RE: The Fatal Conflict (GBS2G7) (Round 4: The Huntsman's Garden)
12-30-2014, 08:02 AM
Kargrek fell to his knees. The elucidating inrush of sanity was the most abominable thing he'd experienced in his lifetime or even in his comparatively-horrifying afterlifetime. It wasn't the clarity itself, of course, but the brutal light it cast his last hours in. The blood that soaked his skin and axe and even his clothes – such as they were – was spilled from the bodies of children. He leaned forward, retching. He couldn't even bring himself to care about his slaughter of the amiable-if-useless zombie; concerns of alliances and rebellion and the battle itself fell from his mind in the shadow of the enormity of his crimes. Children. He'd killed children. Scores of them. His stomach heaved again, despite having long since emptied itself of even traces of Gorkella's finest meats and ales. He kept choking, again and again, fingers digging into the soft earth as his mouth filled with the taste of bile and blood.
This went on for some minutes before he felt a soft hand rest itself between his shoulder blades. He didn't look up, but he at least stilled himself.
"Kargrek…"
Without warning, he jerked away, roaring. "Do not speak to me!"
"Kargrek, calm yourself."
"No! Be silent! You… you're as guilty as I am."
She complied for a moment, waiting for his pulse to slow and some rationality to reassert itself.
"We do not deserve even this mockery of life for what we've done."
"But we did not do it."
For the first time since regaining his senses, he looked at her, eyes red and slitted. She'd lowered herself onto her haunches beside him, elbows on her knees and hands loosely clasped between them. Her face was blank, but gaunt.
"You're speaking nonsense. You saw as well as I did the blood we spilled. You must have."
"That much is true. Our hands held weapons and our weapons were bent to cruel ends. But we were not truly present; our minds were clouded, our actions not our own."
He gathered himself up enough to sit rather than kneel and leaned against her side. "How can you say that?"
"How can you not see it yourself? We are tainted by our actions, but the guilt is not our own. We can be redeemed. As when Heracles was maddened by jealous Hera, we must simply take great labors upon ourselves and find salvation in it. Heracles slew his own children, an even graver deed than ours, and still managed ascension."
"I do not know of these men. What are you talking about?"
Bellona did sigh internally at that; she kept letting herself forget the barbarian's ignorance and lack of civilization. This should at least distract him long enough to see the sense of her words, though.
"It began when Zeus coveted Alcmene, wife of Amphitryon. While Amphitryon was at war with the Taphians, Zeus took his shape, and…"
---
It was some time later. Time enough for Bellona to be proven right about the calming power of her story; time enough for them to seek out the other survivors and discuss the situation with them; time enough for things to change. Kargrek had taken readily to the idea of redemption through labor, and had predictably decided that the only labor suitable for the magnitude of their sins was the slaying of the Redeemer. She found that she really couldn't disagree with him, and neither Scott nor Kaja had been keen to try to kill the people they'd been commanded to. Scott had predictably been hesitant to reinvolve himself in a direct confrontation; Kaja had been cryptic and evasive and seemed to have plans of his own.
Despite their disagreements, though, all four had come to roughly the same conclusion, and a tenuous accord: they would avoid endangering each other, keeping in contact only enough to ensure their safety and inform each other of anything noteworthy. The pair of ancient warriors hoped this armistice would force Zaire to act again, as he'd always been most vulnerable when attempting to force their hands; Scott had hoped he would have the time to discover a safer, less violent way to escape; Kaja had volunteered little, but seemed like he might be relied on if things came down to a fight. Probably.
That all just made it stranger that the hours had turned to days had turned to weeks. No-one had expected Zaire to have more patience than he'd shown before, but somehow he'd failed to interfere for what was now hundreds of times longer than he'd ever gone before. There hadn't even been any threatening messages, or runically-enhanced minions sent after them. It was as though they had completely lost his interest. Equally mysterious was Simphonia's apparent absence; for all anyone knew, she might have died at Ymirhoggr's tentacles, or might simply have been lost or hiding. For the first few weeks, Bellona and Kargrek were constantly tense: every rustle in the brush was the Redeemer coming for them, every distant voice was a taunt or a curse. But it was always just one of the monstrous beasts that inhabited this place, or more rarely one of the hunters that flocked to it for sport.
Compared to robots or actual monsters or terrifying near-omnipotent overlords, those threats were just shy of ignorable. They certainly didn't pose a real risk two people who had spent their whole lives in caution and combat. Gradually, the settled into something that could be called a gross parody of domesticity; gradually, they found themselves approaching something that could look like happiness in the right light.
