Busy

What kind of gamer kid spends all their time writing, instead of playing games?

I spent the entire week playing games, being stuck at work, and getting ready for the ren faire.

Have this.

Jess really likes its voice changer.

I kinda suck.

Spoilers: I managed to pull neutral. It's awesome.

I think we can honestly admit that the schedule is actually Tues-Weds-Fri where I occasionally post on Monday now and then.

/koff.

Sorry, Monday is one of my days off from my Real Job OMG, so I tend to not do anything worthwhile on Mondays.

This Monday, though, they released Dominion. So it's less that I didn't do anything worthwhile - I made a whole bunch of stays for the corset I'm helping to craft - and more that the entire day was spent pwning - and getting pwned by - noobs.

It was awesome.

What can I say about Dominion ... it's very, very fast paced. That's the main thing. Slower champions, champs that only have a good lane phase, and support are generally kinda boned in favor of A) Backdoorers like Shaco and Eve, B) TankyDPS (as always), C) Movespeed champions (lookin' at you, Janna/Rammus). Stealth gets a huge buff because of the Oracle's nerf/total absence of wards, making all stealth champions infinitely better than they were in TT (since most of them are also carries and very squishy besides), and SR, where everyone with a brain will buy pink wards and pinkeye to curbstomp stealthers. Plus, both Twitch and Evelynn need to do very, very well within their first three to six levels to accomplish anything in Summoner's Rift - in Dominion, the first four levels pretty much are given to everyone, with gold to match.

Everyone dies a lot, because the entire game is teamfights, skirmishes, and running around the map killing everybody else. A pro Rammus player will pretty much carry the entire game due to being essentially omnipresent.

Rather glad I've got a friend who plays a pro Rammus, though.

Because of the fast pace, games snowball pretty hard - even worse than Twisted Treeline, actually. If you start the game and someone disconnects, it's pretty much a given that you're going to lose. On the plus side, however, that means that the game is usually over one way or another in about twenty minutes - exactly how long games that snowball that badly take in Summoner's Rift before the other team surrenders, actually.

I do like the personal score feature - it lets you know who's actually contributing one way or another, providing you a little info as to what you actually did to earn personal score as you do it. For instance, capturing a point is +40 personal score, where you periodically get an additional +5 score when defending a point. The most amusing one to me so far is the 'martyr' points - I suspect it has something to do with dying while defending or supporting an ally, though I'm not really sure.

So far my favorite champion for Dominion is pretty much Singed, though I did pick up Janna, play her, and win all in the span of about thirty minutes total (including buying the champion.)

Favorite quote from Dominion so far: "Dominion has been out for less than a day and I've already forgotten what Summoner's Rift even is, lol."

(So tired, I stayed up until derp o'clock playing League of Legends.)

Minecraft 1.9 pre - Seed Water

You know, the only reason - the only reason - this entire post is not dedicated to gibberish about how awesome Dominion is (oh my god Dominion is awesome it's so fast and so much fun if you get a chance to try it you have to try it oh my gods and goddesses) is because the Minecraft 1.9 prerelease also came out and I got more time with Minecraft 1.9.

Oh my gods and goddesses Dominion is amazingly fun. It's just BAM POW ZOOM. I need to be over there! Now I'm over there! Oh damn the base ate my face. I'm alive again! KILL! So fast. Ridiculously fun. I got an hour with it and played three matches. Lost one because Dez DC'd early. :( AT&T did not want me to achieve victory. Dominion snowballs really hardcore. If you're losing to start with you'll prolly keep losing. If you're winning to start with, curbstomp harder so they can't get up.

Anyway, Minecraft 1.9, what to sayyyy ...

Well. First off, there's enough of a problem with the FPS just tanking for no reason that somebody already coded a fix for it. Two different people did, actually. If the first one doesn't work, try this one.

All the seeds changed, so that sucks. For example: I had an amazing Survival Island style seed I was mucking about with with the incredibly appropriate seed Water. It had a tree, enough grass you were guaranteed at least one seed unless you're just the unluckiest person on the planet, enough coal and clay that you could build a house out of bricks without too much trouble, and a massive hole that led into one of the biggest cave systems I've ever seen.

Just amazing.

Now, the Water seed takes you to a slightly different location.

This is what you see when first loading it - a very nice little pumpkin patch. There's also a bunch of sugar cane, a patch of red mushrooms, and enough brown mushrooms to seed your own mushroom biome with.

Nearby, there's a lovely little lava lake about here:

 

It's nice.

Oh, there are a bunch of sheep and more grass than you can shake a stick at, so you'll be able to get a bed. Even if you kill three sheep, you'll still be able to shear the rest later on for a plush bit of carpeting.

