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[Freeform] TCGM Quest

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Welcome, potential adventurer conglomerate hivemind participant, to the first TCGM Quest!



A...
Quest Intro

TCGM

(Unverified God/Space Snek)
Joined
Jan 30, 2018
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Welcome, potential adventurer conglomerate hivemind participant, to the first TCGM Quest!



A few things before we get started.



First, my muse is an atemporal squirrel, so for me an update schedule question will be met with "What's an update schedule?"



If you're okay with that, you've got a EULA to read.



There are some things you should know about my style of GMing and writing.



I run my GMed campaigns and RPs in some non standard ways. Here are the significant differences for ease of reading:

  • In the inverse of most roleplaying, instead of the Players rolling for success against the World, the World has to roll for success against the Players. This turns out making the Players feel better and makes it much less of a struggle to survive, to succeed, and more of an adventure with random events.
  • I will give warnings when Players are about to make decisions that will end badly. It is entirely within your agency to continue with your course of action, but after a GM Warning I no longer care about protecting you or your character and the gloves come off.
  • I make use of gratuitous Deus Ex Machina. Do not be surprised if this occurs. DEM will not save you if you ignore a GM Warning!
  • I am a massive, absolutely colossal troll, and giving me the power of an all powerful (in scope) god only makes this worse.
  • Prepare for memes. Lots of memes. And references.
  • I write Pseudo-Crack, exclusively. This means that while my worlds may be played out totally seriously and follow physical laws (sometimes), the scenarios and reactions and whatnot are pure, unadulterated Crack. Anybody who's read my stories will know this quite well.
  • Tropes and cliches are tropes and cliches for a reason, and I use them. If this offends your vastly superior sense of writing talent you've gained by producing multi thousand word creations, why are you here?





Now that you've accepted the Quest EULA you totally read the entirety of before checking I Accept and continuing, you need to become familiar with my formatting style, if you aren't already.



Put simply;

"Talking"

"Emphasized Talking/Whispering"

"Powerful Talking"

"YELLING"

Thinking/Telepathy

Powerful Thinking/Telepathy

[Meta/Shardspeak (Worm)]

{SuperMeta/ROB Speak}



Got it? Good. Proceed to the next post for the beginning of the Quest. And welcome to my version of funny insanity!
 
Quest 1
TCGM Quest 1



Another day dawns on your world. The local star is shining, animals are making their various calls, and your place is still around. You open your eyes and look around, stretching in order to get those morning back pains out.



Yup, home sweet home. Everything is as it was when you went to sleep. That's good, it means nothing weird happened while you slept.



You blink a couple of times as the sand boogers your eyes produce in sleep have managed to complete their irritating tactical insertion into your eyeballs. Damn those sting, you think, bringing a hand up to your eyes so you can assist your eyelids in their insurgency removal process.



Blinking away the slight tears caused by you rubbing your eyes, you open your eyes wide and find yourself subconsciously stretching your mouth open too, on accident.



You freeze for a moment, then snap your jaw shut.



Man, you looked stupid right then. Good thing nobody is looking at you right now, observing your momentary lapse of grace.



You turn your thoughts to yourself before getting up for the day. Just a normal self check kind of thing. Make sure you didn't suffer any amnesia in your sleep or something.







This is the first vote. My voting system has a number box and name for each option. Only copy name, for the option you wish to vote for,adding a number box. I use RCV, Ranked Choice Voting, so if you want to vote for all the options you can, but you must put a number in the number box that indicates the priority. 1 is highest.



Options Example:

[Vote][<Question>]



[Boo Humbug]

Boo Humbug is Ebenezer Scrooge's younger cousin. He turns into a ghost at XMas and scares people.



[Crikey Savage]

Vandal Savage's idiot Terrier. This dog, despite being an idiot, has managed to inspire terror and adorables across space and time due to that one time he thought the Waverider looked like a grass lawn.



Vote Example:

[Vote][<Question>]

[1][Crikey Savage]

[2][Boo Humbug]



RCV allows simultaneous runoff results. If your first choice loses, your vote goes to your second, then third, and so on.



With the rules out of the way, here's your vote!



[Vote][Who Are You?]



[Ashley Lewis]

You're a woman and xenobiologist. Your degree used to be almost worthless (tardigrades are cool, okay!) but a couple of months ago something hit the New Mexico desert and changed that. Your cousin Darcy was down there with her physics nerd friends and claims a lightning storm dropped a god on her. The super spooky type of people she's working for now sure sound anal about any details, so you're pretty sure she's on to something… or at least on it. But you're not complaining! You finally have real work, even if you're not entirely sure what the hell they're having you look at via Darcy.



