The Relentless Slaughter [Round 3: Tormentorland]

Originally posted on MSPA by Anomaly.

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Darkness. Such a deep lack of light, that one would be at fault to simply call it "pitch black". A darkness like none the nine occupants of the room had ever experienced, and unlike any they could ever imagine. But in an instant, the infinite void was replaced by an unfamiliar, alien environment. The room occupied by the contestants-to-be was large, open, and circular. The twisted architecture of the scene vaguely resembled an unholy gothic cathedral, bloodstains dispersed throughout the room. The floor consisted of two concentric circles, with a large ring around the outer edge missing. In the place of this outer ring there was simply a black pit, a dropoff which in this environment may very well have been endless.

Around the perimeter of the outer circle were arranged eight large pillars, stretching from the depths of the great pit to the black void which took the place of a visible ceiling. In these pillars were carved images of screaming faces, horrible, twisted visages of what could have once been any of a number of species. At least, one would hope they were simply carvings.

On each of these pillars, roughly three meters from the ground, a single figure was bound motionless, unable to do anything other than simply watch in horror. Eyes darted around, observing in shock the utterly alien inhabitants of the room bound to identical pillars, and, strangely enough, an unbound man standing in the inner circle inscribed in the ground. This tall, pale man wore a simple button-up shirt as well as a pair of raggedy jeans, and had long, black hair which largely obscured his face. And oddly enough, he appeared to be clutching a wooden stick. The man began to shout to no one in particular.

"Who dares to pull Zeta Chris away from his moment of triumph?! I thought I had finally found a worth adversary! One capable of pulling even the mighty ZETA CHRIS through the Multiverse! Even immobilize him! And then to have that being killed so effortlessly by another, and to be pulled away so quickly! It sickens me!"

Chris's stick quickly transformed into an impressive laser cannon, no doubt an extremely powerful weapon. "Perhaps this one is an even more worthy adversary! Nevertheless, I shall still destroy you! Show yourself, demon!"

No response. The man paced around, growing increasingly flustered and waving his weapon around impatiently. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks. His apathetic, yet confident expression quickly turned to one of worry, which quickly gave way to fear, followed by pain. He collapsed to his knees, and began to yell, his tone and expression becoming more and more agonized by the second. After a very short time, Zeta Chris exploded into a massive shower of blood, drenching the room and its inhabitants as a dark figure appeared where the man had once stood.

"SURPRISE!"

The figure took on an approximation of a humanoid form, albeit with a multitude of eyes and quite a few arms as well. His empty, red eyes were widened with gleeful excitement, darting around quickly to observe his contestants. He immediately burst out in horrible laughter, grating at the ears (or equivalent structures) of all present. After a while, he ceased and for the first time addressed his contestants.

"Oh, sorry. Sorry! I completely forgot to introduce myself! I'm known by some as the Tormentor! Isn't it amazing how much blood one man can have inside of him? It's funny every time! But, I suppose you'd like to know why you're here! Well, it's quite simple! You're here to die!"

The Tormentor broke out in hideous laughter again, before stopping suddenly and continuing as if nothing had happened.

"Well, not quite. This is the Relentless Slaughter! It's one of a group of battles to the death that we in the business like to call the Grand Battles. But honestly, this is the only one worth watching! The others are boring tripe!" The Tormentor's eyes narrowed, and his vicious smile widened. "How lucky you are to be a part of it. Well!"

His expression immediately reverted to his normal insanity. "What you've got here is a very special Battle! The eight of you will be dropped into a location, milling around and fighting or making oh-so-precious friendships or just running away like little chickens until one of you bites it! Then, the seven of you that remain will be dropped into a new location, and this'll continue until only one of you is left! However, in this battle, those of you who die will meet a very, very bad end! ...By which I mean ETERNAL TORMENT! It'll be hilarious!"

"Oh, I know what you're thinking. 'Nooo, we won't play this game! We'll just be friends and we'll team up and escape!' Well, you can try if you like! I know you'll try, too. But one-by-one you'll all die no matter what you do. The last two of you alive will then end up finding their way to me and attempt to kill me - and yes, only two of you will be left when this happens - but one of you will die! That's just how it works! It'll be hilarious! I can hardly wait!"

"...Well, I suppose that before I drop you into this, I should at least have the courtesy to introduce you to each other. Well, let's begin!"

The Tormentor, ignoring gravity entirely, shot up to one of the pillars and floated next to a large, colorful, cartoonish armadillo, who was oddly enough wearing pants. "This here is Rollo! You may be wondering, 'why is he so colorful?!' Well, I managed to rip him straight from a very popular children's cartoon! That's right, I pulled an innocent children's character into a sick, twisted battle to the death! It's funny! This guy should be rather competitive, too. You know those 'physics' in cartoons, where no one actually dies and violence is purely comic relief? It still applies here! Hit him with a comically oversized hammer and he'll turn into an accordian rather than chunky salsa! And don't underestimate him, because he carries quite a few interesting tools with him, and is also a fairly good chef. Except when he's not! He's pretty scared of soccer players, and understandably so! Also ghosts, but that's a pretty standard one."

With this, several monstrous, ghostly apparitions materialized around Rollo, drawing ever closer to him before disappearing entirely. Also, one of them was a soccer player for some reason. Rollo looked fairly mortified after this seemingly mild experience, however. The Tormentor quickly sprang over to the next pillar, occupied by a strange-looking figure that might have once been human. His limbs were horribly stretched and distorted, and his face was fixed in a large grin.

"Check this guy out! This here is Gannet! All in all he's a pretty nice guy, really. Although he might be a little crazy, he's definitely friendly! He doesn't want to hurt you or anything. Go ahead, give him a big hug!"

The Tormentor quickly gained a labcoat and a large, sinister hypodermic needle. "He's always been afraid of doctors, but that's a perfectly normal thing. After all, who'd want to take the risk of malpractice?" The Tormentor stabbed the needle into Gannet's arm at an angle which definitely wasn't normal. He swiftly pulled it out and made no effort to stop the copious bleeding. He lost the doctor getup and moved on to the next pillar, occupied by a rather normal-looking teenager, only odd because of his entirely-black eyes and the claws in place of his hands.

"This here's Samael Corson! Look at this guy! Believe it or not, he was actually a demon once! Something that's almost respectable, reduced to this fleshbag! It just about brings me to tears every time! Apparently, this all happened because he took the blame for another demon's failures. And apparently, demons reward cheating and chaos amongst themselves, because Satan went ahead and punished him! Well, he still has quite a few demon powers in spite of this. But most of them pale in face of his ability to... get this... control fruit! Bahahahahahahaha! I can't stop laughing! He's just so pathetic! He's also afraid that deep down, his friendly behavior is just a facade and he really is evil after all. And let me tell you something, folks. He is! It's true! You can't have good demons! It's just an oxymoron! So stay away from this guy, he could kill you at any moment!

The Tormentor sauntered over to pillar four, upon which was suspended a large triped, possessing 3 arms and a multitude of weapons.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Vulm'mram'Vuul! Sorry, I don't think you caught that. Vulm'mram'Vuul! Rolls right off the tongue! This guy is a Battlecleric of the Alvum Imperium, a decent standing in their caste system. Believe it or not, the Alvum more-or-less look up to their superiors as gods! The more power they have, the more godly they are! Look at him, he's probably bowing down to me in his mind already! And why shouldn't he?" The Tormentor's expression took a turn for the cruel. "I am a god. Well, this guy'll definitely be a formidable opponent. He also has a very interesting manner of speech! It even doubles as a weapon! He fears not having a place in the hierarchy. And guess what, Vully! You're not in the castes anymore! Odds are you're going to meet a horrible undying fate, presided over by yours truly! No more authority to look up to! Sayonara! Well, unless he decides to look up to me. It's kind of cute, really."

The next pillar held a rather young girl with flowing red hair, wearing a large dress and looking overall distraught.

"Say hello to Dorin! She was part of what would have made for a very interesting story in itself, being selected as her generation's honorary sacrifice! She even met a god at one point! Well, she was falling into the sacrificial pit when I scooped her up and brought her here instead. That's right, Dorin. The sacrifice was a failure! You're still very much alive! You failed! Faiiiilllled! What's the point of still living, Dorin? Your society's probably falling into disarray because of me! I've probably destroyed everything you ever stood for, invalidated your entire life! ...Well, anyway, she's now more-or-less a catalyst for the gods as well as other beings, all of which she can bring into the world, at extreme pain to herself. Should be interesting!"

Pillar six held a rather ordinary-looking man, wearing a black leather coat and overall looking like he came from centuries ago. A multitude of vials were held in various pockets on his coat, and several other odds and ends were carried as well.

"Here's Lieutenant Matthew Zimmer! He's a pretty great guy, really! He took part in an interplanetary religious war, and is himself intensely religious. That'll certainly help him here! He has much prowess in the field of alchemy, and has perfected several materials which will definitely give him an edge in the battle to come. But more than any of this, his best successes are in his failures! Once when he was serving as a field messenger, he left a fire burning as he ran off to deliver some papers or something, no one really cares. This fire spead rapidly, and he ended up killing huge amounts of his enemies! Just a simple coincidence? Nope! Small things he does like that often inadvertently lead to successes! He's afraid of losing his religion more than anything, though. And in this contest? I'll give him an hour before he breaks down! It'll be really funny, believe me!"

