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Post by Arlaye on Nov 26, 2007 23:19:43 GMT 1
The city sidewalks were full of strange people. Sheba didn't look terribly out of place, but she still attracted a few curious stares. She wore a short navy-and-white dress like a sailor's outfit, with ballerina flats and her favourite white tights. She looked a bit like a dancer in costume, except that her walk wasn't dainty like a dancer's, and the long bit of her severely spiky mullet blew freely in the wind. Whenever somebody stared at her for a bit too long she would give a ghastly grin and wave back.
Sheba enjoyed the city; there were so many different places and people and things to see. She was meant to be helping people, but there didn't seem to be anyone in trouble and she would rather go exploring anyway. This is how she discovered Muraki's shop. She had never seen such a funny array of robots: all sizes and colours and shapes. Just looking at them put her in high spirits, not to mention being able to buy them. Grinning happily, she reached out and touched a red blinking one to see what it would do. ZZZZZTT it whirred, waving it's little metal arms about. "Hahah!" she chuckled goofily, wanting to buy it although she had no idea what it was actually for. She looked around for the shopkeeper, maybe they could help her.
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pia
Dedicated Member
Posts: 29
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Post by pia on Nov 27, 2007 19:53:57 GMT 1
Pia stormed through the door still in mid rage. "Muraki? Are you there?" she cried "Woah! Nice tights! Hey, if you see Muraki, the owner of the shop, will you tell him that I'll be here tomorrow at 3? Cool thanks! Jeez I love your tights!" Without waiting for a reply from the rather coolly dressed girl she stormed back out the door, long orange streaks flaring like the wind.
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Post by Arlaye on Nov 27, 2007 21:00:57 GMT 1
Sheba whipped around to see who was speaking, only managing to catch a glimpse of her back. "Hello?!" she yelled after her, leaping up to poke her head out the door. The stranger was already far off, but she was a tall woman wearing black. "Yeah I will, thanks!" Sheba yelled after her, slightly annoyed at her hastiness yet mostly pleased at the compliment. She supposed she had better find the shop's owner, 'Muraki' then. She hoped he was nearby, else she'd have to wait to around until he returned. "Mr. Muraki?" she called, looking around. The little robots were swarming about, beeping and clicking and flashing. They surely couldn't be trying to tell her where to look. Then again, who knew?
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Post by Viempar on Nov 30, 2007 20:13:41 GMT 1
The telephone bot, which had long thins legs, hugging the phone jumped off and scuttled onto the counter. "Muraki, Customer." It said in a monotone. Muraki popped up from the counter without warning. "Can I help you?" He asked politely, slightly out of breath. He was wearing an eyepatch underneath his fringe, covering up his gifted eye. Thsi meant simply he looked a bit more normal and people didn't ask questions about his inverted colour eye. "Sorry, I was just working on a new bot. There's a staircase down there. He stomped and a hollow bang sounded as the trapdoor beneath him wobbled. He saw she was standing near his newest addition. The typbug was a bug which you could speak to, and it would type a transcrypt of what you are saying. This meant you could type out word documents in minutes, and your fingers wouldn't even move. He swiveled around his eye behind the patch, adjusting through the layers so he could look into her heart, and find out her name and lifeline. "Ah the typbug, handy little gadget. Were you looking at anything to buy, Sheba?" Muraki scrutinized her dress and set down her colourful oddness as being simply creative.
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Post by Arlaye on Nov 30, 2007 20:25:49 GMT 1
"There you are!" Sheba exclaimed, giving him a slightly quizzical look. He didn't look quite how she'd imagined the shopkeeper would. Somehow she'd been expecting a swindling computer geek. "Ya know that lady? ...whoops, dumb question. She wanted me to tell you that she'd be here tomorrow at three. "Anyway... typbug, ay? How much?" she asked. She guessed it would be used for typing. Typewriters, maybe computer keyboards. Something like that, it didn't matter because she was going to buy it anyway. It would look cute on her coffee table.
