Intense Struggle! (Round 7 - The Database)

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

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Aph was deposited in the middle of a stone parking lot in front of an equally stony apartment block. Some small part of her mind, which could differentiate between her memories and D’Neya’s, insisted that this had been the kind of place where she had lived with Xan a long time ago. The rest of her mind scoffed at this idea and regurgitated the jumbled backstory cobbled together from their memories, believing this inconsistent and perplexing construction to be the truth, though honestly that was neither here nor there.

In the parking lot around her there were petrified market stalls selling scrolls and potions and the like. The vendors and the customers alike had all been turned to stone. Most of them had been human, though here and there Aph could see shorter humanoids with long beards and heavy armour or lithe humanoids with flowing robes and presumably once expensive jewellery. In the midst of it all an incongruous pair in stone shirts and jeans carried once plastic bags towards one of the apartment blocks. It was a busy scene, or it would have been had the participants not been made of stone.

Aph fancied she could see shimmering shapes moving through the stone marketplace/parking lot, but they were indistinct. She would catch a glimpse of one out of the corner of her eye and by the time she turned to look it would be gone.

Aph could not help but feel a little affronted at being taken away from the Monitor; the one being who had taken her and given her meaning, given her a purpose. However ultimately it did not matter precisely who was calling the shots. She was still in the same situation as she had been in before, and she planned to enjoy it no less than if the Monitor had been watching over her.

As interesting and mysterious as this world, or rather these three worlds undoubtedly were they were somewhat unsatisfying; nobody to terrorise, to murder or kill… just statues. It was no fun to kill those who were effectively already dead. She guessed that just left Aegis and Clara, and also perhaps those people that The Fool had mentioned, those that were coming to this world. She’d watch out for them, she figured they would not be hard to miss, the only spots of colour in a bland stone city.

But for now there was little she could do other than pick a direction and head in it in the blind hope that she would encounter something interesting. Resignedly she did so, unaware she was drawing interest herself. Something slithered through the shadows after her.

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SpoilerFuck this post.