Re: Grand Battle S3G1! (Round One: Vio Maleficat)
01-05-2011, 05:07 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.
After a moment's deliberation, Tengeri set off towards a stairwell. She'd be best able to make repairs from the ground floor, she judged, and any other contestants showing up from above would be nicely exposed on the catwalks. Murdoch, getting used to the route, moved ahead of the group. Kerak kept up with him, badgering him with questions about the kinds of foods he could make and making suggestions for ways to prepare them.
Behind them, Tor walked close to Tengeri, speaking quietly to her. "You can't really expect us to be able to defend ourselves if any of the others show up," he said. It wasn't a question.
"huebert is well-armed, as is scofflaw. velobo, while agile, does not appear-" Tor swept the words out from in front of him before they could finish forming.
"I'm not asking for a dossier on each of the other combatants, Dr. Nyoka, I know who they are. I'm saying they're something to your plan that you're not telling me."
"repairing the generator is our best option"
"You and I both know that's not going to happen." Tor's voice was hard, matter-of-fact. It could almost sound angry, if it weren't for the careful control and deliberate pace. "You've seen it, I've seen it. The absolute best we could hope to achieve is Murdoch holding his Unity beam on it until the end of the round, and that only happens when someone here dies. You know something."
Ahead and below them, Murdoch and Kerak reached the door at the bottom of the stairwell. Looking up, Murdoch confirmed from Tengeri that it was the right door, and when she nodded to him, he went through, holding it open for Kerak first. Before passing through, Tengeri put one more message in front of Tor.
"second door on right. scofflaw and unknown, both high threat. have care."
Entering the room once more, they saw that Kerak had already spread around to cover the other side, and Murdoch was standing just inside, half-shielding himself beside a cabinet of tools. At another nod from Tengeri, he aimed his wand and started pushing Unity into the generator. It calmed, as before, and things stopped being quite so chaotic. Tengeri, extending her manipulators and shifting their ends to something more suited to repairing the machine, started her work. If he listens to me and stays away from there, we might just have enough peace and calm to get this thing stabilized a bit. If Scofflaw and whatever's with him keep talking for a while (or whatever it is they're doing), then maybe we could even get this generator into something resembling a functional device again.
Tor, meanwhile, sidled right along the wall, grabbing an old-style nailgun from a tool-bench as he went. Why she wants me barging on them I may never know, he thought, but she's the one with the scanners. Maybe it's an opportunity to get the drop on them.
Too soon, he was at the door, his hand on the handle. Taking a breath, he steeled himself-
Inside the room, time had barely passed at all. The same low-level Chaos that was subtly reorganizing the building and making things change places was also dilating time in places, and in the time it had taken Tor, Tengeri, Murdoch, and Kerak to get all the way down there, Benjamin barely had a chance to ask his question.
Scofflaw, to his credit, kept his cool. Faced with a massive, metal-plated anteater asking for someone he'd never heard of and the sudden appearance of the Telpori-Hal bearing a nailgun, he remained remarkably calm. "No, not me," he said slowly, taking his time to process the situation. "I'm sure he'll be glad to know it's okay, though." Quickly regaining his full composure, he managed to ignore the nailgun-wielding alien and focus instead on the pangolin. "He's been quite worried, you see." Glancing over at Tor, who he half-expected to call his bluff as he had before, he found the Telpori-Hal instead staring at the large, armoured beast with an odd expression on his face. Benjamin, following the villain's gaze, looked as well.
The most prominent emotion on Tor's face was that of confusion. Looking at Benjamin's hal, he saw one being- an old, scarred one, years of pain and anger and regret wrapped around a dense, solid core, compacted to a hard, resilient ball by the trials of its life. On the outside, however, he saw an unusual being, formed of Chaos, that could not possibly have had that much happen in its life. Beneath the confusion, then, there was a good deal of sympathy and concern. The wounds weren't all old and scarred over- many were fresh, new, either ripped open once more or created anew. Next, below both confusion and sympathy, curiosity and realization fought for third. This could only be Jetsam, of course, based both on the Fool's description and process of elimination, but why he looked like this (as opposed to something a bit more reasonable), Tor had absolutely no idea.
After several seconds of just staring, Tor managed to get himself together enough to say something. "You're probably full of dortul, Scofflaw, but I can't prove it. Our friend here could probably poke holes in your story with a few good questions, though." He looked expectantly at Jetsam, not quite managing to keep the sympathy and confusion off his face.
