Re: Intense Struggle Season 2! (Round 3: Castle Suterrea)
07-08-2011, 08:14 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.
Karen gracefully leapt across fallen debris that had once served as ceilings and floors in the ancient hallways. This part of the castle was a lot for furbished than the decrepit dungeon she had started in. To her left, where she had seen Lillian retreat was a wooden door with iron hinges. To think that the little girl would be surprised by a change of eye colour after all she had seen in the battle already. Karen began walking down the hall as Lloyd finally hauled himself up. On both sides of the wall, large, golden framed mirrors hung. Karen briefly offered a side glance at them, but stopped in her tracks. Her eyes, which she had just assumed had changed the colour of her iris, like she was used to seeing in the player killers in her game, but instead her eyes actually glowed, illuminatingly bright crimson. What caused her reaction to be so severe was a mystery to her, and her hand automatically felt the area around her eyes. She fed a little of her magic into her hand, attempting to do something to decrease the brightness. She whished she had some sort of interface to work with, but this she felt was like a “hardcore” setting. She recoiled from the thought, once again she was thinking about a deadly setting like a videogame. Those thoughts were dangerous.
When she lifted her hand, her eyes no longer glowed with as much fierceness, yet the iris remained pretty bright. It was good enough, she thought. It was only until the period of her being a “fair kill” ran out. She decided that the nature of what her eye colour meant was a pretty important fact to omit to anyone who asked. She risked a glance at Lloyd, who was silently complaining about something. She briefly wondered what it was like to go from a word and imagination game to physical reality when a shape appeared in the distance behind him. It took Karen a second to realize it was Sarika. She raised her arm, hoping Sarika would notice, when she remembered that if Sarika was going to notice, she’d have done so before even needing to try to get her attention. Or something like that. Karen never really bothered working her head around it. She just usually decided to do or not do something that Sarika had seen depending on her mood. Sarika did notice eventually, and began jogging towards them. She stopped a few feet from Lloyd, and peered over the large gap in the floor, seemingly taken aback.
“Hey Sarika, I was wondering when you would catch up.”
“Oh, hey, uh, what happened to the floor… and the ceiling and oh my word….” Her goggled eyes peered upwards to find the image of the sky where ceiling should be.
“Nothing much, giant monster, immune to my magic, had to break a lot of stuff. The usual, but I got a new sword out of it.” She, twisted slightly, allowing the huge blade barely managing to balance in its black leather sheath to show off. Sarika edged across what little of the floor still left hanging from the walls to join to duo.
“Oh, we also saw Lillian, but…” Karen stopped talking, but Lloyd, quiet as he was, continued the sentence for her.
“But she ran away after seeing Karen.”
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So her name is Karen. She has destroyed my home, bested the Argent One, and stolen its sword. I’ll kill her, and her annoying companions too. Sister, you saw a girl enter did you not?
Yes.
So that must be this “Lillian”
The male is Marcus it seems.
No need to name him, you have the upper hand.
Yes, sister.
The interlopers must die. I’ll make sure this girl doesn’t interfere with your fight, and then I’ll kill the pointy eared one.
This Marcus didn’t believe I killed the feathered one.
Denial, most likely.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“So that leaves Marcus and Reudic unaccounted for.” She surmised, turning once more to face the doorway. The mimic quickly closed the distance between them, intending to just run her through with one strike, but Karen pivoted on her foot a lot faster than she expected. Suddenly her face was mere inches away from her own, that silent, tired looking eye gazed back at it. The eye showed no emotion, just indifference. But the mimic could see more, behind the eye. While her sister saw images, she saw words, emotions and sometimes raw thought. Karen’s mind was far from silent. One part of her mind was complaining of the pain in her body, another focusing on her replenishing supply of “magic”, another telling her that she had the physical reserves to move for quite some time, she even knew just how much money she was carrying to the smallest currency. The mimic threw these thoughts aside before they threatened to deafen her mind. It reached out deeper to siphon Karen’s current personal thoughts. She was remembering something recent, and a mixture of surprise, loneliness, and joy surfaced from it. Was it to do with the person it was imitating? With no chance to attack with Karen able to react so fast, she plummeted into her body. Karen grabbed at its shoulders, but it leaned onto her, almost hugging. Lloyd raised an eyebrow at this but said nothing. The mimic gave off a quick apology, but delved deeper into Karen’s mind. There, again the same mixture of emotions that she had felt from her memory. Her heartbeat quickened. So this Karen was a shy girl after all, even with her brave demeanour. But something else occurred in Karen’s mind. A revelation. Suddenly her shy excitement turned into a battle ready one.
