Re: Intense Struggle Season 2! (Round 3: Castle Suterrea)
09-30-2011, 12:38 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by GreyGabe.
---On Board the ISV Timber Wolf, In Orbit around Menouthis IV, Approx. 7 Standard Hours After Captain Marcus White's Disappearance---
"I'm telling you, he just disappeared!"
"People don't 'just disappear!'"
"Tell him that. Oh wait! You can't. Because he disappeared."
Van Owen cursed and slammed his hands down on the table. They'd been going over all of this for hours, checking surveillance footage, checking scanner readings, arguing, and generally accomplishing nothing.
Rodriguez and Benson both swore that he had just vanished in a flash of light, right as they were gearing up for their mission. The camera footage wasn't much help. The recording went to snow for a few seconds, and suddenly the boss was gone. There weren't any unusual readings on any of the ships instruments, plus they'd run over the whole ship with a spectrograph, a Geiger counter, hell, even a goddamn thermometer and nothing was even slightly out of the ordinary.
"We need to call in someone," Rodriguez said, for the fifth time that day.
"Who are we gonna call?" snapped Silverson, from her spot in the corner. She began speaking in an exaggeratedly deep voice, mocking Rodriguez's origin planet accent. "'Oh hey is this Imperial Fleet Dispatch? I'd like to report a man vanishing in a flash of light from my armory.'"
"Okay."
She continued, ignoring him. "'What's that? Why yes, there is a history of mental illness in my family! Do you think that there might be some connection?'"
"Enough!" Van Owen glared at her until she fell silent, still smirking. "I don't know what to do, okay? We'll keep running scans, and we'll hold this orbit for a few days, but if he doesn't turn up... I'm going to have to declare him MIA."
The others frowned, avoiding Van Owen's gaze.
"Alright," He said, standing up. "We're going to go over the whole ship, top to bottom. Grab your portable scanners, and check for any anomalous readings. Move it!"
---
While Karen had been distracted by the acquisition of her sword, Marcus had quickly taken the chance to snag a few choice bits of treasure for himself. After all, what was the point of killing the dragon -- or watching it be killed -- if one couldn’t take some of its treasure? A few gold coins here, a large jewel there… he quickly decided that a crown was too bulky to carry or to wear, and the ornate battle-axe probably wouldn’t be all that good in a real fight… but what was this? A scepter of some sort? It didn’t really look like a scepter though, it was far too thin, and didn’t have that bulb on the end like the ones he had seen in pictures. Maybe it was a wand? It looked pretty valuable, anyway; a thin length of wood covered with gold filigree and tipped with a large ruby. Shrugging, he shoved it into a handy pouch with the rest of his loot and slipped back over to stand by the others, who either hadn’t noticed his side trip or had chosen to ignore it.
Karen finished testing the balance of her blade and joined the group, moving through a door opposite the one they had entered. They were in a long corridor, now, that stretched away into darkness. Lloyd lit the way with some sort of magical whatsit, while the rest clustered around him. Their footfalls seemed to be muffled, and when anyone chanced to speak, they found their voices oddly dampened.
Marcus was not, on the whole, a man prone to flights of fancy or an overactive imagination, but he began to feel a deep sense of foreboding, and a feeling almost of being watched. He imagined he could see things, just beyond the reach of the glowing light emitting from Lloyd’s upraised hand… but when he would look closer, nothing would be there.
Suddenly, all light was lost as Lloyd’s spell winked out. There was much muttered cursing and shifting about before a new light came on with a click.
<font color="#400080">“How long have you had that flashlight?”
"Uh… the whole time.”
“And you’re just now using it?”
Marcus mumbled something about batteries as he fumbled with the light, finally managing to clip it to Retribution’s side.
“Anyway, now we see the truth.”
“Hmm?”
“Your primitive hocus pocus magical whatever is no match for good old modern technology.”
Ignoring the rolling of eyes and shrugging of shoulders, Marcus took point, walking slowly and making sure to shine his light carefully over the floor and into any dark corners.
“Anyway, why did your light go out?”
“No real reason, I just thought I saw something. Lost my concentration.”
…
“Did you hear something?”
“What?”
“Listen! It’s kind of like growling and yelling. Hear it?”
“Just barely… sounds like it’s coming from straight ahead.”
A short time later the group found themselves at a door. The noises emanated from the other side. The door was an ugly affair, darkly stained wood carved with a plethora of leering, demonic faces whose eyes seemed to glitter dully in the dim light. Marcus didn’t take too long to admire them before leveling a kick straight at the latch. The wood splintered, and another kick granted them entry.
It was a chaotic scene that greeted them. Reudic and the last of the shapeshifters were wrestling with one another, though Reudic seemed to have the upper hand at the moment. Lillian lay a few feet away, a vine wrapped around her throat, struggling weakly. Sarika wasted no time shouldering past the others, staggering to grab Lillian and try to pull her away from the constricting vines. In response, Reudic began pulling her towards the center of his mass, dragging Sarika along with her. Marcus leapt to grab the bird girl, while Karen stepped forward and swung down with her blade, severing the vines holding the child. Marcus yanked Sarika and Lillian back, while Karen stepped nimbly out of the way of a vine sent lashing her way.
