Re: Inexorable Altercation [Round III - Vorlon Complex]
10-19-2011, 09:11 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by PlumFinder.
'We have no weapons,' the queen explained to Will and Felix. 'I may have questioned the intelligence and sanity of the Balancers at one point, but will admit they are not entirely stupid. When they took Vorlon, they made sure to strip it bare of any weaponry they could find. Which was everything, or close enough to it not to make a difference.'
It felt odd, hearing Anneliese using such a commanding voice, Felix thought. Not considering for an instant that she might not be obeyed. Of course, the person speaking wasn't actually Anneliese, but the body was, and he still associated it with the scared and uncertain voice of the witch.
'So,' the queen continued, 'we will need to be creative.'
She held up a pendant for both of them to see. It didn't look like anything but a small multifaceted gemstone on a string.
'This is a Teaching Stone,' she said. 'It is one of our most valuable tools of education, as it allows a person to relive a certain section of their memory hundreds of times in very little time. Spent half an hour with an active Teaching Stone, and you could recount the contents of a book word for word.'
'How -?' Will began, but the queen cut him off.
'Silence! I am not done yet!'
She laid the stone in the palm of her hand and started tapping the different facets. Then she scowled, and started over. She tried three times, and then flung the stone angrily at Quostus.
'You do it! This damned body is completely useless at complex tasks!'
The Solipor caught the stone and started turning it over and over in its many limbs, occasionally tapping a side. The queen watched him sourly.
Despite her problems with Anneliese's body, Felix had to admit the queen was quite competent. Barely ten minutes ago she had stepped outside her prison, and had deftly taken charge. Brushing aside Will's hurriedly made up excuse of indeed being archeologists, instead listening to the Solipor as he told her Felix's story, she had introduced herself to them as the queen of Vorlon, and the only one who knew how to kill Gias. Felix had doubted she was the only one, but the way she purposefully strode away made him certain she did know a way.
'This should do,' Quostus said, handing the pendant back to the queen.
'Perfect,' she said. She stroked Quostus head with a finger (a sign of fondness, Felix understood) and smiled. 'Thank you, Solipor.'
'Now,' she said, turning back to Felix and Will, her smile making place for a slightly condescending look. 'When a person activates this device, he or she will be put in a state of unconsiousness while the memory is repeated in their head at a rate of once every retten... Twenty times a minute, for you. Usually it has several failsafes, so the user can not get stuck in its own memory, and so it won't activate without conscious permission, but I have had those removed of this particular Stone. The next individual to touch the stone will instantly be drawn inside its own memories, leaving them vulnurable for all to kill.'
She looked at them with eyebrows raised, as if expecting a response. Felix looked uncertainly at Will. Did she want them to try it out or something?
Quostus got the message and clicked his mandibles in an appreciative way. The queen smiled at him again.
'A mindblowing plan, your highness,' the Solipor gushed. 'I'm glad to see your imprisonment did not dull your ever sharp mind.'
'Thank you, dear Solipor,' the queen said, going as far as using two fingers to stroke him. She shot an icy glare at Felix and Will. 'Don't you agree?'
'Well, I can't click my mandibles, so does a round of human applause suffice?' Felix asked, slowly clapping his hands.
'It doesn't sound like a very good plan,' Will said bluntly. The queen narrowed her eyes at him and attempted to straighten her neck, before remembering she was in a human body.
'Gias will be on his guard. He won't just let us walk up to him and touch him,' Will said. 'So unless you want to outright attack him, a tactic, I might point out, we're trying to specifically avoid, I don't see how we could ever get close enough to activate that thing.'
'Don't speak to me like that!' the queen snapped.
'Why not?' Will asked. 'I'm not your subject, and I never agreed to let you be in charge. I am only here because I wanted to hear your plan and because I don't want you to get Anneliese killed by doing something stupid.'
The queen looked like she was about to explode at the arrogance of those she'd labeled minions, so Felix hurriedly stepped in.
'Alright Will, we got it. Your highness, Will has always been a very stubborn man. I am certain he will come around in due time. He already agreed to stay near you, so that's a start, right?'
The queen glared at Will and then nodded. Will just shrugged.
'You are with me, then?' she asked Felix.
'I am,' Felix said. The plan might not be completely solid, but if it worked out, he might be free from this contest and in the favor of a powerful queen.
'Good,' the queen said, holding the pendant out to him. 'Then you can execute the plan.'
Ah, now this was unexpected.
Voitrach watched as Loran hesitated at an intersection, and then went into a completely different direction from the one they'd been going before, muttering to himself. This was the third time he did that.
