RE: The Opulent Quarrel - Round One: Mademoiselle Primfel's
01-02-2016, 12:20 PM
“Where are we?” The Verdant Queen demanded.
The answer to that was: at the very rear of Mademoiselle Primfel's. On one side they saw the ironwrought fence topped with menacing spikes, cutting them off from a young conifer forest. On the other side, the academy rose tall above them — a great gothic edifice of stone and glass, arches and sharp spires, within which young women were, allegedly, educated. (Not that she knew the word “gothic”.)
The Verdant Queen crouched, putting her palm to the concrete. Her other hand rubbed her chest, as if she felt some pain in her heart. “I can’t— I can’t feel my land. How far away are we? Are we even in Cill Mórinis? Völsung, I can’t feel it!” What was she wearing? Some stiff grey outfit made of a material she didn’t recognise. No armour, no cloak. Even her sword was gone. Her sword was gone, and her land was gone, and she was alone and vulnerable and there was a fairy hunter and a demon—
So, it can be said that The Verdant Queen was not the contestant taking events the most calmly.
She was ten seconds into trying (and failing) to scrabble up the fence when she felt a firm hand on her wrist. “Stop. Calm yourself, spirit. You must not let fear and panic poison your mind,” The Summoner said sternly. Her voice of authority cut through the flighty dryad’s panic. “We surely are not in Cill Mórinis anymore, not even our own world, but I will see about getting us back home. Just stay calm and watch for trouble.”
The Summoner closed her eyes to concentrate. Okay. She was in a foreign dimension, not entirely sure where her home was, but she could solve this: she was a dimensional mage. Admittedly, she usually summoned other entities to her, rather than transporting herself to anywhere else, but the principles should be the same. Okay… so she had to calculate in the opposite direction, figuratively, with more variables and unknowns, and do it between two different dimensions without knowing where she was. To do this properly, rigorously, would take days, weeks or even months of research. But… maybe she could take some shortcuts. Estimate an equation here, make a few assumptions there, leave ‘destination’ as a free variable and allow her spell to dynamically find her home dimension…
The air around them began to waver. The familiar acrid smell began to tickle her nostrils. She could feel the fiery latticework of magic forming under her control. She had the raw power. Now she just had to smooth it out and find her destination. A wheezing, groaning noise emanated from nowhere, like a man torturing a piano with his keys — and it quickly became angrier, shuddering in the air, a demon’s heart ready to blow.
Something was wrong. She’d expected it to be rough and cantankerous, to require on the fly adjustments to her calculations. But it felt like something was resisting her, a hurricane churning the ocean she was trying to sail. The Sophisticate? This place? Who knew, but it was clear to The Summoner that her portal back home would remain a distant dream for now.
She stopped feeding it power, and siphoned off what was already there. The noise slowly faded away, the air calmed, and they were once again in the silent stone courtyards of whatever this place was.
“Völsung, we haven’t…”
“I know. Stay calm and let me think,” Völsung commanded, a small glint of her former Dark Age self showing through centuries of age.
“My magic is being countered, likely by this being The Sophisticate, given he was powerful enough to pull us and others from our own dimensions. Perhaps he is even as powerful as my mentor, which means we can’t take him on directly in battle. However, he didn’t know much about me, nothing about you, and I am guessing what we got of the other beings and demons was just a tidbit as well. He is not all seeing obviously, and… he was reading off cards. Hmm. He might not be our problem at all. There is another, perhaps a group even, of beings doing this.” It was only then that the dragúnsídhe looked down at her clothing, face creasing in disgust. “I suppose we must play this game of theirs to gain time. Question is, what game are we playing exactly? This doesn’t exactly look like a gladiatorial arena.”
“... Gain time? Nngh.” The Verdant Queen made an animalistic noise of distress. She shook her head and pushed her fingers through her hair. “Völsung, we don’t have time. Our kingdoms are on the brink of war. Every hour we’re gone…”
“The one who rushes into battle is first to be destroyed… Our kingdoms will not fall overnight.” She paused, and the hard, military edge in her eyes softened. “I know being severed from your lands must be painful, but please bear it, for we need to think about the here and now.” Völsung began to search the few pockets her horrid outfit had, finding two pieces of paper. One was a timetable of some sort, listing such things as horse riding and calculus. She handed it to The Verdant Queen before taking a look at the other paper. It was a folded map on thin paper, not meant for long term use. Völsung studied the layout of the academy in earnest, noting the listed locations, hallways that would make for good ambush points, escape routes, and so on.
While the dragúnsídhe continued to look over the map, she thought of the other ‘contestants’. “So, our opposition. That large demon is likely the most dangerous. We are going to need to find weapons that can cause it harm, or convince others to weaken it.”
“The demon hunter,” The Verdant Queen said quickly. “He said that one of them was a demon hunter. ‘Wren’. We need to find her.”
“We should find her. The djinn and prophet as well. The others… we will need to learn more about. Mercenaries make for tenuous allies and the others seem… like barely trained foot soldiers. But remember Verdant, they are allies of convenience. If we are to win this and return home, we must defeat them all.”
The dryad nodded. “I will ask the birds to help us search… as soon as we see any.” She frowned around at the stone and concrete school, deserted of wildlife. “What do we do for now?”