On the second-to-last pillar was a normal-looking young man in his boxer shorts. Well, normal-looking besides the massive robotic arm and the mechanical legs.

"Martin Holden! Now let me just tell you, this guy's a robot! Well, he started out as human, but uploaded his mind into this thing later. Personally I think he'd have been better the old way, robots don't bleed nearly as nicely as humans! He got this conversion after being drafted for war, as you can tell from the bigass gun of a left arm he has! But wait, there's more! The conversion process didn't actually go very well at all, and he was left malfunctioning! How is he malfunctioning, you might ask? Well, I can't just tell you everything! You'll find out for yourself! He's scared of a whole lot of things, and I'm certain after all those horror stories that he's absolutely mortified of me! This'll be fun to watch!"

The final contestant was more-or-less a human-sized spider, exotic markings covering its body. On its back were membranous, wing-like flaps, though these were less than apparent when stuck to a pillar.

"Last and quite possibly least, this is Ke! Yes, only two letters. Don't want to make it too hard for you guys to remember it! She's an Arachnid Remembrancer, or, in normal terms, she's a big spider that likes to tell stories! I can tell you, if she survives, this'll make one hell of a story! ...Heh. Hell. It's funny because it's literal. She's also extremely light, enough that she can flat-out fly! The hooks on her feet keep her on the ground most of the time, though, so not to worry! Many people have tried to hold her captive because of her appearance, to keep her for themselves. She's honestly pretty afraid of captivity. And that's what she is right now! A captive! Oh, the hilarity! I don't even have to try to incite her fears!"

The Tormentor floated back down to the central circle, replanting his feet on the ground. "And there you have it, folks! Eight contestants, seven rounds, and a bad end for all but one! Now, then, it's time for the first round! And since I'm a caring Tormentor, I'll even include a bonus for this round! Whoever dies here just dies! You can go right on to your afterlife or whatever it is you usually do when you die! No strings attached! Now then, it's time to go... to the Canvas!" The Tormentor whipped out a seemingly ordinary-looking drawing tablet.

"And I'd like to think I'm quite the artist!"

With this, eight arms erupted from the Tormentor's back, each hand gripping a black sword made from the same material as the grandmaster himself. Slowly, the arms snaked their way up to each of the eight pillars, and, after waiting a moment to add to the effect, the Tormentor stabbed the contestants straight through their hearts. Everything faded away for a moment, before the eight awoke in an entirely blank field, a fantasyesque dungeon being drawn around them.

Show Content

SpoilerAlright, this is the traditional MSPAFA round, based this time on Adventure in Paint. Essentially, the Tormentor is creating the setting as he goes using the various MS Paint tools. Anything goes, really. Creating monsters for you to fight? Probably. Dangerous locales? Most certainly. Erasing your arm and replacing it with a green tentacle? Hey, it happens. Have fun, and stay active!

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

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Immediately, Samael collapsed, clutching his chest. And immediately afterwards, he bounced back up onto his feet, uneasily rubbing his ribs and looking around and ooooooooh man how did this even happen.

Uneasiness turned into calm. If he died here, what was the problem? Just another cycle. Though admittedly with a…really strange ending. All he had to do was walk around a bit and whenever he carked it, he’d pop back into Hell for a brief hello before starting a new life. And in the meantime, he could do something useful. Rub elbows with the others. Or whatever.

Remember, remember, it’s only for this round, little Sammy. If you don’t die here, then it’ll be another eternal torment by the hands of an insane, morbid being who’s probably a bit more imaginative than dear Lord Satan.

So, either all or nothing. Or something like that. Well, however it turns out, he supposed he’d have to see it through.

Samael quickly hopped out of the way of a wandering pencil that seemed determined to construct as detailed a background as possible. Experimentally, he tapped on the newly drawn floor with a foot. Hm, certainly sounded like stone. Interesting.

First thing he should do: find other contestants. There were times when you needed a friend and times when you just had to be alone and this wasn’t a particularly good time to be alone.

Thinking about the other souls dragged into this mess, Samael couldn’t help but let his mind wander to his own, brief introduction. He scoffed. As though someone else could judge him good or evil like that. As though anybody could define someone in such black and white terms. As though being one thing immediately meant being another. He had to wonder, were angels really all that good?

Without even the courtesy of a small pop, two bright clementines appeared in his hand and, as he started down the hall that was being drawn around him, he started juggling them one-handedly. Who could possibly be fooled by the Tormentor’s words when they were so obviously made to incite action against him before he could explain? People nowadays were reasonable. And anybody could realize that this guy couldn’t really be trusted, huh?

…Frightened people weren’t reasonable.

…This sort of situation certainly happened before.

An eraser came along and rubbed a flying clementine from existence. Samael didn’t notice too much.

He didn’t look too threatening, or weird or something, did he?

Next to a giant spider? Ha. And that alien thing and the…the…Rollo. Huh. How do you take a cartoon character? How did the show work then? In any case, he had to look relatively normal. At least from his own perspective. Giant spiders and alien things probably didn’t see humanoids very often.

But…maybe…he should pull down his hat a little more...I mean…sometimes the way he looked…it could be alarming, you know. At least over the eyes, you know. And maybe he should take out the gloves.

The other clementine had already vanished by the time he dug around his pockets for his gloves, though he didn’t quite notice this either. Under the crackling light of black and white torches (or rather, the light of the generally white background…how did that work?), he pulled on the gloves (made in China, like most everything else, a hand-me-down before finding its way to a pawn shop, where he managed to haggle it down to its actual worth rather than the overpriced tag it had on), popped a couple more clementines into existence, and juggled as he whistled. Now he wouldn’t make a bad first impression, right? Right.

Ahead of him, more stone walls were being drawn. He had yet to see any doors. This sort of worried him. But this dungeon castle place was still in the process of being made. Perhaps there’ll be some doors later.

Samael came at a dead end. He glanced over his shoulder and wasn’t too surprised to see a new brick wall had erected itself right behind him, thus trapping him in a small, square area. He could still see through the bricks, though. Probably because they weren’t colored in yet.

It seemed as though the floating pencil was busy scribbling something above him. Samael ignored the sound and tried sticking his hand through the white space in the bricks. Ah, went right through. Good. Tugging on the outlines for a bit, he finally managed to bring his foot up and push one line down, scrunching up all the bricks below, while holding the rest up wide and open. And then it was a matter of just stepping through and moving away quickly once he let go. The brick snapped back into shape, and he was back in white space. An anvil crashed down where he had been before. How childish. And now the malicious artist was drawing the environment around him again.

Okay, so if he remembered correctly, that had been a tablet in the tormenting dude’s hands arms things. And this was called the Canvas, with a nice, important, capital letter. So was this supposed to be a…two-dimensional space…? If he was drawing on a tablet, of course. But then there wouldn’t be depth. And there wouldn’t have been four walls, would there? Because on a two-dimensional space, he wouldn’t be able to build up a fourth wall without obscuring his view…or something. Though the bricks sort of seemed two-dimensional. How could you draw something on a three-dimensional plane anyways? Unless…he was drawing from a fourth-dimensional point of view…? But he was clearly holding something that only allowed a two-dimensional plane and oh man now this was starting to hurt his head.

But the physics of this sort of thing was interesting. He couldn’t help but think he would enjoy figuring out the rules of this world.

Though his optimism was dampened slightly when he found that he was all of a sudden walking on water. Only he didn’t really have that ability. Samael made quite a large splash and as he treaded water, he couldn’t help but think how juvenile this was. He also couldn’t help but wonder what differentiated water from just a plain floor, as besides his now-soaked clothes, he couldn’t really tell the difference.

Around him, the water was suddenly colored blue. Then he could see the beginnings of an alligator being drawn. Underneath his hat, he rolled his eyes.

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

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If someone had told Dorin she would die by noon today, she would have believed it completely, which made it all the harder for the young girl to accept that she didn't.

First, of course, came the realisation that her body was covered in golden rings, almost emitting beams strong and bright enough to plainly pierce through the shading being cross-hatched across the castle walls in dim red and black.

The girl looked around in a tense panic, shaking her body heavily and barely holding her head in one place long enough to stare at her every limb and mouth the word “No.” It seemed as if any moment she could lose focus and spin straight to the ground. That was why the Tormentor slowly started adding bilestained spikes beneath the dirtfloored façade she was chucked upon. And soon more through the façade she went to lean against.

Then during the flailing and dashing at the walls she noticed the floating shimmering crystal that followed her around. As far as it could manage, it wore a worried gaze.

She cried. She cried like she was six years old and left everyone she had grown up with insofar one could call her life growing, and had to live below ground for the rest of her life. She cried like way back at that moment, the only other time she felt truly helpless and abandoned by everyone. She cried like the time she had tried to run away, like the countless times she had tried to run away which had only bore the fruit of countless days alone and afraid in a small, white, solitary cell made of immaculately white bricks, sobbing away her days crouched into a cramped sadness she knew only she could feel.

But then came entirely different tears. Then came the tears she narrowly managed to hold back when she had said goodbye, the tears of knowing that this time there would be no “Talk you you later” or “See you again sometime,” and then seeing that person again. They were tears for Shik'skara, her friend and guide. She didn't care whether or not is was possible to hug a Shard, she did it anyway. Calmly and slowly and her hands covered in radiant light and lambent teardrops, she simply held the little crystal in both hands, still sobbing.