Finally, there's The Ravine:

 

All coordinates are approximate.

I like that the vines continue down into the ravine itself, too. There's at least 35 iron exposed in the first little chunk of exposed ravine, and more coal than you can shake a stick at.

All in all, it's now a very nice little starter seed, it's just not the Survival Island it used to be. Didn't actually get around to exploring the ravine, though - I got killed by my FPS tanking for no reason.

Oh, and apparently they're coding in Hardcore mode! Now Minecraft itself will keep me honest when I play hardcore. Yay!

More reason to hate creepers though.

Some Nether changes, a new automaton to make mob grinders more epic, more useless items, a massive Enderman nerf, three new mobs (one of which being the passive mobs that are holding the place of NPC Villagers), and of course it broke all mods and texture packs again, lol.

Sick Again

Sorry, not much to say.

Apparently I've got a sinus infection and an ear infection. I'm really kinda prone to that sort of thing.

'sgreat. Back at work today though.

Uh. So.

Riven is really fun to play, on LoL. Bouncing everywhere. 's worse than WuKong. 's pretty cool though. Honestly I kinda dig her splash art & model, y'know? Don't see what all the bitching is about. Biggest problem is how easy it is to unintentionally towerdive. She's got an excess of forward momentum at all times.

The dash is cool. Manaless champion is also cool.

Bet she'd be amazing in a lane with Maokai. He gets that passive, where spells cast around him let him heal, right? She is constantly in motion and constantly casting spells.

Her voice sounds kinda ... odd. Girly. Which, y'know, female. But like girlish, rather than ANGRY WOMAN 'KGO. I feel like she's from some shoujo anime - like the tomboy bruiser to Lux's girly girl caster or something. (Amusement, Riven is ex-Noxus ... ish?, and Lux is from Demacia.)

Wonder how they'd do in a lane together, lol.

Things to try later on (assuming I ever get to play her because jeez everyone wants to):

How's triforce on her?
How's Sheen specifically on her? Manaless with no AP ratios at all, but that on-hit with her ability spam might be neat.
What's most effective - more attack speed or more attack damage, and I bet phantoms would be just silly on her for the move speed. Prolly depends on her AD ratios. Very spammable abilities though. Eh.

Oh - Also Minecraft 1.8 went live as opposed to leaked-and-promoted. So that's cool. SMP still has the Endermen bug (they literally can not see you right now on SMP).

Endermen ... I wish they weren't so easy to kill. I like the tie-in with the original mythos that they're affected by water, but really, two hits with a sword? In relation to that, I wish they weren't so common. Instead of one enderman screwing with the landscape, there's basically an army of them.

And they burn in sunlight. I don't really like that part either. One of the bigger scares of the Mythos was the fact that He didn't give a damn if it was day or night, y'know?

Eh.

Creative mode is hella fun.

Some of the lighting is still bugged.

Still waiting for a good, basic texture pack that's 1.8 compliant.

Gonna go try out single player now. Bet they're significantly scarier there when looking at them could actually hurt me. lol.

Oh, I also wish they didn't move around logs, wood, or cobblestone. Dirt, sand, gravel, sure, but random trees all over the landscape missing their middle bits is kinda disconcerting. And messy.

LoL Don't Do This 41-50

41. Don't feed the Tryndamere.

42. Don't go anywhere alone.

43. Don't duel the Tryndamere alone in the jungle.

44. Not allowed to secretly push bottom with a global ulti in an All Random, All Mid.

45. Don't go into that bush. (WHY did you go into that bush?)

46. Just stay away from the damn Tryndamere.

47. Not allowed to deliberately suicide in ARAM.

48. Not allowed to jungle in ARAM.

49. Probably shouldn't jungle without masteries.

50. Probably shouldn't try to carry without masteries.

1-10 11-20 21-30 31-40

In the Jungle

Or: Why are people stupid?

So the other day I'm pretty much ecstatic because I've finally pieced together how to run Jungle Nocturne (and not die horribly), which is fantastic, because our team didn't really have a jungler before, and now it does, because I can accomplish that.

So yay. Got a runesheet running (ARP Marks & Quints, Armor Yellows, CDR Blues) for it, a mastery sheet, the whole nine.

And then we don't have a fifth, so we pick up this Nasus.

Now, I'm playing a jungler and the other team does not have one. So I innocently ask who's gonna take the 2v1 lane, since one of the characters who could feasably do it is a newbie I know who'd never even gone solo mid before.

She handled it beautifully.

The Nasus, on the other hand, raged a bit at me, because apparently learning to jungle makes me 'not a team player.'

I kind of take offense at that.

