Re: The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round One: Alpha Complex!]
07-10-2010, 02:03 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.
There was a brief pause. Maxwell, Arkal, and Jenn silently stared at Weo's corpse, then back at Xadrez and Kracht.
The silence was soon broken by the Observer's voice speaking to them from nowhere, or perhaps everywhere.
"Honestly, people," it said, "I am disappointed. Now, my plan was to move you along when somebody died, but I didn't think you'd make his death so boring. You guys suck at this. So here's the deal - I'm leaving you here for now. Kill somebody else, and if you put on a good show, I'll move you along. Otherwise - enjoy spending the rest of your lives in Alpha Complex. You got that? Get me another kill, and make it a good one this time! No rush, though, I've got plenty of time here."
As the voice spoke, Arkal quietly pulled the bishop out of his pocket. When the Observer's voice stopped, he whispered to the chess piece, "What the hell was that for?"
There was no response. Evidently, Xadrez could talk to him through the relay, but not the other way around. That was annoying - the blacksmith would prefer to question the chessmaster without any onlookers.
Placing the bishop back in his pocket, he turned to look at the group and found Jenn staring at him.
"Why were you talking into your hand?" she asked.
He glared. "Don't know what you're talking about, young lady. Now, let's get a move on so I can find my forge."
"You know, we're supposed to kill somebody now," she commented, with the unspoken-yet-clearly-implied addendum "as if it were a big deal".
"And if we mess up on that, we stay in this maze of hallways forever. Now, there's plenty of nice materials here, not to mention my forge somewhere, so that's not so bad for me. But I don't think that's what any of the rest of you want."
There was an awkward silence.
"Didn't think so. Now let's do this mission and find my forge."
Kracht was pleased. It was always easier to keep Arkal distracted when Weo was dead - the old man was insistent on effectively stepping into the role of team leader, and the others were too disinterested to complain. And best of all, Kracht had the means to manipulate him quite easily.
"Ah - you know, I've been on this mission many times before. I can take us where we need to go."
Arkal eyed the living material suspiciously, then shrugged. "Fine. Which way?"
Kracht pointed to a nearby passage, marked by a sign reading "FOOD VATS". "That way, just keep following the signs. You can all go ahead; as Recording Officer, it's my responsibility to inform Friend Computer of the untimely death of our team leader. I'll find you in a moment - I know where we met up before, after all." He took out his PDC as the others advanced down the hallway, Arkal taking the lead.
***
The Officer of Things That Are Dumb had remained in the R&D hallway for some time, largely ignored by its fellow troubleshooters because it was keeping to itself.
But it suddenly decided to follow the path the rest of the group had taken, and began floating rapidly down the corridor. Perhaps it was drawn to the piece of itself Arkal carried; or perhaps it was simply growing impatient. To an onlooker in the third dimension, its motivations were inscrutable.
To Keleth, however, the Ovoid's motivations were less important at the moment than the fact that it was charging towards him at high speed.
***
Xadrez found it slightly odd that their mission would take them to the food supply. Granted, it was certainly a possibility - the Computer had hardly seemed willing to inform its agents of important details, and this damaged server might be crippling its competence.
The chessmaster, however, had been somewhat shaken by Kracht's calmness. Perhaps it had been a bluff, perhaps not, but it was now becoming clear - any scheme Xadrez devised, no matter how carefully, had almost certainly been devised on a previous iteration. Kracht would have seen its results already.
There was one evident solution. It seemed chance was fickle, and some details were different on each iteration. Perhaps the chances were fifty-fifty, perhaps more severe. Thus far, the most unpredictable element seemed to be the decisions of the contestants on trivial matters.
If more important decisions were made based on the trivial ones, however, there was a chance. Here, the choice was whether to follow Kracht's advice, or to deviate from the path at intersections. If Xadrez advised Arkal based on a series of random decisions that were incredibly weighted towards one path, then deviations were unlikely. Kracht would only have experienced a few possible paths, and so the first time down a new path, there would be an opportunity.
