RE: The Savage Brawl [Round 5: Battletopia]
10-29-2013, 03:38 AM
Gormand spun through the air, trying to right himself in a world without direction. Limbs flailed out of his control; merging with one another and breaking apart, falling from him and turning to ash and sprouting anew. His eye rolled back and wept gravy.
Flying or falling? Elated or terrified? He could never tell.
God rose up, and swallowed him whole.
He woke, and wished he hadn’t.
Cold lanced through his eye, seeped into every pocket of moisture and air. Flesh cracked when he tried to stand. Thought lagged behind the dull throbbing pain of existence. It reminded him of his early days, and of the hospital before that.
He found himself in a bare, rectangular chamber. Smooth greyish walls that curved together at the corners, topped with a blueish ceiling, lit from apparently nowhere at all. There was no obvious way in or, by extension, out. A prison.
He was alive, at least. What had happened? An ambush, and then… And then here. That he’d been ambushed raised some very interesting questions about the nature of their new locale. How had they known he was coming? Had anything happened to the other contestants? Whose idea was it to condemn him to this freezing hellpit? Gormand opted to ignore these in favor of escape.
In other circumstances, he would have been content to wait it out, safe in the knowledge that his surroundings would turn to so much processed goo in a matter of minutes. Extreme cold, however, sent his infection into a dormant state, rendering he and his environs entirely immutable. He was helpless as a twenty-armed, five-meter sphere of pure animal muscle.
Gormand charged.
And bounced right off the wall.
On his second attempt, he wondered what sort of material could withstand roughly the force of a stampeding cattle train. It seemed to give under his blows, but not as much as it ought. On his third, he considered the efficacy of their magic at holding him back. Or perhaps (four) they had advanced technology; the soldiers’ rifles had been oddly incongruous next to the magi's staves. Perhaps they’d chosen (five) some combination of the two to trap--
The wall was transparent.
The meatball’s assault had knocked a layer of frost from the outside of his cell; the chamber without was coated in ice. Artificial light glared from every surface, reflected from the crystals. They seemed to be holding him in some sort of warehouse, filled with crates and cans and bottles. A trio of guards clad in thick winterwear played cards nearby.
One guard pulled an apple from a crate and tossed it to another. Gormand knew then where he was, and knew he would not-- could not escape. He stomped over to a corner and slumped, defeated, to the floor.
“...Racists.”
=====
Kracht was glad that Gormand had ended up a probable outcome. He was by far the easiest contestant the rock ever had to contain.
Konka Rar needed several sigils both holy and unholy to keep in check, anti-magic and anti-tech fields for contingencies, and impromptu cybersurgery during which he would be fully awake and probably trying to flee or mass-murder.
Hoss was notoriously clever, and typically needed a full suite of randomly cycling security measures magical, technological, eldritch and otherwise; a personal retinue of elite guards on call at all hours; isolation from the easily-influenced or malleably-minded; and one or more persons capable of brainwashing or time manipulation for emergencies.
Ekelhaft, in addition to just getting the damned thing into its box, required months of pre-planning and the preparation of multi-layered redundant failsafes, some of which had been necessarily designed by unstable minds locked away deep underground. The more extreme measures included debts to the gods, rendering parts of the city nonexistent, or worse, involving the entropoid.
Gormand? Stick him in a sealed plastic tub in a refrigerated room and he’d keep for months.
Flying or falling? Elated or terrified? He could never tell.
God rose up, and swallowed him whole.
He woke, and wished he hadn’t.
Cold lanced through his eye, seeped into every pocket of moisture and air. Flesh cracked when he tried to stand. Thought lagged behind the dull throbbing pain of existence. It reminded him of his early days, and of the hospital before that.
He found himself in a bare, rectangular chamber. Smooth greyish walls that curved together at the corners, topped with a blueish ceiling, lit from apparently nowhere at all. There was no obvious way in or, by extension, out. A prison.
He was alive, at least. What had happened? An ambush, and then… And then here. That he’d been ambushed raised some very interesting questions about the nature of their new locale. How had they known he was coming? Had anything happened to the other contestants? Whose idea was it to condemn him to this freezing hellpit? Gormand opted to ignore these in favor of escape.
In other circumstances, he would have been content to wait it out, safe in the knowledge that his surroundings would turn to so much processed goo in a matter of minutes. Extreme cold, however, sent his infection into a dormant state, rendering he and his environs entirely immutable. He was helpless as a twenty-armed, five-meter sphere of pure animal muscle.
Gormand charged.
And bounced right off the wall.
On his second attempt, he wondered what sort of material could withstand roughly the force of a stampeding cattle train. It seemed to give under his blows, but not as much as it ought. On his third, he considered the efficacy of their magic at holding him back. Or perhaps (four) they had advanced technology; the soldiers’ rifles had been oddly incongruous next to the magi's staves. Perhaps they’d chosen (five) some combination of the two to trap--
The wall was transparent.
The meatball’s assault had knocked a layer of frost from the outside of his cell; the chamber without was coated in ice. Artificial light glared from every surface, reflected from the crystals. They seemed to be holding him in some sort of warehouse, filled with crates and cans and bottles. A trio of guards clad in thick winterwear played cards nearby.
One guard pulled an apple from a crate and tossed it to another. Gormand knew then where he was, and knew he would not-- could not escape. He stomped over to a corner and slumped, defeated, to the floor.
“...Racists.”
=====
Kracht was glad that Gormand had ended up a probable outcome. He was by far the easiest contestant the rock ever had to contain.
Konka Rar needed several sigils both holy and unholy to keep in check, anti-magic and anti-tech fields for contingencies, and impromptu cybersurgery during which he would be fully awake and probably trying to flee or mass-murder.
Hoss was notoriously clever, and typically needed a full suite of randomly cycling security measures magical, technological, eldritch and otherwise; a personal retinue of elite guards on call at all hours; isolation from the easily-influenced or malleably-minded; and one or more persons capable of brainwashing or time manipulation for emergencies.
Ekelhaft, in addition to just getting the damned thing into its box, required months of pre-planning and the preparation of multi-layered redundant failsafes, some of which had been necessarily designed by unstable minds locked away deep underground. The more extreme measures included debts to the gods, rendering parts of the city nonexistent, or worse, involving the entropoid.
Gormand? Stick him in a sealed plastic tub in a refrigerated room and he’d keep for months.