Re: The Vivacious Deadlock: S3G6: Round One: Genreshift
07-26-2011, 08:24 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.
Cascala cursed to herself as the howling winds whipped her dress to and fro. She'd lost it. The only other contestant she'd seen in this whole damned city since she'd been dropped here, and she'd lost it. It had been hard enough to follow the flitting, black shape in the darkness and through the rain, but once it had started zig-zagging and doubling back and disappearing into houses and warehouses, tracking it had simply become impossible. Even with failure inevitable, it grated painfully on Cascala's pride and her heavily-repressed fears regarding this battle.
She was standing on her cloud above a large group of warehouses, any one of which could have hidden her quarry. Or, more likely, none of which did, and the little shadow creature hoped she would waste her time searching through them while it slithered through some sewer or alley somewhere. There was simply no good way to proceed: if she scoured the warehouses, the monster would inevitably slip farther away; if she didn't, chances were that whatever direction she picked to go, the shadow would pick another. It was becoming clear that in an arena as large as this one, victory wouldn't go to the most powerful combatant, but to the one with the most information and ability to find others. Cascala suppressed more nagging thoughts fixating on her fellow Grand Magi and how they would have handled this situation, and focused instead on the target that had been introduced as Empress Phere. Hadn't she been said to have some kind of special ability to see whatever she wanted? That was becoming more and more worrisome.
With a shake of her head, the weather-witch dismissed that line of thought too. Hypotheticals got her no closer to her marks, and standing above the city, framed by lightning bolts and lost in her own musings, made her an easy target for any of the other contestants that were more combative than the fleeing shadebeast had been. She allowed herself a small smile as she glanced up at the weeping sky; even if the other seven spent their time hiding or fleeing, she would still come out victorious. Every passing minute brought her inevitable victory closer. It wouldn't be an hour before a hurricane of unfathomable proportions descended upon the dark city, at which point no amount of ducking and weaving would save anyone.
In an instant, she resolved to search the warehouses rather than waffle about on her cloud. While her inky adversary had almost certainly disappeared from their depths, there was always the chance that it hadn't, or that another contestant would serendipitously be taking cover from the rain inside. At the very least, it was more productive than brooding in midair. Cascala began to descend, striding purposefully on her cloud.
---
Elsewhere, a festering hand slipped a black-and-red bookmark into a thick book. It slammed the Tome shut with a satisfying thump, and the world rippled with the closing.
---
The already-black sky somehow darkened further; the thunderbolts that had already been flashing with ever-increasing frequency redoubled their efforts; an obscuring fog crept out of the streets that were suddenly mostly cobbles, in spite of the downpour. Overall, the atmosphere was doing its best to be as ominous and threatening as possible.
All of this was lost on Cascala. The same force that had acted on her surroundings had acted on her; however, while things like thunderstorms don't have to worry about very much, suddenly having your nature and powers change can be very startling to a human being in midair. Cascala's ostentation blues and golds became figure-hugging corsetry and evening wear in black with red accents; her staff retreated into an ankh-shaped amulet engraved with eldritch symbols; her incisors ceased being teeth and became fangs; and, most importantly, her command of water and air evaporated, leaving her plummeting towards the roofs below.
The instant of disorientation that came with a genre shift had been more than enough to seemingly doom the magus cum vampire. Even her indomitable will and new undeathly austerity weren't enough to hold back a scream as she fell; it seemed that despite all her training and ability, she would not only die, but be the first one to do so, and all because of a stupid coincidence.
And then, as the spires of the newly-horrorized city rushed up to meet her, she realized how foolish she was being. Not only would something as mundane as a fall fail to kill her, even from this height, she could do this. With a thought, she discorporated, dissolving into an oily cloud of mist. She drifted lazily to the ground in her new gaseous form, reforming in the lee of a peaked roof. A predatory smile crossed her now-plump, sanguine lips; she could smell humans nearby, and she could hear the beating of a small handful of hearts. Shadow monsters be damned; there would be time to hunt them down later, and the rest of those pathetic excuses for battlers too. For now, there were more important urges to tend to.