The dwarf on his shoulder was rhythmically tapping his head. Apeart from that, the dwarf seemed to be getting more and more sober with the minute. It wasn't swaying anymore. Voitrach had always thought drunkenness lasted longer, but perhaps he remembered incorrectly. He hadn't seen it happen all that often, if truth be told.
Several meters in front of him, Loran swatted the air and looked at the ceiling.
'They're nearby,' he said. 'I... I have used my tracking skills. I learned them during my training.'
'I SEE,' Voitrach formed, wondering how Loran could so casually talk about becoming an assassin.
'You know, touching walls and feeling tremors and stuff,' Loran continued. 'It works really... quite well. Nothing special.'
Anneliese had curled up in a dark part of her own head, trying to shut out the thoughts of the queen. They all felt so vile, filled with hate and anger. But it was an impossible task. Everything the queen felt and thought resounded in her head like a hundred pounding drums. There was no silencing it.
'There we are,' the queen said, Anneliese's mouth forming the words against her will. Anneliese cringed.
'Are you certain?' Felix asked, looking at the double doors they were standing in front of. Anneliese tried to move her mouth, tried to yell at Felix to help her. The queen's attention was briefly drawn towards her, and Anneliese withdrew even further, shrieking in revulsion and fear.
'Yes,' the queen said to Felix. 'It is the main control room. I've though against Gias for a long time. I know how his mind works. If he chose to remain here, as you say, he will have looked for the place where he could see all. He wouldn't be able to stand not knowing.'
'But if he can see us...' Felix said.
'He can't,' the queen said, and for the first time she smiled at Felix. 'I took a look at the system before we got here, and it has gone into emergency shutdown when an alien program interacted with an outside force. It will take a while before it's done rebooting. At best, Gias saw me wake up.'
'Alright,' Felix said, visibly steeling himself. 'Let's go. I hope you realize what a huge favor I'm doing you here.'
'Don't worry, mr. Atrum,' the queen said. 'I will remember.'
Felix walked towards the doors, and pushed them open. Anneliese desperately tried to call out to him, to make him stay. In response, the queen pushed hard against Anneliese's mind, for a moment on the brink of completely destroying her. Anneliese screamed, and went back to hiding in the dark.
Loran slowly and softly lowered the door handle, and pulled the door ajar. A single glance through the gap told him all he needed to know.
'Alright,' Loran said. 'Here we are.'
He turned to Voitrach, who lumbered forward to take a look.
'Stay hidden!' Loran hissed as Voitrach bowed over to watch.
'I AM HIDDEN,' Voitrach formed, and Loran snorted in disdain.
'No, you're not. You're a big lump of rock and you can't hide. Just stay silent, at least.'
The dwarf crawled down and tried to insert a key in the doorlock. Loran swatted him away and looked through the gap again.
On the other side of the door was a relatively small room, compared to the huge hallways this complex usually had. Inside, a stone-like creature, its entire body pulsing with an odd, orange light, was standing in front of a number of monitoring screens, trying and failing to get them working again. All they displayed were a number of unrecognisable markings, probably an error message of some sort.
'YOU BROKE YOUR WORD.'
Loran flinched as the words suddenly appeared before his face, and turned to look at Voitrach. The rock-creature was no longer looking through the crack, instead towering over Loran in a particularly threatening way.
'I didn't, I didn't!' Loran hurriedly said. 'Gias just happens to be here! The others are here too, I swear!'
'Felix Atrum just stepped into the room,' OTTO informed him. Loran gestured to the gap.
'Look! Felix is there! Go on, look again!'
For a moment, Voitrach didn't move. Then he slowly turned back to the door, peering inside. He abruptly stopped moving. Loran exhaled in relief. He didn't know why Felix would want to enter a room with Gias in it, but it certainly helped him out. If he was lucky, Voitrach would even see Gias kill Felix. If that wouldn't convince him, nothing would.
'What is it?' the dwarf asked, scrambling off Voitrach's shoulder to get a look as well. 'Who is that?'
Loran maneuvered himself beneath Voitrach's mass to see as well.
Felix was standing in front of Gias, who had stopped working on the monitors, and was instead listening to Felix.
'... and lots of limbs,' the self-proclaimed villain said. 'I thought it was just a predator, but then it spoke. Not a language I understood, but I think it may be -'
Gias cut him off.
'I take no interest in this matter. Get back to your fight. Don't try to get into my good books again.'
'Oh,' Felix said, looking at the floor dejectedly. 'I just thought, since it was wearing a crown, it might be import-'
Again Gias cut him off, this time with a completely different tone of voice.
'A crown? Describe it!'
