Re: The Grand Battle II! [Round 1: The Labyrinth Field!]
10-08-2009, 05:05 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.
Vyrm'n's essence stood still, trying to figure out what on earth its senses were telling it. Maxwell, starting to become more acquainted with the Faceless' few externally similar moods; opened his mouth and was silenced by a black palm pointed authoritatively in his face. He let the shadow do its thing. Then with a fluid motion the hand extended out further until it rested upon Maxwell; the Faceless told him to wait here and it leapt over the wall and sailed across the sky to where the Sunset had shifted from.
As the last location of the Balancer's matter, the area still cried weakly of the Sunset's presence; weakly mewling for the matter which had been plucked from this existence. Listening intently to the last trailing remnants of the Balancer's song which still prevailed on this plane, Vyrm'n could tell something cataclysmic had occured to the Balancer.
The Faceless could not catch the specifics, all it knew was it was. Unable to glean further information, Vyrm'n leapt into the air again and sailed over to Cabaret and Galus.
The pilot was shooting frantically at the oncoming tendrils of the hell-plant; Cabaret was hanging upside down in a very undignified manner while trying to dislodge himself with a rake. Samuel was simply standing there, encased in vines but obviously allied with them somehow. Vyrm'n took in the scene; but found all the activity and vitality rather distracting. Raising its bulk like a wrecking ball to gain the maximum momentum, Vyrm'n rammed into the hell-plant's roots with all the force and fury of a full and malevolent concrete mixer hurtling out of control down a hill; ignoring the ineffectual tendrils which could make no impression on the Faceless' night-hide with their spines of cellulose.
The crushing was rather injurous to the plant; it recoiled and reverted to the defensive, dropping Cabaret with a thump and wrapping around Samuel's shell without showing any intent to attack.
Dusting himself off, Cabaret stepped forward with only a hint of wariness towards the Faceless. "I must thank you for your-" Cabaret was silenced by a black large inky hand engulfing his face; the Faceless whispered in his mind.
Do not encroach upon my good temper again lest I decide you are more irritating than others are dangerous. Now be silent while I examine this man. Its message conveyed, the black hand withdrew into Vyrm'n's bulk, and the Faceless listened.
Well... it had found one of the orbs, or what remained of it. Vyrm'n, fundamentally being a watcher of matter, was unromantically understanding of the nature of living things. Matter was the only perpetuity; life as a whole was simply one of the more grandiose states any given piece of existence may play a part in for some serendiptious, fleeting role in; a moment to let the atomic voice soar in complex, orchestral unison before the organisation collapsed and it reverted back to another disjointed four billion-odd years of cacophony for the Faceless' ears; give or take a millenia.
Any single given life, a microcosm of that again; and to Vyrm'n's subconscious perception, the slightly lesser for it.
No, matter kept singing in life or death or never-known-the-other; and was as unromantic of the notion of life and sentience as Vyrm'n was. Thus, Vyrm'n never saw death as a destruction; simply a change of tempo or pitch or timbre; disconcerting and jarring perhaps, on occasion; but never a cause for regret or moody introspection.
And yet, as it stood listening to the song chanted by the body of Samuel Therion, something in the Faceless acknowledged that the nature of this man was fundamentally wrong. Vyrm'n had no conscious comprehension of what allowed it to reach this conclusion, until it heard the undercurrent which harked from Samuel's existence on the other plane. It was still barely audible, but much easier to discern when a definite phsicality remained upon Vyrm'n's plane.
Vyrm'n, for a second, had heard Samuel's flesh cry out for something lost. To Vyrm'n's senses, it was a whimper synonyous with death; matter glancing up to see the new twitch of the conductor's baton and hurriedly changing the tempo again; or rather; to see the conductor had fallen from the plinth and take the invitation to trumpet on with blissful, cacophonic abandon.
Yet this time; a force inexplicable picked up the condcutor, dusted him off, and set the song of Samuel Therion's existence off again.
