Re: The Gradual Massacre (GBS2G4) [Round 3: Las Orbitas]
11-11-2010, 05:06 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.
Holly stared incredulously at the glass panel in front of her as an engineer, bound by thorns a few feet away, wallowed in sweat and desperately prayed to any god that might happen to be listening. He wasn't particularly hurt by the thorns anymore; rather, his pain was more psychological, primarily stemming from dwelling excessively on what would happen to him if the elf resumed her tantrum. Bile rose in his throat as he glanced at his former co-worker and poker buddy, who was now impaled on some variety of metamorphic rock, a desperate gurgle still barely escaping his mouth.
A chilling silence persisted, interrupted only by an occasional beep or prompt from the computer, for about three minutes. Finally, Holly stopped attempting to work the device, and murmured something utterly inaudible. The engineer, overcome by curiosity, asked what was wrong.
There was another pause, but only a very brief one.
It ended with a shriek. "The god damned thing will not work!" Holly began launching a fist towards the panel, but caught herself. Won't solve anything. Shouldn't smash it. Instead, she grabbed her captive, freed his hands, and shoved him ahead. "Find them now or so help me--"
There was no need to complete the sentence: the man flung himself into a frenzy, typing and tapping as quickly as he could. Two anomalies, she said. Both easily distinguishable by both sound and temperature readings. Very obvious. Piece of cake. A massive map was swiftly drawn on the screen, with two flashing dots appearing and beginning to move through the corridors, both of which immediately shot out a multitude of curved rays upon their behavioral patterns being entered. Holly forced a smile, swiftly copied the data onto her own map, and turned the engineer to face her again. He managed to ask one thing:
"Can you free me now?"
Holly's eyes flared green and she let out a laugh. "Oh, I'll free you. What waste... all these people dead." She began staring, not so much at the man as through him and off into the distance. "By my hand, they died. I killed them... they'd die anyway, but..." She clutched her stomach. "Dead! All dead, from me! And now one more!"
A look of horror flashed on the engineer's face, and he turned pale-- then, in merely an instant, he was stabbed through the heart. The elf gingerly untied him and stored her whip, stumbling into the hallway in a daze. "One more. He wasn't... didn't hurt him as much, did it?" She began giggling loudly. "Short! Simple! That makes it okay! He deserved worse anyway, I bet... pathetic scum don't deserve my pity." Her vision flashed mauve and she clutched her head.
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[For ease of reading, the following bout of magibabble shall have appropriate, if slightly incorrect, parallels drawn to similar concepts in non-magical physics, and otherwise explained in more detail.]
The effect of magic on the user (where Holly was from, anyway) is quite frequently profound. Many schools of sorcery—elementalism, necromancy, and healing, for example—also tend to have an effect geared towards the bodies of the targets, and thus end up “resonating” onto the body of the user; hence, a fire mage’s standard body temperature will gradually increase, a necromancer will lapse into a state of decay after a few decades (this being the root of the abnormally high conversion-to-lich rate of about 95%, as the older practitioners rarely feel as if they have anything to lose from the process), and so forth. In contrast, the more psychologically- or creation-inclined magical arts, such as alchemy, golem-making, illusionism, and obviously pathomancy, instead resonate on a mental scale. Of these, pathomancy’s resonance is among the most dangerous.
Pathomancers, as a matter of course, attempt to avoid stirring any particularly powerful emotions within themselves, and Holly was no exception. The reason for this, besides simply avoiding manipulation, is that the ultimate effect of playing with emotional states so much is that the user’s personal thaumic field-- i.e., the physical manifestation of an individual's magical capability, at least based on the laws that this particular mage's home universe followed-- becomes permanently entwined with their own emotional state. The process only increases the more powerful the user gets and the more often they utilize their art in a short period, the ultimate point being that Holly had recently set personal records for “strongest emotional sensation”, “maximum thaumic concentration”, and “uses of pathomancy in a two-hour period.” The natural combination of these factors was twofold: one, highly unstable magic (known to magical scholars as “pluviathaums” due to their tendency to incorporate every variety of magic into every particle, regardless of origin, and most easily likened to beta particles if we are to liken standard thaums to atoms, as we very well might) crackled out in long bolts from her, occasionally resulting in anything from a single molecule of carbon dioxide breaking apart to, in one case, a rather unfortunate engineer’s hand being replaced by an entire lobster. Two, her already debatable state of sanity was currently slipping away to nothingness.
That said, there were two things Holly hadn’t counted on when preparing her map. First, she hadn’t considered the possibility that there were areas of the ship not on the map—vents, for example, that the swarm of prawns might manage to fly through. Second, despite diligently following it, avoiding nearly every path either Countess or Ouroborous might be taking, she had forgotten entirely about Thane, primarily because she had not had any prolonged interactions with him up until this point in time. It thus came as a surprise, if a small one, to her incredibly broken mind when she ended up running directly into the path of the cyborg. The bolts of pluviathaums wormed around the eldritch creature’s body, not so much as touching him due to his eldritch origin, and Holly stared vaguely at him in disbelief. Finally, she managed once again to speak, grinning widely.
“You’re blocking me.” She reached down to grab her gauntlet and slipped it on. “Let’s see what it takes to make you get out of my way!”
Holly stared incredulously at the glass panel in front of her as an engineer, bound by thorns a few feet away, wallowed in sweat and desperately prayed to any god that might happen to be listening. He wasn't particularly hurt by the thorns anymore; rather, his pain was more psychological, primarily stemming from dwelling excessively on what would happen to him if the elf resumed her tantrum. Bile rose in his throat as he glanced at his former co-worker and poker buddy, who was now impaled on some variety of metamorphic rock, a desperate gurgle still barely escaping his mouth.
A chilling silence persisted, interrupted only by an occasional beep or prompt from the computer, for about three minutes. Finally, Holly stopped attempting to work the device, and murmured something utterly inaudible. The engineer, overcome by curiosity, asked what was wrong.
There was another pause, but only a very brief one.
It ended with a shriek. "The god damned thing will not work!" Holly began launching a fist towards the panel, but caught herself. Won't solve anything. Shouldn't smash it. Instead, she grabbed her captive, freed his hands, and shoved him ahead. "Find them now or so help me--"
There was no need to complete the sentence: the man flung himself into a frenzy, typing and tapping as quickly as he could. Two anomalies, she said. Both easily distinguishable by both sound and temperature readings. Very obvious. Piece of cake. A massive map was swiftly drawn on the screen, with two flashing dots appearing and beginning to move through the corridors, both of which immediately shot out a multitude of curved rays upon their behavioral patterns being entered. Holly forced a smile, swiftly copied the data onto her own map, and turned the engineer to face her again. He managed to ask one thing:
"Can you free me now?"
Holly's eyes flared green and she let out a laugh. "Oh, I'll free you. What waste... all these people dead." She began staring, not so much at the man as through him and off into the distance. "By my hand, they died. I killed them... they'd die anyway, but..." She clutched her stomach. "Dead! All dead, from me! And now one more!"
A look of horror flashed on the engineer's face, and he turned pale-- then, in merely an instant, he was stabbed through the heart. The elf gingerly untied him and stored her whip, stumbling into the hallway in a daze. "One more. He wasn't... didn't hurt him as much, did it?" She began giggling loudly. "Short! Simple! That makes it okay! He deserved worse anyway, I bet... pathetic scum don't deserve my pity." Her vision flashed mauve and she clutched her head.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[For ease of reading, the following bout of magibabble shall have appropriate, if slightly incorrect, parallels drawn to similar concepts in non-magical physics, and otherwise explained in more detail.]
The effect of magic on the user (where Holly was from, anyway) is quite frequently profound. Many schools of sorcery—elementalism, necromancy, and healing, for example—also tend to have an effect geared towards the bodies of the targets, and thus end up “resonating” onto the body of the user; hence, a fire mage’s standard body temperature will gradually increase, a necromancer will lapse into a state of decay after a few decades (this being the root of the abnormally high conversion-to-lich rate of about 95%, as the older practitioners rarely feel as if they have anything to lose from the process), and so forth. In contrast, the more psychologically- or creation-inclined magical arts, such as alchemy, golem-making, illusionism, and obviously pathomancy, instead resonate on a mental scale. Of these, pathomancy’s resonance is among the most dangerous.
Pathomancers, as a matter of course, attempt to avoid stirring any particularly powerful emotions within themselves, and Holly was no exception. The reason for this, besides simply avoiding manipulation, is that the ultimate effect of playing with emotional states so much is that the user’s personal thaumic field-- i.e., the physical manifestation of an individual's magical capability, at least based on the laws that this particular mage's home universe followed-- becomes permanently entwined with their own emotional state. The process only increases the more powerful the user gets and the more often they utilize their art in a short period, the ultimate point being that Holly had recently set personal records for “strongest emotional sensation”, “maximum thaumic concentration”, and “uses of pathomancy in a two-hour period.” The natural combination of these factors was twofold: one, highly unstable magic (known to magical scholars as “pluviathaums” due to their tendency to incorporate every variety of magic into every particle, regardless of origin, and most easily likened to beta particles if we are to liken standard thaums to atoms, as we very well might) crackled out in long bolts from her, occasionally resulting in anything from a single molecule of carbon dioxide breaking apart to, in one case, a rather unfortunate engineer’s hand being replaced by an entire lobster. Two, her already debatable state of sanity was currently slipping away to nothingness.
That said, there were two things Holly hadn’t counted on when preparing her map. First, she hadn’t considered the possibility that there were areas of the ship not on the map—vents, for example, that the swarm of prawns might manage to fly through. Second, despite diligently following it, avoiding nearly every path either Countess or Ouroborous might be taking, she had forgotten entirely about Thane, primarily because she had not had any prolonged interactions with him up until this point in time. It thus came as a surprise, if a small one, to her incredibly broken mind when she ended up running directly into the path of the cyborg. The bolts of pluviathaums wormed around the eldritch creature’s body, not so much as touching him due to his eldritch origin, and Holly stared vaguely at him in disbelief. Finally, she managed once again to speak, grinning widely.
“You’re blocking me.” She reached down to grab her gauntlet and slipped it on. “Let’s see what it takes to make you get out of my way!”