[Lisa Carter]

You're Lisa Carter, a young woman still growing up. School is boring, but your alarm is just doing its job, so you shouldn't take it apart and rewire it to play radio music instead of the annoying beeping it makes. Oh well, at least Aunt Sam said she'd come over! She doesn't come around much, too busy saving the world of deep space telemetry from the jocks who want to hit the delicate technology with the butt of their guns. She told you so!



[Ronan Marchbanks]

Ugh. You just want to sleep. It's the weekend. You don't have to go to work today, but you do have to pick up your daughter from her train ride. Her trunks are so heavy! What, they couldn't create charms for actual car trunks or something? Grumble grumble. Can't your wife get her? …No, she's not even close to your strength level. And you know little Verona isn't allowed to use her abilities outside of her school. Sigh...
 
I think this have easy answer:

[Vote][Who Are You?]
[1][Lisa Carter]
[2][Ashley Lewis]
[3][Ronan Marchbanks]

Well, let's see where will our resident Space Snek God take us this time, and how fast will some poor sap breaks barrier to the rest of TCGM-Verse.
 
Last edited:
[Vote][Who Are You?]
[1][Ronan Marchbanks]
[2][Lisa Carter]
[3][Ashley Lewis]

Protagonist with super strength and a family with a superpowered daughter? Consider me interested.
 
[Vote][Who Are You?]
[1][Lisa Carter]
[2][Ashley Lewis]
[3][Ronan Marchbanks]

The order i most agree with.
 
[Vote][Who Are You?]
[1][Ashley Lewis]
[2][Lisa Carter]
Given that Ronan's probably a Harry Potter choice, is there any chance of Ashley (assuming that's the dominant choice) involving Worm?
 
[Vote][Who Are You?]
[1][Lisa Carter]
[2][Ashley Lewis]
[3][Ronan Marchbanks]
 
[Vote][Who Are You?]
[1][Lisa Carter]
[2][Ronan Marchbanks]
[3][Ashley Lewis]

Stargate > Harry Potter > MCU
 
Given that Ronan's probably a Harry Potter choice, is there any chance of Ashley (assuming that's the dominant choice) involving Worm?

No matter who ends up winning, as this Quest exists in my personal multiverse, there is a chance you can reach Worm. You've just gotta find or create a trans-universal transportation system and figure out where to aim.
 
[Vote][Who Are You?]
[1][Crikey Savage]

I couldn't tell which was the maximum fluff option, so I'm going for the dog.
 
Quest 1.1
TCGM Quest 1.1

[Vote][Who Are You?]

Toskin

[1][Lisa Carter]

[2][Ashley Lewis]

[3][Ronan Marchbanks]

Aoinfinity

[1][Ashley Lewis]

[2][Lisa Carter]

Ahuizotl

[1][Ronan Marchbanks]

[2][Lisa Carter]

[3][Ashley Lewis]

05eolsale

[1][Lisa Carter]

[2][Ashley Lewis]

[3][Ronan Marchbanks]

Phoenix14

[1][Ashley Lewis]

[2][Lisa Carter]

Aerrow

[1][Lisa Carter]

[2][Ashley Lewis]

[3][Ronan Marchbanks]

moonberserker

[1][Lisa Carter]

[2][Ronan Marchbanks]

[3][Ashley Lewis]

Ranked Choice Vote: Who Are You?

Round 1

Option Ashley Lewis has 2 (2/7) votes (28.57143%)

Option Lisa Carter has 3 (3/7) votes (42.85714%)

Option Ronan Marchbanks has 2 (2/7) votes (28.57143%)

No winner found.

Proceed to next round.



Round 2

Option Ashley Lewis has 4 (4/7) votes (57.14286%)

Option Lisa Carter has 3 (3/7) votes (42.85714%)

Option Ronan Marchbanks has 0 (0/7) votes (0%)

Winner: Ashley Lewis

Vote Winner: Ashley Lewis

The character vote resulted in Ashley Lewis winning. Welcome to the MCU!

Worry not if you liked one of the other characters, though. Ashley is your starting character; you can still find the others in the Quest.

[Ashley Lewis]

You're a woman and xenobiologist. Your degree used to be almost worthless (tardigrades are cool, okay!) but a couple of months ago something hit the New Mexico desert and changed that. Your cousin Darcy was down there with her physics nerd friends and claims a lightning storm dropped a god on her. The super spooky type of people she's working for now sure sound anal about any details, so you're pretty sure she's on to something… or at least on it. But you're not complaining! You finally have real work, even if you're not entirely sure what the hell they're having you look at via Darcy.



You should up in bed and grown, tilting your head to the side. A large yawn escapes your mouth, completely out of your control.