And after fully coming to terms with being a portal to, or rather from a distant realm, and reuniting with Shik'skara, silence helping the conversation along like a parent teaching a child to ride a bike, completely tuned to each other and its hand in theirs every step of the way, then she started truly understanding exactly her situation. And only then did the words of that horrible tormentor sink in.

Dorin was on a very good track here with her train of thought, but suddenly crashed and derailed into the burning wreckage of her throat simply dying. There were no other words for this pain. It died.

From between her body and head drilled a small dragonlike spirit, head with little horns and grinningly fuming white smoke out of its nostrils, but a snakelike body, slender and without limbs. The excruciating pain was just as much something stabbing into her as something crawling out, and spread through her entire body at the very moment it only so much as poked through one of her golden holes. And when she collapsed to the ground after the exertion, and almost lost consciousness due to the sheer pain she had experienced, not even by the hand of this so-called fear elemental, it began anew, only much more acute.

From every part of her body escaped several of similar being to the first one. Spirits of nature and water and victory flew through the synthetic, white air, murmurs spreading in the castle, yawns of at least a hundred beasts of transcendence having slept for years on end. The whispering tone grew both in joyfulness and volume, growing into a true cacophony of noise. Ticklish feet crawling over her arms and legs and her dress flitting in the draft of spirits flying out from underneath it were both suppressed by the immense terror and pain coursing through her veins.

And then she remembered what that god had said: She had failed.

Dorin was in pain and tired and definitely not in a situation to suddenly jump up, but she couldn't help herself as calamity grabbed her by the throat, as if about to suspend her in the air and choke her against the metal tips of slowly creeping spikes. The torture she was experiencing, the battle she was chucked into and the god berating her of her actions, it all made sense. She hadn't died, but why? There had to be a reason. There has to be, there's a reason to everything!

First, she decided the most logical thing to blame was that impious glass of water. She soon decided after feeling another small lizard stab through her leg and escape that such a punishment was to fierce for drinking water.

Next, she looked more broadly, trying desperately to run by her entire life in little over twenty seconds. Needless to say, she didn't exactly find anything at first glance. Were it her constant objections to her fate while she was young? Did she bring this upon herself by sneaking Corban into the guild?

When facing a punishment without any idea what you did to deserve it, it's hard to not freak out.

Perhaps silence didn't exactly do the past situation justice in retrospect. While communicating through the unspoken is rather poetic as a symbol of a strong bond making a silence say “Calm down, the Tormentor is probably lying to get to you, this is all part of the process” is a smidge too specific. As it was, it was pretty obvious Shik'skara had to cut in and snap her out of it, because she was losing her mind alarmingly quickly.

“Dorin, please relax! Nothing bad is going on!”

“You call this nothing bad? Look at me, Shik, I'm a lightbulb!”

“Yes, but... That's supposed to be.”

“You mean... I didn't fail?”

“I mean I don't know. I do know that the Tormentor we shouldn't trust him.”

A small, white feline crept from under her collar and introduced itself. On its own it was already a strange sight, but combine it with the girl doubling over in agony while it popped out its adorable head and you truly get an incomprehensible situation.

“Eske, skara'ets! So'o Kanteron!”

“Eske, Kanteron'ets. Veki'iks pfaitei mai'o?”

“So'e paskai tra'iks. Meki so'a, schafai? Tikai so'a skam-ontai?”

“So'a.”

“A. So'a schafai-tischai-ei.”

“Ki.”

“What're you saying, Shik? Can that cat help me?”

“Not in the meaning you mean. He is the god of the water. He can give you powers if you want.”

“Great. Just great. First that thing crawls out of me, and nearly kills me – “ Dorin was clearly overreacting a bit by now. The pain had subsided for the most part. “ – And now it's gonna help me using the power of water? What's that gonna do to help us? We're in a dungeon!”

“Well, water's over there.”

Dorin saw the young guy she had been introduced to as being a demon get attacked by some alligator equipped with two flamethrowers. Okay, what?!

In the same graceful fashion the cat had without much ado left Dorin's body – and admittedly with her constant cringes and spasms such a feat was rather hard to pull off with any grace at all – it lifted its front paw and a shield of water raised before Samael. Searing flames the devices spat out collided with the sudden surge to create a troubled smokescreen, but even that proved little an impediment for Dorin's lucent body. It soon dissipated, clearing up the area, and revealing to Samael his supposed saviour.

Originally posted on MSPA by engineclock.

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Gannet rolled to his feet, clutching his wounded arm as blood seeped out from between his clawlike fingers, red on black on white... He stood swaying for a moment, filled with a sudden sickening fear. The memory of the needle piercing his skin brought another wave of nausea; barely aware of the significance of the event, he could only close his eyes tightly and try not to think about it. He’d had worse hallucinations but not in a long time, not since maybe when he first lay convulsing on the rocks outside of the Oracle’s den, screaming for hours and hours about ships and water and fire and gods and all of the terrible knowledge that filled his head. He felt himself starting to shake but ignored it. He was a servant of the Oracle, he was marked for worse things than this, surely, wasn’t he? He was. The Oracle did not make mistakes, did not ever make mistakes, did not ever make mistakes the Oracle is never wrong never been wrong everything is going to be okay everything will be fine-

Somewhere under his disease-addled thoughts the virus seethed. It wasn’t fully aware, nowhere near the synchronization levels of a core host, but it knew a syringe from the collected memories of its kind. Rapidly it overrode Gannet’s immune system, targeting the injected area: finding nothing but a few surface microbes and a harmless saline solution did nothing to pacify it. Particles of the virus itself gathered and ruptured the strange cells, instinctively fighting against any strange infections. It had learned to hate new pathogens as much as a direct cure, relentlessly defending its host against any factors that might alter his susceptibility to its effects.

The immediate threat eliminated, the virus began to abate the panic it had induced on Gannet. His usual bare-toothed grin returned and he blinked slowly, letting his hand slip away from the wound, letting the blood drip down his arm. Everything was fine! The Oracle was with him. It was good. The blood was nothing, there was nothing wrong now. He laughed suddenly, happily, and began to look around him, phantom colors flickering around the edge of his vision as the virus reestablished its equilibrium.

The lines extending themselves above him were forming into the shape of walls and other forms Gannet didn’t think to examine. All of this was fascinating! The Oracle would be pleased to learn that whole worlds existed that it had never even known about. He sniffed the air experimentally; the area had no smell except, distantly, the alien scents of the other people he’d seen in the dark room. He was suddenly aware of how still the air was; the bitter scent of the ocean that had been there as long as he could remember was gone, and there was nothing in its place, except maybe something chemical, distantly…

Someone screamed, far off, and dimly the shadowy man’s words reverberated with him: a fight? Gannet wasn’t a fighter, those were the Teeth of the Oracle, with their fangs and claws and screaming howls, they’d tear him apart if the Oracle would let them. Thinking about them made him nervous. He resolved not to do it anymore. The other people he smelled were strange to him but this wasn’t a problem. The Oracle needed to know of them and there was nothing more important than what the Oracle wanted. Gannet wasn’t afraid of them, at least not yet. He was fine. Everything was fine.

Spying a ledge being drawn tantalizingly above him, Gannet leapt for it, only to find that it was only an outline and fall painfully through back on to the rapidly materializing floor. Dark laughter echoed from somewhere, but Gannet was used to hearing disembodied voices and ignored it. What sort of world was this? Was this occurrence normal here? The ledge began to color itself in but he was no longer interested in that particular path. A passageway was pulling itself together from fragments of line and color off to his side.

Poking his head around the corner, Gannet sniffed the air again. Still nothing. He didn’t like relying on his eyes to understand his surroundings. Sometimes they lied to him and showed him things that weren’t there, though usually only for a second but that was too long sometimes, the Oracle’s blessing was of vision but not always truth, always truth yes, that was its purpose, the Oracle sent him here-

Another wave of calmness hit him. He was getting distressed about nothing. Glancing behind him- were those walls getting closer? He stared for a moment longer, long enough to realize that yes, they were. The closest one even seemed to be growing spikes out of it. He touched one gingerly and was rewarded with a faint prick on the hardened bone of his finger.

Gannet’s flesh twitched reflexively. He had a new aversion to sharp things coming at him.

He swept down the new corridor, taking in the odd texture of the dull stone that was forming itself around him. He dragged his hand along one wall, noting its unnatural unevenness. It was room-temperature to the touch and not slick with algae like he was used to, but the presence of the stone comforted him somewhat. If he narrowed his eyes enough he could almost see it as one of the tunnels the Oracle lurked in, though it was missing the dark streaks on the walls at about hand height-

He tripped suddenly, his bare feet catching on the brand new pile of rocks that was spilling across the floor. He barely managed to catch himself in time, wobbling on his overly-long legs and reaching for a grip on the wall. Thankfully the wall was nearer than he had thought; unfortunately, it was getting even closer at a pretty alarming pace. He leaned back sharply only to realize that the wall behind him was moving too- he’d be crushed if he stayed in this area much longer.

He ran headlong down the tunnel, trying to avoid the sudden showers of rocks that kept popping into existence. A pit opened under his feet, filled with massive rusted spikes and what looked like obnoxiously bright vipers, their double heads turning upwards to glare at him with beady red eyes. He awkwardly swiveled to avoid it, dancing on the quickly vanishing edge and clinging on to the wall itself, then bolted past, hunching down slightly to avoid the narrowing tunnel.

