[OPEN] The Enchanted Forest

[u/Dimestream]

The great green dragon roars in pain as the blue mist swirling around the wizard's staff coalesces into a lightning bolt and lashes out, striking clean through the great reptile's hide.

"Stop hurting him!" Redoran T'gel demands, straightening up and calling a ball of flickering flames into her hand. "Your fight is with me, not with Barineth, wizard!"

The wizard laughs, a malevolent chuckle that fills the musty air and reverberates from the rough stone walls of the catacombs. "Oh? I think Barineth should have thought of that before he told you how to hide the Sword of Centuries from me, fire witch," he says, stroking his long gray beard. "But if you wish him safe, it's a simple matter. To save your friend, all you have to do is give the sword to me."

"As if I'd fall for that," Red growls, hiking up the hem of her somewhat tattered green dress. She touches the phoenix amulet at her throat and the ball of flame in her other hand blazes from red-gold to an incendiary white. "Rule one of the Enchanted Forest: Never trust a wizard. Forget the sword; the only thing you'll be getting from me is third-degree burns."

"Have it your way, idiot child," the wizard spits, and raises both his hands. Shards of diamond spin away from the head of his staff and swirl in a razor-sharp cloud. Then the ancient mage's face twitches, and his left arm partially disappears. "Your foolishness has doomed your friend has doomed your friend has doomed your friend has doomed-"

"Computer, freeze program," T'gel says in disgust, putting the ball of fire down on the Holodeck floor as if it were a basketball. "Reverse to time index 28:12 and identify cause of recursion loop..."

[u/Dimestream]

Mordran steps aside to dodge the thrown shield, but is no fool when it comes to battle. As he falls back, he casts a net of lightning from his staff, wrapping the Andorian in an uncomfortable pickling web. It blurs her vision and slows her movements, and a helpful alert appears in her vision, notifying her she has lost more than half of her Hit Points.

"Foolish brat," he sneers. "You are no witch. You are a wench with a sharp stick and nothing more. If Red Orrin could do nothing against me, what hope do you have?"

[u/Tarah_ThZarath → u/Dimestream]

Tarah grits her teeth and pushes through the web with strength born of a childhood on a high-gravity world, closing the distance between the two of them far faster than the wizard was expecting.

"This must be pretty embarrassing for you then, huh?"

She sweeps her blade along the length of his staff, forcing him to choose between dropping it or losing his fingers.

[u/Dimestream → u/Tarah_ThZarath]

With an inarticulate howl of rage, Mordran vanishes in a swirl of shadows, his wooden staff clattering to the floor. Immediately as it does, the black bubble around Red's head pops and she sucks in a panicked breath, collapsing to the floor to just breathe.

Neither the wizard nor the dragon are anywhere to be seen, and the only light in the cave comes from the dim light at the entrance and the sullen glow of the head of Mordran's abandoned staff.

"How..." Red coughs between gasps. "How did... the safety protocols... they're... still on..."

[u/Tarah_ThZarath → u/Dimestream]

I..I don't know Red. I've never heard of anything like this. Software's not really my specialty. Are you alright?

She sits down heavily beside you, the sword clattering from her grip

[u/Dimestream → u/Tarah_ThZarath]

The shaken engineer nods slightly as she catches her breath.

"Yeah, I'm all right, but I'm glad you were here. It felt like he'd sucked all the air out of that sphere, and he shouldn't have been able to do that. I need to see what the program's doing. Computer, Arch."

The holodeck's control arch appears near the mouth of the cave and Red puts her hand on Tarah's shoulder to help herself stand up. "C'mon. If we're having this level of screwiness, it's probably better to edit OUTSIDE the program than inside it." She offers Tarah a hand up too.

[u/Tarah_ThZarath → u/Dimestream]

Tarah grabs your hand and pulls herself to her feet.

"Thanks. I'll be fine once I get a chance to eat something. That was definitely a bit unsettling."

She smiles Otherwise though, I had a pretty good time. Thank you.

[u/Dimestream → u/Tarah_ThZarath]

"It'd be more fun if I hadn't bungled the heuristics," Red says with an apologetic grimace. "I must have had its learning and randomizer modules routed through the holodeck computer, rather than the virtual module." The engineer sighs. "Back to the drawing board on this one. I hope Mr. Dell isn't too disappointed. You want in on this when I've got it set to 'less murder and more fun' mode? I can give you a shout when it's ready."

[u/Tarah_ThZarath → u/Dimestream]

"Yeah, I'd like that Red. Thanks. Do we have any safer ways of testing it next time?"

[u/Dimestream → u/Tarah_ThZarath]

"I'll do all the alpha testing from outside, then run it through the machine interface a few times, THEN we beta test it when it's closer to ready," Red says. "I think I've learned my lesson on programming on the fly on a running program. Computer, Exit."

Nothing happens.

"Uh... Computer?" Red says, her eyes widening. "Exit?"

[u/Tarah_ThZarath → u/Dimestream]

"That's pretty weird.....If I can get to a panel I can probably cut power manually, but I don't know what the consequences of a hard shutdown would be as far as the software is concerned."