You immediately check up on your closest friend. "Hi Charles," you say, glancing at the monitor next to your bed. Like usual, Charles doesn't reply. He just keeps swimming in the vat of nutritious liquid situated behind the monitor. He's so small that you can't normally see him, but you rigged up this monitor to a microscope pointed directly into the vat.

What better way to study your favorite animal than to live with one?

Given Charles is being his usually talkative self, you get up off of the bed and stretch once more. Your loose NASA PJs hang off your body, reminding you that you're still not ready for the day.

Away to the bathroom you go!



Showered, teeth brushed, underwear on, and with your normal complete lack of makeup, check, check, check and check. You absolutely dry your hair with your StarkTech thermal induction hair dryer as you step into your small kitchenette.

"Anything good in the fridge?" You ask yourself, out loud of course, pulling open your at least foot taller fridge.

It's leftovers from the pizza you had last night. Or water. People can survive on water alone for a couple days right?

Man, you've gotta go to the store soon.

"Pizza it is," you sigh. You pulled the box out of the fridge if you're free hands, turn towards the microwave, and close the fridge with your foot. Your long hair is still not dry. The one and only downside to your favorite hair length.

Box on the counter, grab a plate from your small cupboard, drop it on the counter, and plop a couple of pizza slices onto it. Into the microwave it goes, and in two minutes your stomach will stop beating the crap out of you.

Allright… time to see if Darcy finally sent you that new Gene sequence she wants you to take a look at. Hopefully this one will make more sense than the last one she sent you. You have no idea why she expects you to be able to get anything out of a partial sequence. Not that the sequence you've been constructing from the she says she's been sending you makes any more sense than the pieces themselves. You mean, triple helix DNA? Come on. It's almost like she's mocking you. Aliens don't exist, as much as you'd love to meet a few.

you log into your computer and open up the secure application with which he is allowed to communicate with you. Long gone are the days of simple text messages for anything important. The new government types she's hanging out with saw to that.

And... Yep, there's a message. With a pretty big attachment. The only complaint you don't have about this application is the fact that you can use it to send absolutely colossal amounts of data. No 25 megabyte limit on messages for you, no siree!

You open it up. Just as you expected, it's another incomplete piece. You send back yet another message on top of all the other ones you sent her already telling her that you need more than just bits and pieces to give her anything useful, but you'll still look at this one anyways.

She takes the data she has sent you and pull up your genetics viewing program. Before Tony Stark released this to the world you and your colleagues jobs was a whole lot harder, but apparently the genius had just taken one day, one, and written the highly intuitive genetics visualization software.

Then, in his infinite wisdom, he decided to just toss it on the internet.

That man continues to make no sense. Guess that's the mark of a genius, though. You're not complaining, of course. The program is amazing. But nobody can really predict how science is going to advance anymore so she keeps upsetting the boat. Worldwide.

And that's only when he's not getting in his suit and actually upsetting the world stage.

The new data imports with no problem. Like you suspected, it's indeed another piece of the triple helix sequence. Only this one… huh.

Well that's weird.

By importing this piece, you have apparently given the program enough information to be able to complete the entire genome, even still missing the rest of the pieces. It's prompting you to upload it to the… Stark Industries servers?! for additional cloud computation in order to reveal more of the genome than the local program can accomplish. Free of charge, provided you provide permission for SI to have access to it as well.



[Vote][What Do You Do?]

[Upload]

Allow the program to upload the incomplete genome to the Stark Industries servers, giving them permission to use them.

...Are you even allowed to do that?!

[Don't Upload]

Don't take the chance. Just use the program locally. Who knows what Stark might do if you gave him… whatever this is.

[Ask Darcy For Advice]

Close the program and hastily message Darcy to ask her what the hell is going on, and what you should do.
 
Last edited:
[x][Don't Upload]
 
[Vote][What Do You Do?]
[1][Ask Darcy For Advice]
Close the program and hastily message Darcy to ask her what the hell is going on, and what you should do.
Darcy is the one in direct contact with Thor, so she must know something about all this, right? And if not she can just ask Thor about why his everything is so messed up, right?
[2][Don't Upload]
Don't take the chance. Just use the program locally. Who knows what Stark might do if you gave him… whatever this is.
If asking Darcy doesn't work out, then best not to betray the secretive government organization that knows where you live and has a reason to silence you, yeah?
[3][Upload]
Allow the program to upload the incomplete genome to the Stark Industries servers, giving them permission to use them.
...Are you even allowed to do that?!
You probably aren't, but since when do we care? DOWN WITH THE GOVERNMENT! HAVE AT IT, STARK!
 
