Re: The Great Belligerency [Round 3: Eternity Plateau]
09-02-2012, 08:29 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.
In a world where time and distance and reality had no interest in behaving contiguously to one another, it's probably immaterial at best and nonsensical at worst to describe the journey Amala's devotees and their newly returned goddess took. It could have been endless or lasted only moments, but the end result was the same: a small, huddled group of terrified but hopeful mystics crowding behind Ur and staring up at an impossibly-huge beanstalk and the neo-primitive baseball stadium it supported. More salient, but harder to look at, was the real reason they had trudged so far: the battle that still raged at the beanstalk's feet, a bloodbath of proportions hitherto inconceivable to the staid inhabitants of the eternity plateau, one that shifted constantly between conflicting scenarios as Balance's broken influence rained down on the world.
There was no break in the fighting as Ur and her followers arrived, nor any quarter given as she and they loudly called for parley. Even when she struck the ground, causing vines and trunks to burst forth from cracked soil and entangle the warriors, they simply hacked at their restraints and returned to their violence. It was possible the beings locked in mortal combat were no longer the people they once were, or even people at all, having been reduced by the splintering continuity that had so long sustained them to mindless thralls of the bloody impulses Phil and Balance had introduced to them. Or perhaps they simply couldn't fathom stopping the battle until one side or the other had been obliterated, couldn't bear to face the undone reality of their homes and focused singlemindedly on a single simple task that had been set in front of them. Again, it didn't matter. The end result was the same, and the bodies continued to pile up at the feet of the colossal monument to everything that had plagued the plateau since the contestants had arrived.
In truth, it could not be said that none of the warring tribesmen had noticed Ur's intended interventions; one woman, already worried that her carefully-laid plans had been reduced to immateriality, had seen what none other seemed to have. It was, for her, the last sign she needed. The village she had carefully infiltrated and bent to her will was no longer a viable tool. They couldn't even be persuaded to see what was right in front of their faces, and they were useless to her. Carefully avoiding drawing notice from the green apparition trying to tear the armies apart – although she needn't have bothered – she crept away. It seemed that more and more of her theoretical rivals were gathering near the stadium, so the best place to be would be far away when they inevitably destroyed each other. She crept behind an outcropping of gargantuan plant life, blurred, and was gone.
As Ur watched her children so singlemindedly destroying one another, her heart broke. A part of her, something that felt old, and dark, a part of her she could never remember having before her time in exile from the plateau, rejoiced to see their bloodshed and urged her to add to the carnage, but it was easily ignored and shoved out of sight. If she focused, it was as though it wasn't there at all. She pushed it down and reached out again to the fighters, tears welling up behind her eyepieces. They rebuffed her again, destroying her bonds as quickly as she created them. Something made her feel as though there was more she could be doing, that she had more power than this, but... She knew her domain was only over the plants that grew from the earth. Right? No amount of curling vines could restrain this raw, bloody passion.
Behind her, the village that had taken her for their matron huddled even closer together. As much as they rejoiced to have her back, it terrified them to see her so powerless to save their fellow man. She could feel their fear, their disappointment, their worry. It bored into her like a drill, made it harder to ignore the part of her that wanted to burn the entire plateau. No, she wouldn't...
"No!"
She shrieked denial, eventually devolving into wordless shouts of anger and grief. She waded into the morass of rapidly-dwindling warriors, tearing them apart with her hands and throwing them clear of the melee, but it simply wasn't enough. They'd charge back in and begin hacking each other apart again, and for every one she pulled free of the fray three more would have died in the time it took. There was nothing she could do, it seemed, but... She wouldn't let this happen! She wouldn't let her return be for nothing, wouldn't have her presence and the presence of those that had followed her be the thing that finally destroyed the home she had loved so much.
She just... She needed some kind of grand gesture, something that would finally draw their attention from the fighting. Something she could manage with her powers that wouldn't simply be torn to pieces in seconds.
She glared up at the stadium. It was a symbol of everything that had tainted her ancestral home. Perhaps it was even the literal source of all the troubles, or housed whatever the source was. She could certainly feel the waves of unbalanced balance washing out from it, could see the way it changed the world by its presence. But what... could...
And then her eyes trailed downwards. The sunball stadium was surely too high, too large, too well-protected.
But it was balanced on top of an enormous plant.
The thought occurred to her and she immediately recoiled. But think of all the people that could fit in a building that size! That probably were in there! That were probably contributing to the destruction of the plateau. That were reveling as they looked down here and saw the other villages tearing each other apart.
Well... She couldn't be certain that... And the destruction of the stadium would certainly draw the attention of the survivors down here. There was no way they could keep fighting as the stalk collapsed and the stadium fell. Even if nothing else, they'd have to flee, and she could stop their violence once they were broken up.
Without consciously realizing that she'd been having a conversation with herself, Ur made decision. The stadium was the cause of everything going wrong, the cause of the fighting. She had to destroy it. It was her duty as the steward of this world's life. And as it crumbled, she'd take the surviving warriors to herself and show them how they'd been corrupted.
Serenely, she gestured to her followers to stay were they were and hovered through the battlefield. Fighters unconsciously avoided her, formed a bubble around her as she approached the stalk. It was all so obvious. Why hadn't she simply done this sooner?
Two minds as one, she rested her face and hands against the green pillar of plant matter. She exhaled gently, took a step back, and thrust her fist deep into the vine. It withered instantly, browning and blackening and beginning to crumble and rot with a terrifying goraning. As she'd hoped, the sounds of battle began to die around her and horrified faces turned towards the dying stalk.
"You see?" She bellowed. "This is what your violence has wrought! Flee your folly, or die beneath it!"
---
Far above, too high to hear the sounds of fighting men or dying plants, the sensation of the stadium wobbling was easily written off as just another effect of whatever was causing reality to warp so much.
