Happy Hour

[makesthings]

[OOM: A Royal OccasionWhen Sameth enters the Bar from the back door, he looks more like a prince than he normally does. His surcoat is long and heavy, red and gold towers are crossed with silver keys on dark blue and he knows how to wear it, the surcoats of the Old Kingdom are made for cold weather and to be worn over mail. He keeps resting his

Comments

[a1enzo]

Enzo almost laughs. This one is too easy; 'memorable birthday' is very nearly an oxymoron in his world.

(Of course, not all memories are good... no, enough of that.)

"I christened a pirate ship."

[makesthings]

Sam looks up, "Which birthday and what did you christen it?"

[a1enzo]

"My second-and I've only had two. The Ada's Revenge. My siblings and I did it together, and then we had the party on board. And just before my birthday, I sort of brought my dad back from the dead. Is that memorable enough?"

[makesthings]

"From the Dead? Yes, it is. Tell me the full story and your drink's free,"

This boy's green so maybe the dead part isn't as bad, but Sam still grips his drink hard enough to make his knuckles go white.

[a1enzo]

"Well, not exactly dead. Sort-of-dead. Good-as-dead. And I'll tell you, but you might want to make the drink while I'm telling. It's a long one."

[makesthings]

"What drink do you want?"

Sam's sure that's meant to be reassuring but it isn't, there are too many kinds of Dead here.

[a1enzo]

It's not necessarily meant to be, either. Another valid description might be worse-than-dead. It's a matter of opinion.

"Energy shake, please. With Cocoa code freeze. The digital ingredients are down there," he adds, leaning over the bar and pointing. "Recipe's on the milk carton."

[makesthings]

He follows the finger and looks at the recipe, while trying to figure out what everything is at the same time,

"Why don't you tell me and I'll listen."

[a1enzo]

Enzo nods.

"Well, first off, sprites have two kinds of dead. There's deleted, which is dead dead, nothing left. And there's nullified. There's something left there, all right, but it's this mindless little blob that just slithers around and sucks energy. It's not you anymore."

[makesthings]

"Its like the Lesser Dead, do you have necromancers who try to control the nullified or create them?"

This is making more sense to Sam, while reminding him too much of what the keys on his surcoat mean.

[a1enzo]

"No? Only Hex. Hexadecimal. She's a virus, and she had power over nulls, but she's dead herself now. She lives here, in the giant daisy."

[makesthings]

"A virus, like a disease virus?"

That doesn't make sense at all to Sam.

[a1enzo]

"No, like a computer virus. It's... like a sprite, but with powers, and they're almost always evil. Hex isn't, but she used to be."

[makesthings]

Sam finishes making the drink and hands it over as he goes over what he knows about computers,

"A program that's meant to destroy?"

[a1enzo]

"Right. Users program them just to be jerks to each other, but we get the worst of it."

[makesthings]

"Oh, so someone you know was nullified?"

That seems to be the reasoning behind the explanation.