---
Scott wiped the grime from his sweating forehead; in actuality, he merely achieved a more even measure of grime between his sleeve and his skin. He'd always been a cosmopolitan man, which had made the transition to a subsistence existence in the wilderness much more jarring for him than for any of the other survivors; it was still much better than actively fighting for his life, though.
At the moment, he was wrist-deep in a tangle of cobbled-together machinery. His occasional meetups with the pair he had begun to think of as Mr. and Mrs. Achillia mostly consisted of them handing over all the technology and weaponry they'd gathered from "neutralized" hunters to him. He thought of it as a mutually-beneficial arrangement: they kept him safe, he repaid them by seeking a way to escape their captor without getting them all killed. He hadn't had great success yet, in part because his tools were extremely limited and in part because he really had little idea of how to accomplish his goals, but he was sure he'd get there eventually. Between him, himself, and Will, it would happen. The only stipulation was whether it would happen before or after Zaire got fed up and slaughtered somebody. Or they all died of old age, for that matter.
For several promising seconds, there was the whir of a component spinning to life, but that was cut short by the flash of an arc and the pop of a broken circuit. Scott swore. It was always setback after setback. And on top of that, his stomach chose that moment to growl loudly; he'd been concentrating so hard, he'd forgotten to eat for who knew how many hours. With a scowl at his gently-smoking experiment, he decided there wasn't much to be gained from further fiddling at the moment, and headed out to get some food.
When he returned to the hidden underground hovel Kargrek had helped him dig out, arms laden with the garish fruit this forest was littered with, he quickly found that for the first time in days he wasn't alone.
"I have to admit, Scott, as disappointed as I am, I'm pretty impressed too. I mean, I wouldn't have guessed that you guys would manage to not only stay peaceful this long, but also just to survive this long! I'm not even mad, I'm so impressed. Well, not very mad."
The time traveller had tried to flee, but the camouflaged brush and logs he called a door was suddenly lined with red runes and refused to budge.
"Still, though, I've really run out of patience for letting this thing run its course. I expect violence, and I intend to get what I expect. But the last few times I've put myself on your level, you've just disappointed me even more! Someone should be able to figure out it's a waste of time to fight me, but you all just keep doing it. Such a waste!"
Scott hadn't known what to say, but found his jaw wouldn't work to let him say it anyway.
"So I thought, what can I do to make sure you folks get nice and murderous, without letting you get distracted trying to send that murderousness my way? And it took a while, but I came up with a new plan, and I've decided it's a good one. Not really what you might call within the rules of these things, I guess, but between you and me I find the rest of the guys that run them to be total bores. A bunch of sticks in the mud! Huge wastes of cosmic power, really. So I'm not going to let their opinion of me change things. I'm going to do what it takes to get this battle on track."
"And that's where you come in."
This went on for some minutes before he felt a soft hand rest itself between his shoulder blades. He didn't look up, but he at least stilled himself.
"Kargrek…"
Without warning, he jerked away, roaring. "Do not speak to me!"
"Kargrek, calm yourself."
"No! Be silent! You… you're as guilty as I am."
She complied for a moment, waiting for his pulse to slow and some rationality to reassert itself.
"We do not deserve even this mockery of life for what we've done."
"But we did not do it."
For the first time since regaining his senses, he looked at her, eyes red and slitted. She'd lowered herself onto her haunches beside him, elbows on her knees and hands loosely clasped between them. Her face was blank, but gaunt.
"You're speaking nonsense. You saw as well as I did the blood we spilled. You must have."
"That much is true. Our hands held weapons and our weapons were bent to cruel ends. But we were not truly present; our minds were clouded, our actions not our own."
He gathered himself up enough to sit rather than kneel and leaned against her side. "How can you say that?"
"How can you not see it yourself? We are tainted by our actions, but the guilt is not our own. We can be redeemed. As when Heracles was maddened by jealous Hera, we must simply take great labors upon ourselves and find salvation in it. Heracles slew his own children, an even graver deed than ours, and still managed ascension."
"I do not know of these men. What are you talking about?"
Bellona did sigh internally at that; she kept letting herself forget the barbarian's ignorance and lack of civilization. This should at least distract him long enough to see the sense of her words, though.
"It began when Zeus coveted Alcmene, wife of Amphitryon. While Amphitryon was at war with the Taphians, Zeus took his shape, and…"
---
It was some time later. Time enough for Bellona to be proven right about the calming power of her story; time enough for them to seek out the other survivors and discuss the situation with them; time enough for things to change. Kargrek had taken readily to the idea of redemption through labor, and had predictably decided that the only labor suitable for the magnitude of their sins was the slaying of the Redeemer. She found that she really couldn't disagree with him, and neither Scott nor Kaja had been keen to try to kill the people they'd been commanded to. Scott had predictably been hesitant to reinvolve himself in a direct confrontation; Kaja had been cryptic and evasive and seemed to have plans of his own.
Despite their disagreements, though, all four had come to roughly the same conclusion, and a tenuous accord: they would avoid endangering each other, keeping in contact only enough to ensure their safety and inform each other of anything noteworthy. The pair of ancient warriors hoped this armistice would force Zaire to act again, as he'd always been most vulnerable when attempting to force their hands; Scott had hoped he would have the time to discover a safer, less violent way to escape; Kaja had volunteered little, but seemed like he might be relied on if things came down to a fight. Probably.
That all just made it stranger that the hours had turned to days had turned to weeks. No-one had expected Zaire to have more patience than he'd shown before, but somehow he'd failed to interfere for what was now hundreds of times longer than he'd ever gone before. There hadn't even been any threatening messages, or runically-enhanced minions sent after them. It was as though they had completely lost his interest. Equally mysterious was Simphonia's apparent absence; for all anyone knew, she might have died at Ymirhoggr's tentacles, or might simply have been lost or hiding. For the first few weeks, Bellona and Kargrek were constantly tense: every rustle in the brush was the Redeemer coming for them, every distant voice was a taunt or a curse. But it was always just one of the monstrous beasts that inhabited this place, or more rarely one of the hunters that flocked to it for sport.
Compared to robots or actual monsters or terrifying near-omnipotent overlords, those threats were just shy of ignorable. They certainly didn't pose a real risk two people who had spent their whole lives in caution and combat. Gradually, the settled into something that could be called a gross parody of domesticity; gradually, they found themselves approaching something that could look like happiness in the right light.
---
Scott wiped the grime from his sweating forehead; in actuality, he merely achieved a more even measure of grime between his sleeve and his skin. He'd always been a cosmopolitan man, which had made the transition to a subsistence existence in the wilderness much more jarring for him than for any of the other survivors; it was still much better than actively fighting for his life, though.
At the moment, he was wrist-deep in a tangle of cobbled-together machinery. His occasional meetups with the pair he had begun to think of as Mr. and Mrs. Achillia mostly consisted of them handing over all the technology and weaponry they'd gathered from "neutralized" hunters to him. He thought of it as a mutually-beneficial arrangement: they kept him safe, he repaid them by seeking a way to escape their captor without getting them all killed. He hadn't had great success yet, in part because his tools were extremely limited and in part because he really had little idea of how to accomplish his goals, but he was sure he'd get there eventually. Between him, himself, and Will, it would happen. The only stipulation was whether it would happen before or after Zaire got fed up and slaughtered somebody. Or they all died of old age, for that matter.
For several promising seconds, there was the whir of a component spinning to life, but that was cut short by the flash of an arc and the pop of a broken circuit. Scott swore. It was always setback after setback. And on top of that, his stomach chose that moment to growl loudly; he'd been concentrating so hard, he'd forgotten to eat for who knew how many hours. With a scowl at his gently-smoking experiment, he decided there wasn't much to be gained from further fiddling at the moment, and headed out to get some food.
When he returned to the hidden underground hovel Kargrek had helped him dig out, arms laden with the garish fruit this forest was littered with, he quickly found that for the first time in days he wasn't alone.
"I have to admit, Scott, as disappointed as I am, I'm pretty impressed too. I mean, I wouldn't have guessed that you guys would manage to not only stay peaceful this long, but also just to survive this long! I'm not even mad, I'm so impressed. Well, not very mad."
The time traveller had tried to flee, but the camouflaged brush and logs he called a door was suddenly lined with red runes and refused to budge.
"Still, though, I've really run out of patience for letting this thing run its course. I expect violence, and I intend to get what I expect. But the last few times I've put myself on your level, you've just disappointed me even more! Someone should be able to figure out it's a waste of time to fight me, but you all just keep doing it. Such a waste!"
Scott hadn't known what to say, but found his jaw wouldn't work to let him say it anyway.
"So I thought, what can I do to make sure you folks get nice and murderous, without letting you get distracted trying to send that murderousness my way? And it took a while, but I came up with a new plan, and I've decided it's a good one. Not really what you might call within the rules of these things, I guess, but between you and me I find the rest of the guys that run them to be total bores. A bunch of sticks in the mud! Huge wastes of cosmic power, really. So I'm not going to let their opinion of me change things. I'm going to do what it takes to get this battle on track."
"And that's where you come in."