'Well, it was round,' Felix began, wringing his hands and shooting nervous glances around him.
Something was wrong with that, Loran thought. Last time they'd spoken, Felix had been dangerously confident. What had happened to him to make him so submissive?
'GIAS ISN'T KILLING HIM,' Voitrach formed.
'I hadn't noticed,' Loran said. 'He will. Don't worry.'
'Actually,' OTTO said. 'We have no definite evidence of that. We cannot even be certain Apathy was his victim, rather than someone else's. Gias may have been sincere in his statement that he would only observe.'
'Shut up,' Loran said.
'I WILL NOT,' Voitrach formed. 'I WILL GO TALK TO HIM.'
'You... What?'
'ATRUM IS SPEAKING WITH GIAS AS WELL,' Voitrach formed. 'I WILL ASK ABOUT APATHY.'
'But, no, he killed Apathy! He will not just let you ask about her in front of Felix! He will attack.'
'I AM NOT CONVINCED OF THAT. THIS IS A TRICK OF YOURS TO GET ME KILLED. GIAS WILL CONFIRM THAT,' Voitrach formed. Loran burried his head in his hands, trying desperately to think of something to say. If Voitrach got himself killed this way, they'd never be rid of Gias.
'Ouch, sucks to be you,' Greyve said smirking.
Loran was about to voice an angry retaliation, when a hand of stones closed around his collar, and Voitrach hoisted him effortlessly into the air.
'YOU WILL COME TOO.'
'You were right to tell me, but you will not be rewarded,' Gias told Felix.
Felix pretended to be sorry about that. He held up the pendant and continued with his best scared voice.
'I... I managed to take this from it. Her. It may be important.'
Gias held out his hand.
'I will examine it.'
For a short moment, Felix thought it had worked. Just for a moment, it looked like Gias was actually about to touch the pendant. Then a door to the side flew open, and Voitrach stepped in, holding a struggling Loran by the collar of his coat. Words of dust floated in front of him.
'DO NOT WORRY, I ONLY WISH TO TALK.'
Both Gias and Felix turned to see who had entered. Gias immediately turned back to Felix as he saw the side of the villain's face.
'You are a liar, Felix Atrum,' he said, lowering his hand. 'You have spoken with Vorlons.'
Felix hand flew to his ear, where, he realized too late, the translator was still attached.
'I should punish you for this,' Gias said.
'We have no weapons,' the queen explained to Will and Felix. 'I may have questioned the intelligence and sanity of the Balancers at one point, but will admit they are not entirely stupid. When they took Vorlon, they made sure to strip it bare of any weaponry they could find. Which was everything, or close enough to it not to make a difference.'
It felt odd, hearing Anneliese using such a commanding voice, Felix thought. Not considering for an instant that she might not be obeyed. Of course, the person speaking wasn't actually Anneliese, but the body was, and he still associated it with the scared and uncertain voice of the witch.
'So,' the queen continued, 'we will need to be creative.'
She held up a pendant for both of them to see. It didn't look like anything but a small multifaceted gemstone on a string.
'This is a Teaching Stone,' she said. 'It is one of our most valuable tools of education, as it allows a person to relive a certain section of their memory hundreds of times in very little time. Spent half an hour with an active Teaching Stone, and you could recount the contents of a book word for word.'
'How -?' Will began, but the queen cut him off.
'Silence! I am not done yet!'
She laid the stone in the palm of her hand and started tapping the different facets. Then she scowled, and started over. She tried three times, and then flung the stone angrily at Quostus.
'You do it! This damned body is completely useless at complex tasks!'
The Solipor caught the stone and started turning it over and over in its many limbs, occasionally tapping a side. The queen watched him sourly.
Despite her problems with Anneliese's body, Felix had to admit the queen was quite competent. Barely ten minutes ago she had stepped outside her prison, and had deftly taken charge. Brushing aside Will's hurriedly made up excuse of indeed being archeologists, instead listening to the Solipor as he told her Felix's story, she had introduced herself to them as the queen of Vorlon, and the only one who knew how to kill Gias. Felix had doubted she was the only one, but the way she purposefully strode away made him certain she did know a way.
'This should do,' Quostus said, handing the pendant back to the queen.
'Perfect,' she said. She stroked Quostus head with a finger (a sign of fondness, Felix understood) and smiled. 'Thank you, Solipor.'
'Now,' she said, turning back to Felix and Will, her smile making place for a slightly condescending look. 'When a person activates this device, he or she will be put in a state of unconsiousness while the memory is repeated in their head at a rate of once every retten... Twenty times a minute, for you. Usually it has several failsafes, so the user can not get stuck in its own memory, and so it won't activate without conscious permission, but I have had those removed of this particular Stone. The next individual to touch the stone will instantly be drawn inside its own memories, leaving them vulnurable for all to kill.'