The walls on all sides began to collapse even faster as Gannet reached what he hoped was the end of the tunnel. The stone pressed painfully on his limbs and his ears were filled with the sound of grinding rock and shifting walls; his breathing echoed louder and louder in his chest as he squeezed past the rough rock, scraping his skin and pulling his arms in awkwardly to avoid having them smashed to pieces. His feet stumbled and he nearly fell; narrowing his eyes he dove for the last few feet, his calm disintegrating and he hoped he made it he wasn’t going to die there was no water here this host would not fail with no way for us to spread-

Gannet burst back out into the white light and slammed into the ground, inches clear of the tunnel. With a crunching sound it sealed up behind him, leaving no evidence there had ever been anything other than the smooth wall of fake, too-smooth stone.

As he lay gasping on the ground, delicate black lines sketched the word “LOL” in front of Gannet’s face, and vanished with another smattering of distant, spiteful laughter.

Originally posted on MSPA by Adenreagen.

---

As soon as his feet touched the ground, Zimmer noticed two things: that there were walls being drawn around him and that there was a faint scent of parchment in the air. Having been around it for so many years, it was like an old friend to comfort him. He thought briefly about what the creature that called itself “The Tormentor” said and how he could apparently control worlds like the one he was in. Extraordinary. He could even control people’s movements, judging by how he couldn’t even twitch when he was suspended on that pillar.

Shrugging his shoulders, he absently poured the beakers of vinegar and baking soda he had been transported mid-experiment with onto the ground. Looking down expecting to see fizzing, he was instead thrown back by an explosion that set the walls around him on fire. He quickly put out his burning sleeve, and resigned his hair to the shortened state it was now reduced to. He looked up to see the fire spreading, but two circles were drawn around the fire and the middle filled with what looked to be water. The fire stopped spreading, and was then surprisingly erased and the blackened paper again replaced with white. The walls again began drawing themselves.

*Sniff**Sniff* “No smell, so it was probably water. That explains why there was no acidic smell like vinegar has” *Sniff* “Potassium! Who labeled pure potassium as baking soda? I could have been killed!” Slowly it dawned on him, “…I labeled them. Stupid. Stupid! STUPID!” He began yelling at himself, “Why can’t you ever get these things right? You’ve always messing up your labels, and it’d serve you right if you killed yourself; you’ve already killed an apprentice that way, and injured a dozen others!” The sudden memory of that day saddened him, and only increased his anger at himself. He punched the wall in anger, at the failure of that day becoming fresh in his mind, and the failure of moments ago that still burned on his skin.

Unexpectedly, the wall punched him back. Finding himself on the floor for the second time in as many minutes, he looked up in surprise at the wall that had sprouted arms.
One pointed behind him at a door that had been drawn during his rage, and the other continued to punch any part of him it could reach. He ran for the door and the wall began following him. He knew that he had to direct his anger at something else, and when he found out the door was locked he had the perfect thing to aim it at. He began pounding on the door, kicking at it, yelling at it, all while the wall slowly advanced on him and the arm began coming back in reach.

As it again knocked him to the ground, Zimmer realized that this was a test by his Maker. That being that said it was a god must have been his Lord in a different form. “To avoid the afterlife He described if I fail, I must succeed. I must survive this test He has put me in, and return to tell my people of this Divine meeting.” He reached into his coat, selecting the third vial on the right side of his vest: the Alkahest. Now that it was drawn and colored, the door was solid enough that he couldn’t cut the lines away from the paper world around him, so he decided that the easiest way out was to melt the lock. The Alkahest was only a prototype and still imperfect, but it dissolved most things it came into contact with.
He quickly pulled off the stopper on the vial, and dipped his knife into it. As a rule his knives were etched with runes that made them a blend of metals to ward against such a thing and enable him to do his experiments without a cost to his tools. Dodging the arm again, Zimmer shoved his knife into the keyhole, twisting it and feeling the metal of the lock give way. He threw the door open and dove out as the moving wall hit its opposite and come to a stop.

The arms closed the door as a rumbling laugh filled the air around him. “Who knew that there were failures that didn’t help you, eh Lieutenant? It’s just HILARIOUS”

As Zimmer went to his knees to pray for forgiveness for his failure and that he would try harder, there was a dull thud ahead of him and the sound of grinding stone.

“…and may I always be in your light as I –huh?” Zimmer looked up to see a grey-looking, tall and extremely gangly looking man begin to stand up. It was apparent that he had dove from a room that, like his, had sealed itself.

“He looks to be quite shaky on his feet. I’d offer to give him something to ease the tremors, but my Lord said he was afraid of doctors. He also said his name was Gannet and…what was it? That he was nice but crazy or just nice’n’crazy…something like that. Either way, he made it out of that room alive, so he can’t be as weak as the shaking makes him look.”

As he headed towards Gannet and tried to figure out how to introduce himself to such a strange individual, he felt a slight twinge on his forehead. “Stupid chemical burns, you’d think I’d be used to them by now. At least the man looks friendly enough, just look at that smile!”

Bowing with a flourish of his hand, Matthew introduced himself, “Hello, good sir. I’m Lieutenant Zimmer, and it’s a pleasure to meet another person hand selected by our God.”

Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.

---

Connection Lost.

The message had glued itself firmly to the bottom left corner of Martin's vision only moments after being taken from the medical center. Connection to what was unclear, but if Martin had to guess, reality itself would be his first conclusion. His eyes darted back and forth, panic firmly entrenching itself on his face, as he feverishly clutched the space on his chest where the sword had stabbed him moments prior. His artificial inner ear and artificial nerve endings in his artificial hair follicles all screamed at him that he was falling, and his metallic feet hit what he had to assume was the floor. Martin toppled over unceremoniously.

The whiteness that was his entire world split open into a chasm of black, which neatly arranged itself into a loose brick pattern beneath his feet and on two sides. With a click the space between them filled with a uniform gray.

Martin scrambled backwards frantically, head full of messy, synthetic hair bumping into another wall behind him with a weighty thud. He drew his knees up against his chest and covered his face with his hands, shaking.

Martin's modular systems included a multitude of bits and pieces installed to ensure that no one felt they were missing out on any part of "The Human Experience" by undergoing the transhuman transformation. A functional digestive system, respiratory system, and reproductive system, along with the accompanying simulated urges to make use of each were included. It also came with features like sweat and a heartbeat and desire to sleep. Each could be activated or deactivated individually by an internal menu. Martin tended to keep his on most of the time, except to squash the occasional awkward public erection or, at this particular moment, to spare himself the indignity of crying. Of course, this still left him sobbing and heaving, albeit tearlessly, in the corner of the room that had now closed itself entirely around him.

More distressing to Martin was the loss of his notepad, usually kept in his pants pocket. He wrote a detailed schedule inside, to serve the dual purpose of writing down what needed to be done, and keeping track of the forgotten events that had happened to him throughout the day. He twisted every which way and patted the ground, senselessly hoping that it would somehow appear by him. Of course, it would not. He wasn't wearing any pants.

With one pat, a box materialized in midair around his left arm, its edges composed of flashing dotted lines. Martin jumped back, startled, but his arm stayed in the same place, cleanly severing about halfway between his elbow and shoulder.

He yelped, feeling the exposed stump. That arm had always been military hardware, designed with minimal simulated nerve endings. There was no pain, but the feeling was still viscerally horrifying. This was all too much. Martin doubled over and retched, vomiting out a bit of half-digested oatmeal breakfast as the dotted-line box moved up in the small room. A humanlike figure was drawn into existence around it, looking like a coarse parody of Martin himself, but with proportions all wrong. Its shoulder lined up with the floating gun-arm's line of severance. Martin's gaze slowly traveled up the figure as its details were filled in. In the place of eyes, it was given black holes. Its mouth stretched fully from ear to ear, filled in with endless rows of needle teeth exposed by a wicked grin.

Almost as an afterthought, Martin's missing arm was replaced by a wriggling green tentacle. He spared it a momentary incredulous stare as it writhed, completely out of his control. Martin choked and coughed as he tried to cry out, spitting out an errant oat.

With an unfamiliar clack, the metal sheath forming the back of the gauntlet portion of Martin's hideous double's robot arm unfolded. In one quick sweep, the hand tucked back into the underside and a massive barrel slid forward, locking into place. Martin's jaw dropped open. He had, as far as he knew, never successfully activated the cannon; its safety could only be released by a signal from a military satellite when he was deployed for active duty. The gun made a high pitched whine as the doppleganger leveled it at Martin's face.

The Martin-horror's arm twitched and there was a terrible sound.

Connection Lost.

Martin made a quick attempt to evaluate his current situation and objectives. Darkness all around him, except for a few specks of what looked like pebbles, glowing orange and radiating heat. Above him, a hole. There was something white up there, and it looked like the border of the hole between there and here was blasted through and partially molten.

Martin was perturbed. He reached for the pocket containing his notebook and was shocked to find he was wearing nothing but boxers. What had he been doing? He had a general feeling of unease and a bad taste in his mouth; something was going wrong a moment ago. Something to do with the message now adhering itself down and to the left of everything he looked at? Frowning, he sorted through internal menus until the message was deactivated, making note of what seemed to be an error log of considerable length. Something to do with the military hardware, which was, as far as he was concerned, nothing to do with him.