The mimic drew back enough to look into Karen’s face, which was no longer masking her emotions. She was angry, and with her eyes blazing, she struck fear into the mimic.
“You weigh too much. Sarika wouldn’t have tripped. You are not her.”
Throwing away the plan, the mimic rammed its arm into Karen’s belly, having already made use of the metallic shape of the arm to form a clawed deadly version that would rip out the girl’s organs. It impacted, and just as it tried to tear away at the flash, merely scraped the cloth of her dress, and heard a metallic scraping noise from underneath.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Karen was holding onto a fake. A creature of the world. A copycat. Sarika was featherweight but this thing weighed more than Karen did. It had assumed the metal arms were made of iron, a much heavier metal than Sarika had. It also hadn’t copied the bird like anatomy of her perfectly. It also didn’t know of her future-sight. And now it was trying to kill her. Karen was glad she kept the small amount of armour under her clothes hidden because it had just saved her life. There was nothing but some chainmail around her torso and the embarrassing looking thing that served as her lower armour. It revealed so much of her legs that she wore the dress over it. The sexism with the warrior class had always annoyed her. They looked like hot-pants for crying out loud. Practical for running sure but there was no chance she was letting anyone know they were there.
With the chain keeping her organs in their proper place, she had to get the mimic away. It was too close to draw her sword, too close for fire too. So Karen planted her feet and performed an uppercut while covering her fist in stone. She punched the mimic in the chin with a horrible breaking noise, and leapt back when it fell away. She couldn’t remember much of the abilities of her brawler class, too many patches and skill changes in the game she never took note of. But she definitely remembered all the fighting moves her mother had taught her. As the mimic regained its footing Lloyd thrust his palm out, sending a strong pulse of magic, launching the mimic off of its feet and sending it crashing through the wooden doorway. Karen nodded a quick thanks to Lloyd before drawing her sword. She rushed through the doorway, and stood shocked to see not only the mimic and Lillian, but Marcus and an unknown female present as well. Marcus seemed to take the commotion better than the rest and tossed a knife upwards and caught the blade before he threw it at the girl. She stepped to the side, keeping her eyes on the knife as he drew his pistol. By the time she recovered the gun was level. She managed to slip out of his sights as he pulled the trigger, a bullet streaming across the room. As it connected in the far wall Karen charged the mimic, who was taking a new form. By the time Karen had taken a second step it had taken the form of a young blonde woman, who was both beautiful and strong looking. Karen didn’t even flinch as she brought the sword down on the creature that dared to take the form of her mother. The mimic shifted its shape to something thinner as it barely missed being cleaved. Karen’s sword didn’t collide with the floor as she stopped its momentum with her powerful arms. As the mimic attempted to claw at her she brought her arm up, bringing a pillar of flame between herself and it. It drew back, surprised, and Karen spun her body around, giving her sword a wide arc to build speed. It came down once more from above, once more barely missing the monster. Karen had no time to focus on Marcus as she began to realise she didn’t have the tools for the job. She planted her right foot and twisted her body around, throwing her sword in a horizontal spin towards a point in the room that could both hit the mimic and miss her ally’s. The mimic ducked low, letting the huge blade pass over its head, but soon found Karen holding a katana. She had drawn it at the last second, and was already striking. It came down across the shoulders of the mimic, causing it to shriek in pain. It looked her in the eye, focused, angry. Suddenly, the girl that Marcus was fighting was thrown into its path, and they collided. Karen saw her begin to change shape, and she realised that they had both been mimics. Marcus had drawn his shotgun and was pointing it directly at them.