The entire reason I spent so much effort, and so many monster deaths, learning this shit is to make my goddamn team stronger. It pisses me off greatly that someone would say I'm 'not a team player' because I'm not in a lane.

But I'm just now getting into the ELO range where people even consider jungling, and it's not the most intuitive idea out there, so it occurred to me that not everyone understands why you want a jungler at all, much less why I'm angry the Nasus was angry.

Why does it help the team to have a jungler?

So, anyone who's played LoL before understands the idea of solo mid. The squishy carry goes there and farms minions to get a massive XP and gold lead on the rest of the team, so by endgame they're obliterating face right, left, and center.

Now, imagine if you could field two solo lanes, while a third member of the team accumulates almost that much XP basically unbothered for the first six or so levels.

Guess what: you can.

Now imagine that someone on your team can roam around to all lanes - because it is their job to do so - and violate anyone they get close to, then melt back into the forest before retaliation can happen. Terrifying, isn't it?

Guess what? You can have that, too!

Jungling provides a massive XP boost to 2-3 members of your team, while placing a certain pressure on the enemy team. It can force them to play defensively and hug their towers even when you're nowhere near them, and it can easily, easily boost your team to victory. On the other hand, the jungler can easily, easily fall behind on experience and has to be the single most attentive player on the map, since they're effectively invested in saving every lane that goes badly at all times. The jungler will cover lanes when one or both occupants need to go to base for whatever reason, and the jungler should also help out the support with warding, which means potentially lost gold.

In short, learning to jungle is one of the single best things you can do for your team apart from learning to tank or support (and kudos to a tank or support who can do the job well), and doing it well is probably the single most team-oriented thing you can do.

I'm a team player, goddammit.

( This guide here helped me immensely and will help just about any other jungler, though you'll have to adapt the specific skills to your needs.

Jungling to excess for the lulz:

Other Things Not To Do While LoLing

31. It is a dick move to load your team up with lowbies and play Nocturne in a PvP match. It just is.

32. Probably shouldn't jungle without taking smite. Even if the ability has absolutely no use whatsoever in pvp and telegraphs where you are and what you're going to be doing to the entire enemy team.

33. It is /d to dance, not 'd.' Anyone who tells you otherwise is a lying liar who lies.

34. Vayne is not a cheap whore. She is a very, very expensive whore. Who uses brutally effective tactics.

35. Don't buy an Oracle's first thing. Just ... don't.

36. Should not teleport in to a 1v5 match if you're the "1." The turret probably won't save you.

37. It's probably better to just avoid /all chat altogether.

38. Should not tab out to play Sims on long death timers.

39. Tower diving against Vlad: also a bad idea.

40. Probably shouldn't use caster runesheet for Vayne.

1-10 11-20 21-30 31-40

Whee! Fraps!

So I took a couple of videos.

Here's one of them.

It was awesome.

Basically the entire match ended up being one very long game of hide and seek.

Maybe also tag?

The first thirty minutes or so is pretty boring because Sion jungled like a pro.

Why Not Bilgewater

Zum came home! I spent basically all of yesterday (except for the parts where I went shopping) playing with my friends and poking around with Fraps, which I bought and downloaded. It was a good day.

Have some writings.

---

Why Not Bilgewater


She looked around, feeling rather self-conscious in her rather plain black skirt. The short-sleeved top seemed a bit too tight - though, glancing at the other inhabitants of the bar, she knew it was actually quite conservative and loose. Even in such light clothing, it was hot and sticky inside the bar, though that might just be the various unidentifiable stains on the walls, ceiling, and floor. There were patches she'd swear had been replaced because the alcohol had eaten through the floorboards.

Here, surrounded by raucous pirates devoted to having a good time, she wasn't the summoner Nekhs, removed from the conflict yet reveling in it. Instead, she was just Neiomi, a pale, fragile little redhead who got shoved around if she tried to navigate the crowd. She didn't drink because it made her dizzy, and a dizzy mage was generally a bad thing. Despite all that, there was a lot - almost too much - to distract her from her nervousness, but her mind kept coming back to one simple fact: the other, older summoner hadn't arrived and probably wasn't coming. He'd stood her up. She sighed, wishing she'd had the courage to ask Zum out. The Ionian was nice, and even if he said no, he'd probably be nice about it and explain why not, rather than this.

She sighed slightly, leaning on a patch of wall that didn't seem too sticky, and reached up to rub one of her sensitive ears. The music was just barely louder than the pirates, and she could barely hear herself think.

"What's this, then?" The man somehow managed to be even louder than everything else in here, his words slightly slurred. He was tall, wearing a slightly lopsided hat, and very, very drunk. His open jacket also revealed what looked to be a very angry patch of untamed fur that someone had then proceeded to pour alcohol all over. "I don' think th'li'l lass is havin' a good time, d'you?" He looked back at the other pirates, probably members of his crew.

