Everybody Welcome and Needed! It's 2012!

[Tyranicus]

Tyranicus: Scotch, please!

[Mysterious Man]

MM: I'll have a vodka and tonic... Don't forget the lime.

[Callie]

Excalibur: Cheers!

 

He gulps down some peppermint schnapps and then passes it around the bus.

[Balladeer]

Jewels: Goodness Nikki, I don't think I've been pseudo inebriated since... well... since Diki's stories. Gimme the strongest stuff you got.

 

Nikki pours Jewels a glass of rainbowish tonic that she's never seen before. She raises a questioning eyebrow at him.

 

Jewels: Uh, that looks like motor oil...

 

Nikki: You said you wanted the strongest stuff. If you can't handle it...

 

Jewels: Give it here. I didn't say nothing about not being able to handle anything. Just curious to know what it is I'm not saying I won't drink.

 

Nikki sniffs it and gives it a good look while he swirls it in the glass.

 

Nikki: I think it's motor oil.

 

Jewels punches him in the arm and he spills some on himself. She snatches the glass before he can spill any more and downs it. After a bout of coughing that doubles her over Jewels manages to stand up and holds out her glass with a stern look in her eye.

 

Jewels: That was the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted! ... Give me 'nother. Don't look at me like that, just give me another drink! And no sissy portion either. Fill 'er all the way to the top.

 

Nikki obliges with his own questioning glance.

 

Nikki: If you're really sure...

 

Jewels just does her best to down the second drink as quickly as she can without gagging on it. The burning fire in her throat keeps her from saying anything else as she hands Nikki back the glass and gives him a weak smile and a thumbs up in lieu of thanks. She coughs her way over to a bus seat and waits for either the pain to subside or the sense deadening drink to kick in.

[The Ratt]

The Ratt: "I'll take a good 'ole G & T. Haven't had one of those in a while."

[keira]

Sylae: I...I guess I'll take some zap apple cider if your bottle can generate it...

[Slawbug]

Slarty looks up from the dashboard for a moment.

 

Slarty: Miruvor, please.

[nikki.]

Nikki pours out drinks to whoever asks, and keeps going back to top up glasses. When he reaches Slarty, however, the bottle judders in his hand.

 

Nikki: Er... I've never tried asking for an imaginary drink before...[

 

He stares intently at the bottle, which does nothing for a second. He shakes it a few times, and Slarty's drink finally begins pouring out. As the last few drops leave the bottle, a small, scaly, angry-looking head pops out from the bottle.

 

Drink-mixing demon: That's it, no more drinks! Not once has anybody offered me anything! And I used the last of the bathwater making that last one! I'm going back to the realm of last orders; I hope you're satisifed!

 

With that, he ducks his head back inside, and the bottle stops changing; it now looks like a regular green glass bottle. Nikki looks distraught.

 

Nikki: ...bathwater?! Slarty, Rosycat, can you get us out of here?

[Slawbug]

Slarty: You know, I almost asked for a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.

 

Slarty sips the miruvor.

 

Slarty: This is not the cordial of Imladris. It tastes bad.

 

Nikki: Bathwater! Didn't you hear the demon?

 

Slarty: What, the demon of bad... oh. That's not good.

 

Rosycat reaches over and swivels Slarty's chair so that he's facing the dashboard again.

 

Slarty: Okay, okay, drunkenness averted, I'm back to entering coordinates!

 

---

 

OOC: I have been unavoidably busy this weekend and that's going to continue until Wednesday at least, so no jump out of Misc. until then. Sorry. Confluence of deadlines at home, at work, and for travel.

[MMXPERT-seraph of thermodynamics]

I'll have a Pan Blaster please.

 

btw Slarty I congratulate you for beating me to it.

[Upon Mars.]

-Upon Mars. : Same but Two Pan for me and an olive more thank you... and do can I have any fried brotula beeblebroxi with it? I heard they had such nice tasty heads...

[Actaeon]

Actaeon wakes from a deep sleep. Checking his wind up wrist calendar, he discovers that a little over a month has elapsed.

 

Actaeon: Slarty, how fast is this thing going?

 

Slarty: 45 miles per hour, give or take.

