Re: The Grand Battle II! [Final Round: Dimensional Speakeasy]
05-09-2011, 11:48 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.
Where’s that
“It’s… it’s not really anywhere, Vyrm’n. It’s the space between places.”
So, the multiverse where universes aren’t?
“… Maybe? That may be a gross simplification, but- but yes. You could think of it like that.” Paris frowned, his bulky glove threatening to engulf his face as he ran his hands through his hair. “It’s… dimensionless. Incomprehensibly vast. Spheres within spheres – never touching, yet there’s no distance between them.
But here’s the important thing. All beings, save the strongest of the Grandmasters, can’t last long out there – and even the powerful ones won’t linger. It’s-it’s inhospitable. Our perception can’t accept it. It gives up trying.”
And I’m just a piece of that, gouged off
“And hemmed in. Yes. Jessamine explained it to me, once. When the Observer mentioned the battle’s final round being in the Speakeasy. She said- she called you a fragment of a multiversal beast. An Entropic.”
I… I don’t recognise the name.
“It’s what people who understand the multiverse call your kind. Maybe you have your own name. Maybe it’s...” Paris smiled a bit. “Maybe it’s just a handle. For comprehension.”
…
What did you mean by hemmed in?
“Hm?”
What’s stopping me from running?
Paris stared uneasily up at Vyrm’n, frowning a little. The star-flecked black was concave, the Faceless gently listing into him. He sighed. “I don’t know. All I understand of the multiverse is of travelling it with Jessamine, and what she’s explained to me. You’d probably need an expert – if there were one for Entropics – to help you.”
“Anyway. I have to return to Jessamine – I confess all she wanted was for me to instil some purpose in you. What I’ve told you should be enough, that you can go and make your own inquiries. There’s no shortage of knowledgeable beings here-” Paris conspicuously held his breath at this point, his recollected visage dissipating and his hand searing black.
Vyrm’n tried to recoil, but the blue rose flashed in brilliant simultaneity with some kind of base perception slamming into her. She waited for her guide to stop dragging deep gasps of fog, stand, and replace his hand of flesh and bone upon the Faceless.
“And that's the key to the Speakeasy – or, at least, to finding something linear in it that can work for you.” Paris took another breath; it seemed to calm his nerves. “You stole it, begged it, fought me for it – it’s not important. Jessamine’ll either want it back, or she won’t. Not much the two of us can do about it, either way.”
The man slipped his hand back into the glove, lowering a mask that wasn’t quite on the agreed-upon plane of reality. He stepped round Vyrm’n, hands not quite regaining their unsure sway until one smacked and seized the doorhandle. The Faceless took her cue and left, without a word of promise or thanks. There was a moment’s consideration on Paris’ part as he wondered whether to wish Vyrm’n luck, but she was gone by the time he’d decided she wouldn’t have heard it anyway.
The dredged-up memory of a less broken past self slowly bled out as Paris watched, then pretended he still watched, the departing Vyrm’n.
Paris closed the door on the fog-den, turned away from the Faceless, and stumbled up the corridor His right hand singed a trail on the wallpaper beside him.
Where’s that
“It’s… it’s not really anywhere, Vyrm’n. It’s the space between places.”
So, the multiverse where universes aren’t?
“… Maybe? That may be a gross simplification, but- but yes. You could think of it like that.” Paris frowned, his bulky glove threatening to engulf his face as he ran his hands through his hair. “It’s… dimensionless. Incomprehensibly vast. Spheres within spheres – never touching, yet there’s no distance between them.
But here’s the important thing. All beings, save the strongest of the Grandmasters, can’t last long out there – and even the powerful ones won’t linger. It’s-it’s inhospitable. Our perception can’t accept it. It gives up trying.”
And I’m just a piece of that, gouged off
“And hemmed in. Yes. Jessamine explained it to me, once. When the Observer mentioned the battle’s final round being in the Speakeasy. She said- she called you a fragment of a multiversal beast. An Entropic.”
I… I don’t recognise the name.
“It’s what people who understand the multiverse call your kind. Maybe you have your own name. Maybe it’s...” Paris smiled a bit. “Maybe it’s just a handle. For comprehension.”
…
What did you mean by hemmed in?
“Hm?”
What’s stopping me from running?
Paris stared uneasily up at Vyrm’n, frowning a little. The star-flecked black was concave, the Faceless gently listing into him. He sighed. “I don’t know. All I understand of the multiverse is of travelling it with Jessamine, and what she’s explained to me. You’d probably need an expert – if there were one for Entropics – to help you.”
“Anyway. I have to return to Jessamine – I confess all she wanted was for me to instil some purpose in you. What I’ve told you should be enough, that you can go and make your own inquiries. There’s no shortage of knowledgeable beings here-” Paris conspicuously held his breath at this point, his recollected visage dissipating and his hand searing black.
Vyrm’n tried to recoil, but the blue rose flashed in brilliant simultaneity with some kind of base perception slamming into her. She waited for her guide to stop dragging deep gasps of fog, stand, and replace his hand of flesh and bone upon the Faceless.
“And that's the key to the Speakeasy – or, at least, to finding something linear in it that can work for you.” Paris took another breath; it seemed to calm his nerves. “You stole it, begged it, fought me for it – it’s not important. Jessamine’ll either want it back, or she won’t. Not much the two of us can do about it, either way.”
The man slipped his hand back into the glove, lowering a mask that wasn’t quite on the agreed-upon plane of reality. He stepped round Vyrm’n, hands not quite regaining their unsure sway until one smacked and seized the doorhandle. The Faceless took her cue and left, without a word of promise or thanks. There was a moment’s consideration on Paris’ part as he wondered whether to wish Vyrm’n luck, but she was gone by the time he’d decided she wouldn’t have heard it anyway.
The dredged-up memory of a less broken past self slowly bled out as Paris watched, then pretended he still watched, the departing Vyrm’n.
Paris closed the door on the fog-den, turned away from the Faceless, and stumbled up the corridor His right hand singed a trail on the wallpaper beside him.
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