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Post by Viempar on Dec 1, 2007 20:38:47 GMT 1
"Oh yeah, I know her. She works here, takes the bugs for walks, like the dogbots." A few of them barked merrily, although actually it was just a sharp beep. He looked at the Typbug and it skittered over to the edge of the shelf. "Hum, he's new, and frankly I don't quite know if he works yet. Do you do alot of typing documents? There are alot of more handy ones you know." The truth was, Muraki had grown attached to his bugs ever since he found he could talk to them. A peice of paper began to shoot out of front of the machine, showing what he had said. There were a few ink printing mistakes and grammar wasn't perfected yet. "I think he needs tweaking, the poor thing." It bleeped and skittered back, sitting down and pulling it's legs in so it didn't even look like a robot anymore. "Can I interest you in a companion bug?" He said, spinning and walking over to the corner where an elongated sphere lay, completely unnoticed. It was about as big as his two hands, and extremely heavy. "Right, let's see..." He blew the dust off the top and lay it on the floor, where a hatch opened and a smaller sphere popped out on a wire. It looked around, red camera eyes looking at the surroundings. Suddenly, and unexpectedly. Four more wires burst out of the sides with a whiz noise. It then curled the ends and two became longer, like legs, and two shorter like arms. Suddenly, it stood almost to Muraki's shoulder, bobbing slightly as it stood to keep it's balance. "Voila! This is my most humanised bot. With the most intelligence, a voice- Hello Comp-" "Good Day." It said in a natural voice. "It can pretty do anything we can, with some exceptions obviously. Go on, get yourself aqainted, ask some questions." He went behind the desk and pulled out a small stool, resting his feet and sitting down. "So are you just looking, or do you have a certain need you need to fill? All of the bugs and bots have purposes, although some more useful than others. Comp's around £70, although he's £100 if you want security, remote tracking and controlling and I can install a homing device so if he gets lost he can come to me." Muraki was rather enjoying having an avid listener as a customer, and felt at ease with completely pitching everything. Usually he was wary as none of his ideas were copyrighted, and he was scared of theives stealing his technology.
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Post by Arlaye on Dec 2, 2007 11:07:49 GMT 1
"Look at it!" Sheba exclaimed, completely forgetting the typbug. She and the companion bug eyed each other for a bit: Sheba looking curious while the bug simply looked blank. Tilting her head, Sheba took a few steps toward the bug and stuck her face up to it's 'face'. There was a sudden click and a bright white flash from the bug and Sheba leapt backwards in surprise, falling backwards but managing to catch a corner of the counter before she hit the floor. "YOWCH - did it just take a picture? Jeez, I nearly landed on my butt!" she complained loudly, rubbing the triangular bruise on her back. A small grin slowly appeared on her face. "I think I damaged a kidney. That's one lethal bug. I think I like it! £100 you say?" She made a flippant gesture with her hand - she loved spending money on impulse and if she hadn't been a showbiz success she probably would've ended up bankrupt. There was a plasticky noise and she was excitedly brandishing a credit card at Muraki.