It was a plan that disgusted Xadrez, as it would mean using a sub-optimal plan millions of times before that one opportunity presented itself. And if the opportunity was squandered the first time, it might never work again. But what other option was there?
He spoke to Arkal through the bishop as they approached a T-intersection in the hall.
Think of a number. Any number at all. Now, remember it. There was a pause. If your number was precisely 3290593.36967, take the left path. Otherwise, take the right path, and continue the way Kracht has directed. I will repeat this procedure; it is very important that you only deviate from Kracht's suggested path if I have guessed your number exactly.
The chance of picking any specific number out of an infinite range is, in theory, infinitely small. But this is not quite accurate, as a human mind tends to have preference for specific numbers, or at least specific kinds of numbers. Few humans would select a number with more than five digits, let alone a decimal point. It made the possibility of stumbling across Arkal's number much lower.
This time, that low chance was a success. Arkal turned left, to the slight confusion of the group; however, Jenn and Maxwell didn't raise much of a fuss. It wasn't as if they particularly trusted Kracht's advice either.
***
"TEAM LEADER WEO HAS BEEN TERMINATED?" Friend Computer's voice asked, fundamentally unconcerned. "VERY WELL. CONTINUE WITH THE MISSION, RECORDING OFFICER. A NEW CLONE WILL BE DECANTED TO SERVE AS TEAM LEADER MOMENTARILY."
"Of course, Friend Computer," Kracht said, unconcerned. Little did he realize that as he spoke, the laws of probability were turning against him more than they ever had before.
Keleth soon raced down a hallway, with the Ovoid in apparent pursuit; though Kracht knew better by now. The green man stuck out a foot in the right place, and Keleth tripped. The Ovoid continued rushing forward, zooming over Keleth's head.
"Come with me," Kracht said nonchalantly, helping Keleth to his feet. "I know where we will meet up with them."
***
The probability of deviating from the favored path on one turn under Xadrez's method was almost impossibly low.
The probability of deviating on five consecutive turns was even lower.
But in theory, given enough trials, every possibility will eventually come to pass. And so, on this particular iteration of the time loop, this incredibly low probability came to pass.
Xadrez knew it wouldn't necessarily be enough to render Kracht's knowledge useless. Many a Xadrez had ultimately died as a result of following the most likely paths, and this time might be no different. But there were simply no other options, not until Kracht was clearly thrown off by deviations.
***
As Arkal completed a sixth incredibly improbable turn, elsewhere in the Complex, the Ovoid's path shifted to take into account the location of its missing piece.
It passed by a wall which, to an average drugged-up citizen of Alpha Complex, seemed like just another wall. To a knowledgeable citizen, however, it was an entrance to a place to find things the Computer didn't want you to have - for the right price.
The Ovoid suddenly stopped. For reasons beyond the grasp of the average three-dimensional being, it was no longer immediately concerned with finding itself.
An appendage materialized on the other side of the wall, in the Infrared Market. It appeared next to a nervous Red clone carrying a familiar forge.
He grew considerably more nervous at seeing a strange object appear out of thin air. His anxiety grew even more when it advanced towards him. Still carrying the forge, he ran out the main door - advancing in Free Enterprise hardly seemed worth dealing with this kind of problem.
The wall panel opened up, and he ran out. The appendage chasing the Red clone had vanished, though he hadn't noticed and would have only panicked more if he had. He did, however, notice the stationary Ovoid and decide that was a good reason to flee again.
For unknown reasons, it followed him.
Or rather, it resumed heading towards its missing piece. Not that the ex-Free Enterpriser had any way of knowing that.
***
Kracht was slightly annoyed, but he couldn't let that show.
After all, the group had been late in reaching this intersection a few times before. It was rare, but it had always turned out well for him before.
Elsewhere, Xadrez had stopped aiming for the random method, and decided to rejoin the path. He had reasoned that it would lower the probability of a particular path even more if he stopped the process after a randomly-chosen number of turns, and so had guided Arkal back with the aid of his own map.
Arkal was glad. Thinking up numbers was getting annoying, and it was starting to get rather disturbing how accurate Xadrez's guesses had been.