“I wouldn’t move if I were you. At this range I don’t even have to aim. These are some very special bullets after all.”
The mimics shared a look with each other, and remained still.
“So, what’s the deal here exactly?”
“Hungry”The mimic that Karen hadn’t met answered. Karen decided to name it Tulip for her own sake.
“And you’re fresh”replied Francesca. No, maybe Cecelia. Or Natalie?
“You eat humans. That’s gross. Now tell me truthfully this time, what did you do with the feathered girl?”
“Like I said, she’s dead!” Laughed Tulip (Rosemary?), “And she was delicious, I kept some around to cook for supper.”
Lloyd decided it was finally safe to enter, and clapped his hands merrily.
“Well this has shaped up nicely. Ah, there she goes,” He motioned at Lillian, still hiding under a table. “A little distracted thanks to our heroine, but finally our venture finds us in pleasant company. You can probably come out now, strength in numbers and all that.”
“I agree.”
As the new voice sang out, the trio of contestants turned their heads. Lloyd was the closest, having just entered the door. A long fingered red hand wrapped around his head, and threw him to the floor several feet away. Marcus turned his gun, which was grabbed before he could shoot and hoisted into the air, and by proxy so was he. He received a lanky kick to the gut, which caused him to drop to his knees. Karen had the best look at the tall creature. It was wrinkly, red, and had some sort of elongated snout on its face. Two large and hollow looking eyes turned to her. Karen didn’t rush the creature, instead she tried to leap over the mimics to get to Lillian. Something stopped her mid-flight. The new arrival had simply extended her (Karen could now see it had a feminine figure) hand and Karen had stopped. And with just the flick of this hand, she was catapulted into the wall. She felt the air get knocked out of her lungs as she collapsed on the floor. Her hand gripped the carpet as she rose her head in defiance.
“I can see why you two had such trouble. These… guests seem different than the rabble of old.”
Karen saw Lloyd rise to his feet and try to fire a small meteorite at the red figure. With its palm raised it simply batted the rock into the wall. Marcus too got up and tried to stab at its abdomen. She grabbed his arm while launching Lloyd into a statuette. Karen found this interesting. She too rose to her feet, but felt a huge weight crash down on her and she smacked against the floor. She still managed to resist enough to glare at it. She heard the mimics mutter something about a “mother” and put the pieces together in her head. One big happy monster family. However, something then occurred that even Sarika probably couldn’t have seen happen.
“Geddof them!” Yelled a screaming bloody mess of feathers as it leapt onto the red creatures back .
As its attention was diverted, Marcus did two things. First he slid his sidearm towards Lloyd. Second was that his knife was sliding towards Karen. The mimic matriarch flicked its lanky fingers at Sarika, who was launched off and sort of bounced off the floor. Marcus tried to tackle her while it blew the gun out of its trajectory. Karen managed to get a grip on the knife and was jumping to her feet, her other hand already summoning a ball of fire. She threw both at the same time, hiding the knife behind the fire. She managed to mask it as one action, and when the fire was deflected the knife wedged into its hand. She scowled in pain, and was knocked off balance when a large shard of ice impaled into its foot. Suddenly vastly outnumbered the matriarch’s daughters rose to join the fight, but Lloyd managed to throw them back to the floor. Suddenly, there was a massive brawl in the room, one fought with teeth (Sarika), nails (Tulip(?)), claw (damn I forgot the other’s name-mimic), fist (Karen), magic (Lloyd), telekinesis (matriarch) and an assortment of close quarters combat techniques (Marcus).