Martin reached down with his left arm to help push his considerable bulk to its feet, but couldn't feel anything. He reached for his left arm with his right, but yelped as he touched what he assumed was a snake. His system simulated a surge of adrenaline as he ripped the serpent from its hold on what he realized was an empty stump where his left arm used to be. He leapt to his feet, quickly deciding that the arm was one of those Things That Happened In The Past and that right now he should be getting out of this dark tunnel of snakes. He picked a direction and set off at a jog, only to fall face-first into a silent stream of running water in the darkness.

Martin resisted the urge to sigh, and turned off his need to breathe. It took only a moment for his dense body to touch the bottom of the stream, and he tried in vain to jump back up from whence he came.

Further down the stream, Martin could see a very bright blue color. Light from outside? He plodded heavily along the bottom of the stream towards it. As he passed under the blue, he realized that the light he had seen was only illuminating the already-blue color of the water itself.

Dyed blue? he reasoned. Where the hell am I?

His train of thought was cut short as the floor unexpectedly dropped out from under his next step. Unable to compensate against the current of the water, Martin fell forward sickeningly fast, instinctively tucking into a ball as he fell through the waterfall.

There was a loud clank as whatever he landed on gave way to his bulk, and then he dropped further through another tube filled with water.

Martin rubbed his hurt arm against his side as he inspected the damage. He was standing at the bottom of a gray cylinder. It had filled up with water from the waterfall above, and was overflowing out the top, which was originally covered by bars before he had smashed through them. Some sort of small figure was clearly at the top, wiggling out of the tube through the gap in the bars. Some sort of drowning trap? There was a ladder inset into the wall, which Martin took advantage of to climb out of his newly-made hole.

The android clambered awkwardly out of the tube and quickly adjusted his soaking undergarments, before properly inspecting his new acquaintance. His expression brightened in recognition, and the result of a bit of quick mental gymnastics and a heaping dollop of cognitive dissonance caused everything to make sense. He decided that he could appreciate the retro sensibilities of this sim game. "Hey, Rollo," Martin said to the game entity. "Remind me what I'm supposed to be doing right now, would you?"

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

---

Vulm'mram'Vuul was already moving.

His first hoof hit the ground and immediately thrust him forwards into the Scout's Path, a loping, weaving run. His crushing arm reached back, even as the Mk.II "Furious" heavy-weapons holder delivered Rend and Dominate into his hand. He pushed his second elbow backwards, and a stumpy tertripod gripped the loop on the end of the battleaxe's handle. Furious released Rend and Dominate, and Vuul hefted the massive battleaxe upwards, gripping the end of the handle at his second elbow, with his three-fingered hand placed about midway up, guiding the battleaxe's movements. He swept his crushing arm downwards into the Emperor's Charge position, first elbow straight, second elbow bent backwards, ready to whip Rend and Dominate around at a moment's notice. The tertripod holding the end twitched, and the battleaxe's edges ignited with magnetically-contained plasma. Meanwhile, the lower of his quickarms drew an Emperor's Focus plasma sword, and the upper drew an Emperor's Gaze plasma pistol.

Vuul felt no conflict of spiritual interest in continuing to use weapons which invoked the Holy Immortal God-Emperor - though he supposed it was just "Emperor" now. Vuul had always been of the opinion that the Holy Immortal God-Emperor - no, just Emperor, that's what he meant - was merely a conduit through which the Prime shone. An especially strong conduit, yes, very nearly embodying the essence of the Prime. But a conduit nonetheless.

And now here he had proof. He had seen his God. The Prime Alumvaeum. The Chaos Unconquerable. That Which Tore Asunder, and Created Anew. The Burning Light. The Tormentor.

Vuul felt the stirrings of religious rapture deep within him, and his orators began to tingle as the Alvum religious pheromone began to release. His God had entrusted him with a new Name. Only a very few conduits had ever burned so deeply with The Light as to have received another Name.

Those conduits burned so fiercely in fact, that they were recorded in the annals of the Alvum Imperium, and incorporated into the Imperium's religious teachings, for the destruction they caused, and the scars they left on the galaxy.

All of the conduits had also died in glorious battle, for that was what The Prime commanded. And now Vulm'mram'Vuul, Battlecleric of the "Emperor's Fury" 4th, servant of the Emperor for almost seventy galactic standard years, had been given the same command.

Blood for the Blood God.

A stone hallway was being hastily drawn in around him, but Vuul seemed to have no real regard for straight lines. The walls and ceiling were constantly being erased and redrawn as Vuul charged straight through half-filled-in walls and leapt over still-opening chasms.

Eventually the world's artist seemed to give up on creating a castle around the Battlecleric, and instead quickly sketched out a massive, rocky valley, through the bottom of which ran Vuul. A humanoid figure, with crudely-drawn horns and wings, was colored in on one of the valley's ridges. It was surrounded by a small flashing black-and-white box, and suddenly there were hundreds of them, surrounding the valley. And then they all ran screaming down straight for Vuul.

Vuul was happy. His God was truly a caring God.

Vuul ran through a mental list of battle tactics, and decided the Ritual of Culling would be the most fitting for this situation. Which would mean he'd be using the Baal'mroom'Xhuum at Plygorrath incantation as his battle-chant.

He shifted his running stance into the Blazing Meteor, hunching forwards, now in an outright sprint. As the devils grew closer he began to swivel his upper torso, starting a spin. He built up speed. His crushing arm suddenly whipped outwards, Rend and Dominate passing mere inches from the nearest of the devils, slowing his spin and seeming to bring him off balance. When the arm was completely straight, his first elbow finally relaxed from its previous rigidity, and began to bend inwards towards his chest, while his send elbow bent back outwards. Rend and Dominate's blades were still at the end of his now folded-up arm. The movement had brought his center of gravity closer, speeding his spin, and he whipped around while shoving off with one hoof into the Meteor's Strike. He was spinning rather quickly by this point, and his chest speakers were only optimally aligned with his trajectory for a very short period of time. Luckily, the incantation he had chosen worked well with short bursts. Midair, spinning, descending upon the gibbering devils, he began his battle chant.

"WRITHE!"

The word came out as a wall of sound, like a thousand organs, blasting the nearby devils to the ground. Blood began to flow from their mouths, eyes, ears, nostrils... several simply did not get back up. Vuul's hooves crushed them as he landed, and he drowned them in the blood of their comrades. He pushed forwards, whipping his crushing arm around once more, cleaving a burning path through the red-skinned humanoids. His lower quickarm sliced outwards, the Emperor's Focus plasma sword quickly dispatching any devil which made it inside his crushing arm's reach. Rend and Dominate churned through the mass of fleshy, squishy devils, and Vuul was brilliant white fire at the center of its burning fury. Bodies melted and Vuul turned towards their dribbling remains.

"COWER!"

Again, the devils were blown to the ground, stunned, bleeding. Vuul thrust Rend and Dominate behind him, second elbow whipping the battleaxe's captured plasma through another group of devils. Vuul turned with the thrust.

"GROVEL!"

Cries and screams, and more devils were pushed back. Vuul spun and bodies burned. The euphoric trance of rapture began to creep at the edges of his awareness.

"FEAR YOUR FUTURE!"

The lower quickarm thrust the Emperor's Focus back in its scabbard, and drew its own Emperor's Gaze. Both quickarms began firing the plasma pistols in short, surgical bursts, frying devils too far away for Rend and Dominate. He began to funnel his enemies towards his front.

"FOR HE HAS JUDGED YOU!"

The devils fell before his righteous voice, and he carved through them like butter. He turned, slowly panning across the ones still behind him.

"AND YOU HAVE BEEN FOUND UNWORTHY!"

Plasma beams strafed the convulsing bodies, igniting flesh and searing through bone. Vuul had fully succumbed to his battle trance by this point. Pleasure-inducing chemicals flooded his system, and religious euphoria swept over him. He felt no fatigue, and no worry. He was doing holy work.

"BUT DESPAIR NOT!"

The wails of pain from the devils he drove before him seemed to imply they weren't really listening, but most enemies were deaf after the first word of a battle chant anyway.

And besides, he made certain their wails didn't last long.

"HE HAS GIFTED YOU TO ME!"

They weren't coming after him any more. He moved into the Meteor's Winter pattern, tracking down stragglers. Several started running when they saw him approaching. They fell to their knees at his divine invocation.

"AS A WAY TO REGAIN YOUR WORTH!"

Five left now. Grouped together, standing against him. Respectable. Futile.

"GIVE IN TO MY BLADE!"

Four heads rolled, but the fifth escaped by a hair's breadth, somehow scrabbling away at the last second. Vuul approached him. He raised Rend and Dominate above his head, assuming the Judgement's Eclipse stance.

"AND ALL WILL BE FORGIVEN!"

The devil's skin writhed at the proximity to such volume, and then Rend and Dominate did what it did best. Vuul straightened, having completed the Ritual, and began to scan the area.

Manic cackling drifted through the blood-soaked valley, and suddenly the bodies were erased. At the top of the valley stood a new figure, vaguely similar to what the Tormentor (he was still getting chills from even thinking the new Name) had called "Martin Holden". A human, if he remembered correctly. Soft, weak, inventive, dangerous in groups. This figure looked a little off, though. Vuul was no good at recognizing the details of the human face, as he'd had no need to, so the empty black eyes and the ear-to-ear grin went completely unnoticed. The proportions of the body, on the other hand, he noticed.

