Forums → Art, Music, and Writing → The Way of Moderation has ended (page 566)

What's worse than finding a worm in you're apple?

GOSH GUIZE YOU FAIL AT THIS JOKE THE ANSWER IS THE HOLOCAUST

Peanut.

What the hell guys, lol.

Okay, so I just had one hellish week at work. I'm going to crawl into a hole and try to forget the real world exists for a day.

Which means I will be updating the WoM tomorrow.

I'm going to be naughty and post an update deliberately cut off at the halfway point. Just to toy with you guys.

I'll finish updating it later tonight (my time, not yours!)

Siege

Bruised, battered and burnt, a motley bunch of moderators and ex-moderators poked their heads over the fence surrounding the estate that held the Armor Academy. The once pristeen grounds were scorched and littered with debris, the fixtures vandalised beyond repair. And surrounding the main campus building was a rampant crowd, at least two score thick. They beat futilely at the walls, throwing rocks and burning trash at the windows, in an effort to break in.

"My bet is that Dank is in there," Strop mouthed to the others. The others nodded (except for Moe, who was still too torn up by Flipski's deed to do anything). Then they frowned. "You want to get in?"

Strop stared at them. "What, don't you?"

Dragonmistress shrugged. "Sure we do. It's just, how?"

Strop blinked at the impenetrable mass of people. "We bust through."

"And how do you plan to get out?"

"Oh," Strop waved his hand dismissively, "I've planned for that. It should be just fine." He cracked his knuckes, then swing his arms around. "Right now, it's time to break out an ability I thought I'd never use seriously."

DM and Asherlee stared at Strop, who was now stretching his legs and stamping on the ground. "Are you serious?" Then they burst out laughing, "You can't be serious. That's a joke so old we can't even remember who started it!"

"Well, you weren't around to see what I did with it after you left!" Strop raised his arms and lowered his stance. "All aboard!"

Then, precariously holding everybody atop his back, he uttered the magical phrase: "I AM MODMOBILE!!!"



---

With a smash, a crash, and a thunderous cloud of people and brick, the modmobile plowed into the wall of the main campus, blasting straight into the corridor. Inside, it was strangely quiet for a few moments, the sound of the siege outside muffled by the thick stone.

Asherlee was the first to recover, picking herself up and inspecting the wreck. "Hey, you guys okay?"

Dragonmistress was next to emerge from under a pile of bodies, holding Moe's jar up. "Yeah, Moe's jar is fine too. Strop?"

But Strop lay sprawled on the floor, unresponsive. Evidently being the modmobile, he took the brunt of the impact, and had knocked himself out.

Around them, the invaders started stirring, and now that they had woken, more invaders from outside realised that there was now a convenient hole in the wall, and were streaming in towards them. "That's not good," Asherlee said, picking the horsey ragdoll up and draping him across her shoulder. "C'mon, let's find Dank's office!"

With Asherlee carrying Strop and DM carrying Moe, they bolted down the corridor, the raiders in pursuit.

---

The women found Dank, looking about the same as he always did, holed up in his office, brooding. But as soon as he spotted them, he leapt down from his high stool faster than should be considered possible for a man of his stature.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE" he roared, before he recognised the faces. "Oh hi you two. It's been a while." Then he roared again, "AND HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?"

"Nice to see you too," Asherlee grinned, dumping the limp Strop in front of him. "This guy helped us break in, and now we're going to break out."

Dank froze, his bushy eyebrows twitching. "What do you mean, break in?"

"As in literally," DM elaborated. "Through a wall." Dank promptly flew back off the handle.

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE!?" he roared, turning purple before he went ashen and started mumbling what sounded very much like rapid prayers.

"Yeah we kinda figured that out when the raiders started pouring through the hole in the wall," DM said. "So let's pack and go!"

For a moment, Dank said nothing, and in the background the sound of approaching footsteps reverberated through the hallway. "A good captain goes down with his ship," he finally declared.

"Don't be silly, Dank," Asherlee implored him. "We need you, we need everybody now."

"And how are we supposed to get out?" Dank flung his arms to the side. "Do you know how many hundreds of people there are? We can't handle them all!"

Asherlee prodded the limp Strop with her foot. "Ponyboy has a plan."

Dank turned Strop over, then, without bothering to take off his heavy plate gauntlet, he slapped Strop across the face with a resounding clang.