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Post by Viempar on Dec 2, 2007 22:54:50 GMT 1
Muraki's eyes lit up like a child when she waved the plastic at him. Such a flimsy, useless thing, money. He loved it, even more when it was stored on a handy little chip. He stuck it into the little machine and began typing on the till. It flashed up £100 and he waved at the Pin Machine. "It has to remember it's masters face somehow, to pinpoint you from a crowd. It's photographs you, stores it and soon it'll learn your name. And he can take handy snapshots when you want him too. Comp, CCHHEESSEE!" He said, waving his arms around and the bot flashed again. "Stick his arm in a pen drive and he'll transfer them in seconds. I guess I really should give you the manual. It's handwritten, excuse the doodles at the side. My roomate Abel is a bit of a fiddle." He placed a small notebook on the table, covered in doodles of crosses, clouds, scythes and in depth drawings of wings. He waved to the bug and it bobbed over, standing facing away from Muraki. The hatch on the back opened up and he took out a small remote, as thin as a credit card, and as small as one too. "The remote." He said, pulling it out. He placed it on the desk and it lit up with a tap. He began typing in a command into the minature keyboard. "Prog Homing, Bug Bots." He said. Then explained further. "He'll run here as fast as a car when he runs outside his map range. If you ever get stuck with him, bring him back here and I'll give him a tweak, or tell him off if need be....Are you okay? That fall hurt your lower back, some of the nerves are damaged, and it's bruising fast. The bone looks okay....Uh oh.." He began pointing to her back and then realised he was speaking aloud. "Woops....Um...Good instinct?" He said, rather unconvincingly. He rubbed his eye beneath the patch and adjusted it slightly.
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Post by Arlaye on Dec 2, 2007 23:38:38 GMT 1
Grinning and nodding, Sheba stepped towards the counter to enter her pin and then look nosily at what Muraki was doing. She picked up the notebook and looked at it very closely, although she was actually admiring the drawings instead of reading the instructions. Whoever drew them seemed to have an interest in birds. As Muraki pulled out the remote, she closed the notebook to watch him. "Wow, you've thought of everything," she commented, paying attention as he began to explain some of the bug's functions. She missed nothing and raised an eyebrow at his little medical commentary about her back. He suddenly seemed a bit uncomfortable. "Good instinct, yea?" she said, sounding amused. "You just told me that my bones look okay. Do these bugs come with x-ray or something?"
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Post by Viempar on Dec 5, 2007 23:07:03 GMT 1
Muraki shifted from foot to foot. "Um no...Eheh...Just...I'm a Doctor you see. Used to be a surgeon, I can kind of tell these things. It's like a gift." He mentally slapped himself as he mentioned the word gift, but them immediately became interested to see if she would accept it without question, or whether she would recognise the slight hint, and question him deeper. Around the city, there were alot of gifted-huggers and hunters. Although being gifted was dangerous, it was almost fun to find a fan or some wannabe. "But anyway, that's going to leave a nasty bruise unless you put some ice on it." He tried to avert the conversation from his talent and back to her health, which was always more distracting that someone elses gifts.
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Post by Arlaye on Dec 6, 2007 4:42:04 GMT 1
Sheba rubbed the sore spot on her back while listening to Muraki's explanation. She already knew, or guessed at least, what he was getting at. What she didn't know was whether he was for real or not. There were plenty of people who pretended be gifted, mostly idiot kids who wanted to feel special. Some people did it just so that they would be overlooked by that evil flying bunch. Somehow she didn't think Muraki was one of those: he didn't seem cowardly enough. Then again he might not be gifted at all, but just one of those eccentric intellectual types who knew everything about everything. "Aaahhh, I understand," she finally said, after a lengthy pause of suspicion. "Me too." And she tapped the side of her nose. Sheba wasn't very good at subtlety, so she raised her eyebrows and winked too. If he was anything more than normal human, he would definitely get what she meant.
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Post by Viempar on Dec 8, 2007 20:11:05 GMT 1
Muraki felt a wave of realisation over him. Her extremely long lifespan, it made sense! He clicked and pointed at her. "What's the deal with you then?" He asked, itching at the eye patch. This was a normal question if she was definately a gifted, and a slightly odd if she wasn't. Clever. He complimented himself inwardly. He wanted to rip off the patch as his eyelashes brushed against it as he blinked, but resisted, for fear he might be wrong. He walked over to one of the drink bugs and it bleeped into action. The long nozzle hovered over to the glass beside it and waited for Muraki to order. "Hum... Filtered water. Anything for you?" He asked, as the bug began spraying water into one glass, moving over to the next.