In a world where time and distance and reality had no interest in behaving contiguously to one another, it's probably immaterial at best and nonsensical at worst to describe the journey Amala's devotees and their newly returned goddess took. It could have been endless or lasted only moments, but the end result was the same: a small, huddled group of terrified but hopeful mystics crowding behind Ur and staring up at an impossibly-huge beanstalk and the neo-primitive baseball stadium it supported. More salient, but harder to look at, was the real reason they had trudged so far: the battle that still raged at the beanstalk's feet, a bloodbath of proportions hitherto inconceivable to the staid inhabitants of the eternity plateau, one that shifted constantly between conflicting scenarios as Balance's broken influence rained down on the world.
There was no break in the fighting as Ur and her followers arrived, nor any quarter given as she and they loudly called for parley. Even when she struck the ground, causing vines and trunks to burst forth from cracked soil and entangle the warriors, they simply hacked at their restraints and returned to their violence. It was possible the beings locked in mortal combat were no longer the people they once were, or even people at all, having been reduced by the splintering continuity that had so long sustained them to mindless thralls of the bloody impulses Phil and Balance had introduced to them. Or perhaps they simply couldn't fathom stopping the battle until one side or the other had been obliterated, couldn't bear to face the undone reality of their homes and focused singlemindedly on a single simple task that had been set in front of them. Again, it didn't matter. The end result was the same, and the bodies continued to pile up at the feet of the colossal monument to everything that had plagued the plateau since the contestants had arrived.
In truth, it could not be said that none of the warring tribesmen had noticed Ur's intended interventions; one woman, already worried that her carefully-laid plans had been reduced to immateriality, had seen what none other seemed to have. It was, for her, the last sign she needed. The village she had carefully infiltrated and bent to her will was no longer a viable tool. They couldn't even be persuaded to see what was right in front of their faces, and they were useless to her. Carefully avoiding drawing notice from the green apparition trying to tear the armies apart – although she needn't have bothered – she crept away. It seemed that more and more of her theoretical rivals were gathering near the stadium, so the best place to be would be far away when they inevitably destroyed each other. She crept behind an outcropping of gargantuan plant life, blurred, and was gone.
As Ur watched her children so singlemindedly destroying one another, her heart broke. A part of her, something that felt old, and dark, a part of her she could never remember having before her time in exile from the plateau, rejoiced to see their bloodshed and urged her to add to the carnage, but it was easily ignored and shoved out of sight. If she focused, it was as though it wasn't there at all. She pushed it down and reached out again to the fighters, tears welling up behind her eyepieces. They rebuffed her again, destroying her bonds as quickly as she created them. Something made her feel as though there was more she could be doing, that she had more power than this, but... She knew her domain was only over the plants that grew from the earth. Right? No amount of curling vines could restrain this raw, bloody passion.
Behind her, the village that had taken her for their matron huddled even closer together. As much as they rejoiced to have her back, it terrified them to see her so powerless to save their fellow man. She could feel their fear, their disappointment, their worry. It bored into her like a drill, made it harder to ignore the part of her that wanted to burn the entire plateau. No, she wouldn't...
"No!"
She shrieked denial, eventually devolving into wordless shouts of anger and grief. She waded into the morass of rapidly-dwindling warriors, tearing them apart with her hands and throwing them clear of the melee, but it simply wasn't enough. They'd charge back in and begin hacking each other apart again, and for every one she pulled free of the fray three more would have died in the time it took. There was nothing she could do, it seemed, but... She wouldn't let this happen! She wouldn't let her return be for nothing, wouldn't have her presence and the presence of those that had followed her be the thing that finally destroyed the home she had loved so much.
She just... She needed some kind of grand gesture, something that would finally draw their attention from the fighting. Something she could manage with her powers that wouldn't simply be torn to pieces in seconds.
She glared up at the stadium. It was a symbol of everything that had tainted her ancestral home. Perhaps it was even the literal source of all the troubles, or housed whatever the source was. She could certainly feel the waves of unbalanced balance washing out from it, could see the way it changed the world by its presence. But what... could...
And then her eyes trailed downwards. The sunball stadium was surely too high, too large, too well-protected.
But it was balanced on top of an enormous plant.
The thought occurred to her and she immediately recoiled. But think of all the people that could fit in a building that size! That probably were in there! That were probably contributing to the destruction of the plateau. That were reveling as they looked down here and saw the other villages tearing each other apart.
Well... She couldn't be certain that... And the destruction of the stadium would certainly draw the attention of the survivors down here. There was no way they could keep fighting as the stalk collapsed and the stadium fell. Even if nothing else, they'd have to flee, and she could stop their violence once they were broken up.
Without consciously realizing that she'd been having a conversation with herself, Ur made decision. The stadium was the cause of everything going wrong, the cause of the fighting. She had to destroy it. It was her duty as the steward of this world's life. And as it crumbled, she'd take the surviving warriors to herself and show them how they'd been corrupted.
Serenely, she gestured to her followers to stay were they were and hovered through the battlefield. Fighters unconsciously avoided her, formed a bubble around her as she approached the stalk. It was all so obvious. Why hadn't she simply done this sooner?
Two minds as one, she rested her face and hands against the green pillar of plant matter. She exhaled gently, took a step back, and thrust her fist deep into the vine. It withered instantly, browning and blackening and beginning to crumble and rot with a terrifying goraning. As she'd hoped, the sounds of battle began to die around her and horrified faces turned towards the dying stalk.
"You see?" She bellowed. "This is what your violence has wrought! Flee your folly, or die beneath it!"
---
Far above, too high to hear the sounds of fighting men or dying plants, the sensation of the stadium wobbling was easily written off as just another effect of whatever was causing reality to warp so much.