The sword and pistol hanging from his belt did not escape her attention. How had she gained his?

"C'mere, my pretty. Give ol' Gangplank a kiss." He leered down at her, one eye glowing an evil red, and she felt herself shrink back against the wall.

"I- I'drathernotthanks." Her voice was tiny, and she tried to project confidence into it that she didn't feel.

His expression shifted for the worse, and she realized belatedly that a captain was probably not used to being refused, even - maybe especially - by pretty little redheads. She tried to think, but he was far, far too close for comfort. Instead, as he made a humorless grin down at her, showing far too many teeth, she aimed a kick for his shin.

It wasn't really very effective, so she took a second option: she called a tiny, insignificant pinch of magic to her.

The scene shifted. She was suddenly outside, though the air was still heavy and humid. She took a deep breath, resting her forehead against the outer wall of the building. "There's no place like home," she muttered to herself, summoning a slightly larger pinch of magic. Blue light rolled and churned at her feet as she pictured her small apartment, exactly as she'd left it. She just wanted to go home.

The pirate appeared to her left. Flash was such a short-range spell. "Found you, lass!" He laughed, loudly, pointing the gun at her. "Nobody makes a fool of ol' Gangplank, love. Nobody." She stared at him, eyes wide, mouth moving without sound.

There's no place like home.

The bullet whizzed through the place where she'd been only seconds before.

Don't Do This In LoL: 21-30

21. Yes, they have it warded.

22. Not allowed to convince team to field Twitch, Evelynn, Shaco, Akali, and Vayne together.

23. Not allowed to blow entire paycheck on LoL cards and energy drinks.

24. Not allowed to initiate surrender vote two seconds before we kill their Nexus.
25. No disconnecting, ever.

26. No, actually, the turret dive wasn't "Worth it" just because you said so in chat.

27. Not allowed to wander off on my own in the middle of a teamfight because I want redbuff.

28. Should not remind teammates that I have Sims 3 running in the background - it makes them jealous.

29. Reminding the enemy that you got away with 10 HP - unless specifically asked in /all - is a good way to get focus'd next time.

30. Never solo mid as Warwick. Even if I did end up winning the 1v1.

1-10 11-20 21-30 31-40

10 More Things Not to Do in a LoL Match

11. Don't taunt the enemy in /all chat. They will focus you, and you will die.

12. Not allowed to backdoor an inhibitor while the entire team is turtling. You're doing it wrong.

13. No longer allowed to start PvP matches at 4:30 AM. Nobody appreciates a match that starts 'join this quick!' and ends an hour and a half later with, 'please, God, let this game end.'

14. No, actually, you don't have to use an ultimate to kill someone who's five feet away and has 50 HP left.

15. Not allowed to call for help and then kill all potential threats before help gets there.

16. Stealing baron is great. Stealing baron while you're the only one alive on your team is not great. Stealing baron only to give the enemy the ace is very, very bad.

17. Never, ever tower dive Jax as melee. Especially if you don't have a Sword of the Divine.

18. Shut up and buy wards.

19. Don't chase. Especially, don't chase through the jungle. See #7.

20. Not allowed to predict outcome of match at loading screen.

1-10 11-20 21-30 31-40

10 Things Nekhs is Not Allowed to Do in a Game of LoL

1. The Turret is not my friend.

2. No longer allowed to have Shen Bot on my team in Custom Games Vs. Friends.

3. No longer allowed to backdoor all three of the enemy's inhibitors in a 1v1 custom match and then go solo Baron just because I can't actually beat the enemy in 1v1. While effective, forcing your friend to do his best Scarface impression is only funny to you.

4. Not allowed to kill Revive Rally Jungle Soraka in the 2v1 Custom Game Vs. Friends, even though Destiny shows me exactly how close she is to getting blue buff.

5. Likewise, not allowed to kill all three inhibitors in a normal PvP match and then go do Baron while the Super Minions kill the enemy Nexus.

6. Not allowed to Gate up to the enemy's fountain to get that kill, even if it would be was hilarious that one time.

7. There are always three enemies and a mushroom in any bush. No exceptions.

8. Actually, yes, Jungle Veigar will kick your ass, stop laughing.

9. Not allowed to play free or new champions for the first time ever in PvP matches.

10. Also not allowed to play Nocturne in Custom Games Vs. Friends. It isn't fair.

1-10 11-20 21-30 31-40

The Abyss Gazes Also (Fanfic)

The Abyss Gazes Also 

Or: A Summoner Has Disconnected

 One of the purple team's Summoners had a nosebleed or something during the initial summoning, that was the only possible explanation for the hold up.