Lloyd leaned over Lillian, who seemed to labor for each breath, despite the absence of the choking vine. And was that smoke coming from her mouth? Karen covered them, slashing at any creeping plant matter that tried to dart past her.
Marcus had other things to worry about. Most of Reudic’s attention was focused on the still thrashing, biting creature stuck in its grasp (apparently his drugs weren’t having as much of an effect as they usually did, though the creature did seem to be slowing down). But that state of affairs wouldn’t last much longer. Marcus reached down towards his belt.
Lloyd slapped him on the shoulder.
“What!?”
“Bracelet! The girl needs her bracelet! Over there.”
Lloyd pointed to a corner, which of course was very close to Reudic’s mass of tendrils.
“Why?”
“Primitive hocus pocus. Just get it!”
Karen tossed a fireball towards Reudic, who reacted with surprising alacrity. He shifted the limply struggling form of the shapeshifter to take the brunt of the blast, causing the creature to screech in pain and begin thrashing once more. Marcus nearly felt sorry for her. He tried to edge around Reudic to get to the errant piece of jewelery, but every time he got close a vine darted to slash at him, the thorns dripping with drugs or poisons. Growling, Marcus grabbed his last incendiary grenade from his belt, intending to finish Reudic once and for all, since the overgrown shrub seemed disinclined to reopen reasonable discourse.
As Marcus brought the grenade up to pull the pin with his teeth, a loud bellowing roar sounded out, seemingly from everywhere at once. The sound seemed to knock the wind from him, causing him to grunt in pain and fall to his knees. The grenade slipped from loose fingers, still inert. He managed to keep hold of Retribution only through intense effort.
Around the room, the others were suffering similarly, all except for the shapeshifter, who crowed with laughter, ignoring her cuts and burns and a dozen drugs coursing through her veins.
“HE COMES,” she screeched, “HE COMES TO FEED AND TO BRING OUR NEW SISTER INTO HER SECOND LIFE!”
The roar tapered off, leaving Marcus drained and gasping for air. He slumped sideways, barely keeping himself from sprawling onto the floor. The others weren’t much better off. From somewhere not too far off, a loud rumbling began, as if something long dormant were stirring into life. Something very, very big.
Marcus suddenly wished that he could be practically anywhere else in the multiverse.</font>
---On Board the ISV Timber Wolf, In Orbit around Menouthis IV, Approx. 7 Standard Hours After Captain Marcus White's Disappearance---
"I'm telling you, he just disappeared!"
"People don't 'just disappear!'"
"Tell him that. Oh wait! You can't. Because he disappeared."
Van Owen cursed and slammed his hands down on the table. They'd been going over all of this for hours, checking surveillance footage, checking scanner readings, arguing, and generally accomplishing nothing.
Rodriguez and Benson both swore that he had just vanished in a flash of light, right as they were gearing up for their mission. The camera footage wasn't much help. The recording went to snow for a few seconds, and suddenly the boss was gone. There weren't any unusual readings on any of the ships instruments, plus they'd run over the whole ship with a spectrograph, a Geiger counter, hell, even a goddamn thermometer and nothing was even slightly out of the ordinary.
"We need to call in someone," Rodriguez said, for the fifth time that day.
"Who are we gonna call?" snapped Silverson, from her spot in the corner. She began speaking in an exaggeratedly deep voice, mocking Rodriguez's origin planet accent. "'Oh hey is this Imperial Fleet Dispatch? I'd like to report a man vanishing in a flash of light from my armory.'"
"Okay."
She continued, ignoring him. "'What's that? Why yes, there is a history of mental illness in my family! Do you think that there might be some connection?'"
"Enough!" Van Owen glared at her until she fell silent, still smirking. "I don't know what to do, okay? We'll keep running scans, and we'll hold this orbit for a few days, but if he doesn't turn up... I'm going to have to declare him MIA."
The others frowned, avoiding Van Owen's gaze.
"Alright," He said, standing up. "We're going to go over the whole ship, top to bottom. Grab your portable scanners, and check for any anomalous readings. Move it!"
---
While Karen had been distracted by the acquisition of her sword, Marcus had quickly taken the chance to snag a few choice bits of treasure for himself. After all, what was the point of killing the dragon -- or watching it be killed -- if one couldn’t take some of its treasure? A few gold coins here, a large jewel there… he quickly decided that a crown was too bulky to carry or to wear, and the ornate battle-axe probably wouldn’t be all that good in a real fight… but what was this? A scepter of some sort? It didn’t really look like a scepter though, it was far too thin, and didn’t have that bulb on the end like the ones he had seen in pictures. Maybe it was a wand? It looked pretty valuable, anyway; a thin length of wood covered with gold filigree and tipped with a large ruby. Shrugging, he shoved it into a handy pouch with the rest of his loot and slipped back over to stand by the others, who either hadn’t noticed his side trip or had chosen to ignore it.
