Re: The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round Three: Water...place!]
04-02-2011, 04:26 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.
Jen and Fantha had agreed only a couple minutes beforehand that should Jen die, Fantha would keep her vital signs operating as long as possible, in order to delay an untimely round transition and spare her fellow battlers a lot of awkwardness and paperwork.
This was a bit unorthodox—as soon as the host body was too dead to salvage, a wyrm usually cannibalizes its fading consciousness and attempts to latch on to a new hope or, worst case scenario, another wyrm to carry its data. Jen, hearing this, proceeded with a lengthy explanation of the true secrets of the afterlives (to which the reader is unfortunately not privy) and Fanthalion came to appreciate exactly how little she wanted to be haunted.
Kracht, never having entirely figured out the whole Bio Wyrm thing, harbored some fears that Jen was alive in a substantive way, which would be the simplest way of accounting for the perpetuation of the third round. He needn’t have feared.
Jen [higher truths redacted]
Fantha was struggling. Loath though she was to admit the fundamental tenets of Bio Wyrm methodology to herself, much less to an omniscient third-person narrator, it was unarguable that the seeds of Bio Wyrm power and even sanity were founded on a symbiosis with the host. Jen’s consciousness was simply gone, and holding onto the life signs of the vaguely crustacean vehicle that was her body was a job for two, at least. Fantha, consciously directing each heartbeat and each firing neuron, had no idea how Jen had done it on her own all those years.
It was no use. The Jen template had already been torn to shreds by the plethora of alterations the two of them had worked out, ranging from the obvious sonic weaponry to a slight thickening of the eyelashes for cosmetic effect. Fantha felt even her own identity, and within it all the data contained within herself, fading away…
After what felt like his own half-life, with the intervention of a giant beige hand tearing through the barrier that he hesitated to refer to as a “wall,” Kracht found the occipital lobe and made it not be there anymore.
Arkal reeled. He had never been a weapon before. He looked down at his mace uneasily, then up at Kracht, who outstretched a hand impassively, withholding judgment.
Xadrez was struck by an idea. Or rather, “struck” is not the right word, or if it ever was the right word it was devalued by the idiom, so it would be better to say that Xadrez was bludgeoned by an idea. It felt green and was accompanied by a momentary vision of [redacted]. Sensing a grand urgency in implementing his idea, he pointed to three suitable points on the map and gestured the organelle to depart. ”Yes, Commander Xadrez. Death to the Lesion Legion!” blurted out the organelle before exiting the ivory office (Xadrez had had a busy few minutes).
Xadrez laid a sheet of cloth over his board and scribbled a grid of the forty concepts/characters that made up a shorthand language of his own invention. Upon the cloth he placed his latest Jen miniature (upgraded with a slightly duller green and a red wyrm sticking out the shoulder). He placed the figurine lightly upon the board, placed his hand on the figurine, and did whatever the opposite of concentrating is.
Through no direct intervention of Xadrez’ own, the figurine began to move…
Fanthalion, to put it in human terms, pushed the Big Red Button; she did the Thing That You Are Not Supposed To Do. She reached into the trash bin in her mind, pulled an old file off the top, and dumped it into the mainframe, hoping this would only have to be a temporary measure.
At no point in the history of Bio Wyrm consciousness has this been recorded as going well.
A blog slowly emerged from the mush, giving way to new life… Arkal, thinking on his mother, and Kracht, thinking on fate, watched on from atop a pile of dead dragons.
It looked a lot like Jen. It wasn’t.
”Hey guys,” said Maxwell, feeling his new vocal chords with his new hands through his new neck. Parts of him were bubbling, in a comfortable way; other parts felt uncomfortably soft. “The lady in my head says I’m going to need to take a minute, and to tell you that we can get her back.”
Jen and Fantha had agreed only a couple minutes beforehand that should Jen die, Fantha would keep her vital signs operating as long as possible, in order to delay an untimely round transition and spare her fellow battlers a lot of awkwardness and paperwork.
This was a bit unorthodox—as soon as the host body was too dead to salvage, a wyrm usually cannibalizes its fading consciousness and attempts to latch on to a new hope or, worst case scenario, another wyrm to carry its data. Jen, hearing this, proceeded with a lengthy explanation of the true secrets of the afterlives (to which the reader is unfortunately not privy) and Fanthalion came to appreciate exactly how little she wanted to be haunted.
Kracht, never having entirely figured out the whole Bio Wyrm thing, harbored some fears that Jen was alive in a substantive way, which would be the simplest way of accounting for the perpetuation of the third round. He needn’t have feared.
Jen [higher truths redacted]
Fantha was struggling. Loath though she was to admit the fundamental tenets of Bio Wyrm methodology to herself, much less to an omniscient third-person narrator, it was unarguable that the seeds of Bio Wyrm power and even sanity were founded on a symbiosis with the host. Jen’s consciousness was simply gone, and holding onto the life signs of the vaguely crustacean vehicle that was her body was a job for two, at least. Fantha, consciously directing each heartbeat and each firing neuron, had no idea how Jen had done it on her own all those years.
It was no use. The Jen template had already been torn to shreds by the plethora of alterations the two of them had worked out, ranging from the obvious sonic weaponry to a slight thickening of the eyelashes for cosmetic effect. Fantha felt even her own identity, and within it all the data contained within herself, fading away…
After what felt like his own half-life, with the intervention of a giant beige hand tearing through the barrier that he hesitated to refer to as a “wall,” Kracht found the occipital lobe and made it not be there anymore.
Arkal reeled. He had never been a weapon before. He looked down at his mace uneasily, then up at Kracht, who outstretched a hand impassively, withholding judgment.
Xadrez was struck by an idea. Or rather, “struck” is not the right word, or if it ever was the right word it was devalued by the idiom, so it would be better to say that Xadrez was bludgeoned by an idea. It felt green and was accompanied by a momentary vision of [redacted]. Sensing a grand urgency in implementing his idea, he pointed to three suitable points on the map and gestured the organelle to depart. ”Yes, Commander Xadrez. Death to the Lesion Legion!” blurted out the organelle before exiting the ivory office (Xadrez had had a busy few minutes).
Xadrez laid a sheet of cloth over his board and scribbled a grid of the forty concepts/characters that made up a shorthand language of his own invention. Upon the cloth he placed his latest Jen miniature (upgraded with a slightly duller green and a red wyrm sticking out the shoulder). He placed the figurine lightly upon the board, placed his hand on the figurine, and did whatever the opposite of concentrating is.
Through no direct intervention of Xadrez’ own, the figurine began to move…
Fanthalion, to put it in human terms, pushed the Big Red Button; she did the Thing That You Are Not Supposed To Do. She reached into the trash bin in her mind, pulled an old file off the top, and dumped it into the mainframe, hoping this would only have to be a temporary measure.
At no point in the history of Bio Wyrm consciousness has this been recorded as going well.
A blog slowly emerged from the mush, giving way to new life… Arkal, thinking on his mother, and Kracht, thinking on fate, watched on from atop a pile of dead dragons.
It looked a lot like Jen. It wasn’t.
”Hey guys,” said Maxwell, feeling his new vocal chords with his new hands through his new neck. Parts of him were bubbling, in a comfortable way; other parts felt uncomfortably soft. “The lady in my head says I’m going to need to take a minute, and to tell you that we can get her back.”