 

Actaeon: No, I mean, time travel rate.

 

Slarty: Oh. Just a sec.

 

Slarty checks the dash.

 

Slarty: 4.8 times normal speed.

 

Actaeon: So at this rate, we'll be home in... A couple of years.

 

Slarty: Something like that, yes. We're experiencing something like what sailors describe as a "calm". Without more community spirit to power the bus, we'll run out of supplies before we reach the next destination.

 

Actaeon looks back at the bus's slumbering occupants.

 

Actaeon: We're doomed.

[nikki.]

Nikki: Hey, nothing good happened at this point in SW history anyway. I wasn't even a member. I mean, come on.

 

(beat)

 

But seriously, let's just skip ahead to around 2009 or something?

 

Edit: Nikki: Oh and one more thing! Am I the only person in the world who wants to rewatch all seven series of Buffy, AGAIN, after being reminded..er, how is time working here again? After remembering that I am to be reminded? After being reminded that I will remember? I just... don't even know right now.

[Slawbug]

OOC: But seriously, I've had a ton of Ooc Interference. I will try to kick the engine up to a faster speed this weekend, if I am able to. Sorry to be an absent driver this month!

[MMXPERT-seraph of thermodynamics]

*MMXPERT increases his leadership by 10 and starts raising team spirit*

[keira]

Sylae looks up randomly.

 

"So, um, yeah...and stuff."

[Triumph]

Triumph: Hmm, do you supposed there's such thing as a nine-headed-cave-cow-bell?

[Upon Mars.]

With enough magic 'shrooms sure anything possible!

[BMA]

The Big Man understands nothing. Cowbells ? What cowbells ? Oh well.

 

He looks wistfully at the vacant driver's seat. He wonders whether the bus will be moving again and wants to ask someone, but he's too shy.

[keira]

Sylae: Hmmm...

 

Sylae walks up the the driver's seat casually, glancing around to see if anyone is watching. Seeing nobody staring, she sits at the driver's seat and starts looking for the keys.

 

Sylae: Shouldn't be too complicated, right?

[Actaeon]

Actaeon: This is against my better judgement, but...

 

He tosses Sylae the keys, which he absconded with during his previous bought of consciousness.

[keira]

Sylae: Ah, excellent. Much thanks.

 

Sylae starts the bus and begins to drive.

 

Sylae: So, um, does anyone know where we are going?

[nikki.]

Nikki: I assume that, especially now, we're going to die. Or at the very least we're going to lose our minds.

[adc.]

Can I have a Whoopie Pie?

A takes a whoopie pie before the Big Man can even respond. A uses the whoopie pie cream to vandalize the right side of the bus.

A Writes "A" in the side...

--------

-A

[Dintiradan]

Dintiradan: Sylae, Actaeon, you're going about this in the wrong way.

 

Actaeon: Wait, aren't you supposed to be on hiatus or something?

 

Dintiradan: Well, sort of. I'm busy with other stuff, so I'm trying to abstain from posting, but I still drop by every couple of days or so to see if anything important is posted.

 

Sylae: And yet, here you are posting again.

 

Dintiradan: Look, I didn't feel like working today, 'kay?

 

Nikki: So, back again tomorrow?

 

Dintiradan: Oh, hush, you. Now listen: you're all still treating this like a traditional RP. It isn't. This is a place for our communal representations of ourselves to reminisce on our past while Slarty prepares the next segment of the history.

 

Sylae: But that's just it. Slarty might not be ready for, uh, quite a while.

 

Dintiradan: Right. That's always been the issue with

Project Slartificus. Single point of failure. Poorly distributed load. That sort of problem. It's so... so... Web 1.0. It's time we wikify the proceedings.

 

Sylae perks up.

 

Sylae: You want me to set up a history wiki?

 

Dintiradan: Well, no. Hmm, I mean, not necessarily. I was thinking something more, uh, bloggy? I dunno. The wiki could work, but what I was thinking of was this.

 

Dintiradan reaches into his laptop and pulls out a spoiler.

 

Dintiradan: I've skimmed over all the posts I've made on UBB. Well, all the posts that UBB remembers me making, anyway. I skimmed over the topic titles, and copied the links to the ones that I thought had a big impact on me, or the community at large. And then I put them in here.

 

Dintiradan taps the spoiler.

 

Dintiradan: It's far from complete. Obviously, I'd find a lot more threads if I had trawled the forum listings instead, but that would require a fair bit more time. And, of course, a lot has been lost over the years, especially in the last purge of General. Speaking of which...

 

Dintiradan looks at Jewels.

 

Dintiradan: I seem to recall you saving Dance Dance Revulsion. Still have that around?

 

Nikki looks glum.

 

Nikki: So that's it, then. We replace carefully detailed histories with scattered, incomplete, personal anecdotes.

 

Dintiradan: Well, it's better than nothing. And if Slarty is able to finish the project, maybe these will help fill in the gaps. Just remember..."

 

Dintiradan holds the spoiler aloft...

 

 

Click to reveal..

 

EDIT: OH HEY SPOILERS DON'T WORK PROPERLY ANYMORE LET'S JUST GET RID OF IT

 

2006:

 

Active Designers? - My first ever post. You may all laugh at the claims. Also, note the lack of a custom signature; all my other posts for a long long while had one as a gimmick.

 

I Want to Crush Your Dreams - Every Blades designer must read this thread. The message in this thread was refined in Think Inside of the Box, which lead to Settlers.

 

The End of Blades - Blades is dead. It has always been dead. In fact, from what I remember from reading old Lyceum threads, it was dead before it was even finished! Also, this embarrassing post.

 

Perl Script to Remove Strings - My first actual contribution to the community (basically a reimplementation of astring). I have this as a Windows executable if anyone needs it.

 

The Bad Get Polling! - A long discussion about all the villains in BoA. Also, remember when every thread had a argument with ET? Or Salmon?

 

The Future of Blades of Avernum - Jeff says never again.

 

2007:

 

Project Spiderweb - I recall that at least one town was finished, but I could be wrong...

 

2008:

 

Re: What have you been reading recently? - This is a minor, personal note, but this is the last time (recorded by the current version of UBB) that I used a custom signature. Soon after this, UBB was upgraded, everything changed, and I figured it was as good a time as any to drop a gimmick that was more trouble than it was worth. And I ended on such a classy note too!

 

You cannot unring a bell - We're not allowed to make fun of Harehunter ever again.

 

2009:

 

The end of Geocities - Requiescat in pace, Geocities. It was the end of an era, and with the passing of Geocities went a lot of the Web's earliest content posted by ordinary people. But not Blades content! Thanks to Jewels, pretty much all of the precious contents from BoE's earliest days was saved!

 

Never Say Die - One of the BoA challenges, done by Ephesos. I should dig up Avatar and Pariah...

 

A SW AIM RP - Hey, remember when Ephesos wanted to run a D&D 4E campaign on AIM?

 

Mote - A New AIM Campaign - In the span of three months, it was no longer D&D, but a brand new system! And no longer Labyrinth, but a brand new setting! This crazy little thing called AIMhack changed the face of General for the years to come...

 

2010:

 

Project SLARTIFICUS - HERE BYGYNNETH THE TOPIC OF THE PROJECT OF SLARTUCKER

 

Re: Spiderwebber for life - This little post nestled in yet another topic about reminiscing has some historical links that may interest you, from Postcount November to the Mountain of Shadows.

 

Animated Avatars - Remember when everyone had animated avatars? And everyone hated them? And then they were banned? And everyone hated that too?

 

Randomised Scenario Contest - This is a typical Blades contest: extended deadlines and judging mishaps. Youpi!

 

Presence and Oldbosity - Gasp! Someone other that Slartucker trying to analyze the community? Two statisticians enter, one statistician leaves!

 

Avadon on Steam - What's this? Jeff is trying to put Avadon on this thing called 'Steam'? Sounds cool enough. Oh wait, it's probably not going to happen.

 

2011:

 

AIMhack 2011 Metathread: Let's Roll - A hugemassive, ongoing thread containing much, much discussion about this AIMhack thing that seems all the rage.

 

Re: What have you been reading recently? - In which I start a reread of the Wheel of Time. What on earth was I thinking?