Strop twitched, the sat bolt upright, rubbing his face. "Was it something I said? Oh, hi Dank. Deja vu huh?"

His monologue was abruptly cut off by Dank grabbing him by the throat and vigorously shaking. "YOU IDIOT, WHY DID YOU HAVE TO BUST IN THROUGH THE WALLS?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Strop protested, between shakes.

"AND HOW DO YOU PLAN TO GET US OUT, IN THAT CASE?"

Outside, the haphazard drumming of feet running helter-skelter, punctuated by whoops and the tinkling of broken glass and spreading fire grew steadily louder.

Strop looked around the room. "Hm. Come to think of it, I asked them to come but I never specified how. That might be bad."

Unfortunately I didn't get the time to finish drawing the pictures that come with this update. There are only two of them, though.

I did get the time to finish writing the updates, though! NOW SHALL WE HIT ROCK BOTTOM!

---

Siege cont.

"Who?" Dank shook Strop again.

Strop looked blankly at Dank. "Who else?"

Outside, the heavy oak door to the office started bouncing on its hinges, assaulted by a dozen fists and feet.

"In half a minute, your 'lan' is going to be for nothing," Dank warned Strop. "So you better come up with something else, or we're all going down with this ship."

Strop wrung his hands, before punching them together. "No, we have all trodden the moderator's path. I placed my trust in the teamwork that kept this place running in the hardest of times."

"Look where that teamwork has gotten us!" Dank retorted.

"Everything will be fine!" Strop shot back, looking like he was convincing himself as much as anything else. The pounding went up a notch, and cracks started appearing in the door.

Suddenly, there was a new tapping noise, from inside the room. It was coming from behind the life-size hanging wall portrait of Dank, that sat behind his desk. Dank's shoulders slumped, his face falling as if all the air had been let out of him at once.

"No, could they have found the secret tunnels? Thus marks the doom of ArmorGames."

"Wait, that's probably," Strop started, but before he could finish, the painting fell off the wall with a clatter, and a familiar fish face poked out the hole hidden behind it.

"TADAH," Ubertuna cried. "I'm here to save the day!" He fell facefirst out of the hole, landing on the floor in a sprawling heap, and Zophia poked her head through, brandishing a crumpled note.

"You're lucky we were in when this landed," Zophia told Strop, who looked the most relieved out of all of them.

"Thanks for coming guys," Strop said. "Where's Nemo?" Zophia shrugged.

"Dunno. Still Nill, I'm guessing. We had to deal with the tentacles first."

"Let us not speak of the tentacles," Ubertuna shivered, picking himself up.

"What the hell has been going on?" Dank cocked one eyebrow. "Sounds like I missed something good."

Just then, a fist broke through one of the oak doors, sending splinters into the room. Everybody whirled around. "We gotta get outta here!"

Dank rushed to one of the cabinets, smashing it open with his hammer and bringing out a large box. "This oughta hold them up for a while," he declared, fiddling with its contents before pointing to the hole. "Go on then, let's git!"

More fists pounded through the door, and then the entire door itself crumbled, reduced to kindling. Sensing victory, the raiders on the other side roared triumphantly.

"A little help here?" Ubertuna pleaded, half-in half-out the hole, legs flailing uselessly in the air. Asherlee sunk her oversized sandal into his posterior, sending him tumbling. Then before anybody could react, she picked everybody else up one by one and threw them in. The raiders started filling the room, charging towards Asherlee. She looked down at her feet, and saw wisps of smoke emerging from the box.

"Hasta la vista, chumps," she called, smashing the hilt of her broadsword on a few skulls as she clambered into the hole after the rest, and falling to the sewers below.

A moment later, the chute filled with smoke and the roar of a mighty blast.

IMAGE (stuff blowing up)

---

Don't Wait For Me

The growing crew, now consisting of Strop, Asherlee, Dragonmistress, Moe, Dank, Ubertuna and Zophia landed in knee-deep water at the bottom of the chute. Some silt and dust trickled down from above, and then there was only the occasional drip which echoed endlessly down the twisting tunnels. It was dark, almost completely black, with the exception of the occasional slit of light from the grates on the surface of the street.

"Everybody okay?" Asherlee called, to a bunch of male, female, and mechanical sounds of confirmation.

"Can you levitate?" Strop asked Moe.

"I try, but I still can't," Moe replied. Strop scooped up his jar. "Don't worry, we'll figure it out soon."

"Where are we going now?" Zophia asked.