He controls the flow of life and death... Vyrm'n shut itself off from this plane; blocking out as much information as it could except for the chaos in the Karmist. Samuel... had been alive, then should've been dead... and now he was alive. Vyrm'n heard it clearly as a dirge of something approaching pain for the substance of Samuel. Matter was not meant to do this; after the crescendo and climax of death, came the mellow legato of decomposition, of ashes to ashes, dust to dust, earth to food, food to life, and then, maybe, eventually... life to an explosive aural exultation of sentience.
Yet all this had occured in the space of a few moments; and Vyrm'n heard the matter crying out in distress for it.
Vyrm'n checked itself, shifting its focus to examine the overall song of Samuel Therion. In comparison, the man's overall song was simple: Deathbringer. Liferender.
The garden was abound with the force of life; Vyrm'n knew that much from Maxwell's recon. With that in mind, it "slipped into Samuel's shoes", not literally; the spikes still swirled menacingly about him, but more the Faceless trying out the Karmist's song on for a little to see what it could glean.
The orbs, Vyrm'n realised. They are the same as him. Resurrection through sacrifice. Without delay, or explanation to a perplexed Galus and Cabaret, Vyrm'n leapt into the sky a third time and returned to Maxwell as swiftly as possible. The Faceless was so hasty it gouged a huge trench in the earth as it landed. Maxwell hurried over, wondering for a moment whether the Faceless had injured itself; but it stood effortlessly and did its best to explain what it had discovered; though its thoughts were reaching stream-of-consciousness speed and thus discarded chronological, or for that matter, logical order. After several run-throughs, however, Maxwell seemed to get it.
"So... Samuel's after the orbs?" *nod*
"And... he's already strong enough without whatever they contain?" *nod*
"And... he doesn't need to come here to activate them?" *nod*
Maxwell glanced around the circle, rubbing his chin and occasionally sliding his hand over his face to rub his eyes tiredly. "I suppose we have to destroy them, at least. Are you strong enough?"
Vyrm'n gingerly grabbed the nearest orb; Psi. Lifting it nervously, nothing seemed to happen. Maxwell stood expectantly; Vyrm'n shuffled it until it was positioned atop its pillar-like form.
Then without warning, Vyrm'n accelerated and crashed top-first into the psi-adorned wall. A gut-wrenching scream rips through the air, echoing across the dead garden.
Reforming in a fluid motion to shed the pieces of orb, a little black blob, about the size of a ping-pong ball, falls out of the biggest piece of orb. Vyrm'n engulfs it in a black fist, Maxwell still watching with trepidation.
A slightly more muffled groan emnates from the region of Vyrm'n's black fist. Maxwell touched the Faceless' hide again to find out what happened, and felt like his entire being was plummetting into an infinite void hidden beneath the solid surface of Vyrm'n exterior.
Vyrm'n noticed, and shoved Maxwell away with more force than might've been necessary. The man staggered away, overbalanced, and collapsed on the brown grass; the Faceless' hand retreated back into the core. Both seemed shaken by the experience; Maxwell unconsciously cradling his face in his hands like he was checking to see if it was still there.
"What... did... you just... do?" Maxwell asked shakily. Vyrm'n reached out slowly, Maxwell shied away at first but then let the Faceless lay a hand on him. Its voice was sorrowful, but calm.
I cast Psi's being into the infinite dark.
"So... that's what we have to do to destroy all of these?"
Yes.
"Does... does it hurt you at all?"
Vyrm'n paused for only a moment, before replying in the negative. Maxwell went and grabbed alpha, beta, gamma, and delta in his arms, and passed them wordlessly to the Faceless. Again, it raised itself before ramming into the wall with a crunch. Bits of orb-shell and black slime smeared the Psi on the wall. It wouldnt have been surprising if the scream had been heard over in the garden realm, Galus and Cabaret almost certainly heard it and Maxwell was just about deafened.