How did Ashley Lewis won?
Lisa Carter has 4 first position and 3 second position votes.
Ashley Lewis has 2 first position and 3 second position 3 third position votes.
 
[Vote][What Do You Do?]
[1][Upload]
[2]Ask Charles For Advice]
[3][Don't Upload]

Throw caution to the wind! I want to see what Stark will do with an alien genome! This is how we get New York overrun by an escaped army of adorable baby Thor clones.
 
[1][Don't Upload]
[2][Ask Darcy For Advice]
 
[Vote][What Do You Do?]
[1][Upload]
[2][Ask Darcy For Advice]
 
[Vote][What Do You Do?]
[1][Don't Upload]
Uploading something this unusual is just begging to get noticed. Most likely not actually malicious, given that it actually asked if we wanted to upload the data.

[2][Ask Darcy For Advice]
 
[Vote][What Do You Do?]
[1][Upload]
[2]Ask Darcy For Advice]
[3][Don't Upload]
 
[Vote][What Do You Do?]
[1][Don't Upload]
[2][Upload]
[3]Ask Darcy For Advice]
 
[Vote][What Do You Do?]
[1][Upload]
[2]Ask Darcy For Advice]
[3][Don't Upload]
 
[Vote][What Do You Do?]
[1][Upload]
[2]Ask Darcy For Advice]
[3][Don't Upload]
 
Voting is now closed for the current vote.
 
Quest 1.2
TCGM Quest 1.2

It's back! Hope everyone is staying safe from the end of the world, I'm here to help distract you with words!

Also, with the Infinity Saga finished, I now know more about how this quest might go. Note that I am by no means an MCU expert. I've seen every movie and Agents of Shield, but the other torrent of shows I'm only tangentially aware of. If I include elements from them, they'll be mild. So, you can reasonably suspect that anything I've seen is running in the background of this quest, but not necessarily anything else, though it may be.

[Vote][What Do You Do?]

FeartheKnown
[1][Ask Darcy For Advice]
[2][Don't Upload]
[3][Upload]

Amacita
[1][Upload]
[2]Ask Charles For Advice][Invalid]
[3][Don't Upload]

Ahuizotl [Manual]
[1][Don't Upload]
[2][Ask Darcy For Advice]

Phoenix14
[1][Upload]
[2][Ask Darcy For Advice]

Prester Fred [Manual]
[1][Ask Darcy For Advice]
[2][Don't Upload]

AllSeeingEye
[1][Don't Upload]
[2][Ask Darcy For Advice]

Toskin
[1][Upload]
[2]Ask Darcy For Advice]
[3][Don't Upload]

It's more work than I want to do to put the actual vote calculation in here, so I'm only going to declare the winner from now on. Vote records will still be included.

Vote Winner: Ask Darcy For Advice



Of course. It… why were you even thinking of uploading this? Stark is a genius, but he isn't stable! That much you know for a fact. The guy used to make weapons for Odin's sake! And he thinks flying around the world in a technological suit is going to solve not only the problems he created, but the world's problems at large!

That's not what being Iron Man does. Tony Stark may solve symptoms and make people's lives better, or save them, temporarily… but everyone with medical training knows you treat diseases, not symptoms.

Or at least anyone without their head up their own ass.

However, you also can't just let this sit on your computer forever. Who knows what secrets of genetics you might uncover? Sure you can try to let your admittedly pretty powerful computer assemble the genome, but say what you want about Stark's programs, they aren't dumb. It likely detected that your computer can't handle the computation very well, thus the offer of uploading in the first place.

That leaves your cousin. Or walking away, but the potential…

No. You sigh and rub your eyebrows, trying to ward away your threatening headache.

No, you'll have to get involved. More involved, rather, since you're already pretty involved. Whoever Darcy works for is holding you at arm's length right now, but to get the kind of answers you need you're going to have to dig.

Government agencies generally dislike those who dig into their businesses.

Government agencies of the suit and tie, black van, and hush-hush operations with an acronym type dislike it even more.

Even if the acronym was still being worked on, as that Coulson guy told you. You got the impression he got asked that a lot, given the resigned sigh and patient smile he wore while telling you.

Why they haven't figured out the acronym they chanced upon is beyond you, but it'll be amusing once they do figure it out and you get to be smug about seeing it first.

Anyways… login time.

You pull up the admittedly pretty program that you have to use to talk to Darcy. It loads, your computer's fan momentarily spinning up to a higher whine than even the genetics program causes. It always does this. Must be some pretty ridiculous encryption.

No logo or name greets you at the top, but there is a Welcome, Auxiliary waiting for you. Contacts, with an empty list other than Darcy's name, waits below it.