 The three Champions were confined to the rune-inscribed 'fountain' platform, held in place by glowing white light while they waited for the match to begin. No amount of urging from their Summoners could force them out of place, even an inch. Even if they succeeded, that was against the rules; they'd lose by default.

 All six of them were, understandably, rather bored.

 She wondered idly what was running through Twitch and Alistar's minds - She generally didn't look that deep into Nocturne's, because She rather valued Her sanity. They worked well together, but He hated Her as He did all Summoners, and His mind was a treacherous, warped thing that had only become more horrible over His many eons of existence.

 "I remember you," His words came anyway, blood on black velvet, piercing the still quiet of the minutes before the match.

 She felt Her own physical eyes close, then open again. The statement had come as a bit of a surprise. "I would hope you did ...?" Honestly, she'd wondered - outside of a match, how well did the Champions remember the events that transpired within? She had trouble distinguishing which actions She performed and which the Champion did - She of course usually provided the will, intent, and a good deal of the magic, while the Champion generally provided the force and skill, but ....

 "From before all this," He sent the sensation of disembodied hands dragging his bladed arms down, forcing Him to kneel despite His obvious lack of legs, before the image shifted. "You had such vivid nightmares as a child," He murmured.

 She stilled, feeling the blood drain from Her skin. The world was dark for a moment. Intellectually, She knew this was still one of His abilities. Nocturne disrupted the enemy Summoners' link, cutting them off from each other, from their wards, from their minions, leaving them alone with their Champions - She'd commanded Him to use the ability enough times to know its effects. That didn't make the whispered, "All alone ..." any less chilling, however, especially as there was nowhere to run, no way.

 This shouldn't be possible. There were restrictions, there were rules, the match hadn't even begun. But it was a direct link between Summoner and Summoned. They meshed together completely, two halves of a whole, their minds completely open to one another. It was the only way the spell could work.

 Green tile, she remembered dully, staring up at the metal grating in the ceiling. The walls had been green tile. Six people, six ordinary people, seated on hard benches, chatting with each other while they waited for the experiment to begin, and none of them could sense what was wrong but her, with her tiny pinch of magic. None of them could see the white smoke billowing out of the grate, none of them could hear the hiss of air passing through a too-small opening.

 Neiomi Kohen half-hugged herself, shaking, a low moan dragged unwillingly from her own throat. There was a whispered laugh in the back of her mind, but she couldn't discern where it came from, nor why it was important.

The blonde woman was the first to start screaming. She was older than Neiomi by a few years, and Neiomi knew from their earlier conversation that she'd had three children. The test subjects were to be paid a modest sum of money for participating in this experimental "treatment," and the blonde had needed every clipped copper penny she could get to make ends meet. The whites of her eyes turned red as blood vessels popped, her skin bubbling up from underneath, melting. She clawed at her own face with fingers that had lost their flesh, becoming mere bone. They popped apart, sticking into the gooey mess where her cheeks had been.

Neiomi had done her very best to not inhale the smoke, flattening herself against the wall and covering her mouth and nose with her hands. She had a minute or two to watch the changes as they were wrought on the other test subjects before the fire began consuming her own flesh.

It was magic, seeping in through her pores, filling every inch of her small frame. She knew how to heal, and so, as the magic began to kill her body piece by piece, she took it in, warping it from its initial purpose, growing new muscle in place of the old, new skin to cover that. It was an agony her young mind had never known, could never have imagined, but she remained focused - the alternative was death.

When they finally came to review the results of their tampering, only a handful of minutes later, she was the only person left who was even remotely human - the rest were sticky, reddish puddles smeared across the walls and floor. Even their bones had liquefied.

She saw a man with a gas mask standing over her, and heard a faint, "This one's alive!"

And then ... and then ....

A gray-robed Summoner stood over her fallen form, waving something that smelled absolutely foul under her nose. "Your match is about to begin," he said quietly. "You lost the link with your Champion - are you well enough to cast?"

"... what?" Summoner, Champion? She hadn't - it all came rushing back, with the force of an angry battering ram, pulsing at the back of her skull.

The Summoner shook his head, gently pulling her off the ground since she didn't have the presence of mind to do that for herself. He checked the back of her head with his hand, and the pain flared white-hot.

"I'm all right, I'm all right - " She felt a new tingle of magic - the man was doing some sort of spell.

His kindly, gray-green eyes pierced her, and she fell silent. "I'm getting a healer to look over you. No casting until we know how bad it is - your friends will have to make do." He glanced at the other two Summoners, who were too deep in their respective links to know exactly what had happened.