 

Scenario Design Tutorial -- Unfinished - I Want to Crush Your Dreams was one of the first Spiderweb threads I read, and I see a thread reaching from it to Think Inside of the Box to Settlers to this. Of course, unlike TM, I don't finish my stuff...

 

Do You Get Bullied? - This thread typifies the topic drift that goes on in most long Spiderweb discussions. Also, the formation of Dintiradan's Law.

 

Dintiradan: "... Spiderweb has no notability guidelines."

[nikki.]

Nikki: But goddamn it, my contributions (my mediocre Blades stuff not withstanding) have been pun-threads, and in the past few months. We can't all be as wonderful as you, Dorkiradan.

 

Nikki roots around on his computer, but it's no use - Project SW died several HDD formats ago.

 

Nikki, weeping: It had The Silent Assassin as a major NPC. The Silent Assassin! There's no going back!

 

Nikki opens another bottle of rum and retreats to the backseats, casting flirtatious glances at Aran, and whoever else is still on the bus.

 

EDIT: It had all the towns drawn! All of them! And then new people came! Newbies! Ruining all!

 

Nikki opens ANOTHER bottle and starts muttering puns based on batman villains

 

[BJ Back From the Beyond]

BJ walks up to Dintiradan's spoiler and browses through it.

 

BJ: "Hey, I was actually here for some of that stuff."

 

BJ conjures a binder full of paper and starts flipping through it.

 

BJ: "Let's see, I made my first post... oh wow. Has it really been two years? Oh, and look at that, it was an announcement that I had a BoA scenario ready for beta. How many people can say that?"

 

He continues to flip through the binder, scanning through posts of old, but not really finding anything significant. Most of it relates to AIMHack, BoA, or other assorted games.

[nikki.]

Anarkki finds his own first post - a terribly newbish Nethergate post. He quickly hides it behind a pile of newer threads.

[keira]

Sylae: Hmmmm. Very well, good Dinti.

 

Sylae stops the bus and walks back to the seat containing her stuff. She opens her conveniently-placed satchel and begins searching though it.

 

Sylae: Aha! The Complete and Utterly Useless Catalogue of the Life of one Sylae! Here's an except.

 

Sylae tears out some random pages and stuffs them in a spoiler, tossing the Catalogue back into her satchel as the torn pages regenerate.

 

Click to reveal..

Sylae's first notable appearance on the SW radar was her release of the BoE scenario Cleanup of Skalmir Cave. It recieved exactly one review on the CSR (then hosted at Shadow Vale), "This is a very bad scenario. 1."

 

Although Skalmir was possibly the first time Calamity Refuge was used, it was when it was called "The Archives", creatively enough. It was not unvieled as Calamity Refuge until later. This was still in the era of the Freewebs host.

 

At some point, Calamity Refuge was reborn into a forum, stucturally similar to it's present incarnation. The announcement of this rebirth is no longer kept at SW.

 

Sylae also has done work on the Blades of Exile Documentation project. Although this has never been finished, she has been working recently on converting all the documentation into a TeX document for easy vomiting into HTML, PDF, and other formats.

 

She also attempted to jump on the AIMhack bandwagon with Shadows of Refuge. The combination of real-life issues, lack of DMing talent, and a complex and annoying AIMhack variant called TRL resulted in it dying rapidly.

 

Up until this point, Sylae had been posting under the alias of "w-dueck", a creative username based on her IRL human name. It was on This fateful post that that all changed. However, it did take several months for a majority of the SW populace to acknowledge this. This point was a changing of sorts, she began to become for active in the SW community, rather than sticking to CalRef, or CRF as it was still known as back then.

 

Other notable events include, but are not limited to:

 

An in-progress BoA scenario called Out of Breath, its plot prominently featuring a dam. Damn.

 

A utility BoE scenario called Subterra Outpost. This has been reimagined as a bone-chilling mystery and is expected to be released in [TCaUUCotLooS error: buffer overflow on field RELEASE_DATE. Value out of range].

 

Designed for the Randomized Scenario Contest, but only competing in the 10th scenario contest, Pilgrimage to Thrakos is Sylae's first notable completed BoE project. It features innovative new CBoE features (read: it shows a couple pictures). Sylae is still not sure how this scenario has been recieved by the community.