You double click on her entry and the messaging tab opens to the side, showing your previous conversation.

> AgentDarlicious: This isn't a sperm sample I swear ;)
> Attachment: SkinnyGenes.dna

Below that is the message you sent her complaining about the partial segments, to which she just replied with a stuck out tongue emoji.

Darcy must think she's funny.

You put your hands on the keyboard and start typing. Just a simple hello to begin with.

> Genetic Awesome: You there cuz?

Now to wait. It's not like she's going to contact you back soon, she's most likely aslee-

> AgentDarlicious: Ash! what's up

Okay then, nevermind. Huh. She really should be sleeping.

> Genetic Awesome: Why r u still awake

> AgentDarlicious: I'm in timeout

...What?

You relay your understandable confusion to her.

> Genetic Awesome: What?

> AgentDarlicious: Yeah, they're mad at me for sending you that thing I totally didn't send you.

You freeze up. She can't be that stupid, can she? And she's in timeout? Does that mean she's arrested? Oh gods, what if she's being interrogated-

Wait, no, she still has at least a phone. And she's acting normal. Well, as close to something resembling normal as she can manage. Plus she probably, probably wouldn't call that kind of thing a timeout…

Maybe.

This is your cousin, after all.

Well, time to do your cousinly duties and rub it in.

> Genetic Awesome: Darcy you know this system has a chat log, right

It's several seconds later, during which you can easily imagine Darcy looking like an idiot in whatever holding cell or interrogation room 'they' have her in, that she replies.

> AgentDarlicious: Shut up.

You can't help snickering. She's so… her.

> Genetic Awesome: How hard are you blushing right now

Her reply is immediate.

> AgentDarlicious: SHUT UP shut up shut up I know okay, you're not the first one to mention it today

Of course not. An organization as secretive as the one they're both involved with should know how something as simple as a chat program works.

You ignore her utter mortification beyond continuing to chuckle at the mental image you have of her stricken face. She always had the best embarrassed expressions.

> Genetic Awesome: so anyways, I found something interesting out with the gene file.

> AgentDarlicious: What gene file?

You can almost hear her curiosity.

> Genetic Awesome: the one I built from all the pieces you gave me.

> AgentDarlicious: ...You did WHAT?!

You lean back from your computer in surprise. That was not the reaction you were expecting.

Even less expected is the follow up you get a second later.

> YOU DIDN'T UPLOAD IT ANYWHERE, DID YOU?!?!

Well, you were thinking about it, but after this… now you're glad you didn't.

> Genetic Awesome: ...No, Darcy, I didn't. My genetics program did ask me if I wanted to process it in Stark's cloud but I thought I should ask you first.

> AgentDarlicious: oh thank Thor

You blink in surprise. Since when does Darcy thank the Norse deities like you? She thinks that's stupid!

Then you remember what she said about a lightning god landing on her in New Mexico and it all clicks.

You collapse backwards, only your chair keeping you from falling over, as your mind races and the pieces slot into place.

The triple helix DNA. The cover-up. The lightning storm. Those fake videos of a fire breathing metal golem. The organization. Eric Foster being taken seriously by said organization. Darcy's sudden change of heart.

You swallow, abruptly rather worried. Odin is supposed to be all seeing. You really hope you haven't pissed him off by invoking his name for most of your life.

> AgentDarlicious: Ash, what did you find out

You slowly bring your hands to your keyboard and start pressing keys, only barely believing what you're asking.

> AgentDarlicious: ASH

Is this Thor's DNA?

You move your finger to the enter key, but hesitate.

Should you even ask this? Darcy is clearly freaking out. And if this is true… this is a secret that could unravel everything.

It could change the world. What the DNA is capable of… if it really is Asgardian, it might be the reason why they're considered gods. You have a sequencer… you might finally be able to be the hero your younger self dreamed of being.

But if you press enter, you send this question, you'll be telling the spooky organization that you know. They're probably not going to like that.

Then again, after what you've already sent to Darcy, only an idiot would miss the implications.



[Vote][Send the question?]
[Send It]

Hit enter. Send the question. Change your life, probably.

[Delete This!]

Delete your words as fast as you can. Make something else up to tell Darcy, and her watchers. They won't know any better; you're the expert here.

[Leave It and Eat It]

Don't hit enter or delete it. You don't know how much time you have left unsupervised. Instead, you should immediately take the DNA to your sequencer and see if you can make a stable, physical version. You probably don't have much time before they realize something is up, and, you might be able to get actual, real superpowers! God-level, even!
 
[Vote][Send the question?]
[1][Leave It and Eat It]
[2][Delete This!]
 

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