Cascala, who had to try very hard not to refer to herself as Contessa, breathed in slowly, tasting the air and listening for her prey. With the lightning-fast calculations of a hungry hunter, she deduced their locations within the warehouses, then faded once again into mist. She seeped under a nearby door, near-invisible and radiating no heat; even those sensors who had survived the technological regression that came with the genre would be completely unable to detect her entry or movement through the gang's base. Cascala of course had no way of knowing about the sensors, or even conscious consideration of the possibility that such might have existed inside; she was simply acting on instinct, stealthily drawing closer to her next meal with all the panache and canniness that came with unlife.
Inside, the little cloud of gas crept along the floor, across walls, and over crates. It occasionally stopped to swirl curiously around some relic of the cyberneticists' fanaticism, but was mostly an implacable and silent avatar of hungry determination. The only disadvantage to her mist form was a distinct lack of speed; this wasn't much in the way of a problem, though: if there was anything that came with undeath, it was patience. If she had to glide through a handful of buildings at a pace approaching a somnambulist's, well, all that did was make the eventual bite that much more satisfying.
---
After her conversations with her underlings, Phere was determined to get her surgery posthaste. There was simply no telling when things would change and leave her without the opportunities she had now, so the sooner she was under the knife and the less time she spent that way, the better. She shut off her radio, barked a few orders, and in under two minutes was drifting off under a precisely-measured dose of anesthetic. Even with the new genre in effect, her gang was dangerously proficient with technology; there was no reason to put anything off until the tome could be controlled.
She had no way of knowing how much time had passed when she awoke, but even through drug-blearied eye, she could tell little had changed. It probably hadn't been long; Syn had assured her that the actual installation itself wouldn't be very complicated, and in fact reiterated that assurance when it became clear she was conscious. No complications, he told her. Or something that sounded like that, at any rate; she was still somewhat addled by the fading narcotics.
Phere sat up, then insisted on standing. Her knees objected, but stayed firm as long as she kept a hand on a nearby crate. Good, it looked like she was as hale as ever; she'd be back to her ordinary, commanding self as soon as the anesthesia wore off, with the added benefit of the communications device. With that thought...
" Alright, Syn, tell me how to use this thing."
It had taken all of her self-control, but she'd managed the sentence without slurring. The surgeon rubbed his chin for a few moments, then said "Well, first I'll need to run some diagnostics and install the power source. It was too dangerous to put it in live. Let me get a few tools and I'll get you finished."
Syn bustled off into another room; Phere took the opportunity to sit back down on the operating table, her Hollow scanning for the Tome. Satisfaction built in her chest as she watched her servants fetch the powerful artifact, then plummeted as that artifact was knocked into some grate. Moments after her startled gasp, another puff of air escaped her lungs as something barreled into her from behind.
---
Contessa had been zeroing in on– no, Cascala had been zeroing in on a pair of beating hearts; they were the nearest prey to her, and judging from the sluggishness of one's beating, half of the pair was asleep or unconscious. Easy pickings. When she entered the large room her targets were in, she only failed to smile wickedly due to not having a mouth. Not only were there a pair of unaware humans, but one of them was Phere herself! It was a delightful two birds with one stone situation. The fact that Phere was the unconscious one was icing on the already-serendipitous cake.
The cloud of vampiric mist drifted closer; it was a little disappointing when Phere sat up, but all that meant was a little more stealth would be necessary. She reformed in the cover of some kind of suit of armor (that had been a prototype exosuit before the Tome had rewritten the world) and watched. Phere talked to the other human for a brief time, leaning all the while on some crates. Cascala's hungry grin became a satisfied smile once again when the man shuffled away, leaving Phere alone and clearly weak.
With an inaudible swishing of silk, Cascala stalked out of the shadows, fangs bared threateningly. Sharp-nailed fingers stretched out towards the helpless empress as she drew level, and an eager tongue slid across quivering lips. With unnatural silence, Cascala mounted the operating table and lunged towards Phere.
---
Elsewhere, a book slammed against a wall; its pages fluttered as it fell, and a bookmark pinwheeled away, dislodged from its place between two unreadable pages. The world rippled again as the Tome slid into the sewer.
---
Cascala, who was once again firmly Cascala, found herself sapped of her inhuman agility and stealth. She also found that she had no compulsion, or even the ability, to drain blood from helpless humans. She, and Phere moments thereafter, found her predator's lunge transformed into an academic's stumble. Both women sprawled in a heap on the floor, and Cascala's staff clattered away from them.