Vyrm'n's essence stood still, trying to figure out what on earth its senses were telling it. Maxwell, starting to become more acquainted with the Faceless' few externally similar moods; opened his mouth and was silenced by a black palm pointed authoritatively in his face. He let the shadow do its thing. Then with a fluid motion the hand extended out further until it rested upon Maxwell; the Faceless told him to wait here and it leapt over the wall and sailed across the sky to where the Sunset had shifted from.
As the last location of the Balancer's matter, the area still cried weakly of the Sunset's presence; weakly mewling for the matter which had been plucked from this existence. Listening intently to the last trailing remnants of the Balancer's song which still prevailed on this plane, Vyrm'n could tell something cataclysmic had occured to the Balancer.
The Faceless could not catch the specifics, all it knew was it was. Unable to glean further information, Vyrm'n leapt into the air again and sailed over to Cabaret and Galus.
The pilot was shooting frantically at the oncoming tendrils of the hell-plant; Cabaret was hanging upside down in a very undignified manner while trying to dislodge himself with a rake. Samuel was simply standing there, encased in vines but obviously allied with them somehow. Vyrm'n took in the scene; but found all the activity and vitality rather distracting. Raising its bulk like a wrecking ball to gain the maximum momentum, Vyrm'n rammed into the hell-plant's roots with all the force and fury of a full and malevolent concrete mixer hurtling out of control down a hill; ignoring the ineffectual tendrils which could make no impression on the Faceless' night-hide with their spines of cellulose.
The crushing was rather injurous to the plant; it recoiled and reverted to the defensive, dropping Cabaret with a thump and wrapping around Samuel's shell without showing any intent to attack.
Dusting himself off, Cabaret stepped forward with only a hint of wariness towards the Faceless. "I must thank you for your-" Cabaret was silenced by a black large inky hand engulfing his face; the Faceless whispered in his mind.
Do not encroach upon my good temper again lest I decide you are more irritating than others are dangerous. Now be silent while I examine this man. Its message conveyed, the black hand withdrew into Vyrm'n's bulk, and the Faceless listened.
Well... it had found one of the orbs, or what remained of it. Vyrm'n, fundamentally being a watcher of matter, was unromantically understanding of the nature of living things. Matter was the only perpetuity; life as a whole was simply one of the more grandiose states any given piece of existence may play a part in for some serendiptious, fleeting role in; a moment to let the atomic voice soar in complex, orchestral unison before the organisation collapsed and it reverted back to another disjointed four billion-odd years of cacophony for the Faceless' ears; give or take a millenia.
Any single given life, a microcosm of that again; and to Vyrm'n's subconscious perception, the slightly lesser for it.
No, matter kept singing in life or death or never-known-the-other; and was as unromantic of the notion of life and sentience as Vyrm'n was. Thus, Vyrm'n never saw death as a destruction; simply a change of tempo or pitch or timbre; disconcerting and jarring perhaps, on occasion; but never a cause for regret or moody introspection.
And yet, as it stood listening to the song chanted by the body of Samuel Therion, something in the Faceless acknowledged that the nature of this man was fundamentally wrong. Vyrm'n had no conscious comprehension of what allowed it to reach this conclusion, until it heard the undercurrent which harked from Samuel's existence on the other plane. It was still barely audible, but much easier to discern when a definite phsicality remained upon Vyrm'n's plane.
Vyrm'n, for a second, had heard Samuel's flesh cry out for something lost. To Vyrm'n's senses, it was a whimper synonyous with death; matter glancing up to see the new twitch of the conductor's baton and hurriedly changing the tempo again; or rather; to see the conductor had fallen from the plinth and take the invitation to trumpet on with blissful, cacophonic abandon.
Yet this time; a force inexplicable picked up the condcutor, dusted him off, and set the song of Samuel Therion's existence off again.