They soon met up with Kracht, who sighed and said, "You're nearly a minute late."
To Xadrez, this was a good sign. Kracht had been thrown off, and that might provide the advantage needed to produce a timeline he had never seen before.
Nonetheless, no plans could be formulated until it was clearer that they would work. A good plan which failed would be useless if the loop repeated, and so the best plans had to be carefully held in reserve.
Arkal hadn't grasped the exact nature of the plan, but he reasoned that there was little need to tell Kracht about Xadrez's involvement in the delay.
"We got lost. Happens sometimes"
Kracht didn't show it, but this was a significant enough difference to worry him. He'd considered following Arkal to avoid deviations, but the one time he had tried it... He still wasn't sure what Keleth had done on his own, but he was in no mood to repeat that scenario for the sake of investigating it.
It suddenly occurred to him that the Ovoid was currently unaccounted for. This was slightly worrying. However, his experience with the entity in previous cycles suggested it would catch up to the group soon enough regardless, and so he decided to press on without it.
"Follow me," he said, going past another sign indicating the way to the Food Vats. "We're close."
The group followed, as a whole even less sure of Kracht's leadership than they had been of Weo's.
Soon, they came to a red door. The sign on it suggested the Food Vats were here. Kracht opened it confidently, not wanting to show how much the deviations had worried him this time. They were most likely insignificant, he was sure. He could work with this.
As they entered the room, something seemed off. There was an unusual device in the center of the room, but it did not appear to contain food.
Arkal grumbled as he took a closer look. "Either they have strange eating habits around here, or somebody's been messing with the signs," he said, pointing at the inside of the six glass capsules.
Inside each of them was a Rillian.
And after a moment, one of the capsules opened and Weo stepped out, annoyed.
"Which of you weasels shot me in the back?" he yelled.
There was a brief pause. Maxwell, Arkal, and Jenn silently stared at Weo's corpse, then back at Xadrez and Kracht.
The silence was soon broken by the Observer's voice speaking to them from nowhere, or perhaps everywhere.
"Honestly, people," it said, "I am disappointed. Now, my plan was to move you along when somebody died, but I didn't think you'd make his death so boring. You guys suck at this. So here's the deal - I'm leaving you here for now. Kill somebody else, and if you put on a good show, I'll move you along. Otherwise - enjoy spending the rest of your lives in Alpha Complex. You got that? Get me another kill, and make it a good one this time! No rush, though, I've got plenty of time here."
As the voice spoke, Arkal quietly pulled the bishop out of his pocket. When the Observer's voice stopped, he whispered to the chess piece, "What the hell was that for?"
There was no response. Evidently, Xadrez could talk to him through the relay, but not the other way around. That was annoying - the blacksmith would prefer to question the chessmaster without any onlookers.
Placing the bishop back in his pocket, he turned to look at the group and found Jenn staring at him.
"Why were you talking into your hand?" she asked.
He glared. "Don't know what you're talking about, young lady. Now, let's get a move on so I can find my forge."
"You know, we're supposed to kill somebody now," she commented, with the unspoken-yet-clearly-implied addendum "as if it were a big deal".
"And if we mess up on that, we stay in this maze of hallways forever. Now, there's plenty of nice materials here, not to mention my forge somewhere, so that's not so bad for me. But I don't think that's what any of the rest of you want."
There was an awkward silence.
"Didn't think so. Now let's do this mission and find my forge."
Kracht was pleased. It was always easier to keep Arkal distracted when Weo was dead - the old man was insistent on effectively stepping into the role of team leader, and the others were too disinterested to complain. And best of all, Kracht had the means to manipulate him quite easily.
"Ah - you know, I've been on this mission many times before. I can take us where we need to go."
Arkal eyed the living material suspiciously, then shrugged. "Fine. Which way?"
Kracht pointed to a nearby passage, marked by a sign reading "FOOD VATS". "That way, just keep following the signs. You can all go ahead; as Recording Officer, it's my responsibility to inform Friend Computer of the untimely death of our team leader. I'll find you in a moment - I know where we met up before, after all." He took out his PDC as the others advanced down the hallway, Arkal taking the lead.