Cascala cursed to herself as the howling winds whipped her dress to and fro. She'd lost it. The only other contestant she'd seen in this whole damned city since she'd been dropped here, and she'd lost it. It had been hard enough to follow the flitting, black shape in the darkness and through the rain, but once it had started zig-zagging and doubling back and disappearing into houses and warehouses, tracking it had simply become impossible. Even with failure inevitable, it grated painfully on Cascala's pride and her heavily-repressed fears regarding this battle.
She was standing on her cloud above a large group of warehouses, any one of which could have hidden her quarry. Or, more likely, none of which did, and the little shadow creature hoped she would waste her time searching through them while it slithered through some sewer or alley somewhere. There was simply no good way to proceed: if she scoured the warehouses, the monster would inevitably slip farther away; if she didn't, chances were that whatever direction she picked to go, the shadow would pick another. It was becoming clear that in an arena as large as this one, victory wouldn't go to the most powerful combatant, but to the one with the most information and ability to find others. Cascala suppressed more nagging thoughts fixating on her fellow Grand Magi and how they would have handled this situation, and focused instead on the target that had been introduced as Empress Phere. Hadn't she been said to have some kind of special ability to see whatever she wanted? That was becoming more and more worrisome.
With a shake of her head, the weather-witch dismissed that line of thought too. Hypotheticals got her no closer to her marks, and standing above the city, framed by lightning bolts and lost in her own musings, made her an easy target for any of the other contestants that were more combative than the fleeing shadebeast had been. She allowed herself a small smile as she glanced up at the weeping sky; even if the other seven spent their time hiding or fleeing, she would still come out victorious. Every passing minute brought her inevitable victory closer. It wouldn't be an hour before a hurricane of unfathomable proportions descended upon the dark city, at which point no amount of ducking and weaving would save anyone.
In an instant, she resolved to search the warehouses rather than waffle about on her cloud. While her inky adversary had almost certainly disappeared from their depths, there was always the chance that it hadn't, or that another contestant would serendipitously be taking cover from the rain inside. At the very least, it was more productive than brooding in midair. Cascala began to descend, striding purposefully on her cloud.
---
Elsewhere, a festering hand slipped a black-and-red bookmark into a thick book. It slammed the Tome shut with a satisfying thump, and the world rippled with the closing.
---
The already-black sky somehow darkened further; the thunderbolts that had already been flashing with ever-increasing frequency redoubled their efforts; an obscuring fog crept out of the streets that were suddenly mostly cobbles, in spite of the downpour. Overall, the atmosphere was doing its best to be as ominous and threatening as possible.
All of this was lost on Cascala. The same force that had acted on her surroundings had acted on her; however, while things like thunderstorms don't have to worry about very much, suddenly having your nature and powers change can be very startling to a human being in midair. Cascala's ostentation blues and golds became figure-hugging corsetry and evening wear in black with red accents; her staff retreated into an ankh-shaped amulet engraved with eldritch symbols; her incisors ceased being teeth and became fangs; and, most importantly, her command of water and air evaporated, leaving her plummeting towards the roofs below.
The instant of disorientation that came with a genre shift had been more than enough to seemingly doom the magus cum vampire. Even her indomitable will and new undeathly austerity weren't enough to hold back a scream as she fell; it seemed that despite all her training and ability, she would not only die, but be the first one to do so, and all because of a stupid coincidence.
And then, as the spires of the newly-horrorized city rushed up to meet her, she realized how foolish she was being. Not only would something as mundane as a fall fail to kill her, even from this height, she could do this. With a thought, she discorporated, dissolving into an oily cloud of mist. She drifted lazily to the ground in her new gaseous form, reforming in the lee of a peaked roof. A predatory smile crossed her now-plump, sanguine lips; she could smell humans nearby, and she could hear the beating of a small handful of hearts. Shadow monsters be damned; there would be time to hunt them down later, and the rest of those pathetic excuses for battlers too. For now, there were more important urges to tend to.
