Re: The Battle Majestic (Round 2 - Firestar)
03-12-2010, 11:53 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.
Purpose burned bright in a nothing-like dream. Newborn form named Magog found the ways of rule-changing in dreams to be the same as rule-changing in life. He was awoken from self-abhorrence by the fact. His dream-essence fought first the very nature of dreams; he found it fruitless. It fought second the limitations of itself; this, too, he found fruitless for the time being. Finally, he recreated, in the dream-state, the world as it unfolded in the awake-state to observe his place in it from outside. It pained him because this was not Chaos, but it was not real and thus did not destroy him.
Magog watched as unborn formless unnamed was born, formed, and named Magog. He watched as the form slept. He watched as time passed and the shape of the order around him continued to progress in logical patterns. He watched himself, in sleep, watch himself. He recognized that he was dreaming, and his dream was dreaming, on and on in a spiral, and so he must be a dream also.
The dreamer woke the dream, and was likewise woken. Magog became unbound. The spiral unraveled. He recognized himself, and he recognized the order defined by his boundaries. He found the boundaries and broke them. Order-shapes, conscious and purposed, assaulted him from across space, but he broke them too. He broke their consciousness, he broke their purpose, and he broke their physical forms. He found the order inside to be complex enough to resemble chaos, so he consumed it and it gave him joy.
Then something else broke the boundary.
Magog reeled at the onslaught of new Chaos, brought by its mere existence. This was Chaos born of another Order. This was Chaos bearing a new form. This was Chaos of another name.
That name was Vex, but not for much longer.
In desperation, Magog tried to shape the order around it to allow them both to exist, even as he was whittled away to the size of a hand and half-forearm. He partially succeeded. His boundaries broke, as did the boundaries of the last piece of Vex. They were fused together and re-formed as one.
New-formed Chaos was then given a new name.
In this, he thought Blitz was overreacting. All of it. He was making it sound like he was plotting the downfall of everyone, instead of some recreation to pass the time while the others got on with the business of killing each other.
Mohea, at hearing the unidentifiable chattering cease, started in immediately. "Who is he?" she asked immediately. One of the women braced her weapon and pointed it in the man's direction.
Vexmagog's mind rolled over the possibilities for responses and the content of Blitz's outburst simultaneously. I may not be "myself" right now. A recognition that no one wants to deal with, but we have to keep our mind open to it. And Blitz... we don't want the natives attacking him, or some of the others for that matter. Perhaps we can turn them against Sen, Wolf, John, and away from Blitz, Jacob... perhaps Steven. He sighed quietly as his train of thought backtracked over itself. Not we. I. I should calm the native's fears, not turn them against others among us.
Vexmagog adopted a concerned expression and began a difficult process. He sent the ideas he meant to convey to the women into Mohea's brain, extracted the resultant sounds, spoke them to the huntresses. As he spoke, he sent the ideas he meant to convey to Blitz through his brain, extracted the resultant sounds, and altered the sound of his voice in Blitz's ears to match them. All the while, he was tugging at the strings of the women's emotions, subtly curving them in his favor, and preventing the overwhelming stench of burning air from hitting them all. It was mentally taxing, and he was restricted to conveying simple ideas or slowing down. He passed it off as thoughtfulness and emotion.
"Do not worry about him. Please, let us walk down the beach while I explain this to you," he said to the women. "The chances of escaping from this island are slim," said the sounds to Blitz. They all began to walk down the beach, though some of the women took worried glances back at the waving glass arms. Blitz followed along to Vexmagog's right, between him and the water."I have been fighting these devils for many years. They must take a body to do harm."
"I thought we should kill Sen and move on. He seemed least helpful."
"Before I was tricked and imprisoned by the devils, I gave my protection against them to all born on this island. This man is named Blitz, and he is from another world. Though he did not know the good that he did at the time, his bravery in this distant place inadvertently both aided in my release and alerted the devils to other worlds my protection does not cover. The seven devils that remained took Blitz and six others to this island to take their bodies."
"I apologize if Magog's influence frightened you. I admit I gave in a bit more than I would have liked to. I think it will diminish now, and we are now walking down the beach so it does not have time to accumulate. The arms will wither and crumble after some time in my absence, most likely. Please understand I still feel we should make any attempt possible to escape, but I felt if someone had to die to facilitate that, it should be Sen."
Vexmagog continued along the beach with his impromptu party. His hand-feet found his normal method of fingertip walking unfeasible on the sand, and resorted to taking his steps palm-down, sinking slightly into the warm grains with each footfall.