"Armor Castle," Strop declared. "We'll regroup there, assess the situation properly and come up with a plan. Okay guys?"

"Sounds good," everybody chimed. Then everybody turned to look at 'tuna.

The fishman looked blank for a moment, until something clicked. "Ah yes, I, master of these sewers, will take you safely to the castle!" He whirled his cape around him, then spun and splashed up one of the tunnels. "Follow meeeee!"

To travel in two or three in the sewers was already difficult enough, but a whole group of seven created an indecipherable racket of sounds and splashes that overloaded the senses. Yet wading through the variable depths, they did their best to keep up with the fishman, who, having made these secret tunnels his home for years, knew them like the back of his flipper.

"We're nearly there!" he cried out, after an indeterminate period of time. Nobody could really tell what he meant, either, and they informed him to that effeect.

"No I mean it!" Ubertuna waved his arms around. "All you need to do is go left at the next intersection, take this exit and go that way and travel until you find the funny-shaped brick, then climb upwards!"

Before anybody could say anything else, there was a rumbling, then an avalanche of water as, inexplicably, a giant shark leapt out of the water, snatching 'tuna up with its jaws.

IMAGE (Ubertuna getting accosted by the shark)

"OH FISH, IT'S THE LOAN SHARK!" Ubertuna cried, beating futilely at the shark. "I SHOULD NEVER HAVE BELIEVED HE'D ACTUALLY OVERLOOK MY BAD CREDIT RATING!"

Dank lunged forward, swinging his hammer, but was hampered by the water and hit nothing but air. Similarly, the other moderators attacked, but could do nothing to match the shark, who was already swimming down the most watery part of the tunnel and fading from sight.

"DON'T WAIT FOR MEEEEEEEEE!" was the last they heard of Ubertuna, before he disappeared out of sight.

Dank picked himself up and rushed forward, but was held back by the others. "Don't!" Dragonmistress admonished. "You'll only get lost." So he kicked at the water, shouting various curses. Zophia stared blankly at the depths of the tunnels, and they all listened as the splashing faded into the distance, until it stopped completely.

Strop took a deep breath and looked at the others. But he didn't need to say anything. Everybody was thinking the same.

---

Yep. That's right. We just lost Uber too. There's only upwards from here, and I mean it!

Next up: the pictures, so I can put this sub-chapter into the archive, then we'll begin the long, hard road to redemption. And that means more assignments!!!

People are dropping like flies ...

I cherish the loan shark, who is to the letter a loan shark.

Tuna? TUNA? TUUUUUUUNNAAAAAAAAAAAA

I would wonder does a hobo live at rock bottom or is it something else? Any ways I think the shark is a bigger target then most people think. Anyways I'm just a crazy vagabond who roams around, perhaps I should start setting up a stand to sell stuff the the invaders, something even ravaging hordes wouldn't want to touch, hmmm.

So yeah. Poor 'tuna.



I will admit that it's hard to draw dark sewers and sharks pouncing on fishmen when what I really would like to draw right now is Felicia from Darkstalkers.

MARVEL VERSUS CAPCOM THREEEEEEEEEEEE

Do you know what would be awesome? If somebody screencapped this thread at 1,111,111 views, lol.

Now, I would bump this properly with some odd image, but my internet does not allow me to behave properly (which also means I flip off my computer repeatedly).
So, bumping this neverending thread/story/tournament back to the surface, if nothing, then just to go over the fact Strop had not checked the email for a month, and that he had said he would update earlier today/yesterday, but he did not. :P

So I finally got around to doing my 4000 post animation and so finally I can post freely again.

Poor 'tuna...who would have thought that Jaws was in the sewers.

Strop, why didn't you link to this?

Yeah, I must say work is really killing me at the moment. And if it's not that, somehow today I managed to rip my toenail clean off. It hurt a bit, so I stuck it back on and hopefully it'll... stay stuck on at least while new nail grows under it! Still really sore though...

Anyway, a little thing like that isn't going to stop me from drawing something, so here you go, the images to the previous scene:



Slowly, slowly, I get better at foreshortening.



This would be one of those big double-page spreads since it is the AA going up in smoke with all the teen trolls running away in dramatic fashion, but it would have taken ages to do it in detail! You get the idea.

Okay provided I survive the next one and a half days, you'll have another update(ish) hopefully by Thursday.

Strop, why didn't you link to this?

I cherish the loan shark, who is to the letter a loan shark.