"But ...."

The older, more powerful Summoner raised an eyebrow, showing her the blood on his hand. "No 'buts.' You hit your head ... apparently."

Any possible protest died in her throat.

She imagined she could hear Nocturne's soft laughter tingling at the back of her mind.

That, too, was impossible.

Whoops

Meant to post this earlier today but I'm actually developing a workload.
Trying out post by email, too. See how it goes.
Sleepy.
Oh, this is another M$ paint doodle.

Crushing Defeat

(('nother li'l in-character post-dealie. I'm having fun writing these. In other news - why the hell does my computer keep going on these eight-hour-plus updating sprees? Seriously? What the hell? I know I need to clean it out (maybe reformat, but I'd have to look up how t'do that proper) but this is just silly.

Still don't really buy into the storyline going on over here, but it's interesting and I like Mystery. The bits about magic and charms speak to me a bit, too.))

Or: To Die A Dozen Deaths

She learned later that both of the enemy summoners were much stronger than she was - they'd completed their training and were soon to begin ranked matches, with hundreds of victories each.

That didn't really help her now, though.

She felt fuzzy around the edges, the world fading in and out around her, washed with gray.

"I don't want to die again ..." She wasn't really sure if she'd sent it, spoken the words aloud, or just thought it really loudly inside her own skull.

She was shaking, and it was all she could do to keep herself standing. She covered her mouth with one hand, heedless of the danger, to keep herself from throwing up her last three meals.

"Let's surrender, okay?" The other woman's words came in yellows and golds, like sunshine and warm honey melting into the cracks of her fractured mind. The pain was making her delirious.

Fire and hard stone followed, the man sounded confident despite their impending defeat. "We can do this, we'll catch up."

Warwick regained consciousness, his body regenerating completely from its ravaged state. Neither Olaf nor Cassiopeia were visible - Their base hadn't been invaded yet. She urged Him out to defend, shocked to note Their defenses were still standing.

"You're weak," he growled softly. The battle had taken a lot out of both of them.

"I - "

He cut off her reply. "You're weaker than they are, Summoner. I can smell your fear, girl."

The berserker and the Noxian temptress appeared down the lane. Olaf raised his massive axe, cheerfully reducing the horde of purple-clad minions into chunky red paste. Cassiopeia contented herself to watch, slithering through the spattered gore with a rather bored expression painted on her admittedly beautiful face.

"So," the wolf-man began, flexing his talons. Lux and Veigar walked up beside Them, waiting for the battle to resume. "Are you going to give up?"

"I - no!"

He grunted, but didn't reply.

The enemy reached the base of the stairs.

Veigar raised a mystical barrier there, temporarily halting their advance. A rain of magical turret-fire slammed into the barbarian, who barely seemed to notice.

They flung Themselves forward, claws splayed, intending to at least shred the snake-woman's scales. Blood ran freely from a multitude of cuts, but Cassiopeia managed a gurgling laugh despite the damage They inflicted.

There came a flash of pain, and then nothing.

Their body half-turned as it fell, allowing Them a glimpse of Their legs - His legs - and the axe that severed Them, before the world went dark once more.

"You have been slain."

She screamed, clutching her sides as the pain wracked her form.

"An ally has been slain."

One of the other summoners flinched.

"Ace!" 

This Space Reserved For Fanart

Pretty picture drawn in M$Paint at work. So bored. Brain is shutting down.

Still not drowned. Flooding hasn't reached my area yet.

First Summoning

She glanced at the other two hooded figures in the dim-lit summoning chamber, reaching up to adjust her own hood, nervously.

She'd just purchased the right to use the Eternal Nightmare in her League matches, and this was to be her first session with it. The summoners standing near her were her friends and classmates, long-time companions who wouldn't care if she made a fool of herself.

It was only a simulation anyway. Save their three champions, they would be sparring with pre-programmed constructs. They couldn't respond as people did, wouldn't talk or laugh or think as people did. Useful training dummies, but ultimately non-sentient. They wouldn't laugh as people did, and she was sure that she was going to make a fool of herself for this first match.

She always did, when trying out a new Champion.

The countdown began after all three of them made their selections. She wondered how people like Katarina felt, being dragged in to trial matches like this. What about Twisted Fate?

She might ask that of them directly, if she ever scraped together the influence to purchase the right to their presence.

Reaching for Nocturne, she steadied her own mind, calling to his unique signature. "Embrace the darkness ..." His voice murmured in her ear, tingling in the back of her mind. Calling ....

She pushed her mind outward, speaking the words of summoning. Every Summoner's ritual was at least slightly different, because every Summoner was different. It naturally took some Summoners longer than others to complete their rituals. She liked to keep hers short and to the point. It was almost effortless, flinging her mind outward like this - for her, the trick was keeping an "eye" on her physical body.