"I followed them here to stop their plans. I have granted my protection to Blitz and Lihar, the creature in the sand. They already had begun to corrupt the other animal, the green one called Sen. We should find it immediately and make sure the corruption did not hold. Please do not kill any of them unless the corruption takes full control. The devils will simply find another creature from another world to bring here."
"From what this woman has told me, this tribe worships several gods. Some people born here can use a certain drug to communicate with these gods, at a loss of their ability to deal with the real world. These people are always men, and a certain woman is designated shaman whose job it is to interpret the information these men provide. S must have made these men tell the shaman we were here to end the world."
Vexmagog's voice was calm and reassuring as he continued to spin his web for the women. After all, he had been perfecting the art of lying for thousands of years.
"They do not speak your language, but I can understand theirs and interpret for you. We should find the other five so I can give them my protection. I would also like to speak with your shaman. We may be able to rally the other gods to rid the worlds of these devils at last. There are now only six left."
"I am telling them that I am a god, and that you are all victims in my war with body-stealing devils. I am saying the devils are the ones the shaman was talking about, and they brought you all here to have bodies to take. There were seven, and I just 'killed' one in an illusion."
Mohea spoke up next. Vexmagog's subtle mind alteration he had been applying steadily to the crowd had been working its magic as he spoke, and he could tell that he was, at the very least, now considered a trustworthy source of information. "Then we will gather the other warriors," she replied, "And take you to our temple." She smiled and took his hand, luckily being the left one. He realized he would have to fit the arm into this false mythology somehow in the future to prevent any mishaps. Some dead lumps of charred black were itching to be peeled free on his right. "I think they pursued two of the others into the jungle this way," she said, gesturing to the jungle on their right. He took the opportunity to close the gap between them a bit. "And..." she trailed off and looked down. Vexmagog contained the smirk that was itching to spread across his face as he watched Mohea's pupils dilate, her dark cheeks darken further. "...Thank you for protecting us." Another woman smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. Vexmagog saw Blitz trying to suppress an expression, but was not yet well-versed enough in human facial nuances to identify it. He merely smiled.
Purpose burned bright in a nothing-like dream. Newborn form named Magog found the ways of rule-changing in dreams to be the same as rule-changing in life. He was awoken from self-abhorrence by the fact. His dream-essence fought first the very nature of dreams; he found it fruitless. It fought second the limitations of itself; this, too, he found fruitless for the time being. Finally, he recreated, in the dream-state, the world as it unfolded in the awake-state to observe his place in it from outside. It pained him because this was not Chaos, but it was not real and thus did not destroy him.
Magog watched as unborn formless unnamed was born, formed, and named Magog. He watched as the form slept. He watched as time passed and the shape of the order around him continued to progress in logical patterns. He watched himself, in sleep, watch himself. He recognized that he was dreaming, and his dream was dreaming, on and on in a spiral, and so he must be a dream also.
The dreamer woke the dream, and was likewise woken. Magog became unbound. The spiral unraveled. He recognized himself, and he recognized the order defined by his boundaries. He found the boundaries and broke them. Order-shapes, conscious and purposed, assaulted him from across space, but he broke them too. He broke their consciousness, he broke their purpose, and he broke their physical forms. He found the order inside to be complex enough to resemble chaos, so he consumed it and it gave him joy.
Then something else broke the boundary.
Magog reeled at the onslaught of new Chaos, brought by its mere existence. This was Chaos born of another Order. This was Chaos bearing a new form. This was Chaos of another name.
That name was Vex, but not for much longer.
In desperation, Magog tried to shape the order around it to allow them both to exist, even as he was whittled away to the size of a hand and half-forearm. He partially succeeded. His boundaries broke, as did the boundaries of the last piece of Vex. They were fused together and re-formed as one.
New-formed Chaos was then given a new name.
_______________________
[color=#FF0000]Vex. Whatever you're planning...don't do it. You'll regret it. I know these women don't know what I'm saying, so I can't warn them about you. But you can hear me. You can understand me. So please. I know you're mad that Alex was killed; we all are. But that doesn't mean you have to do this. It doesn't mean you need to lose control." Vexmagog's eye twitched slightly as his mind regretfully chewed on the one nugget of truth in that diatribe, as overblown as he found the sentiment to be. "Please, Vex. I know we barely know each-other, but...you've been the single voice of reason since this thing started. You're someone I trust. But this? I don't trust this. I want to talk to you...not this thing you've become. Come back."In this, he thought Blitz was overreacting. All of it. He was making it sound like he was plotting the downfall of everyone, instead of some recreation to pass the time while the others got on with the business of killing each other.