And Lillian was watching it all.
Karen gracefully leapt across fallen debris that had once served as ceilings and floors in the ancient hallways. This part of the castle was a lot for furbished than the decrepit dungeon she had started in. To her left, where she had seen Lillian retreat was a wooden door with iron hinges. To think that the little girl would be surprised by a change of eye colour after all she had seen in the battle already. Karen began walking down the hall as Lloyd finally hauled himself up. On both sides of the wall, large, golden framed mirrors hung. Karen briefly offered a side glance at them, but stopped in her tracks. Her eyes, which she had just assumed had changed the colour of her iris, like she was used to seeing in the player killers in her game, but instead her eyes actually glowed, illuminatingly bright crimson. What caused her reaction to be so severe was a mystery to her, and her hand automatically felt the area around her eyes. She fed a little of her magic into her hand, attempting to do something to decrease the brightness. She whished she had some sort of interface to work with, but this she felt was like a “hardcore” setting. She recoiled from the thought, once again she was thinking about a deadly setting like a videogame. Those thoughts were dangerous.
When she lifted her hand, her eyes no longer glowed with as much fierceness, yet the iris remained pretty bright. It was good enough, she thought. It was only until the period of her being a “fair kill” ran out. She decided that the nature of what her eye colour meant was a pretty important fact to omit to anyone who asked. She risked a glance at Lloyd, who was silently complaining about something. She briefly wondered what it was like to go from a word and imagination game to physical reality when a shape appeared in the distance behind him. It took Karen a second to realize it was Sarika. She raised her arm, hoping Sarika would notice, when she remembered that if Sarika was going to notice, she’d have done so before even needing to try to get her attention. Or something like that. Karen never really bothered working her head around it. She just usually decided to do or not do something that Sarika had seen depending on her mood. Sarika did notice eventually, and began jogging towards them. She stopped a few feet from Lloyd, and peered over the large gap in the floor, seemingly taken aback.
“Hey Sarika, I was wondering when you would catch up.”
“Oh, hey, uh, what happened to the floor… and the ceiling and oh my word….” Her goggled eyes peered upwards to find the image of the sky where ceiling should be.
“Nothing much, giant monster, immune to my magic, had to break a lot of stuff. The usual, but I got a new sword out of it.” She, twisted slightly, allowing the huge blade barely managing to balance in its black leather sheath to show off. Sarika edged across what little of the floor still left hanging from the walls to join to duo.
“Oh, we also saw Lillian, but…” Karen stopped talking, but Lloyd, quiet as he was, continued the sentence for her.
“But she ran away after seeing Karen.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So her name is Karen. She has destroyed my home, bested the Argent One, and stolen its sword. I’ll kill her, and her annoying companions too. Sister, you saw a girl enter did you not?
Yes.
So that must be this “Lillian”
The male is Marcus it seems.
No need to name him, you have the upper hand.
Yes, sister.
The interlopers must die. I’ll make sure this girl doesn’t interfere with your fight, and then I’ll kill the pointy eared one.
This Marcus didn’t believe I killed the feathered one.
Denial, most likely.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“So that leaves Marcus and Reudic unaccounted for.” She surmised, turning once more to face the doorway. The mimic quickly closed the distance between them, intending to just run her through with one strike, but Karen pivoted on her foot a lot faster than she expected. Suddenly her face was mere inches away from her own, that silent, tired looking eye gazed back at it. The eye showed no emotion, just indifference. But the mimic could see more, behind the eye. While her sister saw images, she saw words, emotions and sometimes raw thought. Karen’s mind was far from silent. One part of her mind was complaining of the pain in her body, another focusing on her replenishing supply of “magic”, another telling her that she had the physical reserves to move for quite some time, she even knew just how much money she was carrying to the smallest currency. The mimic threw these thoughts aside before they threatened to deafen her mind. It reached out deeper to siphon Karen’s current personal thoughts. She was remembering something recent, and a mixture of surprise, loneliness, and joy surfaced from it. Was it to do with the person it was imitating? With no chance to attack with Karen able to react so fast, she plummeted into her body. Karen grabbed at its shoulders, but it leaned onto her, almost hugging. Lloyd raised an eyebrow at this but said nothing. The mimic gave off a quick apology, but delved deeper into Karen’s mind. There, again the same mixture of emotions that she had felt from her memory. Her heartbeat quickened. So this Karen was a shy girl after all, even with her brave demeanour. But something else occurred in Karen’s mind. A revelation. Suddenly her shy excitement turned into a battle ready one.