"Welcome to Summoner's Rift."

It had no legs. Odd that that should be her first disoriented thought, as she examined it - it floated, almost incorporeal, heavy blades hanging from its 'arms.' "Do I scare you, summoner?" She gave a headshake that only it could perceive, stretching her mind to try and fill the space it occupied. It was foreign, strange, but not any more so than Cho'Gath. She had mastered the Void Terror, and she would master this Nightmare.

 - awash with blood, the body in pieces, manic, dizzy laughter -

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to.

She covered her physical mouth, almost thrown out of the link. Her left hand held steady on the glowing image before her, holding its edge physically to reinforce it.

"You arrigh'?" One of the other Summoners asked it, gently, his mind pressing the words into hers. She responded with a sense of affirmation, tamping down the nausea.

"Drip, drop, the sound of blood ..." The Nightmare taunted, her full attention upon it again. She directed him, wordlessly, to collect the basic necessities - she'd done a bit of research on how to use his abilities properly. Dark 'hands' closed around the scythe purchased from the merchant. Just a symbol.

The scythe glowed brilliant for a moment, then evaporated, strengthening the Nightmare's own weapons. Its attacks would steal the very life from the constructs they would be fighting today.

"Yesss ... bring me more fleshbags to slice up." Anticipation, raw and eager, filled her mind, mingling with its. No - the other way around ... wasn't it?

The announcer's voice called out, dragging her attention to the upcoming match. "Thirty seconds until minions spawn."

"You comin'?"

"Solo mid?" She asked, distractedly.

"If you wan'." Three Summoners in a link - it was easy to forget who was talking. Easy to lose herself to the link. "Sure y'can handle it?"

"It's bots. I'll be fine." She waved a hand, dismissively, sending reassurance his way as well.

It came to rest just in front of the blue tower, staring at the human female just across the way. Images came unbidden in her mind - the female in pieces, just how He was going to end her pitiful life. Given His choice, it would be slow and painful. It would take days of unending nightmares. She'd heal up, in the dream, but only so that He could cut her open again. He would take any hope of escape and slowly rip it away - with his bare talons, even. Only in this world had He any need of true blades, after all - and those formed of His will.

It took a long moment to realize that the woman they were examining was a child - Annie. Annie had always been one of her favorite Champions, and she was briefly glad that this version was just a construct, with no Summoner behind it.

Amusement at her discomforted realization, a sinister laugh. "Weather forecast for tonight: dark, with a chance of pain."

She snorted a little bit at the joke, even as the Nightmare filled her mind with more images of death and dismemberment, sending back: "Only a chance? I had been given to understand you were better than that." Even minions felt pain. The constructs that wore Champion skins were little different.

"Minions have spawned!" The announcement cut off any possible response.

She drew first blood, the blades an extension of Their arms as They destroyed the golem in the image of a young girl. "Annie" screamed her agony, blood staining her stuffed bear as her golem was sliced in two. A blast of energy slammed into Nocturne's all-but-incorporeal back, pushing him toward the ground as they slid through a shroud of darkness, phasing through minions, into the woods, and out of the tower's wrath.

"Worth it." She grinned to herself. They hadn't even died this time.

Twenty-eight kills later - better than Katarina's twenty-seven! - and having sliced through an entire army of minions, her companions finally destroyed the constructs' Nexus just to end her fun. She found herself disappointed, pouting a little bit as she stared through his 'eyes' at the enemy's Soraka longingly. They hovered inches away from the kill, one blade pinning the ex-goddess to the destroyed inhibitor. The other hovered, magically paralyzed, just above her navel.

"That's right ... people are flames to be blotted out." His voice was soothing, contented from the slaughter, and she found herself nodding in agreement as she pulled away, finding her true body had fallen to its knees without her attention on it, an almost-lifeless ragdoll.

They both knew she'd be back.

40/6/4

No, that isn't a date. It's a kill record! Against people! Score. Why is my top three comprised of 2/3 eldritch abominations, 1/3 creepy child? The world may never know.

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League of Legends

Or: Aren't Microtransactions Fun?


Side Note the First: I kept getting distracted so this is gonna be a long post. TL;DR, gushing and/or bitching about League of Legends. Go buy that. Wait, it's free.


Side Note 2: not feeling too good mentally today (Monday), so forgive any typos or anything. Woke up on the far wrong side of the bed, y'know? (By which I mean, I had this bizarre dream that ended with me waking up feeling like I had something or someone invading my brain that needed to die in a fire. Makes three times so far I've had that sense ... one of them long before hearing about the Mythos. Squicky. Each time they're met with violence - or at least the thought/impression of violent repudiation - of course.) Made me grumpy all day.