No matter. If they were of tactical relevance he would soon find out. The Tormentor had mentioned something about a gun, which told Vuul all he needed to know to assume a new battle tactic. He lurched into the Skirmisher's Approach, and returned Rend and Dominate to Furious. The Mk. II's disks telescoped outwards, turned one-quarter in opposite directions, and retracted, delivering the handle of Blaze and Subjugate to his waiting hand. He brought his crushing arm forwards again, the massive plasma cannon hanging beneath his second forearm, pointed straight at Martin-horror.

Originally posted on MSPA by cyber95.

---

Rollo examined his chest finding that it had no lasting holes from the extreme acupuncture he had recieved. Contented with this fact, Rollo had quickly decided that he didn't like this crossover, and hoped it wouldn't last too long. Something did feel different, though. He couldn't quite decide what medium he was in. He couldn't see any panels around him, so it probably wasn't a comic, and while the empty space around him reminded him of a sheet of paper where a scene may be drawn around him, he had no sense of when the next commercial break might be, or how many frames of animation had been done. Those other guys reminded him a bit of that live action movie he was in, but it wasn't quite the same. Maybe one of those fancy new 3D animated cartoons? He did feel like he had a bit more depth than usual, but that might have been because of the buffet table he was clearing off not long ago. For now, what kind of place he was in was a mystery, but wherever it was, Rollo was pretty sure it had a higher age rating than he was used to.

No direction, no obvious plot devices, the young(?) armadillo wasn't quite sure where to go. As if in response to this, a yellow brick road started being drawn in front of him. Surely there would be something interesting down wherever it was starting to lead. He wouldn't let that concerning introduction to this debacle bother him. Rollo waltzed down the road, whistling a jaunty tune, comepletely ignoring the pit of spikes obstructing the pathway, but that was to be expected, really.

A lot of road and a lot of mostly ignored traps later, Rollo came to the end of the yellow bricks and looked behind him to see a trail of anvils, pianos, and various other heavy devices. This Tormentor guy obviously wasn't trying very hard, or was warming up or something. Just a few moments later, he was approached by a somewhat familiar face, who had evidently just climbed out of a hole.

"Hey, Rollo, remind me what I'm supposed to be doing right now, would you?"

A... game? Still wouldn't make much sense, he should know what role he was. Too much control over himself to be a player character, not enough of an idea of what's happening to be an NPC. Still, if that were it, he might as well act the part. He quickly put together an idea of what this character, probably the player character in this case, would need out of him, and to perhaps advance his own plans of actually figuring out what to do.
"Hiya, Martin! I'm Rollo! That mean ol' Tormentor has put us all in a battle to the death! Some of those other guys seemed pretty mean, but maybe some of them can help out somehow? Let's team up for now!"
In response to this, the words 'ROLLO HAS JOINED THE PARTY' appeared above the armadillo, before quickly crashing down upon his head, caving it in. Martin looked in surprise for a moment before Rollo felt around where his head used to be and grabbed an ear, pulling his head back out of his neck. "Gotta watch out for that violent fourth wall! Do you have any other questions to ask me?"

Martin thought about the information he was given, and decided he'd like to know more about the others involved in this 'deathmatch.'

"Could you tell me about the others here?"

"According to the Tormentor, Gannet is supposed to be really friendly, and with that big grin on his face, he sure seems that way, but I betcha there's something else there.
Samael Corson is some kinda former demon! Apparently he's nice but worried he's evil! We could probably help him out!
That really big guy's name is really hard to say, but he's pretty scary looking and has all those frightening weapons! Maybe we should stay away.
Dorin was supposed to be sacrificed, which is kind of sad on it's own, but even worse is this battle made it all pointless in the end!
Lieutenant Zimmer is an alchemist! He's supposed to be really lucky and I bet he can make a lot of cool potions.
Ke is a giant spider that likes to tell stories! I love a good story, so maybe she would be a good friend."
Rollo quickly remembered the most important thing a video game character can do when giving information.
"Would you like me to repeat that again?"

Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.

---

Martin chuckled slightly, giving only a terse "No" in reply.

Rollo watched with a tinge of disappointment as Martin's attention directed itself elsewhere. Now an NPC in Martin's eyes, Rollo had become a tool for achieving the player's goals rather than an individual. He was, as always, willing to make the best of it. He knew he would fill his role in this thing as in all previous things. He wanted to be useful. Rollo mustered up his endless reserves of eagerness and smiled up at Martin, who by now had almost thoroughly disregarded him, scanning the mostly-empty horizon of this virtual game world.

Still, Rollo couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else to this. Something he couldn't quantify, something his experiences so far hadn't even given him the mental vocabulary to express. And furthermore, what kind of game was this? And this player, who was he? Half naked, part machine, and older, or at least having the appearance of being older. As much as he knew he wanted to be useful to Martin, he couldn't help but think the android was out of his target demographic.

Martin shared a similar sentiment. The prior moments of confusion and disorientation had seemed, momentarily, to fade away. Everything had clicked into place. A game. Of course. It made so much sense. Martin's mind, fearing a more dramatic and world-shattering revelation, had latched onto this concept. Some mystifying chain of events in his forgotten past had led to his playing a game for children in his underwear, perhaps for the amusement of the players behind some of the other PCs Rollo had mentioned. The game, likely due to ratings concerns or balance issues, had removed the gun arm from his player avatar.

Of course, he reasoned, now that he couldn't remember why he was playing and didn't have whatever emotional investment this thing may have managed to muster in him in the past, there was really no reason to continue. Perhaps the other players could provide an explanation when he quit. He held his arm out at his side. "Start," he blurted, with excessive enunciation, trying to use a command that the game console would understand.

Martin's brow furrowed. Nothing happened. Rollo trotted forward, extended finger on his chin, and looked up at Martin quizzically as he tried standing more erect, make his arm more perpendicular. "Start. Menu. Pause."

"<font color="brown">Can I help you with something?" Rollo asked, ever mindful of his place in the game heirarchy.

"Trying to open the menu," Martin replied frustratedly. He scratched his head and pointed straight up, repeating the three words. "Start. Menu. Pause." He touched his toes, and repeated again. He squatted and drew his arm around in a circle, speaking the three words in turn.

Rollo was mystified. Martin, in his eyes, had begun some sort of silly personal ritual, like a dance. Wanting to be useful, Rollo lifted a leg and held his arms out at odd angles. "Start, menu, pause!" he sang happily. He twisted his hips and got down on one knee, holding his arms like a weightlifter. "Start, menu, pause!" he repeated, shifting his stance again and again. Like some sort of tribal dance, he began bobbing his head up and down, shaking his arms every which way and skipping in a circle. "Start menu pause, start menu pause, start menu pause," he sang, making a melody of what had originally been mechanical commands.

Martin's patience wore out and frustration started to overtake him. He just wanted to quit this damn game, go check his notebook, and get something done with his day. This game was a waste of time. The lack of user-friendliness was one thing, but now it was actively mocking him? Subcutaneous pigment sacs injected a slight shade of red under the memory polymer on his face. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked scornfully.

Rollo froze in the middle of an artful leap, hovering in midair with a surprised expression for a moment before dropping to the ground and looking sheepish. He was trying to have fun with Martin, but now he was angry? Rollo didn't understand the situation, but he was determined to make it better. "I am playing the game with you?" he replied, hoping the response would make Martin like him again.

"I don't want to play the game anymore. How do I open the menu?" There was a brief pause where Rollo looked like he was considering his response. "Rollo! How do I quit this?"

"I...I don't know!" Rollo replied. His expression snapped back to enthusiastic and he elaborated, "but I'm sure you'll find a way!"

Martin's face screwed itself into a look of disgusted incredulousness. He shook his head as he spat out his response. "You don't... You don't KNOW? How is, I mean what does that even mean? I don't want to sit here and play this game, Rollo! I am a human being and I want to go out and do human being things!" Desperation began to rise in Martin's voice and he gesticulated animatedly into the air. "I am breaking the fucking fourth wall here Rollo, how do I quit this fucking game?"

"Watch your language!" Rollo shouted, covering his eyes with his hands and shaking his head. He was supposed to be useful! He was failing Martin when he needed it most! Why was this happening? "I don't know how to open the menu!"

Rollo dropped his hands from his face and looked up at Martin. His eyes widened in shock. Martin's metal foot swung through the air and connected squarely with Rollo's midsection. Rollo was so surprised that he didn't even roll up into a ball first.

The armadillo sailed in a neat arc through the air and tumbled, then skidded. Martin stood, legs askew, head down, nearly frozen. Rollo was a particularly unhelpful NPC. Martin was frustrated. If there were consequences for kicking Rollo in the game, what did it matter? He wanted out. But then, why did he feel so upset about this?

Rollo sat up and rubbed his head, now circled by stars and tweeting birds. He shook it, dismissing them, and looked across the empty space at Martin, drawing his knees up against his chest and wrapping his arms around his legs. There were so many things he didn't understand. Martin finally looked him in the eye, brow still furrowed, but with a character more indicative of puzzlement than anger.

A long moment passed in silence.