 

Some SWers have recently noticed the return of a perennial CR event, RadioRefuge.

 

Sylae has become quite active in the SW community of late, notable events in the new era include the Harnessing of the BoE Beast (a nightly build system that automatically creates installers), and MOD or NOT, a random game show created in a stupor.

 

Sylae tosses the spoiler to Dinti.

 

Sylae: But that's not all. I will see if I can dig up The Unabridged History of Calamity Refuge, in All its Majesty and Splendor (JK, it's a Hole in the Ground). Quite the read, if I may say so myself.

 

Sylae runs back into her satchel and opens a tty, pulling herself through it and in to CalRef.

[Nioca]

OoC (since I never got into this):

Click to reveal..

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

Dintiradan: I've skimmed over all the posts I've made on UBB. Well, all the posts that UBB remembers me making, anyway. I skimmed over the topic titles, and copied the links to the ones that I thought had a big impact on me, or the community at large. And then I put them in here.The Bad Get Polling! - A long discussion about all the villains in BoA. Also, remember when every thread had a argument with ET? Or Salmon?

Whoa. Talk about a blast from the past. I forgot how awkward and noobish I was back then.

[Slawbug]

Suddenly, there is an explosion in the front of the bus, in the driver's seat. Sylae screams. The others rush over.

 

Sylae: Aaaaaah. That was loud.

 

Jewels: Are you okay?

 

Sylae: I'm fine. I was just sitting here, and then — it's like there was an explosion all around me. (looking around) ...I don't see any damage, though...

 

Jewels: The explosion was right here, honey.

 

Nikki: Hey, where's Slarty?

 

Suddenly, Rosycat jumps upright.

 

Rosycat: I'm being recowled! Good luck!

 

Rosycat fades away. By the time she finishes speaking, she is gone.

 

Jewels: That's probably not a good thing.

 

Dintiradan's Clone: They're gone. Get over it. However, I am apparently still here, and so are the rest of you. So snap out if it, folks, and let's get out of here before anyone else disappears!

[Balladeer]

Jewels: All right, well... does anyone remember what the next stop is supposed to be? Did anyone get an itinerary from Slarty or anything?

 

BJ: Um... I think he kept a copy of it around here somewhere. Let me check the glove box.

 

Sylae: Jewels... I already asked that, like, ten posts ago.

 

Jewels: Oh... well, then... In my defense Nikki gave me motor oil to drink and I don't remember much of the whole trip thus far. It's like I'm looking at it from a three month long fog or something.

 

BJ: Here. I found this and this. The first one was folded into a paper airplane and stuck under the visor, but the second one was right here in the pocket labeled "Map". Do these help?

 

Jewels takes the folded thread copies and glances at them.

 

Jewels: Yeah, thanks BJ, this is perfect.

 

Sylae: Wait... What?? How come nobody found these for me when I asked? And why didn't I see that pocket before??

 

Jewels: Probably because writing Rebirth has given me so much experience with dying RP's and practice with god-modding. Either that or BJ just likes me better.

 

Sylae grabs the thread from Jewels' hand grumbling while BJ walks away whistling.

 

Sylae: Well... we just left the Misc. boards so according to this, the next stop should be... Huh, speaking of Rebirth, it's the RP era.

 

As soon as the words leave Sylae's mouth, the SpiderBus lurches in another direction and picks up speed. Many spiderwebbers cry out as they are tossed from their seats.

 

Actaeon: Woah! What's going on up there?

 

Sylae: I didn't do anything! I... I think it must be on voice activated autopilot.

 

Nikki: I hope no one was in the bathroom... to which I mean, I reeealllly hope there was.

 

Nikki grins evilly and looks towards the back of the bus, satisfied as a very wet and very angry Mysterious Man opens the bathroom door. He focuses a dagger stare on the person in the drivers seat and bellows.

 

Mysterious Man: SYLAE!! I'm going to KILL YOU!!!

 

Sylae: *gulp* Jewels... do something, quick.

 

Jewels backs away from the front of the bus taking the map with her.

 

Jewels: Sorry, Sy. My god-modding powers can only go so far. You'll, uh, have to take care of this on your own.