Re: The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round Four: New Battleopolis!]
07-03-2011, 01:46 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.
Xadrez was nowhere to be seen, which was a relief. Jen was free to… shit. Do what exactly?
She was standing in front of what looked like it used to be a museum. A previous battle had been through here? Sure looked like it. Jen wondered who the contestants were, and how one had died. Some of them were heroes, maybe. She wondered if Kracht had met any of them, in a past life.
Kracht was dead. By Jen’s understanding, if Kracht hadn’t died, this entire timeline—this entire fight—would have been erased and written over. That meant that the most significant event in this entire universe—multiverse, whatever—was that the rock had died. And that was Jen’s fault, if it was anyone’s.
It used to be that if you saw ruins like this, instead of getting all mopey about what had come before, you’d go explore, said Fanthalion.
“Don’t act like you’ve known me,” said Jen, aloud. Her voice echoed off the walls of the former museum. “You’ve rifled through my past like a filing cabinet, but you haven’t known me, really. You weren’t there.” Despite herself, or rather because of herself, Jen began to walk up the steps towards the museum door. “There was… let’s see. One ruin I loved was that former convent that we figured out was actually devoted to the creation and distribution of gay porn. They’d chronicle the dozens of hours they’d spend on a painting of two dudes fucking. I was twelve, it freaked me out a bit, but still, it was a great ruin. So many little things left behind.”
She entered the museum. A kiosk invited her to take home a souvenir Key to the City from the gift shop. Above, a replica biplane dangled from a single cable, spinning lightly in the breeze that came through the shattered windows. She looked at the signs and decided, almost unconsciously, to head towards the space exhibit.
“There was the underwater city and the city in the clouds that had been at war until everyone came to a treaty whereby they all left their cities and formed a new city on the land. Like that solved anything. Anyway, I took an orb off the pedestal in the sky and suddenly it started raining and we all fell into the ocean city… I’m sorry, you know all this.”
You can keep talking if you’d like.
”…I’ll pass, thanks.” She had stopped in front of a diorama of what she was pretty sure was a highly inaccurate and romanticized depiction of Native American life. There was a loud humming coming from down the hall. She ignored it. “Before that was the attic, all Mom and Dad’s old things. I built my first castles out of cardboard boxes there.” She sighed. The buzzing intensified into what was unmistakably the sound of a vacuum cleaner, especially when accompanied by the sight of a vacuum cleaner with skeletal arms moving towards her. The vacuum outstretched one of its hands, expectantly.
Jen didn’t see what else to do. She took the hand. It was cold.
The vacuum left a trail of clean as it led her the direction she was already going, towards the planetarium. Inside, it was dark, lit only by a projection of what seemed to be a purple-tinted map of the city from overhead. This gave off the dizzying illusion that the city was upside-down and pressing down on Jen’s head, and the sounds of a dozen vacuum cleaners circling the planetarium were like airplanes passing under the city. A city in the clouds, she mused.
The big projector that ought to have been in the center of the planetarium was gone. In its place was a human skull, affixed to the floor as though lying on a pillow, with something black and purple and sinister looking stuck in one eye socket. Jen put her hand over the eye, and the planetarium went black all at once. Her hand started to burn, and when she pulled it away and the light came back, there was a man standing in front of her.
”The woman whose head that was called herself an Empress. She deserved what was coming to her, believe me.” The man was the color of copper, tinted a bloody violet by the light of the purple eye. He looked strong, determined, and more worrying, smart in the way that really matters. <font color="#702020">”The humans here haven’t been good to us here, girl, and we’ve paid them in kind. Newcomer or no, your being in our territory upsets the treaty.”
In the darkness, there were sounds. Growls, and whispers in alien languages. Jen resisted the urge to reach for the place where she knew she wasn’t wearing a sword, and resorted instead to lying, which was always a good plan B. “Oh, please, I’m not a human,” she said, trying her best to sound older than her years (this mostly consisted of sounding “sultry,” which it turns out is not a word that actually means anything). “The body is, but nobody’s home. She’s pretty, isn’t she? Young.” Jen psychically nudged Fantha, who compliantly slithered out of her shoulder-hole and wriggled around a bit for show.
The rust-colored man smiled and shook his head.</font> “Still thinking in human terms, girl,” he said. The sounds all around were getting louder and closer. ”But I’m a Telpori-Hal. I see you as you really are. Both of you. Take her.”
Something that smelled, felt, tasted and sounded like a canvas bag dropped over Jen’s head. She didn't get to see what it looked like; she didn't get to see anything at all.