Mohea, at hearing the unidentifiable chattering cease, started in immediately. "Who is he?" she asked immediately. One of the women braced her weapon and pointed it in the man's direction.
Vexmagog's mind rolled over the possibilities for responses and the content of Blitz's outburst simultaneously. I may not be "myself" right now. A recognition that no one wants to deal with, but we have to keep our mind open to it. And Blitz... we don't want the natives attacking him, or some of the others for that matter. Perhaps we can turn them against Sen, Wolf, John, and away from Blitz, Jacob... perhaps Steven. He sighed quietly as his train of thought backtracked over itself. Not we. I. I should calm the native's fears, not turn them against others among us.
Vexmagog adopted a concerned expression and began a difficult process. He sent the ideas he meant to convey to the women into Mohea's brain, extracted the resultant sounds, spoke them to the huntresses. As he spoke, he sent the ideas he meant to convey to Blitz through his brain, extracted the resultant sounds, and altered the sound of his voice in Blitz's ears to match them. All the while, he was tugging at the strings of the women's emotions, subtly curving them in his favor, and preventing the overwhelming stench of burning air from hitting them all. It was mentally taxing, and he was restricted to conveying simple ideas or slowing down. He passed it off as thoughtfulness and emotion.
"Do not worry about him. Please, let us walk down the beach while I explain this to you," he said to the women. "The chances of escaping from this island are slim," said the sounds to Blitz. They all began to walk down the beach, though some of the women took worried glances back at the waving glass arms. Blitz followed along to Vexmagog's right, between him and the water."I have been fighting these devils for many years. They must take a body to do harm."
"I thought we should kill Sen and move on. He seemed least helpful."
"Before I was tricked and imprisoned by the devils, I gave my protection against them to all born on this island. This man is named Blitz, and he is from another world. Though he did not know the good that he did at the time, his bravery in this distant place inadvertently both aided in my release and alerted the devils to other worlds my protection does not cover. The seven devils that remained took Blitz and six others to this island to take their bodies."
"I apologize if Magog's influence frightened you. I admit I gave in a bit more than I would have liked to. I think it will diminish now, and we are now walking down the beach so it does not have time to accumulate. The arms will wither and crumble after some time in my absence, most likely. Please understand I still feel we should make any attempt possible to escape, but I felt if someone had to die to facilitate that, it should be Sen."
Vexmagog continued along the beach with his impromptu party. His hand-feet found his normal method of fingertip walking unfeasible on the sand, and resorted to taking his steps palm-down, sinking slightly into the warm grains with each footfall.
"I followed them here to stop their plans. I have granted my protection to Blitz and Lihar, the creature in the sand. They already had begun to corrupt the other animal, the green one called Sen. We should find it immediately and make sure the corruption did not hold. Please do not kill any of them unless the corruption takes full control. The devils will simply find another creature from another world to bring here."
"From what this woman has told me, this tribe worships several gods. Some people born here can use a certain drug to communicate with these gods, at a loss of their ability to deal with the real world. These people are always men, and a certain woman is designated shaman whose job it is to interpret the information these men provide. S must have made these men tell the shaman we were here to end the world."
Vexmagog's voice was calm and reassuring as he continued to spin his web for the women. After all, he had been perfecting the art of lying for thousands of years.
"They do not speak your language, but I can understand theirs and interpret for you. We should find the other five so I can give them my protection. I would also like to speak with your shaman. We may be able to rally the other gods to rid the worlds of these devils at last. There are now only six left."
"I am telling them that I am a god, and that you are all victims in my war with body-stealing devils. I am saying the devils are the ones the shaman was talking about, and they brought you all here to have bodies to take. There were seven, and I just 'killed' one in an illusion."
Mohea spoke up next. Vexmagog's subtle mind alteration he had been applying steadily to the crowd had been working its magic as he spoke, and he could tell that he was, at the very least, now considered a trustworthy source of information. "Then we will gather the other warriors," she replied, "And take you to our temple." She smiled and took his hand, luckily being the left one. He realized he would have to fit the arm into this false mythology somehow in the future to prevent any mishaps. Some dead lumps of charred black were itching to be peeled free on his right. "I think they pursued two of the others into the jungle this way," she said, gesturing to the jungle on their right. He took the opportunity to close the gap between them a bit. "And..." she trailed off and looked down. Vexmagog contained the smirk that was itching to spread across his face as he watched Mohea's pupils dilate, her dark cheeks darken further. "...Thank you for protecting us." Another woman smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. Vexmagog saw Blitz trying to suppress an expression, but was not yet well-versed enough in human facial nuances to identify it. He merely smiled.