The mimic drew back enough to look into Karen’s face, which was no longer masking her emotions. She was angry, and with her eyes blazing, she struck fear into the mimic.
“You weigh too much. Sarika wouldn’t have tripped. You are not her.”
Throwing away the plan, the mimic rammed its arm into Karen’s belly, having already made use of the metallic shape of the arm to form a clawed deadly version that would rip out the girl’s organs. It impacted, and just as it tried to tear away at the flash, merely scraped the cloth of her dress, and heard a metallic scraping noise from underneath.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Karen was holding onto a fake. A creature of the world. A copycat. Sarika was featherweight but this thing weighed more than Karen did. It had assumed the metal arms were made of iron, a much heavier metal than Sarika had. It also hadn’t copied the bird like anatomy of her perfectly. It also didn’t know of her future-sight. And now it was trying to kill her. Karen was glad she kept the small amount of armour under her clothes hidden because it had just saved her life. There was nothing but some chainmail around her torso and the embarrassing looking thing that served as her lower armour. It revealed so much of her legs that she wore the dress over it. The sexism with the warrior class had always annoyed her. They looked like hot-pants for crying out loud. Practical for running sure but there was no chance she was letting anyone know they were there.
With the chain keeping her organs in their proper place, she had to get the mimic away. It was too close to draw her sword, too close for fire too. So Karen planted her feet and performed an uppercut while covering her fist in stone. She punched the mimic in the chin with a horrible breaking noise, and leapt back when it fell away. She couldn’t remember much of the abilities of her brawler class, too many patches and skill changes in the game she never took note of. But she definitely remembered all the fighting moves her mother had taught her. As the mimic regained its footing Lloyd thrust his palm out, sending a strong pulse of magic, launching the mimic off of its feet and sending it crashing through the wooden doorway. Karen nodded a quick thanks to Lloyd before drawing her sword. She rushed through the doorway, and stood shocked to see not only the mimic and Lillian, but Marcus and an unknown female present as well. Marcus seemed to take the commotion better than the rest and tossed a knife upwards and caught the blade before he threw it at the girl. She stepped to the side, keeping her eyes on the knife as he drew his pistol. By the time she recovered the gun was level. She managed to slip out of his sights as he pulled the trigger, a bullet streaming across the room. As it connected in the far wall Karen charged the mimic, who was taking a new form. By the time Karen had taken a second step it had taken the form of a young blonde woman, who was both beautiful and strong looking. Karen didn’t even flinch as she brought the sword down on the creature that dared to take the form of her mother. The mimic shifted its shape to something thinner as it barely missed being cleaved. Karen’s sword didn’t collide with the floor as she stopped its momentum with her powerful arms. As the mimic attempted to claw at her she brought her arm up, bringing a pillar of flame between herself and it. It drew back, surprised, and Karen spun her body around, giving her sword a wide arc to build speed. It came down once more from above, once more barely missing the monster. Karen had no time to focus on Marcus as she began to realise she didn’t have the tools for the job. She planted her right foot and twisted her body around, throwing her sword in a horizontal spin towards a point in the room that could both hit the mimic and miss her ally’s. The mimic ducked low, letting the huge blade pass over its head, but soon found Karen holding a katana. She had drawn it at the last second, and was already striking. It came down across the shoulders of the mimic, causing it to shriek in pain. It looked her in the eye, focused, angry. Suddenly, the girl that Marcus was fighting was thrown into its path, and they collided. Karen saw her begin to change shape, and she realised that they had both been mimics. Marcus had drawn his shotgun and was pointing it directly at them.