He controls the flow of life and death... Vyrm'n shut itself off from this plane; blocking out as much information as it could except for the chaos in the Karmist. Samuel... had been alive, then should've been dead... and now he was alive. Vyrm'n heard it clearly as a dirge of something approaching pain for the substance of Samuel. Matter was not meant to do this; after the crescendo and climax of death, came the mellow legato of decomposition, of ashes to ashes, dust to dust, earth to food, food to life, and then, maybe, eventually... life to an explosive aural exultation of sentience.
Yet all this had occured in the space of a few moments; and Vyrm'n heard the matter crying out in distress for it.
Vyrm'n checked itself, shifting its focus to examine the overall song of Samuel Therion. In comparison, the man's overall song was simple: Deathbringer. Liferender.
The garden was abound with the force of life; Vyrm'n knew that much from Maxwell's recon. With that in mind, it "slipped into Samuel's shoes", not literally; the spikes still swirled menacingly about him, but more the Faceless trying out the Karmist's song on for a little to see what it could glean.
The orbs, Vyrm'n realised. They are the same as him. Resurrection through sacrifice. Without delay, or explanation to a perplexed Galus and Cabaret, Vyrm'n leapt into the sky a third time and returned to Maxwell as swiftly as possible. The Faceless was so hasty it gouged a huge trench in the earth as it landed. Maxwell hurried over, wondering for a moment whether the Faceless had injured itself; but it stood effortlessly and did its best to explain what it had discovered; though its thoughts were reaching stream-of-consciousness speed and thus discarded chronological, or for that matter, logical order. After several run-throughs, however, Maxwell seemed to get it.
"So... Samuel's after the orbs?" *nod*
"And... he's already strong enough without whatever they contain?" *nod*
"And... he doesn't need to come here to activate them?" *nod*
Maxwell glanced around the circle, rubbing his chin and occasionally sliding his hand over his face to rub his eyes tiredly. "I suppose we have to destroy them, at least. Are you strong enough?"
Vyrm'n gingerly grabbed the nearest orb; Psi. Lifting it nervously, nothing seemed to happen. Maxwell stood expectantly; Vyrm'n shuffled it until it was positioned atop its pillar-like form.
Then without warning, Vyrm'n accelerated and crashed top-first into the psi-adorned wall. A gut-wrenching scream rips through the air, echoing across the dead garden.
Reforming in a fluid motion to shed the pieces of orb, a little black blob, about the size of a ping-pong ball, falls out of the biggest piece of orb. Vyrm'n engulfs it in a black fist, Maxwell still watching with trepidation.
A slightly more muffled groan emnates from the region of Vyrm'n's black fist. Maxwell touched the Faceless' hide again to find out what happened, and felt like his entire being was plummetting into an infinite void hidden beneath the solid surface of Vyrm'n exterior.
Vyrm'n noticed, and shoved Maxwell away with more force than might've been necessary. The man staggered away, overbalanced, and collapsed on the brown grass; the Faceless' hand retreated back into the core. Both seemed shaken by the experience; Maxwell unconsciously cradling his face in his hands like he was checking to see if it was still there.
"What... did... you just... do?" Maxwell asked shakily. Vyrm'n reached out slowly, Maxwell shied away at first but then let the Faceless lay a hand on him. Its voice was sorrowful, but calm.
I cast Psi's being into the infinite dark.
"So... that's what we have to do to destroy all of these?"
Yes.
"Does... does it hurt you at all?"
Vyrm'n paused for only a moment, before replying in the negative. Maxwell went and grabbed alpha, beta, gamma, and delta in his arms, and passed them wordlessly to the Faceless. Again, it raised itself before ramming into the wall with a crunch. Bits of orb-shell and black slime smeared the Psi on the wall. It wouldnt have been surprising if the scream had been heard over in the garden realm, Galus and Cabaret almost certainly heard it and Maxwell was just about deafened.
peace to the unsung peace to the martyrs | i'm johnny rotten appleseed
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow