Re: The Great Belligerency [Round 3: Eternity Plateau]
10-28-2011, 07:57 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.
In a vast, empty plain, a violent cry of frustration raced across the listless grass. A young woman stood alone, shoulders heaving with the effort of calming herself. She closed her eyes. Focus, she told herself, be calm. Be still.
The round change had caught her severely off-guard; the battle was proving somewhat more difficult for her to adjust to than she'd originally anticipated. And then there was that girl...
She'd been too reckess, to aggressive over the past two rounds. It was time to build, to think, to wait for the moment to present itself.
The girl scanned the horizon, and her eyes narrowed as she focused on something in the distance. She began to walk in that direction, as and she did so, she changed. Her face abandoned the narrow petiteness of "Amy", darkening in tone and strengthening in cheekbones, to assume features resembling one of Asian heritage. Her hair fell out, and she removed her clothing. Her body began to shrink, and lose some of its youthful roundness, becoming instead wiry yet muscled.
As she walked, finally abandoning the "Amy" identity, she contacted her brother, and informed him of the situation. Upon returning her attention to her battle, she allowed her new mouth a small grin, slightly excited to see precisely what he would do with the new information.
For now, though, she had other matters to attend to. You can tell a lot about a people by how they treat a naked stranger.
---
It was approaching dusk as the strange woman walked into the village. Like so many others on the Eternity Plateau, its inhabitants - immortal sages of mystical power, all - had never experienced change, newness. They had discovered all they could long ago, but this woman represented something outside of their knowledge. Word passed quickly as her figure was spotted approaching the village, and a silent gathering formed, awaiting her arrival. She walked up to them, uncaring as to her appearance, and stopped. For a while, nothing happened, as the woman and the villagers regarded one another. Then, as if by unspoken agreement, the villagers parted to let her in. They followed her to the village center, and brought out leather rags to cover her as they were so covered.
The sun continued to droop below the horizon as the villagers and the woman sat around a newly lit fire, and the immortal sages, ageless and knowledgeable as they were, sat in fascination of this newness that had found its way to them. The woman, for her part, remained silent throughout the night, yet the villagers learned much, in their own ways. They observed her actions, her slight reactions. They wanted to learn everything they could from their new guru. And the woman had much to teach them.
And so the young woman, now completely free of her old identity, was integrated into the village. While the other combatents attended to their various atrocities, the woman waited, and the villagers learned of her ways. Learned of secrecy. Anonymity. Illusion. Efficiency. Fascinating new concepts, all. The villagers ate up her teachings, infinitely wise to their meaning, incredibly naive to their purpose.
The villagers learned. The woman waited. When crack of blood-curdling screams and rumble of a thundering horde echoed across the plain, the woman knew her waiting was over.
---
Phil grinned as his helmet display zoomed in on a distant village. He'd been walking towards that weird storm cloud for a while now (it was the most interesting thing he could see anywhere so hey why not), and had unfortunately been experiencing some irregularity in his encounter with other villagers. His followers were getting rather bloodthirsty, bless their hearts. So when a new target presented itself, he was understandably happy. He turned to the horde behind him, raised his gun above his head, and with a righteous, fearsome howl, began the charge towards their newest conquest.
Three hours later, under a cloudy, starless night sky, he was severely disappointed. The inhabitants of this village had proved much less... run-away-and-screamy than previous. They had simply... surrendered to his oncoming horde, lying down flat on their stomachs. A few of Phil's men had killed some villagers out of spite, but their heart wasn't really in it; it's not the same to just stab some limp body on the ground.
So after taking the women, children and elderly as slaves, outfitting the men with weapons and making it very clear that disobedience meant death, Phil's horde moved on, still hungry for blood, unaware of the true nature of what it had just absorbed.
In a vast, empty plain, a violent cry of frustration raced across the listless grass. A young woman stood alone, shoulders heaving with the effort of calming herself. She closed her eyes. Focus, she told herself, be calm. Be still.
The round change had caught her severely off-guard; the battle was proving somewhat more difficult for her to adjust to than she'd originally anticipated. And then there was that girl...
She'd been too reckess, to aggressive over the past two rounds. It was time to build, to think, to wait for the moment to present itself.
The girl scanned the horizon, and her eyes narrowed as she focused on something in the distance. She began to walk in that direction, as and she did so, she changed. Her face abandoned the narrow petiteness of "Amy", darkening in tone and strengthening in cheekbones, to assume features resembling one of Asian heritage. Her hair fell out, and she removed her clothing. Her body began to shrink, and lose some of its youthful roundness, becoming instead wiry yet muscled.
As she walked, finally abandoning the "Amy" identity, she contacted her brother, and informed him of the situation. Upon returning her attention to her battle, she allowed her new mouth a small grin, slightly excited to see precisely what he would do with the new information.
For now, though, she had other matters to attend to. You can tell a lot about a people by how they treat a naked stranger.
---
It was approaching dusk as the strange woman walked into the village. Like so many others on the Eternity Plateau, its inhabitants - immortal sages of mystical power, all - had never experienced change, newness. They had discovered all they could long ago, but this woman represented something outside of their knowledge. Word passed quickly as her figure was spotted approaching the village, and a silent gathering formed, awaiting her arrival. She walked up to them, uncaring as to her appearance, and stopped. For a while, nothing happened, as the woman and the villagers regarded one another. Then, as if by unspoken agreement, the villagers parted to let her in. They followed her to the village center, and brought out leather rags to cover her as they were so covered.
The sun continued to droop below the horizon as the villagers and the woman sat around a newly lit fire, and the immortal sages, ageless and knowledgeable as they were, sat in fascination of this newness that had found its way to them. The woman, for her part, remained silent throughout the night, yet the villagers learned much, in their own ways. They observed her actions, her slight reactions. They wanted to learn everything they could from their new guru. And the woman had much to teach them.
And so the young woman, now completely free of her old identity, was integrated into the village. While the other combatents attended to their various atrocities, the woman waited, and the villagers learned of her ways. Learned of secrecy. Anonymity. Illusion. Efficiency. Fascinating new concepts, all. The villagers ate up her teachings, infinitely wise to their meaning, incredibly naive to their purpose.
The villagers learned. The woman waited. When crack of blood-curdling screams and rumble of a thundering horde echoed across the plain, the woman knew her waiting was over.
---
Phil grinned as his helmet display zoomed in on a distant village. He'd been walking towards that weird storm cloud for a while now (it was the most interesting thing he could see anywhere so hey why not), and had unfortunately been experiencing some irregularity in his encounter with other villagers. His followers were getting rather bloodthirsty, bless their hearts. So when a new target presented itself, he was understandably happy. He turned to the horde behind him, raised his gun above his head, and with a righteous, fearsome howl, began the charge towards their newest conquest.
Three hours later, under a cloudy, starless night sky, he was severely disappointed. The inhabitants of this village had proved much less... run-away-and-screamy than previous. They had simply... surrendered to his oncoming horde, lying down flat on their stomachs. A few of Phil's men had killed some villagers out of spite, but their heart wasn't really in it; it's not the same to just stab some limp body on the ground.
So after taking the women, children and elderly as slaves, outfitting the men with weapons and making it very clear that disobedience meant death, Phil's horde moved on, still hungry for blood, unaware of the true nature of what it had just absorbed.