“I wouldn’t move if I were you. At this range I don’t even have to aim. These are some very special bullets after all.”
The mimics shared a look with each other, and remained still.
“So, what’s the deal here exactly?”
“Hungry”The mimic that Karen hadn’t met answered. Karen decided to name it Tulip for her own sake.
“And you’re fresh”replied Francesca. No, maybe Cecelia. Or Natalie?
“You eat humans. That’s gross. Now tell me truthfully this time, what did you do with the feathered girl?”
“Like I said, she’s dead!” Laughed Tulip (Rosemary?), “And she was delicious, I kept some around to cook for supper.”
Lloyd decided it was finally safe to enter, and clapped his hands merrily.
“Well this has shaped up nicely. Ah, there she goes,” He motioned at Lillian, still hiding under a table. “A little distracted thanks to our heroine, but finally our venture finds us in pleasant company. You can probably come out now, strength in numbers and all that.”
“I agree.”
As the new voice sang out, the trio of contestants turned their heads. Lloyd was the closest, having just entered the door. A long fingered red hand wrapped around his head, and threw him to the floor several feet away. Marcus turned his gun, which was grabbed before he could shoot and hoisted into the air, and by proxy so was he. He received a lanky kick to the gut, which caused him to drop to his knees. Karen had the best look at the tall creature. It was wrinkly, red, and had some sort of elongated snout on its face. Two large and hollow looking eyes turned to her. Karen didn’t rush the creature, instead she tried to leap over the mimics to get to Lillian. Something stopped her mid-flight. The new arrival had simply extended her (Karen could now see it had a feminine figure) hand and Karen had stopped. And with just the flick of this hand, she was catapulted into the wall. She felt the air get knocked out of her lungs as she collapsed on the floor. Her hand gripped the carpet as she rose her head in defiance.
“I can see why you two had such trouble. These… guests seem different than the rabble of old.”
Karen saw Lloyd rise to his feet and try to fire a small meteorite at the red figure. With its palm raised it simply batted the rock into the wall. Marcus too got up and tried to stab at its abdomen. She grabbed his arm while launching Lloyd into a statuette. Karen found this interesting. She too rose to her feet, but felt a huge weight crash down on her and she smacked against the floor. She still managed to resist enough to glare at it. She heard the mimics mutter something about a “mother” and put the pieces together in her head. One big happy monster family. However, something then occurred that even Sarika probably couldn’t have seen happen.
“Geddof them!” Yelled a screaming bloody mess of feathers as it leapt onto the red creatures back .
As its attention was diverted, Marcus did two things. First he slid his sidearm towards Lloyd. Second was that his knife was sliding towards Karen. The mimic matriarch flicked its lanky fingers at Sarika, who was launched off and sort of bounced off the floor. Marcus tried to tackle her while it blew the gun out of its trajectory. Karen managed to get a grip on the knife and was jumping to her feet, her other hand already summoning a ball of fire. She threw both at the same time, hiding the knife behind the fire. She managed to mask it as one action, and when the fire was deflected the knife wedged into its hand. She scowled in pain, and was knocked off balance when a large shard of ice impaled into its foot. Suddenly vastly outnumbered the matriarch’s daughters rose to join the fight, but Lloyd managed to throw them back to the floor. Suddenly, there was a massive brawl in the room, one fought with teeth (Sarika), nails (Tulip(?)), claw (damn I forgot the other’s name-mimic), fist (Karen), magic (Lloyd), telekinesis (matriarch) and an assortment of close quarters combat techniques (Marcus).
And Lillian was watching it all.