She looked at them with eyebrows raised, as if expecting a response. Felix looked uncertainly at Will. Did she want them to try it out or something?
Quostus got the message and clicked his mandibles in an appreciative way. The queen smiled at him again.
'A mindblowing plan, your highness,' the Solipor gushed. 'I'm glad to see your imprisonment did not dull your ever sharp mind.'
'Thank you, dear Solipor,' the queen said, going as far as using two fingers to stroke him. She shot an icy glare at Felix and Will. 'Don't you agree?'
'Well, I can't click my mandibles, so does a round of human applause suffice?' Felix asked, slowly clapping his hands.
'It doesn't sound like a very good plan,' Will said bluntly. The queen narrowed her eyes at him and attempted to straighten her neck, before remembering she was in a human body.
'Gias will be on his guard. He won't just let us walk up to him and touch him,' Will said. 'So unless you want to outright attack him, a tactic, I might point out, we're trying to specifically avoid, I don't see how we could ever get close enough to activate that thing.'
'Don't speak to me like that!' the queen snapped.
'Why not?' Will asked. 'I'm not your subject, and I never agreed to let you be in charge. I am only here because I wanted to hear your plan and because I don't want you to get Anneliese killed by doing something stupid.'
The queen looked like she was about to explode at the arrogance of those she'd labeled minions, so Felix hurriedly stepped in.
'Alright Will, we got it. Your highness, Will has always been a very stubborn man. I am certain he will come around in due time. He already agreed to stay near you, so that's a start, right?'
The queen glared at Will and then nodded. Will just shrugged.
'You are with me, then?' she asked Felix.
'I am,' Felix said. The plan might not be completely solid, but if it worked out, he might be free from this contest and in the favor of a powerful queen.
'Good,' the queen said, holding the pendant out to him. 'Then you can execute the plan.'
Ah, now this was unexpected.
Voitrach watched as Loran hesitated at an intersection, and then went into a completely different direction from the one they'd been going before, muttering to himself. This was the third time he did that.
The dwarf on his shoulder was rhythmically tapping his head. Apeart from that, the dwarf seemed to be getting more and more sober with the minute. It wasn't swaying anymore. Voitrach had always thought drunkenness lasted longer, but perhaps he remembered incorrectly. He hadn't seen it happen all that often, if truth be told.
Several meters in front of him, Loran swatted the air and looked at the ceiling.
'They're nearby,' he said. 'I... I have used my tracking skills. I learned them during my training.'
'I SEE,' Voitrach formed, wondering how Loran could so casually talk about becoming an assassin.
'You know, touching walls and feeling tremors and stuff,' Loran continued. 'It works really... quite well. Nothing special.'
Anneliese had curled up in a dark part of her own head, trying to shut out the thoughts of the queen. They all felt so vile, filled with hate and anger. But it was an impossible task. Everything the queen felt and thought resounded in her head like a hundred pounding drums. There was no silencing it.
'There we are,' the queen said, Anneliese's mouth forming the words against her will. Anneliese cringed.
'Are you certain?' Felix asked, looking at the double doors they were standing in front of. Anneliese tried to move her mouth, tried to yell at Felix to help her. The queen's attention was briefly drawn towards her, and Anneliese withdrew even further, shrieking in revulsion and fear.
'Yes,' the queen said to Felix. 'It is the main control room. I've though against Gias for a long time. I know how his mind works. If he chose to remain here, as you say, he will have looked for the place where he could see all. He wouldn't be able to stand not knowing.'
'But if he can see us...' Felix said.
'He can't,' the queen said, and for the first time she smiled at Felix. 'I took a look at the system before we got here, and it has gone into emergency shutdown when an alien program interacted with an outside force. It will take a while before it's done rebooting. At best, Gias saw me wake up.'
'Alright,' Felix said, visibly steeling himself. 'Let's go. I hope you realize what a huge favor I'm doing you here.'
'Don't worry, mr. Atrum,' the queen said. 'I will remember.'
Felix walked towards the doors, and pushed them open. Anneliese desperately tried to call out to him, to make him stay. In response, the queen pushed hard against Anneliese's mind, for a moment on the brink of completely destroying her. Anneliese screamed, and went back to hiding in the dark.
Loran slowly and softly lowered the door handle, and pulled the door ajar. A single glance through the gap told him all he needed to know.
'Alright,' Loran said. 'Here we are.'