“Well, this is an academy. They gave us the outfits and a schedule, I say we play along.”
The answer to that was: at the very rear of Mademoiselle Primfel's. On one side they saw the ironwrought fence topped with menacing spikes, cutting them off from a young conifer forest. On the other side, the academy rose tall above them — a great gothic edifice of stone and glass, arches and sharp spires, within which young women were, allegedly, educated. (Not that she knew the word “gothic”.)
The Verdant Queen crouched, putting her palm to the concrete. Her other hand rubbed her chest, as if she felt some pain in her heart. “I can’t— I can’t feel my land. How far away are we? Are we even in Cill Mórinis? Völsung, I can’t feel it!” What was she wearing? Some stiff grey outfit made of a material she didn’t recognise. No armour, no cloak. Even her sword was gone. Her sword was gone, and her land was gone, and she was alone and vulnerable and there was a fairy hunter and a demon—
So, it can be said that The Verdant Queen was not the contestant taking events the most calmly.
She was ten seconds into trying (and failing) to scrabble up the fence when she felt a firm hand on her wrist. “Stop. Calm yourself, spirit. You must not let fear and panic poison your mind,” The Summoner said sternly. Her voice of authority cut through the flighty dryad’s panic. “We surely are not in Cill Mórinis anymore, not even our own world, but I will see about getting us back home. Just stay calm and watch for trouble.”
The Summoner closed her eyes to concentrate. Okay. She was in a foreign dimension, not entirely sure where her home was, but she could solve this: she was a dimensional mage. Admittedly, she usually summoned other entities to her, rather than transporting herself to anywhere else, but the principles should be the same. Okay… so she had to calculate in the opposite direction, figuratively, with more variables and unknowns, and do it between two different dimensions without knowing where she was. To do this properly, rigorously, would take days, weeks or even months of research. But… maybe she could take some shortcuts. Estimate an equation here, make a few assumptions there, leave ‘destination’ as a free variable and allow her spell to dynamically find her home dimension…
The air around them began to waver. The familiar acrid smell began to tickle her nostrils. She could feel the fiery latticework of magic forming under her control. She had the raw power. Now she just had to smooth it out and find her destination. A wheezing, groaning noise emanated from nowhere, like a man torturing a piano with his keys — and it quickly became angrier, shuddering in the air, a demon’s heart ready to blow.
Something was wrong. She’d expected it to be rough and cantankerous, to require on the fly adjustments to her calculations. But it felt like something was resisting her, a hurricane churning the ocean she was trying to sail. The Sophisticate? This place? Who knew, but it was clear to The Summoner that her portal back home would remain a distant dream for now.
She stopped feeding it power, and siphoned off what was already there. The noise slowly faded away, the air calmed, and they were once again in the silent stone courtyards of whatever this place was.
“Völsung, we haven’t…”
“I know. Stay calm and let me think,” Völsung commanded, a small glint of her former Dark Age self showing through centuries of age.
“My magic is being countered, likely by this being The Sophisticate, given he was powerful enough to pull us and others from our own dimensions. Perhaps he is even as powerful as my mentor, which means we can’t take him on directly in battle. However, he didn’t know much about me, nothing about you, and I am guessing what we got of the other beings and demons was just a tidbit as well. He is not all seeing obviously, and… he was reading off cards. Hmm. He might not be our problem at all. There is another, perhaps a group even, of beings doing this.” It was only then that the dragúnsídhe looked down at her clothing, face creasing in disgust. “I suppose we must play this game of theirs to gain time. Question is, what game are we playing exactly? This doesn’t exactly look like a gladiatorial arena.”
“... Gain time? Nngh.” The Verdant Queen made an animalistic noise of distress. She shook her head and pushed her fingers through her hair. “Völsung, we don’t have time. Our kingdoms are on the brink of war. Every hour we’re gone…”
“The one who rushes into battle is first to be destroyed… Our kingdoms will not fall overnight.” She paused, and the hard, military edge in her eyes softened. “I know being severed from your lands must be painful, but please bear it, for we need to think about the here and now.” Völsung began to search the few pockets her horrid outfit had, finding two pieces of paper. One was a timetable of some sort, listing such things as horse riding and calculus. She handed it to The Verdant Queen before taking a look at the other paper. It was a folded map on thin paper, not meant for long term use. Völsung studied the layout of the academy in earnest, noting the listed locations, hallways that would make for good ambush points, escape routes, and so on.
While the dragúnsídhe continued to look over the map, she thought of the other ‘contestants’. “So, our opposition. That large demon is likely the most dangerous. We are going to need to find weapons that can cause it harm, or convince others to weaken it.”
“The demon hunter,” The Verdant Queen said quickly. “He said that one of them was a demon hunter. ‘Wren’. We need to find her.”
“We should find her. The djinn and prophet as well. The others… we will need to learn more about. Mercenaries make for tenuous allies and the others seem… like barely trained foot soldiers. But remember Verdant, they are allies of convenience. If we are to win this and return home, we must defeat them all.”
The dryad nodded. “I will ask the birds to help us search… as soon as we see any.” She frowned around at the stone and concrete school, deserted of wildlife. “What do we do for now?”
“Well, this is an academy. They gave us the outfits and a schedule, I say we play along.”
Shared account.