***
The Officer of Things That Are Dumb had remained in the R&D hallway for some time, largely ignored by its fellow troubleshooters because it was keeping to itself.
But it suddenly decided to follow the path the rest of the group had taken, and began floating rapidly down the corridor. Perhaps it was drawn to the piece of itself Arkal carried; or perhaps it was simply growing impatient. To an onlooker in the third dimension, its motivations were inscrutable.
To Keleth, however, the Ovoid's motivations were less important at the moment than the fact that it was charging towards him at high speed.
***
Xadrez found it slightly odd that their mission would take them to the food supply. Granted, it was certainly a possibility - the Computer had hardly seemed willing to inform its agents of important details, and this damaged server might be crippling its competence.
The chessmaster, however, had been somewhat shaken by Kracht's calmness. Perhaps it had been a bluff, perhaps not, but it was now becoming clear - any scheme Xadrez devised, no matter how carefully, had almost certainly been devised on a previous iteration. Kracht would have seen its results already.
There was one evident solution. It seemed chance was fickle, and some details were different on each iteration. Perhaps the chances were fifty-fifty, perhaps more severe. Thus far, the most unpredictable element seemed to be the decisions of the contestants on trivial matters.
If more important decisions were made based on the trivial ones, however, there was a chance. Here, the choice was whether to follow Kracht's advice, or to deviate from the path at intersections. If Xadrez advised Arkal based on a series of random decisions that were incredibly weighted towards one path, then deviations were unlikely. Kracht would only have experienced a few possible paths, and so the first time down a new path, there would be an opportunity.
It was a plan that disgusted Xadrez, as it would mean using a sub-optimal plan millions of times before that one opportunity presented itself. And if the opportunity was squandered the first time, it might never work again. But what other option was there?
He spoke to Arkal through the bishop as they approached a T-intersection in the hall.
Think of a number. Any number at all. Now, remember it. There was a pause. If your number was precisely 3290593.36967, take the left path. Otherwise, take the right path, and continue the way Kracht has directed. I will repeat this procedure; it is very important that you only deviate from Kracht's suggested path if I have guessed your number exactly.
The chance of picking any specific number out of an infinite range is, in theory, infinitely small. But this is not quite accurate, as a human mind tends to have preference for specific numbers, or at least specific kinds of numbers. Few humans would select a number with more than five digits, let alone a decimal point. It made the possibility of stumbling across Arkal's number much lower.
This time, that low chance was a success. Arkal turned left, to the slight confusion of the group; however, Jenn and Maxwell didn't raise much of a fuss. It wasn't as if they particularly trusted Kracht's advice either.
***
"TEAM LEADER WEO HAS BEEN TERMINATED?" Friend Computer's voice asked, fundamentally unconcerned. "VERY WELL. CONTINUE WITH THE MISSION, RECORDING OFFICER. A NEW CLONE WILL BE DECANTED TO SERVE AS TEAM LEADER MOMENTARILY."
"Of course, Friend Computer," Kracht said, unconcerned. Little did he realize that as he spoke, the laws of probability were turning against him more than they ever had before.
Keleth soon raced down a hallway, with the Ovoid in apparent pursuit; though Kracht knew better by now. The green man stuck out a foot in the right place, and Keleth tripped. The Ovoid continued rushing forward, zooming over Keleth's head.
"Come with me," Kracht said nonchalantly, helping Keleth to his feet. "I know where we will meet up with them."
***
The probability of deviating from the favored path on one turn under Xadrez's method was almost impossibly low.
The probability of deviating on five consecutive turns was even lower.
But in theory, given enough trials, every possibility will eventually come to pass. And so, on this particular iteration of the time loop, this incredibly low probability came to pass.
Xadrez knew it wouldn't necessarily be enough to render Kracht's knowledge useless. Many a Xadrez had ultimately died as a result of following the most likely paths, and this time might be no different. But there were simply no other options, not until Kracht was clearly thrown off by deviations.
***
As Arkal completed a sixth incredibly improbable turn, elsewhere in the Complex, the Ovoid's path shifted to take into account the location of its missing piece.
It passed by a wall which, to an average drugged-up citizen of Alpha Complex, seemed like just another wall. To a knowledgeable citizen, however, it was an entrance to a place to find things the Computer didn't want you to have - for the right price.
The Ovoid suddenly stopped. For reasons beyond the grasp of the average three-dimensional being, it was no longer immediately concerned with finding itself.
An appendage materialized on the other side of the wall, in the Infrared Market. It appeared next to a nervous Red clone carrying a familiar forge.
He grew considerably more nervous at seeing a strange object appear out of thin air. His anxiety grew even more when it advanced towards him. Still carrying the forge, he ran out the main door - advancing in Free Enterprise hardly seemed worth dealing with this kind of problem.
The wall panel opened up, and he ran out. The appendage chasing the Red clone had vanished, though he hadn't noticed and would have only panicked more if he had. He did, however, notice the stationary Ovoid and decide that was a good reason to flee again.
For unknown reasons, it followed him.
Or rather, it resumed heading towards its missing piece. Not that the ex-Free Enterpriser had any way of knowing that.
***
Kracht was slightly annoyed, but he couldn't let that show.
After all, the group had been late in reaching this intersection a few times before. It was rare, but it had always turned out well for him before.
Elsewhere, Xadrez had stopped aiming for the random method, and decided to rejoin the path. He had reasoned that it would lower the probability of a particular path even more if he stopped the process after a randomly-chosen number of turns, and so had guided Arkal back with the aid of his own map.
Arkal was glad. Thinking up numbers was getting annoying, and it was starting to get rather disturbing how accurate Xadrez's guesses had been.
They soon met up with Kracht, who sighed and said, "You're nearly a minute late."
To Xadrez, this was a good sign. Kracht had been thrown off, and that might provide the advantage needed to produce a timeline he had never seen before.
Nonetheless, no plans could be formulated until it was clearer that they would work. A good plan which failed would be useless if the loop repeated, and so the best plans had to be carefully held in reserve.
Arkal hadn't grasped the exact nature of the plan, but he reasoned that there was little need to tell Kracht about Xadrez's involvement in the delay.
"We got lost. Happens sometimes"
Kracht didn't show it, but this was a significant enough difference to worry him. He'd considered following Arkal to avoid deviations, but the one time he had tried it... He still wasn't sure what Keleth had done on his own, but he was in no mood to repeat that scenario for the sake of investigating it.
It suddenly occurred to him that the Ovoid was currently unaccounted for. This was slightly worrying. However, his experience with the entity in previous cycles suggested it would catch up to the group soon enough regardless, and so he decided to press on without it.
"Follow me," he said, going past another sign indicating the way to the Food Vats. "We're close."
The group followed, as a whole even less sure of Kracht's leadership than they had been of Weo's.
Soon, they came to a red door. The sign on it suggested the Food Vats were here. Kracht opened it confidently, not wanting to show how much the deviations had worried him this time. They were most likely insignificant, he was sure. He could work with this.
As they entered the room, something seemed off. There was an unusual device in the center of the room, but it did not appear to contain food.
Arkal grumbled as he took a closer look. "Either they have strange eating habits around here, or somebody's been messing with the signs," he said, pointing at the inside of the six glass capsules.
Inside each of them was a Rillian.
And after a moment, one of the capsules opened and Weo stepped out, annoyed.
"Which of you weasels shot me in the back?" he yelled.
Spoiler
There's no reason for this | Or this | Death is inevitable | You can't challenge fate | The smallest change | I'm overwhelmed
I'm serious | It makes perfect sense | Easy as ABC! | I can't even explain it | Cleaning up someone else's mess
I suck | I rule | I've got it made | Really, I'm serious | This bugs me | It's all lies | I want to believe | Beauty is a curse
I'm serious | It makes perfect sense | Easy as ABC! | I can't even explain it | Cleaning up someone else's mess
I suck | I rule | I've got it made | Really, I'm serious | This bugs me | It's all lies | I want to believe | Beauty is a curse