Cascala, who had to try very hard not to refer to herself as Contessa, breathed in slowly, tasting the air and listening for her prey. With the lightning-fast calculations of a hungry hunter, she deduced their locations within the warehouses, then faded once again into mist. She seeped under a nearby door, near-invisible and radiating no heat; even those sensors who had survived the technological regression that came with the genre would be completely unable to detect her entry or movement through the gang's base. Cascala of course had no way of knowing about the sensors, or even conscious consideration of the possibility that such might have existed inside; she was simply acting on instinct, stealthily drawing closer to her next meal with all the panache and canniness that came with unlife.
Inside, the little cloud of gas crept along the floor, across walls, and over crates. It occasionally stopped to swirl curiously around some relic of the cyberneticists' fanaticism, but was mostly an implacable and silent avatar of hungry determination. The only disadvantage to her mist form was a distinct lack of speed; this wasn't much in the way of a problem, though: if there was anything that came with undeath, it was patience. If she had to glide through a handful of buildings at a pace approaching a somnambulist's, well, all that did was make the eventual bite that much more satisfying.
---
After her conversations with her underlings, Phere was determined to get her surgery posthaste. There was simply no telling when things would change and leave her without the opportunities she had now, so the sooner she was under the knife and the less time she spent that way, the better. She shut off her radio, barked a few orders, and in under two minutes was drifting off under a precisely-measured dose of anesthetic. Even with the new genre in effect, her gang was dangerously proficient with technology; there was no reason to put anything off until the tome could be controlled.
She had no way of knowing how much time had passed when she awoke, but even through drug-blearied eye, she could tell little had changed. It probably hadn't been long; Syn had assured her that the actual installation itself wouldn't be very complicated, and in fact reiterated that assurance when it became clear she was conscious. No complications, he told her. Or something that sounded like that, at any rate; she was still somewhat addled by the fading narcotics.
Phere sat up, then insisted on standing. Her knees objected, but stayed firm as long as she kept a hand on a nearby crate. Good, it looked like she was as hale as ever; she'd be back to her ordinary, commanding self as soon as the anesthesia wore off, with the added benefit of the communications device. With that thought...
" Alright, Syn, tell me how to use this thing."
It had taken all of her self-control, but she'd managed the sentence without slurring. The surgeon rubbed his chin for a few moments, then said "Well, first I'll need to run some diagnostics and install the power source. It was too dangerous to put it in live. Let me get a few tools and I'll get you finished."
Syn bustled off into another room; Phere took the opportunity to sit back down on the operating table, her Hollow scanning for the Tome. Satisfaction built in her chest as she watched her servants fetch the powerful artifact, then plummeted as that artifact was knocked into some grate. Moments after her startled gasp, another puff of air escaped her lungs as something barreled into her from behind.
---
Contessa had been zeroing in on– no, Cascala had been zeroing in on a pair of beating hearts; they were the nearest prey to her, and judging from the sluggishness of one's beating, half of the pair was asleep or unconscious. Easy pickings. When she entered the large room her targets were in, she only failed to smile wickedly due to not having a mouth. Not only were there a pair of unaware humans, but one of them was Phere herself! It was a delightful two birds with one stone situation. The fact that Phere was the unconscious one was icing on the already-serendipitous cake.
The cloud of vampiric mist drifted closer; it was a little disappointing when Phere sat up, but all that meant was a little more stealth would be necessary. She reformed in the cover of some kind of suit of armor (that had been a prototype exosuit before the Tome had rewritten the world) and watched. Phere talked to the other human for a brief time, leaning all the while on some crates. Cascala's hungry grin became a satisfied smile once again when the man shuffled away, leaving Phere alone and clearly weak.
With an inaudible swishing of silk, Cascala stalked out of the shadows, fangs bared threateningly. Sharp-nailed fingers stretched out towards the helpless empress as she drew level, and an eager tongue slid across quivering lips. With unnatural silence, Cascala mounted the operating table and lunged towards Phere.
---
Elsewhere, a book slammed against a wall; its pages fluttered as it fell, and a bookmark pinwheeled away, dislodged from its place between two unreadable pages. The world rippled again as the Tome slid into the sewer.
---
Cascala, who was once again firmly Cascala, found herself sapped of her inhuman agility and stealth. She also found that she had no compulsion, or even the ability, to drain blood from helpless humans. She, and Phere moments thereafter, found her predator's lunge transformed into an academic's stumble. Both women sprawled in a heap on the floor, and Cascala's staff clattered away from them.