After a moment's deliberation, Tengeri set off towards a stairwell. She'd be best able to make repairs from the ground floor, she judged, and any other contestants showing up from above would be nicely exposed on the catwalks. Murdoch, getting used to the route, moved ahead of the group. Kerak kept up with him, badgering him with questions about the kinds of foods he could make and making suggestions for ways to prepare them.
Behind them, Tor walked close to Tengeri, speaking quietly to her. "You can't really expect us to be able to defend ourselves if any of the others show up," he said. It wasn't a question.
"huebert is well-armed, as is scofflaw. velobo, while agile, does not appear-" Tor swept the words out from in front of him before they could finish forming.
"I'm not asking for a dossier on each of the other combatants, Dr. Nyoka, I know who they are. I'm saying they're something to your plan that you're not telling me."
"repairing the generator is our best option"
"You and I both know that's not going to happen." Tor's voice was hard, matter-of-fact. It could almost sound angry, if it weren't for the careful control and deliberate pace. "You've seen it, I've seen it. The absolute best we could hope to achieve is Murdoch holding his Unity beam on it until the end of the round, and that only happens when someone here dies. You know something."
Ahead and below them, Murdoch and Kerak reached the door at the bottom of the stairwell. Looking up, Murdoch confirmed from Tengeri that it was the right door, and when she nodded to him, he went through, holding it open for Kerak first. Before passing through, Tengeri put one more message in front of Tor.
"second door on right. scofflaw and unknown, both high threat. have care."
Entering the room once more, they saw that Kerak had already spread around to cover the other side, and Murdoch was standing just inside, half-shielding himself beside a cabinet of tools. At another nod from Tengeri, he aimed his wand and started pushing Unity into the generator. It calmed, as before, and things stopped being quite so chaotic. Tengeri, extending her manipulators and shifting their ends to something more suited to repairing the machine, started her work. If he listens to me and stays away from there, we might just have enough peace and calm to get this thing stabilized a bit. If Scofflaw and whatever's with him keep talking for a while (or whatever it is they're doing), then maybe we could even get this generator into something resembling a functional device again.
Tor, meanwhile, sidled right along the wall, grabbing an old-style nailgun from a tool-bench as he went. Why she wants me barging on them I may never know, he thought, but she's the one with the scanners. Maybe it's an opportunity to get the drop on them.
Too soon, he was at the door, his hand on the handle. Taking a breath, he steeled himself-
Inside the room, time had barely passed at all. The same low-level Chaos that was subtly reorganizing the building and making things change places was also dilating time in places, and in the time it had taken Tor, Tengeri, Murdoch, and Kerak to get all the way down there, Benjamin barely had a chance to ask his question.
Scofflaw, to his credit, kept his cool. Faced with a massive, metal-plated anteater asking for someone he'd never heard of and the sudden appearance of the Telpori-Hal bearing a nailgun, he remained remarkably calm. "No, not me," he said slowly, taking his time to process the situation. "I'm sure he'll be glad to know it's okay, though." Quickly regaining his full composure, he managed to ignore the nailgun-wielding alien and focus instead on the pangolin. "He's been quite worried, you see." Glancing over at Tor, who he half-expected to call his bluff as he had before, he found the Telpori-Hal instead staring at the large, armoured beast with an odd expression on his face. Benjamin, following the villain's gaze, looked as well.
The most prominent emotion on Tor's face was that of confusion. Looking at Benjamin's hal, he saw one being- an old, scarred one, years of pain and anger and regret wrapped around a dense, solid core, compacted to a hard, resilient ball by the trials of its life. On the outside, however, he saw an unusual being, formed of Chaos, that could not possibly have had that much happen in its life. Beneath the confusion, then, there was a good deal of sympathy and concern. The wounds weren't all old and scarred over- many were fresh, new, either ripped open once more or created anew. Next, below both confusion and sympathy, curiosity and realization fought for third. This could only be Jetsam, of course, based both on the Fool's description and process of elimination, but why he looked like this (as opposed to something a bit more reasonable), Tor had absolutely no idea.
After several seconds of just staring, Tor managed to get himself together enough to say something. "You're probably full of dortul, Scofflaw, but I can't prove it. Our friend here could probably poke holes in your story with a few good questions, though." He looked expectantly at Jetsam, not quite managing to keep the sympathy and confusion off his face.