Re: Mini-Grand 5112 [Round One: Artificer's Alley]
01-24-2013, 02:01 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Anthano Zasalla.
Where in all hell am I?
That was the second thing Ada thought. The first thing was something along the lines of FUCK PAPER.
She squinted at the thin trickle of blood running down her middle finger. Then she almost brought it to her mouth, before remembering some med-school kid telling her she shouldn't swallow blood or suck at wounds. Swallowing blood is bad in general, he'd said. And your lipstick might irritate it. Then she did it anyway. She never wore lipstick. Smartass.
She gripped the gauntlet covering most of her right arm. She knew she couldn't let a papercut get to her. Not now. What had that obnoxious voice said? Fight amongst yourselves? Ah, yes. And when one of you chaps end up dying...
Holy hell, she thought. What a fucking toolbox.
For the first time she looked up from her stinging hand and found herself in an enormous and particularly ornate lecture hall. Fitting, she thought with a grimace. The first thing she did when she entered a classroom she wasn't supposed to be in was to find some kind of schedule. Just professional courtesy. Or maybe she just hated interacting with other professors.
Sure enough, there was a piece of paper-- no, parchment. That was odd-- but it read that the first class in this room started at 7:15 A.M., sharp. She glanced at the watch on her gauntlet. 00:10, it read. No help there. She'd have to find some alternative.
But as she began to take in the details of the room she realized something was off. There were arrayed desks facing a wide blackboard covered with chalk smears of lessons past, and that would have been fine were it not for the ridiculous models hanging from the ceiling and the outlandish diagrams on the walls. To make matters worse, strewn about were strangely organic phials and tubes which looked closer to components of a hamster playground than to honest-to-goodness scientific equipment. On one side of the expansive room was a long bookshelf filled with every size and shape of tome. The Properties and Utility of Electrum, she read. Liquid Alchemy. Annotated History of Alchemy, Volume III. Practical Application of Alchemy...
Ada groaned. What is this, a fucking theme park?
It finally occurred to her that there was a giant translucent paned window on one wall. It was nearly as wide as the room was long, and dull sunbeams of a lazy summer morning filtered through in some places where the window was transparent. She strode fiercely to where the view outside was clear.
This...this isn't a theme park.
Off in the distance, across a Victorian cityscape just beginning to wake up, she saw an old behemoth of a belltower stir to life.
One, two, three... seven times. It rang seven times.
Shit.
Where in all hell am I?
That was the second thing Ada thought. The first thing was something along the lines of FUCK PAPER.
She squinted at the thin trickle of blood running down her middle finger. Then she almost brought it to her mouth, before remembering some med-school kid telling her she shouldn't swallow blood or suck at wounds. Swallowing blood is bad in general, he'd said. And your lipstick might irritate it. Then she did it anyway. She never wore lipstick. Smartass.
She gripped the gauntlet covering most of her right arm. She knew she couldn't let a papercut get to her. Not now. What had that obnoxious voice said? Fight amongst yourselves? Ah, yes. And when one of you chaps end up dying...
Holy hell, she thought. What a fucking toolbox.
For the first time she looked up from her stinging hand and found herself in an enormous and particularly ornate lecture hall. Fitting, she thought with a grimace. The first thing she did when she entered a classroom she wasn't supposed to be in was to find some kind of schedule. Just professional courtesy. Or maybe she just hated interacting with other professors.
Sure enough, there was a piece of paper-- no, parchment. That was odd-- but it read that the first class in this room started at 7:15 A.M., sharp. She glanced at the watch on her gauntlet. 00:10, it read. No help there. She'd have to find some alternative.
But as she began to take in the details of the room she realized something was off. There were arrayed desks facing a wide blackboard covered with chalk smears of lessons past, and that would have been fine were it not for the ridiculous models hanging from the ceiling and the outlandish diagrams on the walls. To make matters worse, strewn about were strangely organic phials and tubes which looked closer to components of a hamster playground than to honest-to-goodness scientific equipment. On one side of the expansive room was a long bookshelf filled with every size and shape of tome. The Properties and Utility of Electrum, she read. Liquid Alchemy. Annotated History of Alchemy, Volume III. Practical Application of Alchemy...
Ada groaned. What is this, a fucking theme park?
It finally occurred to her that there was a giant translucent paned window on one wall. It was nearly as wide as the room was long, and dull sunbeams of a lazy summer morning filtered through in some places where the window was transparent. She strode fiercely to where the view outside was clear.
This...this isn't a theme park.
Off in the distance, across a Victorian cityscape just beginning to wake up, she saw an old behemoth of a belltower stir to life.
One, two, three... seven times. It rang seven times.
Shit.