Xadrez was nowhere to be seen, which was a relief. Jen was free to… shit. Do what exactly?
She was standing in front of what looked like it used to be a museum. A previous battle had been through here? Sure looked like it. Jen wondered who the contestants were, and how one had died. Some of them were heroes, maybe. She wondered if Kracht had met any of them, in a past life.
Kracht was dead. By Jen’s understanding, if Kracht hadn’t died, this entire timeline—this entire fight—would have been erased and written over. That meant that the most significant event in this entire universe—multiverse, whatever—was that the rock had died. And that was Jen’s fault, if it was anyone’s.
It used to be that if you saw ruins like this, instead of getting all mopey about what had come before, you’d go explore, said Fanthalion.
“Don’t act like you’ve known me,” said Jen, aloud. Her voice echoed off the walls of the former museum. “You’ve rifled through my past like a filing cabinet, but you haven’t known me, really. You weren’t there.” Despite herself, or rather because of herself, Jen began to walk up the steps towards the museum door. “There was… let’s see. One ruin I loved was that former convent that we figured out was actually devoted to the creation and distribution of gay porn. They’d chronicle the dozens of hours they’d spend on a painting of two dudes fucking. I was twelve, it freaked me out a bit, but still, it was a great ruin. So many little things left behind.”
She entered the museum. A kiosk invited her to take home a souvenir Key to the City from the gift shop. Above, a replica biplane dangled from a single cable, spinning lightly in the breeze that came through the shattered windows. She looked at the signs and decided, almost unconsciously, to head towards the space exhibit.
“There was the underwater city and the city in the clouds that had been at war until everyone came to a treaty whereby they all left their cities and formed a new city on the land. Like that solved anything. Anyway, I took an orb off the pedestal in the sky and suddenly it started raining and we all fell into the ocean city… I’m sorry, you know all this.”
You can keep talking if you’d like.
”…I’ll pass, thanks.” She had stopped in front of a diorama of what she was pretty sure was a highly inaccurate and romanticized depiction of Native American life. There was a loud humming coming from down the hall. She ignored it. “Before that was the attic, all Mom and Dad’s old things. I built my first castles out of cardboard boxes there.” She sighed. The buzzing intensified into what was unmistakably the sound of a vacuum cleaner, especially when accompanied by the sight of a vacuum cleaner with skeletal arms moving towards her. The vacuum outstretched one of its hands, expectantly.
Jen didn’t see what else to do. She took the hand. It was cold.
The vacuum left a trail of clean as it led her the direction she was already going, towards the planetarium. Inside, it was dark, lit only by a projection of what seemed to be a purple-tinted map of the city from overhead. This gave off the dizzying illusion that the city was upside-down and pressing down on Jen’s head, and the sounds of a dozen vacuum cleaners circling the planetarium were like airplanes passing under the city. A city in the clouds, she mused.
The big projector that ought to have been in the center of the planetarium was gone. In its place was a human skull, affixed to the floor as though lying on a pillow, with something black and purple and sinister looking stuck in one eye socket. Jen put her hand over the eye, and the planetarium went black all at once. Her hand started to burn, and when she pulled it away and the light came back, there was a man standing in front of her.
”The woman whose head that was called herself an Empress. She deserved what was coming to her, believe me.” The man was the color of copper, tinted a bloody violet by the light of the purple eye. He looked strong, determined, and more worrying, smart in the way that really matters. <font color="#702020">”The humans here haven’t been good to us here, girl, and we’ve paid them in kind. Newcomer or no, your being in our territory upsets the treaty.”
In the darkness, there were sounds. Growls, and whispers in alien languages. Jen resisted the urge to reach for the place where she knew she wasn’t wearing a sword, and resorted instead to lying, which was always a good plan B. “Oh, please, I’m not a human,” she said, trying her best to sound older than her years (this mostly consisted of sounding “sultry,” which it turns out is not a word that actually means anything). “The body is, but nobody’s home. She’s pretty, isn’t she? Young.” Jen psychically nudged Fantha, who compliantly slithered out of her shoulder-hole and wriggled around a bit for show.
The rust-colored man smiled and shook his head.</font> “Still thinking in human terms, girl,” he said. The sounds all around were getting louder and closer. ”But I’m a Telpori-Hal. I see you as you really are. Both of you. Take her.”
Something that smelled, felt, tasted and sounded like a canvas bag dropped over Jen’s head. She didn't get to see what it looked like; she didn't get to see anything at all.