Re: The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round Two: Sk'va!]
07-16-2010, 11:31 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.
As usual, Xadrez's mind was ticking over furiously; he had a lot to think about. The mechanics of Archemagery. A city, gearing up for war. The anomaly, and how to best it. Who, according to Kracht's past experience, would die here. A recursive chessboard; devoid of white, still painfully crude. A circular city, with its lustrous, stately buildings. A city, allegedly gearing up for war.
Xadrez, on an educated guess, turned left at the next junction. The greater hustle and bustle was encouraging, but something about how animated the citizens of Sk'va looked (at least, before they spotted the looming humanoid) left him uneasy.
The road widened, and expanded to a stately hexagonal plaza. The tactician was less concerned with the elegant precision of the malachite inlay (though he could detect this place was positively thrumming with ambient energy; he absently noted the data) and more the score emblazoned above the doors of City Hall.
Unease still gnawing away, Xadrez drifted perhaps a little more aimlessly than usual towards the double doors. An experimental tug on the handles didn't provide much luck, but slipping (well, muscling) the bulk of his chessboards upon an insectoid's exit. The grumbling queue, which had been assembling Xadrez as he figured out the door mechanism, followed him in a wave of chittering discontent. A handsome jewel beetle, iridescent hull inlaid with a neon circuitry design, shoved past an implacable chessmaster as best as he could in his haste. "Lymphy bastard foreigners..." he muttered irritably.
The tactician thought it best to wait in the queue behind the irate Sk'van, who had charged forward to the nearest desk and was ranting about the tourists getting under his feet and one of them even having the nerve to take over his store under threat of being implicated in the heinous crime of consorting with the Cyk'nl; it's an outrage I tell you.
The lady insectoid behind the counter was murmuring placating noises to the furious shopkeeper, while surreptitiously signaling for security. Her demeanor changed visibly as Xadrez drifted forward.
"Ah. Ambassador... Rizzo."The clerk looked up from her notes with a carapaced smile."The Mayoress was expecting you. Please, head on up the Autocline."
Xadrez considered the request for a moment, deliberated asking who he was getting confused with, then thought better of it. If it was Kracht's meddling, both compliance and deviation were bound to wind back up in the despicable rock's favour. And if it wasn't...
The sloped, moving surface of the autocline was a bit of a struggle for Xadrez to stay comfortably balanced on. His pieces were sliding inexorably down the board, and most of the trip up was replacing one piece, then snatching another. The multispectacled weevil behind him kept cowering every time a bit of camera was liable to slide right off and hit him.
Spoiler
As usual, Xadrez's mind was ticking over furiously; he had a lot to think about. The mechanics of Archemagery. A city, gearing up for war. The anomaly, and how to best it. Who, according to Kracht's past experience, would die here. A recursive chessboard; devoid of white, still painfully crude. A circular city, with its lustrous, stately buildings. A city, allegedly gearing up for war.
Xadrez, on an educated guess, turned left at the next junction. The greater hustle and bustle was encouraging, but something about how animated the citizens of Sk'va looked (at least, before they spotted the looming humanoid) left him uneasy.
The road widened, and expanded to a stately hexagonal plaza. The tactician was less concerned with the elegant precision of the malachite inlay (though he could detect this place was positively thrumming with ambient energy; he absently noted the data) and more the score emblazoned above the doors of City Hall.
Unease still gnawing away, Xadrez drifted perhaps a little more aimlessly than usual towards the double doors. An experimental tug on the handles didn't provide much luck, but slipping (well, muscling) the bulk of his chessboards upon an insectoid's exit. The grumbling queue, which had been assembling Xadrez as he figured out the door mechanism, followed him in a wave of chittering discontent. A handsome jewel beetle, iridescent hull inlaid with a neon circuitry design, shoved past an implacable chessmaster as best as he could in his haste. "Lymphy bastard foreigners..." he muttered irritably.
The tactician thought it best to wait in the queue behind the irate Sk'van, who had charged forward to the nearest desk and was ranting about the tourists getting under his feet and one of them even having the nerve to take over his store under threat of being implicated in the heinous crime of consorting with the Cyk'nl; it's an outrage I tell you.
The lady insectoid behind the counter was murmuring placating noises to the furious shopkeeper, while surreptitiously signaling for security. Her demeanor changed visibly as Xadrez drifted forward.
"Ah. Ambassador... Rizzo."The clerk looked up from her notes with a carapaced smile."The Mayoress was expecting you. Please, head on up the Autocline."
Xadrez considered the request for a moment, deliberated asking who he was getting confused with, then thought better of it. If it was Kracht's meddling, both compliance and deviation were bound to wind back up in the despicable rock's favour. And if it wasn't...
The sloped, moving surface of the autocline was a bit of a struggle for Xadrez to stay comfortably balanced on. His pieces were sliding inexorably down the board, and most of the trip up was replacing one piece, then snatching another. The multispectacled weevil behind him kept cowering every time a bit of camera was liable to slide right off and hit him.
peace to the unsung peace to the martyrs | i'm johnny rotten appleseed
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow