Re: The Great Belligerency [Round 3: Eternity Plateau]
06-03-2012, 01:18 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.
Miles away from the battlefield, within Balance's barrier, the elders of the Eternity Plateau were growing restless.
Though the barrier now kept them from influencing the Plateau, they still held a strong connection to it. They could feel the blood being spilled needlessly, feel nature as it was twisted into a mockery of itself, feel the forbidden knowledge Carl was spreading.
And then they felt the sun as it began to fall. They fell into meditation once more, and began consulting each others' minds.
We cannot wait any longer, said the First Elder to his kinsmen. We must escape this barrier somehow, or our home will be destroyed.
But how? every Elder replied at once. We have tried to break the barrier, both physically and spiritually. Nothing has worked. Our influence on the Plateau is gone. We cannot work to undo the damage.
There is one chance, the First Elder replied. I have just sensed the barrier weakening, but only slightly. In this state, if we all concentrate on the same place, we may be able to create a path to it. But only one of us will be able to pass through, for all the rest will be needed to maintain the path.
There was a moment's silence.
We will do this, the Elders agreed. We know where the path must lead.
And so they focused, and slowly an image within the mindscape came into focus. A village on the top of a beanstalk. The home of their enemies. The source of the barrier.
The First Elder stepped towards it, and his spirit disappeared.
And then, in the physical world, his body collapsed to the floor.
***
Cole would have blinked if he had eyelids. The beacon was just a few feet in front of him. He had simply appeared in the village.
If he had known about that power earlier, perhaps he wouldn't have this stupid horse-beetle on his back. Unfortunately, the short distance to the beacon was still too much with it weighing him down, not that he had the slightest idea what to do when he reached it.
And then he heard the low groan nearby. He turned his head and saw a woman lying on the ground, a strange machine embedded in her back. It was glowing in the same dark color as the beacon.
That suggested an obvious link. Cole grew one of his forelegs into a claw and smashed the machine. The woman rubbed her head and slowly lifted herself to her knees.
"That's better!" she said cheerily. "Maybe now I can get back to my soaps. I'm just dying to know if Anthony's cheating on Leona!"
"What," Cole said, dumbfoundedly.
"Could you be a dear and help the others while I try to tune in three universes to the northwest? I'm pretty sure they'll be airing the right episode about now."
Cole sighed, and did his best to point to the gigantic beetle on his back with his new claw.
"What's the matter? I mean, you're the bug guy. Can't you take care of it?"
"No," he grumbled. "It's stuck, and I can't even draw any powers from it. Possibly because it used to be a horse."
The woman stared at it.
"I don't know if I want to touch that."
"Then get a big stick or something!"
"But where am I going to get a stick... Oh, right, the spears. We never got much use out of them because hunting wasn't that exciting, but they should be over in the museum still..."
She ran off, leaving Cole to sit there helplessly.
***
Three villages away, Chief Anthony came home in shock, as he found his dear Leona in the arms of Mark the Medicine Man.
"How dare you, Leona!" he screamed. "How could you do this to me?"
"You're one to talk, Anthony!' she shouted. "Just how long have you been spending time with Shamaness Eileen? And did you really think I wouldn't find out about it?" She glared and pointed at his head. "Why, you've got her lipstick on your headdress right now!"
"But it... That was for a mystical blessing!"
"Oh, my. Is that what you call it with her? Am I not good enough for you any more, Anthony?"
"Well, not if you're going to be a worthless harlot!"
Mark just awkwardly cowered in a corner as the argument escalated. He was fairly certain that he had only come over ten minutes ago to ensure the spirits were watching over Leona properly, despite also recalling that they had been doing this for weeks behind Anthony's back. He also couldn't recall anyone in the village having names ten minutes ago.
***
It was about ten minutes later when the woman returned carrying a sharpened stick.
"Sorry about that, my mind wandered. You really should take a look at the museum sometime." She plunged the stick into the beetle, and carefully pushed it off.
Cole changed his body shape back to humanoid and stood up, for the first time in nearly an hour.
"Thank you," he said angrily, wandering over to the next fallen villager, a bearded man. Cole crushed the machine with his claw, and the man slowly got to his feet.
"Ah, much better!" the man said with a smile. "May Zulonas smile upon you! And upon us all, indeed!"
More nonsense, Cole thought to himself. Is the entire village like this?
"Oh! Wait, you're the one who doesn't like gods, aren't you? I must apologize. I simply find them so interesting. But Zulonas is my favorite! Why, just last week, he issued a divine edict declaring blue to be the color of evil, after his entire church had spent three years convincing the people to wear blue! I wonder how that holy war is shaping up. I should take a look."
And then the man simply had a blank expression on his face. Cole looked over to the woman he had helped before; her face was likewise blank. No doubt she was discovering that Anthony had cheated on Leona with his stepsister or some such nonsense.
Cole was beginning to have doubts about freeing these villagers, but on the other hand, the beacon certainly looked smaller, and the sky was definitely brighter. If he was to earn that weapon, he had little choice. He sighed, and crushed the next machine, only to be greeted by a lecture on farming techniques.
***
"Come on, guys, I'm sure we can work this out," Carl said. "I get it, some people don't like baseball. That doesn't mean you have to burn me at the stake!"
"You may take it up with the Great Zulonas when you are brought before him for judgement," said the High Priest. "For too long has the Plateau lived in ignorance of His teachings. You will be an example to the other heretics."
"What if I made a game called Zulonasball? I bet he'd love that! It would be all about extolling His glory!" Carl was getting desperate.
"Zulonas has no time for petty games, heathen. It is clearly too late for you. All we can do is pray that your fate serves as a warning to others, so that they may learn to accept Zulonas' love."
"Yeah, his love, like telling you to burn me at the stake!"
The High Priest glared.
"The Fifth Book of Zulonas, Fourteenth Edict: 'Thou shalt not be a smartass about Me.' You have only secured a worse fate for yourself. Loyal followers! Take this man to the temple for the Final Judgement!"
Two tribesmen walked over to the pole and lifted it, Carl still tied to it. They began dragging him to a hut that was slightly larger than the other huts.
Then, suddenly, it was a lot larger, and less a hut than a cathedral made from sticks and straw. The High Priest and his men didn't seem to notice the change as they dragged Carl in. The tribemen untied him and held his hands to the floor, and the High Priest pulled out an uncomfortably large knife and advanced on the heretic.
"Zulonas will show your soul no mercy, you pitiful man."
***
The First Elder was upset. He had been suppressing the beacon since his arrival, but now the filthy unknown was causing worse problems.
It was true that freeing the villagers would remove the beacon, and the barrier around the Elders' village. But that would come at a great cost - the forbidden knowledge these people held would flood through the Plateau without the Elders keeping it in check.
With great reluctance, he stopped suppressing the beacon, and instead focused his mental energy into manifesting himself so the physical world could see him. Once his body was less than entirely transparent, he floated in front of Cole, just as the former biologist was about to free his seventh villager.
"Stop this at once!" he shouted.
"Not you again," Cole sighed, crushing the machine. "You called me 'unknown' as if it were the worst thing in the world, asked me to help you despite that, and then couldn't even be bothered to tell me which way was east. And now that I'm actually in the place you asked me to go, with no help from you I might add, you're telling me not to fix things. Well, I've had enough of you. I've been promised a sword for taking care of this 'gathering darkness', and I won't let you stop me."
"Do you even realize the damage you are causing? You will fill this world with unknown!"
Cole sighed, and disabled his hearing. The First Elder continued his ramblings, but Cole simply ignored them and continued freeing villagers. He felt somewhat foolish when he realized he could have turned his hearing off sooner; it would have spared him the nonsensical babblings of the villagers.
And then when Cole had freed about half of them, he was startled to see another spirit floating towards him, this one with a much younger face. Curious, Cole turned his hearing back on; he regretted it the moment he heard the elder shouting more nonsense, but the newcomer had already started talking.
"Hey, have you seen Jean-Phillipe around?" the newcomer asked, looking annoyed more than angry. "Bearded guy. Talks about gods a lot. If you see him, tell him Carl's got a few words for him."
"And then once the unknown has consumed us... You! This is your fault! How dare you appear on this plane of existence!"
"Aw, geez, one of the killjoys," Carl sighed. "You just don't appreciate progress, do you? I mean, I don't either when it means getting stabbed in the heart with ceremonial knives, but I know that's not all of it."
"Do you even realize what you have done?" the Elder screamed. "You need to pass to the other side! The world is too unstable right now, it certainly does not need your interference on this plane!"
"Hey, chill, man," Carl said. "It's all good. I'm not planning to stick around, I just want to see an actual championship game before I pass on."
And the moment after he spoke the words, walls rose up around the village.
***
A sun large enough to illuminate an entire infinite plain must be infinite in size; otherwise there would be points where its light would take more time to reach than the plain had been in existence. As such, if the sun were to plummet towards the plain below, it would make no sense to declare a particular point as the "center" of its fall.
However, if the sun suddenly becomes finite, and then grows smaller and smaller, this designation makes more sense.
In this case, the center of the sun's fall was the newly-existant baseball stadium at the top of a beanstalk. And as it drew closer, it shrank, and shrank.
It shrank until it was too small to hold the Spirit, Crow, and dead Vulture held within it, so it simply spat them out unceremoniously just before it landed on the pitcher's mound.
Cole, now wearing a baseball cap and a shirt with the number 47 on it that fit awkwardly over his insects, stared at Soft as she picked herself up, and she stared at him in return.
"What did you go and do now?" they asked each other simultaneously.
Miles away from the battlefield, within Balance's barrier, the elders of the Eternity Plateau were growing restless.
Though the barrier now kept them from influencing the Plateau, they still held a strong connection to it. They could feel the blood being spilled needlessly, feel nature as it was twisted into a mockery of itself, feel the forbidden knowledge Carl was spreading.
And then they felt the sun as it began to fall. They fell into meditation once more, and began consulting each others' minds.
We cannot wait any longer, said the First Elder to his kinsmen. We must escape this barrier somehow, or our home will be destroyed.
But how? every Elder replied at once. We have tried to break the barrier, both physically and spiritually. Nothing has worked. Our influence on the Plateau is gone. We cannot work to undo the damage.
There is one chance, the First Elder replied. I have just sensed the barrier weakening, but only slightly. In this state, if we all concentrate on the same place, we may be able to create a path to it. But only one of us will be able to pass through, for all the rest will be needed to maintain the path.
There was a moment's silence.
We will do this, the Elders agreed. We know where the path must lead.
And so they focused, and slowly an image within the mindscape came into focus. A village on the top of a beanstalk. The home of their enemies. The source of the barrier.
The First Elder stepped towards it, and his spirit disappeared.
And then, in the physical world, his body collapsed to the floor.
***
Cole would have blinked if he had eyelids. The beacon was just a few feet in front of him. He had simply appeared in the village.
If he had known about that power earlier, perhaps he wouldn't have this stupid horse-beetle on his back. Unfortunately, the short distance to the beacon was still too much with it weighing him down, not that he had the slightest idea what to do when he reached it.
And then he heard the low groan nearby. He turned his head and saw a woman lying on the ground, a strange machine embedded in her back. It was glowing in the same dark color as the beacon.
That suggested an obvious link. Cole grew one of his forelegs into a claw and smashed the machine. The woman rubbed her head and slowly lifted herself to her knees.
"That's better!" she said cheerily. "Maybe now I can get back to my soaps. I'm just dying to know if Anthony's cheating on Leona!"
"What," Cole said, dumbfoundedly.
"Could you be a dear and help the others while I try to tune in three universes to the northwest? I'm pretty sure they'll be airing the right episode about now."
Cole sighed, and did his best to point to the gigantic beetle on his back with his new claw.
"What's the matter? I mean, you're the bug guy. Can't you take care of it?"
"No," he grumbled. "It's stuck, and I can't even draw any powers from it. Possibly because it used to be a horse."
The woman stared at it.
"I don't know if I want to touch that."
"Then get a big stick or something!"
"But where am I going to get a stick... Oh, right, the spears. We never got much use out of them because hunting wasn't that exciting, but they should be over in the museum still..."
She ran off, leaving Cole to sit there helplessly.
***
Three villages away, Chief Anthony came home in shock, as he found his dear Leona in the arms of Mark the Medicine Man.
"How dare you, Leona!" he screamed. "How could you do this to me?"
"You're one to talk, Anthony!' she shouted. "Just how long have you been spending time with Shamaness Eileen? And did you really think I wouldn't find out about it?" She glared and pointed at his head. "Why, you've got her lipstick on your headdress right now!"
"But it... That was for a mystical blessing!"
"Oh, my. Is that what you call it with her? Am I not good enough for you any more, Anthony?"
"Well, not if you're going to be a worthless harlot!"
Mark just awkwardly cowered in a corner as the argument escalated. He was fairly certain that he had only come over ten minutes ago to ensure the spirits were watching over Leona properly, despite also recalling that they had been doing this for weeks behind Anthony's back. He also couldn't recall anyone in the village having names ten minutes ago.
***
It was about ten minutes later when the woman returned carrying a sharpened stick.
"Sorry about that, my mind wandered. You really should take a look at the museum sometime." She plunged the stick into the beetle, and carefully pushed it off.
Cole changed his body shape back to humanoid and stood up, for the first time in nearly an hour.
"Thank you," he said angrily, wandering over to the next fallen villager, a bearded man. Cole crushed the machine with his claw, and the man slowly got to his feet.
"Ah, much better!" the man said with a smile. "May Zulonas smile upon you! And upon us all, indeed!"
More nonsense, Cole thought to himself. Is the entire village like this?
"Oh! Wait, you're the one who doesn't like gods, aren't you? I must apologize. I simply find them so interesting. But Zulonas is my favorite! Why, just last week, he issued a divine edict declaring blue to be the color of evil, after his entire church had spent three years convincing the people to wear blue! I wonder how that holy war is shaping up. I should take a look."
And then the man simply had a blank expression on his face. Cole looked over to the woman he had helped before; her face was likewise blank. No doubt she was discovering that Anthony had cheated on Leona with his stepsister or some such nonsense.
Cole was beginning to have doubts about freeing these villagers, but on the other hand, the beacon certainly looked smaller, and the sky was definitely brighter. If he was to earn that weapon, he had little choice. He sighed, and crushed the next machine, only to be greeted by a lecture on farming techniques.
***
"Come on, guys, I'm sure we can work this out," Carl said. "I get it, some people don't like baseball. That doesn't mean you have to burn me at the stake!"
"You may take it up with the Great Zulonas when you are brought before him for judgement," said the High Priest. "For too long has the Plateau lived in ignorance of His teachings. You will be an example to the other heretics."
"What if I made a game called Zulonasball? I bet he'd love that! It would be all about extolling His glory!" Carl was getting desperate.
"Zulonas has no time for petty games, heathen. It is clearly too late for you. All we can do is pray that your fate serves as a warning to others, so that they may learn to accept Zulonas' love."
"Yeah, his love, like telling you to burn me at the stake!"
The High Priest glared.
"The Fifth Book of Zulonas, Fourteenth Edict: 'Thou shalt not be a smartass about Me.' You have only secured a worse fate for yourself. Loyal followers! Take this man to the temple for the Final Judgement!"
Two tribesmen walked over to the pole and lifted it, Carl still tied to it. They began dragging him to a hut that was slightly larger than the other huts.
Then, suddenly, it was a lot larger, and less a hut than a cathedral made from sticks and straw. The High Priest and his men didn't seem to notice the change as they dragged Carl in. The tribemen untied him and held his hands to the floor, and the High Priest pulled out an uncomfortably large knife and advanced on the heretic.
"Zulonas will show your soul no mercy, you pitiful man."
***
The First Elder was upset. He had been suppressing the beacon since his arrival, but now the filthy unknown was causing worse problems.
It was true that freeing the villagers would remove the beacon, and the barrier around the Elders' village. But that would come at a great cost - the forbidden knowledge these people held would flood through the Plateau without the Elders keeping it in check.
With great reluctance, he stopped suppressing the beacon, and instead focused his mental energy into manifesting himself so the physical world could see him. Once his body was less than entirely transparent, he floated in front of Cole, just as the former biologist was about to free his seventh villager.
"Stop this at once!" he shouted.
"Not you again," Cole sighed, crushing the machine. "You called me 'unknown' as if it were the worst thing in the world, asked me to help you despite that, and then couldn't even be bothered to tell me which way was east. And now that I'm actually in the place you asked me to go, with no help from you I might add, you're telling me not to fix things. Well, I've had enough of you. I've been promised a sword for taking care of this 'gathering darkness', and I won't let you stop me."
"Do you even realize the damage you are causing? You will fill this world with unknown!"
Cole sighed, and disabled his hearing. The First Elder continued his ramblings, but Cole simply ignored them and continued freeing villagers. He felt somewhat foolish when he realized he could have turned his hearing off sooner; it would have spared him the nonsensical babblings of the villagers.
And then when Cole had freed about half of them, he was startled to see another spirit floating towards him, this one with a much younger face. Curious, Cole turned his hearing back on; he regretted it the moment he heard the elder shouting more nonsense, but the newcomer had already started talking.
"Hey, have you seen Jean-Phillipe around?" the newcomer asked, looking annoyed more than angry. "Bearded guy. Talks about gods a lot. If you see him, tell him Carl's got a few words for him."
"And then once the unknown has consumed us... You! This is your fault! How dare you appear on this plane of existence!"
"Aw, geez, one of the killjoys," Carl sighed. "You just don't appreciate progress, do you? I mean, I don't either when it means getting stabbed in the heart with ceremonial knives, but I know that's not all of it."
"Do you even realize what you have done?" the Elder screamed. "You need to pass to the other side! The world is too unstable right now, it certainly does not need your interference on this plane!"
"Hey, chill, man," Carl said. "It's all good. I'm not planning to stick around, I just want to see an actual championship game before I pass on."
And the moment after he spoke the words, walls rose up around the village.
***
A sun large enough to illuminate an entire infinite plain must be infinite in size; otherwise there would be points where its light would take more time to reach than the plain had been in existence. As such, if the sun were to plummet towards the plain below, it would make no sense to declare a particular point as the "center" of its fall.
However, if the sun suddenly becomes finite, and then grows smaller and smaller, this designation makes more sense.
In this case, the center of the sun's fall was the newly-existant baseball stadium at the top of a beanstalk. And as it drew closer, it shrank, and shrank.
It shrank until it was too small to hold the Spirit, Crow, and dead Vulture held within it, so it simply spat them out unceremoniously just before it landed on the pitcher's mound.
Cole, now wearing a baseball cap and a shirt with the number 47 on it that fit awkwardly over his insects, stared at Soft as she picked herself up, and she stared at him in return.
"What did you go and do now?" they asked each other simultaneously.
There's no reason for this | Or this | Death is inevitable | You can't challenge fate | The smallest change | I'm overwhelmed
I'm serious | It makes perfect sense | Easy as ABC! | I can't even explain it | Cleaning up someone else's mess
I suck | I rule | I've got it made | Really, I'm serious | This bugs me | It's all lies | I want to believe | Beauty is a curse
I'm serious | It makes perfect sense | Easy as ABC! | I can't even explain it | Cleaning up someone else's mess
I suck | I rule | I've got it made | Really, I'm serious | This bugs me | It's all lies | I want to believe | Beauty is a curse