Karen finished testing the balance of her blade and joined the group, moving through a door opposite the one they had entered. They were in a long corridor, now, that stretched away into darkness. Lloyd lit the way with some sort of magical whatsit, while the rest clustered around him. Their footfalls seemed to be muffled, and when anyone chanced to speak, they found their voices oddly dampened.
Marcus was not, on the whole, a man prone to flights of fancy or an overactive imagination, but he began to feel a deep sense of foreboding, and a feeling almost of being watched. He imagined he could see things, just beyond the reach of the glowing light emitting from Lloyd’s upraised hand… but when he would look closer, nothing would be there.
Suddenly, all light was lost as Lloyd’s spell winked out. There was much muttered cursing and shifting about before a new light came on with a click.
<font color="#400080">“How long have you had that flashlight?”
"Uh… the whole time.”
“And you’re just now using it?”
Marcus mumbled something about batteries as he fumbled with the light, finally managing to clip it to Retribution’s side.
“Anyway, now we see the truth.”
“Hmm?”
“Your primitive hocus pocus magical whatever is no match for good old modern technology.”
Ignoring the rolling of eyes and shrugging of shoulders, Marcus took point, walking slowly and making sure to shine his light carefully over the floor and into any dark corners.
“Anyway, why did your light go out?”
“No real reason, I just thought I saw something. Lost my concentration.”
…
“Did you hear something?”
“What?”
“Listen! It’s kind of like growling and yelling. Hear it?”
“Just barely… sounds like it’s coming from straight ahead.”
A short time later the group found themselves at a door. The noises emanated from the other side. The door was an ugly affair, darkly stained wood carved with a plethora of leering, demonic faces whose eyes seemed to glitter dully in the dim light. Marcus didn’t take too long to admire them before leveling a kick straight at the latch. The wood splintered, and another kick granted them entry.
It was a chaotic scene that greeted them. Reudic and the last of the shapeshifters were wrestling with one another, though Reudic seemed to have the upper hand at the moment. Lillian lay a few feet away, a vine wrapped around her throat, struggling weakly. Sarika wasted no time shouldering past the others, staggering to grab Lillian and try to pull her away from the constricting vines. In response, Reudic began pulling her towards the center of his mass, dragging Sarika along with her. Marcus leapt to grab the bird girl, while Karen stepped forward and swung down with her blade, severing the vines holding the child. Marcus yanked Sarika and Lillian back, while Karen stepped nimbly out of the way of a vine sent lashing her way.
Lloyd leaned over Lillian, who seemed to labor for each breath, despite the absence of the choking vine. And was that smoke coming from her mouth? Karen covered them, slashing at any creeping plant matter that tried to dart past her.
Marcus had other things to worry about. Most of Reudic’s attention was focused on the still thrashing, biting creature stuck in its grasp (apparently his drugs weren’t having as much of an effect as they usually did, though the creature did seem to be slowing down). But that state of affairs wouldn’t last much longer. Marcus reached down towards his belt.
Lloyd slapped him on the shoulder.
“What!?”
“Bracelet! The girl needs her bracelet! Over there.”
Lloyd pointed to a corner, which of course was very close to Reudic’s mass of tendrils.
“Why?”
“Primitive hocus pocus. Just get it!”
Karen tossed a fireball towards Reudic, who reacted with surprising alacrity. He shifted the limply struggling form of the shapeshifter to take the brunt of the blast, causing the creature to screech in pain and begin thrashing once more. Marcus nearly felt sorry for her. He tried to edge around Reudic to get to the errant piece of jewelery, but every time he got close a vine darted to slash at him, the thorns dripping with drugs or poisons. Growling, Marcus grabbed his last incendiary grenade from his belt, intending to finish Reudic once and for all, since the overgrown shrub seemed disinclined to reopen reasonable discourse.
As Marcus brought the grenade up to pull the pin with his teeth, a loud bellowing roar sounded out, seemingly from everywhere at once. The sound seemed to knock the wind from him, causing him to grunt in pain and fall to his knees. The grenade slipped from loose fingers, still inert. He managed to keep hold of Retribution only through intense effort.
Around the room, the others were suffering similarly, all except for the shapeshifter, who crowed with laughter, ignoring her cuts and burns and a dozen drugs coursing through her veins.
“HE COMES,” she screeched, “HE COMES TO FEED AND TO BRING OUR NEW SISTER INTO HER SECOND LIFE!”
The roar tapered off, leaving Marcus drained and gasping for air. He slumped sideways, barely keeping himself from sprawling onto the floor. The others weren’t much better off. From somewhere not too far off, a loud rumbling began, as if something long dormant were stirring into life. Something very, very big.
Marcus suddenly wished that he could be practically anywhere else in the multiverse.</font>