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Post by Viempar on Dec 8, 2007 23:35:33 GMT 1
A crash was heard in the street outside, Muraki's eye focused on it, whirring excitedly to get every angle and layer in focus. A fire truck was swerving wildy and dangerously. Suddenly, Muraki felt the oncoming collision. He shouted at the top of his voice, leaping onto Sheba, pushing her to the ground. "Get down now!" Seconds later, the truck smashed through the front panel of the shop, and came to a halt, the top of the truck caved in, the front end sticking abruptly into the shop front. Muraki blinked, as he sat up, shards of glass fell off his coat. He adjusted to the new darkness, and in the front seat of the truck, he saw a familiar, dieing, damaged face. "Viempar Aethalon..."
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Post by Arlaye on Dec 9, 2007 10:44:48 GMT 1
Sheba smilingly accepted the water and opened her mouth to explain herself, when Muraki suddenly stopped paying attention to her. She studied him a moment and took a gulp of water, which prevented her from sensing the imminent disaster. There was a deafening noise, and a moment later she was lying in a dark puddle - the glass of water had been tossed up into her face. A sore back was suddenly the least of her worries: her right arm felt dead, something very heavy had fallen on top of her and now she was stuck beneath it. It took her a moment to get the thing off: she was a bit distracted by the odd pain in her arm as well as by sheer shock. The heavy display shelf suddenly became a lot lighter and she easily kicked it aside, then made to stand up. It was as though somebody had turned the sound back up: she could hear screams, shouts and a strange sizzling sound. "Aargh! ....Oh! My god..." Sheba's pain and surprise turned to shock and horror as she took in the scene around her. Where the front window had been was now the front end of a fire truck, a real fire truck! Through the windshield she could see that there was someone inside: they were gruesomely wounded. She was vaguely aware of Muraki sitting up, the buzzing sound of dying robots, a strong smell like engine oil, strange people trying to get into through the broken window, and her arm still feeling like death. However she could not rip her gaze from the two people still inside the fire truck. There was something very wrong with one of them, but she was too dazed to figure it out. After standing there like a mannequin for what seemed like half an hour, she instantly snapped back to life. She reached for Muraki's arm with her own uninjured one. "Are you alright? Please, stand up! We've gotta do something!" she jabbered in distress. If anybody could help those injured people, it was Muraki.
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Post by kasan on Dec 9, 2007 16:00:22 GMT 1
Abel reached the scene looking more serious than his scientific room mate had probably even seen him. He came running up to the side of the touch andswiftly took hold if the door, reaching it off in open in one movement, using his hidden strength to move it with ease, showering more broken glass over the ground. Silently he leant inside and caught the injured firemen as they leaned out of the door way, groaning in pain. Abel had seen things like this before, where he used to live during a civil war, bombings and crashed like this was common, and he knew the first danger was the fire in the truck, it could be leaking fuel and catch fire at any moment. He picked up the fire-fighter in full gear without even breaking a sweat, he seemed able to lift them with very little effort at all. He placed the fire-fighter down a safe distance from the truck. The people stood their helplessly watching the priest, presuming the man dead. Abel looked up and scowled at them and started barking instructions. Shocking the people into action. One woman had basic first aid training and Abel told her to see to the fireman to dial for the emergency services, seeing as they hadn’t already. Then it hit him, Muraki, He then jumped t his feet again sprinting full pelt back toward the shop. He stopped, confronted with a massive metal bar blocking the way into the shop, dust swirling behind preventing him from seeing anything. He could see blood shed and death, but the noise , confusion and mixing of blood scents let him unable to trace it. Panicking a little he heaved the bar up n one movement, dislodging rock and debris in the process. Behind him he could here sounds of the gathering crowd, staring at awe at this apparent super priest. a moment later he’d pulled the bar free and tossed it to the side with a noisy clang that echoed in the eerie sound of cracking fire and groaning buildings. “Muraki?!” he called, pushing his way into the dust, having to duck to miss the ceiling that was bending dangerously low, screaming with the stress.
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