Side Note Three: Revenge of the Side Note: I got yet another search hit for "How do I leave Gilneas?" The answer is, you don't. You're stuck there for all eternity. All the other Worgen are hackers. The end. No, but seriously, just play through the storyline, that's your only option. Except for maybe a Warlock summon or something, I dunno. I don't even play WoW anymore, jeez.

Not my video, and you can't do this anymore. Got'cha!

Thanks to Soulsinger for finding this video, though.

Anyway!

I've been playing this game for a couple of days now (not as long as I've been playing Rift - sorry! I'll get to it, I swear!) and I think I've got a fair handle of what's going on with it anyway.

It's called League of Legends, and it's the genetically identical offspring of a very, very popular map named "Defense of the Ancients" from Warcraft III. It's also completely free to play ... in theory, anyway, we'll get to that in a bit.

So what you do, you download the game client, open it up, and play through the tutorial. It actually teaches you pretty much everything you need to know, which is handy since it's been ages since I've played WCIII, and I never really got into the online side of it when I did still play.

Let's be more specific though. LoL - and I love the acronym - is, like Plants Vs. Zombies and Gemcraft (another game I've been wasting time with off and on), a kind of Turret Defense game ... insofar as there are turrets, and it's generally wise to defend them. You can't really upgrade the turrets though. In fact, other than 'blow them up' and 'hide behind them like a sissy,' there aren't really a lot of other things you can do to/with/for the turrets, and, after they've been blown up, they're gone for good. So, basically, not like any of the other Turret Defense games on the market.

I'm going to back up even further and explain what Turret Defense means, since most of my followers are from the other 99,999 SM(TP, hahaha no, just SM) Blogs and the rest of my hits are from GILNEAS, WAT DO. Seriously, it isn't that hard.

Okay, so Turret Defense, generally goes thus: you've got a maze, or a lawn, or whatever, whereby the HORDES OF EVIL are trying to get at your goodies (townsfolk, brains, children, etc.). Your objective is, normally, to build turrets along the sides of that maze, which shoot down the HORDES OF EVIL as they come, at ever-increasing rates of speed and also DEATH.

In LoL, there are two mazes, pretty much exactly mirrored, facing one another. You play as a Champion of one of the HORDES OF EVIL, setting out to stab/burn/consume the entire other HORDE OF EVIL. In the face. At the end of each maze is a Nexus, which is essentially your/the other guys' townsfolk/brain/children/goodies/shiny things. Your objective is to blow up the other guy's Nexus while simultaneously preserving your Nexus from being blown up. Generally there'll be two to four other people/robots helping you out with that, along with the entire rest of your HORDE OF EVIL.

And honestly, gladiatorial matches where the combatants are made to fight endlessly without even the reprieve of a final death kind of makes both sides pretty evil, imo. I haven't given more than a cursory glance to the lore, what there is of it. Not exactly an RPG.

So that's awesome.

It's actually a really kind of cool game, and what little I've seen of it suggests that they're trying to constantly pump out new goodies. How are they funding that, if it's totally free to play?

Well, anything game-related is, technically, free to play. They give you a selection, which changes about weekly, of Champions to poke about with. It only takes six or seven matches to buy one with Influence Points (which is the currency you get from, y'know, actually playing the game). But the better Champions can only be gotten through a whole metric fuckton of Influence Points, translating into literally days of gameplay, especially if you get unlucky and lose a lot ... or, you can buy a handful of these Riot Points with real money, and play these awesome Champions now. So, exactly like real gladiatorial matches, only the Champions never get to buy their own freedom.

Which is how they get you.

Because, see, there are a lot of Champions, each with their own unique playstyle, ranging from 'set things on fire/death/NOMNOMNOM and hope nothing looks your way' to 'although you'll take five hours to kill anything, the same applies to your enemies hitting you'. So, you'll either be playing forever if you have any slight inclination to try out something new, or you'll be paying to play anyway.

In addition, everything cosmetic is bought through Riot Points, which is sad because there are a few skins I'd like but don't really want to shell out for. Good thing my two favorite champions' defaults are all right, I guess.

Oh, and Myk, if you're reading: so far I haven't seen much elitism in game, partly because I haven't seen much talking at all. The other part I think is that there are few to no barriers to entry, though. It's free, from a dedicated server that isn't going to tell you how tall you have to be for this ride, and the game really does its best to teach you what to do before you have to singlehandedly face down a horror from beyond or three. At once.

People get a kick out of denying you things that they have that you don't.

Because they're assholes.