He turned to Voitrach, who lumbered forward to take a look.
'Stay hidden!' Loran hissed as Voitrach bowed over to watch.
'I AM HIDDEN,' Voitrach formed, and Loran snorted in disdain.
'No, you're not. You're a big lump of rock and you can't hide. Just stay silent, at least.'
The dwarf crawled down and tried to insert a key in the doorlock. Loran swatted him away and looked through the gap again.
On the other side of the door was a relatively small room, compared to the huge hallways this complex usually had. Inside, a stone-like creature, its entire body pulsing with an odd, orange light, was standing in front of a number of monitoring screens, trying and failing to get them working again. All they displayed were a number of unrecognisable markings, probably an error message of some sort.
'YOU BROKE YOUR WORD.'
Loran flinched as the words suddenly appeared before his face, and turned to look at Voitrach. The rock-creature was no longer looking through the crack, instead towering over Loran in a particularly threatening way.
'I didn't, I didn't!' Loran hurriedly said. 'Gias just happens to be here! The others are here too, I swear!'
'Felix Atrum just stepped into the room,' OTTO informed him. Loran gestured to the gap.
'Look! Felix is there! Go on, look again!'
For a moment, Voitrach didn't move. Then he slowly turned back to the door, peering inside. He abruptly stopped moving. Loran exhaled in relief. He didn't know why Felix would want to enter a room with Gias in it, but it certainly helped him out. If he was lucky, Voitrach would even see Gias kill Felix. If that wouldn't convince him, nothing would.
'What is it?' the dwarf asked, scrambling off Voitrach's shoulder to get a look as well. 'Who is that?'
Loran maneuvered himself beneath Voitrach's mass to see as well.
Felix was standing in front of Gias, who had stopped working on the monitors, and was instead listening to Felix.
'... and lots of limbs,' the self-proclaimed villain said. 'I thought it was just a predator, but then it spoke. Not a language I understood, but I think it may be -'
Gias cut him off.
'I take no interest in this matter. Get back to your fight. Don't try to get into my good books again.'
'Oh,' Felix said, looking at the floor dejectedly. 'I just thought, since it was wearing a crown, it might be import-'
Again Gias cut him off, this time with a completely different tone of voice.
'A crown? Describe it!'
'Well, it was round,' Felix began, wringing his hands and shooting nervous glances around him.
Something was wrong with that, Loran thought. Last time they'd spoken, Felix had been dangerously confident. What had happened to him to make him so submissive?
'GIAS ISN'T KILLING HIM,' Voitrach formed.
'I hadn't noticed,' Loran said. 'He will. Don't worry.'
'Actually,' OTTO said. 'We have no definite evidence of that. We cannot even be certain Apathy was his victim, rather than someone else's. Gias may have been sincere in his statement that he would only observe.'
'Shut up,' Loran said.
'I WILL NOT,' Voitrach formed. 'I WILL GO TALK TO HIM.'
'You... What?'
'ATRUM IS SPEAKING WITH GIAS AS WELL,' Voitrach formed. 'I WILL ASK ABOUT APATHY.'
'But, no, he killed Apathy! He will not just let you ask about her in front of Felix! He will attack.'
'I AM NOT CONVINCED OF THAT. THIS IS A TRICK OF YOURS TO GET ME KILLED. GIAS WILL CONFIRM THAT,' Voitrach formed. Loran burried his head in his hands, trying desperately to think of something to say. If Voitrach got himself killed this way, they'd never be rid of Gias.
'Ouch, sucks to be you,' Greyve said smirking.
Loran was about to voice an angry retaliation, when a hand of stones closed around his collar, and Voitrach hoisted him effortlessly into the air.
'YOU WILL COME TOO.'
'You were right to tell me, but you will not be rewarded,' Gias told Felix.
Felix pretended to be sorry about that. He held up the pendant and continued with his best scared voice.
'I... I managed to take this from it. Her. It may be important.'
Gias held out his hand.
'I will examine it.'
For a short moment, Felix thought it had worked. Just for a moment, it looked like Gias was actually about to touch the pendant. Then a door to the side flew open, and Voitrach stepped in, holding a struggling Loran by the collar of his coat. Words of dust floated in front of him.
'DO NOT WORRY, I ONLY WISH TO TALK.'
Both Gias and Felix turned to see who had entered. Gias immediately turned back to Felix as he saw the side of the villain's face.
'You are a liar, Felix Atrum,' he said, lowering his hand. 'You have spoken with Vorlons.'
Felix hand flew to his ear, where, he realized too late, the translator was still attached.
'I should punish you for this,' Gias said.