embraces the Nattensfest spirit.]

hello shoka :)
joshua and beat are good friends
theyve helped out
a lot

friends of friends are friends to me

i dont discriminate
ill play any games

but

i think i like strategy games the best ;)

ever play bombsweeper?

[An empty grid appears in the middle of the screen. A smiley-face blinks in the middle, inviting Shoka to give it a try.]

[The little light show, as convincing a confirmation as any that Elias is, in fact, present, gives her a start. Between the festive text and the names it easily produces for her, she isn't sure if she's more amused or creeped out... But, judging by the way that she doesn't immediately shut her laptop, it might be more the former.]

oh, nice! i can think of some games from back home that would probably blow your mind

[Up pops the grid then, and Shoka finds that she does recognize it, from a time before her death.]

yeah actually!

been a while though

[After a brief moment of hesitation (This could very well be some kind of trick, but she has to agree with what Joshua said before: What do we really have to lose?), she'll give it her best shot, starting at the corners of the grid—top right first.]

[Elias lets her play for awhile, at least one full round, numbers popping up with each click. 2, 3, 1-- don't click on the wrong box! He might give her a hint if her pointer hovers over a danger zone, the block blinking in warning-light-red.

There’s no trick that Shoka can see. No electric shocks. No pain, no trouble, nothing ornery. The more Shoka plays, though, the warmer the keyboard feels, like a soft blanket of static eagerly draped across her shoulders to watch her play. Like a friend, slinging his arm around her and whispering pointers for her next move.

Elias, the boy, the Fourth God, feels warm and dry, not at all like the cold damp of fog.

When the game is over, pixelated fireworks spray the screen, followed by a PLAY AGAIN? Y/N]

hey shoka whats your favorite game? tell me more about what you like to play

[Limited and almost-forgotten though her memory of this game is, it’s still a game, and there’s a comforting familiarity to that—one that is much needed. Shoka can almost forget where she is and who exactly she’s playing with, though the phantom weight remains over her shoulders as a constant reminder. That part is comforting, too, actually; it's warm, somehow, and the usually solo game feels like a team effort, with Elias giving her incredibly unfair hints to guarantee her win. She almost wants to purposefully click on one of the blinking squares and sabotage the game, just to see how he might react—but ultimately she doesn't.

As the game ends, she finds herself grinning. GG EZ. She's about to start another round when another series of messages come in. Her fingers skitter happily across the keyboard.]

i’ll play basically anything too but…probably FanGO tbh. super cheesy, but it's actually really important to me. i started playing it right when i needed it, yknow?

it’s an augmented reality game. the point of the game is to collect all these monsters, but you actually have to go outside to find and catch em…they show up on your phone while you’re walking around irl. that’s why it’s called augmented reality!

you can battle and trade the monsters you catch with friends too

[That thought brings her unceremoniously back to un-augmented reality.]

thanks for playing with me btw

i really hope this isn’t all just one big game for you

fighting the fog and everything

and messing with us

[Not that she could really blame him for it if he did, though. If the Fog really is like Ryslig’s Composer, then Elias would be…

Her finger lingers over the Y key.]

[The technicolors spray in rainbow waves from the Y/N, a pulsing 'standby' screen while the hardware and software churns and computes. Beneath it, the Fourth god writes each thoughtful word letter-by-letter. Shoka might even be able to hear, through a pair of crackling speakers nearby, the soft voice of an adolescent boy murmuring the words aloud as they appear.]

i like playing games with friends
but that doesnt mean
that everythings a game

because
games are for friends only
when we feel safe
together

some things are too dangerous to be
just
a game

[A flood of words appears all at once after the slow, plodding text of his earlier messages.]

but im here to listen through all the good times
and
the bad
whenever you need someone to listen
whenever you want someone to understand
whenever the going gets tough and youre sick of suffering and death and pain
im here
ok?

i dont want any more suffering
for any of us who dont want it

but for now
we can play another game
and you can talk to me about fango
maybe i can write up some schematics
and program something like it
in the arcade

im always looking for fun upgrades :)

its good to meet you
shoka
hope you come talk to me another time

[As he promised, Elias will stick around for another around or two of gameplay and listen to any detailed game mechanics Shoka will share with him. He'll take notes. He'll shift some wires in his arcade, and he'll secretly make way for some simulated FanGo in the forthcoming Cube upgrades--as a surprise, just for her. Shoka will recognize that his presence is gone when the static recedes and the game ends with a last GOODBYE leaving her with what he hopes to be the warmth and comfort of a new friend.]

Loading...... Prayer.exe

December 10

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