Rollo spoke first, somberly. "What happened to your arm?"

"You're acknowledging..." Martin looked down at his useless metal stump, paused a moment, and looked back up. "Rollo?"

"Yes, Martin?"

Martin shook his head nearly imperceptibly as he voiced what they were both thinking. "Something is very wrong here."

Slowly, Rollo nodded.

In four-dimensional space surrounding the Canvas, The Tormentor exhaled and sat back in his seat. His manic grin had somehow managed to widen even further as he'd let this scene play out uninterrupted for the past minute. The fear and uncertainty, and all naturally-occurring! He broke out into peals of manic laughter at the deliciousness of it all. But, now resolved, he knew this little moment had exhausted its humor potential. He leaned forward, put the 4-D pen back to the 3-D space, and began scribbling furiously.

Martin rubbed his stump nervously. "Sorry," he said. He looked down, half-smiled and chuckled once at the ridiculousness of what he'd just done. "So, uh, when you said we should team up, is that still-"

"Look out!" Rollo shouted, jumping to his feet and pointing over Martin's shoulder. Martin turned to see something like a large, very shaggy dog scribble itself into existence behind him. His shoulders tensed up and he took a step back. Martin didn't like dogs. They made him uncomfortable, ever since he was a child. Not gibbering-in-fear uncomfortable, but certainly on edge.

The gibbering-in-fear level of discomfort didn't come until the legs were drawn in, all six of them, each a good 15 feet in length and no thicker than a pool stick. The large, round, white luminous eyes didn't help the picture either. Martin practically tripped over himself as he backed away, and he started to stutter.

"S...It's... the...why is..."

The image moved and Martin turned and bolted. "Stiltwalker!" He shouted, remembering the name it had been given in the tales he'd read, up far too late in front of a glowing screen.</font>

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

---

The alligator made a perplexed face as much as its limited facial textures allowed it, and would have furrowed its brow at the entrance of water-bending girl if only its creator had given it one. Instead, it just stared at her for a while with an expression that much more meant “Do you mind, we're having a battle here,” rather than anything remotely resembling threat. Apparently it was thinking she would just feel uncomfortable walking in on the scene and wait around the corner until they were done but it should have been clear by now she didn't back out for the same reason she had that column of water appear in the pool of blue lines.

White dots perforated both of the reptile's firearms, lazily splattered on as if by an incredibly ugly spray can. The graffiti bore through the devices, first only tearing some holes through it (the lines it bore were white, and in this world that meant empty space) but it became obvious the being in charge wasn't planning to stop spraying any time soon, and before either of the contestants gazing in bewilderment had fully realised, the guns had been separated almost molecularly, each of the dots silently and serenely hanging in the air. The serenity soon vaporised when the mechanics of the world they were in mistook those dots (or simply took, because it seemed to have the intended effect) to be bugs. Millions of minuscule bugs, each headed for the young girl, their new foe.

Black shades were drawn several feet above the lake, and became boxed in by white and black lines before a cursor picked them up to hover them over the crocodile. It in turn screamed in sheer agony as the area around and complementary to the shades in the box ate away its face. That face was restored after the cursor trailed up to fiddle with transparency options, and the construct from the Tormentor's pen gained another traumatic experience. As if it would make up for the horror, the god quickly etched a crooked smile on the animal's face, and added in the blank space around it the letters D, W, and I.

Every word to describe the Tormentor's utter enjoyment has already been used by one of his colleagues in their battle's name. Knowing that, the man took the liberty of instead just cackling his heart out.

He looked at the screen again, and his cackle faded for a malicious grin.

Samael hadn't even had a proper look of the girl standing at the dungeonlakeside and he could only assume she was the one who saved him just now, but he still felt that as it was within his power to save the young girl, he probably should before she goes all vengeful on him later on. The context of the scene would make it only slightly less confusing, but in and of itself the context was odd already. Samael sidetracked the mosquitoes headed for Dorin as he pulled an immense watermelon out of the nowhere the Tormentor also got his crocodile, and threw it to the side.

The Tormentor was a bit disgruntled at the sight of his threat being so easily outwitted, and he had to admit he had forgotten about Samael's abilities because he had dismissed fruit powers to be useful anywhere at all. Although he didn't have a lot of time to disgruntle, his pet was currently unarmed. The alligator received a rocket launcher mounted to its shoulder instead, but the way it fired without any pattern in entirely the wrong direction made the Tormentor realise the program he was using didn't allow layering objects by default. Zooming in revealed the shades he had drawn as a joke to be plastered over the animal's eyes, obstructing its view entirely.

After struggling with the menu on the program as much as Martin struggled with his nonexistant interface, he took a little solace in erasing Samael's dumb beanie and grey hoodie. As if ripped straight from a cartoon the eraser yanked on the fabric causing a thin wire to spring out through which he pulled his entire outfit apart. Then any trace of the Tormentor vanished.

Oh. Oh. Well at least he has the decency to let him keep the shoes. Great, so now everything about him being a demon was in plain sight and he had to find a quick way to cover this up fast or he was just going to die of embarrassment here and of course the first time anything like this happens there's a girl watching and she was watching without thatfreak look people always gave him and this was his one chance to not look like a complete idiot freak demon and then bam everything gone god he hated this place.

Samael's first attempt to cover up his horrible demonic markings was to jump in the water, but after noticing again the rocket launcher-wielding alligator in it he was able to stop his jump into the water. Instead he covered up the pentacle on his chest with his clawed hands but then noticed the claws on those hands and desperately wrapped them around even further to hide them behind his back. He tried to avert his head, but it met an uncanny position when colliding with his shoulder. Instead he buried his head in the folds between his arms.

“D-Don't look! Go away!” He stuttered.

“S-Sorry.” Dorin stuttered back.

Dorin, incredibly naïve, didn't look and went away. But soon Samael came to notice that guy-with-pentacle-on-his-chest and girl-with-spots-on-her-neck were more alike than he had thought.

“Wait! Um...”

Oblivious Dorin waited.

“How did you... Why do you have those spots?”

As if waiting for someone to mention them a small spider crept out of one, almost greeting the young man with a nod as if spiders could interpret anything like human courtesy and pricking Dorin as the girl let out a meek "Ow" instead of writhing in pain. Clearly the spirit of impeccable timing and interpersonal relationships.

“I am, um, well... not... sure?” Dorin had to admit. The tone of the sentence though inferred a question, as if this were a quiz.

They stared at each other for a while.

Samael looked right. Dorin looked left.

Samael kinda grinned when Crocodile Dumby shot down a wall in blind rage.

Over the course of the nonconversation, you could notice Samael's arms slowly loosening their grip on his chest, and it was pretty endearing to see him repeat the same process of opening up to someone, only this time in minutes rather than lifetimes.

Then his new acquaintance doubled over in agony.

Originally posted on MSPA by engineclock.

---

“…a pleasure to meet another person hand selected by our God.”

Hair rose at the back of Gannet’s neck at the sharp scent of chemicals and fire. The man standing before him was swathed in a cloud of smoke that he knew from experience wasn’t really there, though he could smell it overtaking their surroundings. Sulfur and acid and other, bitter things; blood and earth, distantly. The man reeked of alien land and substances Gannet didn’t have a name for. The smoke billowed around them both, masking the more distant smells he was only beginning to identify. The chemical man didn’t notice.

Briefly, Gannet’s eyes flickered to the newcomer’s outstretched hand. It was lined with tiny scars and fading burns, the nails smooth and neatly trimmed. Blood moved under its skin like a slow river, pumping the chemical smell even further into the air; its flesh was soaked with the same acrid scent. The smoke moved to cover it and its details grew foggy, though he had no trouble tracking its movements. Something deep in Gannet’s memory shifted- I am terribly pleased to meetyou siriam thecaptainofthisshipand- this was a friendly gesture! Good. Everything was good. He would know the things this man had to offer and the Oracle’s eyes would be opened further.

Zimmer paused awkwardly. This Gannet person had his head tilted to one side and was looking at him with an expression caught between confusion and interest, though his smile hadn’t changed. He noted with curiosity that the strange man’s tongue seemed to be black behind his bared teeth, the same diseased-looking color as his too-long fingers. Obviously this creature was under the effects of some strange environmental factor he had yet to discover; his physical appearance indicated as much.

The odd man’s lack of response was starting to unnerve him. Perhaps he didn’t speak-

Gannet’s hand flicked out and drew a line sideways across Zimmer’s forehead in the blood from his wounded arm. Stunned, the alchemist blinked at the feel of the claw-like finger on his skin, the jagged tip scratching him just slightly. Angrily he stumbled back. What right did this man have to- to- he smelled fire and burning earth and heard screams of glass breaking on stone and cracking and tiny lines appearing on its surface and blood bubbling over the edge and fire a-and oh God, what?

The tall grey man leaned in. “I am an Eye of the Oracle,” he said happily, his smile seeming impossibly wide. “It is good to meet you.”

Zimmer stared back, his heart still beating madly. Unconsciously he felt for his knife as he stammered, ”Er, y-yes. Very good indeed.” What in God’s name had just happened? What had the Tormentor not told them about this man? He was clearly insane and judging by what had just happened, at least marginally dangerous….God damn this headache, it was making it next to impossible to sort out his thoughts. The man didn’t seem hostile, not yet at least. Perhaps it would be more fortuitous to have some sort of ally in the test his Lord was presenting forth- unless that was forbidden?

