The Lifter's Paradox [Round One: the Great Golemworks!]

Prologue

The molecules in the rock ground against each other like teenagers to a pop beat.

There was no music. If there had been, the sound waves would have plummeted into the gravity field of the rock. Ditto the strobe lights. The rock disappeared from view as it collapsed into a supermassive black hole, its event horizon expanding outwards to pull in clouds of lingering space gas, then a few galaxies; finally the universe itself was forced to slow its expansion, then buckled and began to contract.

The more abstract forms of energy were the last to go. Teleportation ceased to function. The magic of an entire universe went out like a candle. Lingering scraps of consciousness floating around the various afterlives and domains of the greater universe metropolitan area were pulled downwards into the black hole and dashed against the surface of the rock.

This was a very heavy rock, thought the Problematic, not without some self-satisfaction.

The omnipotent (superpotent? optimapotent?) dabbler in stonemasonry planted his feet on some particularly solid stretch of intramultiversal interstice and reached his hands into the event horizon, feeling around for the sides of the rock.

The rock was cold to the touch. The Problematic understood it to actually be superheated from the entire energy of a universe, but as the heat energy could not possibly escape the surface of the rock, it was draining his own thermal signature instead. There was a lot of science going on here, and although he couldn't quite wrap his superscient (aboveaveragescient?) brain around it all, he was pretty sure a lot of it was bullshit.

The Problematic tensed every muscle in his body and attempted to lift the stone, at which point it occurred to him that without a universe to occupy there was no frame of reference with which to define "lifting."

"Well, shit," he may have said, though the sound of his voice vanished instantly into the black hole. He attempted to press a palm to his face in a multiversally recognized symbol for embarrassed chagrin, but found himself unable to extricate his hands from the event horizon. "Fuck." It really was a very, very heavy rock. Easily the heaviest rock he had created.

He put one leg in front of the other and threw his hips back, attempting to pull himself into the rock. He slipped. His feet began rocketing towards the rock. "Fuck fuck fuck."

For some thousands of years the Problematic lay trapped within the ultimate nothingness, unable even to think of a way to escape as his neural firings gravitated inexorably towards the part of his brain pressed against the rock. This was, coincidentally, the part of his brain responsible for reflecting upon his mistakes.

Even the mightiest of rocks is eventually eroded away by the persistence of the sea, and the Interstice is kind of like a sea. Over eons the matter comprising the rock began to simply disappear, either falling into localized wormholes or colliding with pockets of antimatter. So it was that at the end of his long imprisonment the Problematic found himself pulled to safety by the tendril of a passing Being.

Three weeks he spent recovering in the Domain of the Being, communicating his gratitude in a telepathic language comprised only of fears and neuroses. Bargains and pacts were struck. He offered the Being probably rather more than he should, including (worryingly) the rock itself.

He took a shower, had a shave, ate the fried egg of a phoenix with an English muffin, and stepped back into the multiverse a fair bit more insane and a whole lot less interested in the definition of omnipotence.

For some thirty years (judging from his personal chronology) the Problematic wandered a million worlds, sometimes committing acts of great evil, sometimes setting things to right, and sometimes just rubbing an eraser over the whole scene. He was errantly creating religions one day when the thought popped into his head:

What if I created two rocks and then tried to lift one of them off of the other?

The Problematic scratched his arm and shuddered. He needed a new hobby. It was probably time for him to start one of those things.

SpoilerShow

So this is a vanity battle--a Grand Battle of Elpie, for Elpie, by Elpie. But there's a twist. Because I can't be assed nor trusted to create eight characters and seven rounds for myself, I'm throwing those aspects of the battle over to you folks. So, if you feel like helping a Lord out, submit a profile for a character you don't want to write but that you want me to write. Feel free either to make characters you think I would do well with or characters made specifically to challenge/frustrate/piss me off. If you have an idea for a round, post that too. I'll take the eight characters I want (probably the first eight characters I get) and the round will be decided by poll from among your ideas.

Cool?