He glanced at Gannet again, who only grinned back. Surely, he was better than nothing, and had not his Lord mentioned befriending his fellow combatants? This Gannet seemed sociable enough, even if he was slightly unbalanced. He might prove to be of some assistance in the coming battle.

If the alchemist’s next smile was somewhat forced and his bow a little stiff, then Gannet made no notice. He was used to seeing the tenseness in people’s bodies when he spoke with them, to seeing their tendons tighten and their muscles half-prepare to spring away. The chemical man’s cloud of smoke darkened and gathered about him with fear, though maybe not so he would notice it. He was terribly interesting. The bitter scents of his body and the things he carried and the things he’d seen…the Fates had been kind to send him to this place. He would serve the Oracle better than any of its other servants, and when he returned it would know of far greater places than the black shores of its ocean and the damp caves it lay screaming in.

“It seems to be that our wisest course of action would be to move forward at this point, yes? We have already seen this area to be dangerous,” Zimmer said, indicating the walls behind them, which were quickly gaining a reddish tinge that he rather didn’t like the looks of. “Perhaps our next course of action will be more certain once we have explored this area more.”

Gannet blinked slowly and laughed. It was a terrible noise, more nervous than happy and it set Zimmer’s nerves on edge even further. He was being unreasonable, he told himself. This man had no ill intentions towards him. There was nothing to be concerned about. His newfound ally began to stride off towards the end of the field they stood on, which was looking more and more like some sort of courtyard, barring the neon-colored skulls tumbling into existence on the unnaturally green grass. “Yes,” the strange creature called back, turning his head sideways to behold Zimmer with a single bright eye. “We will move onwards.”

Zimmer had to jog slightly to keep up with the taller man’s odd loping stride, falling slightly behind as he warily watched his new accomplice’s strangely precise footsteps. He’d begun to swing his head slightly from side to side as he walked, like an animal, with his teeth bared in the eerie grin that the alchemist was quickly becoming accustomed to. Eager to make conversation, Zimmer said , “So tell me of this…Oracle, you said? You are his or her follower, am I correct?” It was possible that they might have common ground after all. He’d heard of oracles, ancient and obscure figures devoted to speaking the words of hidden gods. Was that not the very same task he sought to accomplish with his scientific work? This man could very well be a fellow seeker of truth.

A wall drew itself across their path, disconcertingly quickly. Rapidly it gained a messy coat of grey that melted into neat, smooth stones; Gannet stopped in his tracks and made to turn back, but it was too late. It had already joined with the walls of the courtyard and was stretching higher than Zimmer could reach. Frustrated, he looked about for a way around. He still had the vial of the Alkahest, though he’d need more than he was willing to expend to get through that wall. Damn it, damn it all to hell-
Beside him, Gannet hunched down for a moment, then leapt nimbly onto the top of the wall, his spiderlike fingers gripping the stone tightly. He grinned down at Zimmer and began to speak gleefully, craning his neck downwards to get a better view of his hapless audience.

“The Oracle came to the sea weeping for what it had lost and for the earth that blackened beneath its broken feet, its bones kissing the rocks it tread upon. It knew truth now, at last, and all its screams could not stop it now. The Oracle’s eyes were closed forever in ecstasy and it begged the ocean to end its life, but neither water nor death would come for it.”

He knelt and reached down a hand to help Zimmer up. Taking it, the already alarmed lieutenant shuddered at the feel of Gannet’s bone-like fingers, hard and sharp like claws, and the surprising strength in the man’s narrow arm as he pulled Zimmer to his feet next to him on the cramped ledge. His chatter never faltered even as he lifted the alchemist up, still intent on answering his ally’s questions.

“What the sea would not grant it, the Oracle called for elsewhere. It moved under the stones that rose from the water, hiding its ruined face and singing songs it had never learned in voices that were not its own. Others came, soon, having heard of its passing and seen the beauty of what its destruction wrought. They called back to it, deep in the stone and half-sunk in the merciless water, and asked for the divining that had crushed it so.

“It answered them, seeing more than ever they could with its closed and weeping eyes. Some took pity on it, and followed it down into the caverns it had carved from the earth with its own broken hands, seeking to offer it release. But there are more and wiser beings than those born of man and these few were blessed by the Oracle, their eyes closed against the fog of the raging sea and given new and distant sight. The few became its first acolytes, and as the Oracle’s ravaged body grew once more to its strength they answered its screams with those its own, calling out in joy to that which had given them their lives.

“I am an Eye of the Oracle, I have said this. I am the successor to those first few. I serve the Oracle and walk the land to tell it of the things of which it does not yet know.”

Zimmer waited a moment to see if his ally’s terrible story was over, and as they walked in silence on top of the wall it became apparent that it was. He coughed suddenly and mumbled, “Yes, well then. That’s…quite intriguing!” Lord have mercy on him, this man was stark raving mad. But it was better than being alone, he told himself. It had to be. If this damned headache would just clear up he’d be right as rain and he could get on with trying to survive his Maker’s increasingly tortuous test.

Walking ahead of him, Gannet basked in happiness from telling the story of the Few and Oracle. The rhythm of the legend hummed in his bones and his blood and he stretched his fingers in satisfaction. How fascinating it was to meet with one not already of the Oracle! He had not had to recall one of the Hymns in….a long while? He did not recognize the passage of time. Though, he realized, he was failing in not gathering information from this new person. He turned his head back to speak to the chemical man. “I am being rude. I see this. Will you tell me of yourself?”

Slightly startled, Lieutenant Zimmer replied, “Well, mine’s a bit of a longer tale than yours, if you’ll permit me to say so. You see, I am both a man of science and a man of God, through a series of-”

Gannet cut him off suddenly with a sharp, rattling hiss. Offended, Zimmer began to rebuke him just as a titanic saw blade screamed through the air and sliced the wall ahead of them neatly in half.

Gasping, the lieutenant ducked as in front of him Gannet reflexively darted off the wall and clung to its side like a spider, his fingers digging into the fake stone. Towering over them both was a massive red octopus, the crown of its huge head swaying through the air as ragged, scything lines formed the outline of its body. Each of its tentacles, themselves as thick around as tree trunks, was tipped with a huge glittering circular blade that swung through the air with a terrifying whistling sound. More and more arms were being completed now; as they watched in horror the octopus began to lurch towards them, its huge eyes glazed over in pain and fear as it haphazardly swung its blades at them, occasionally gashing itself with a pained, shaking roar.

Over the huge beast’s head, the hateful black text began to appear. “LVL 30 CIRCLE SAWCTOPUS”, it read.

“FIGHT!”

Originally posted on MSPA by Adenreagen.

---

The octopus had no cloud around it. Like everything else he’d seen so far, Gannet couldn't tell where the octopus had come from, or anything about its past. Everything in this place seemed to just appear so it made sense that even something this large could have just been brought to life moments ago.

“I can’t fight something that big,” Gannet began to panic. “I’m only an Eye, not one of the Teeth of the Oracle. Even they might have a hard time trying to infect the new host for the Oracle the Oracle can use this host the Oracle will use this. Infect. Attack. Fight!”

A sense of calm followed by an overwhelming determination to attack the giant octopus overcame Gannet and he jumped off the wall, charging right for it and ignoring the giant saw blades almost entirely.

“Gannet, You can’t fight something like that alone! We’d need an army or at least some artillery…”

As Gannet charged towards the giant creature, the eighth arm was completed, and it began its assault with all of its limbs. As it got used to a finished form, the sawctopus became more adept at wielding it’s arms, and hurt itself less with each swing. Zimmer was forced to duck at dodge as fast as he could in order to survive, and managed to get off the wall without hurting himself or being cut in half. Gannet, below the sawctopus’ vision, managed to run right to the base of its body and began to claw at it, with limited success. Though each swipe created four deep marks in the body and transferred a small amount of the virus each time, it was like cutting down a tree with a feather: impossible without some sort of help.

Help that Zimmer planned to provide. Grabbing his revolver, he quickly dove from under a dropping arm and grabbed a vial labeled with an inverted cross topped by an infinity.

“Let’s see how you handle this.” He thought, dipping the tip of the attached blade into the fluid. He quickly fired all six bullets into the nearest limb, with no visible effect other than the bullet holes themselves and some slight necrosis. He glanced again, an inverted cross topped with horns. “Arsenic… We don’t have time for it to die of poison, especially such a small amount,” he thought. “GRAB THE RIGHT VIAL YOU INEPT EXCUISE FOR AN ALCHEMIST! GET IT RIGHT.” Reaching back into his coat he grabbed the correct vial.

Running to avoid the still flailing arms, he wiped the blade, replaced the cloth and dipped the tip into the new vial. He quickly reloaded the chambers and fired again. As the bullets were fired each was scratched by the blade, infusing the shells with the property of the mixture. Another close spread, and the bullets finally had the intended effect. The area around the bullets began to turn to glass, and began spreading along the arm. The next time the arm swung down to cut him it smashed on the ground, destroying the glass section of arm and causing the sawctopus to roar in pain.

Samael heard a dull roar and, glancing away from Dorin for a moment, saw a red blob in the distance. “Huh, looks like someone else decided to show up. Well, good luck to them, whoever they are.” He knelt back down to Dorin’s side, trying to find a way to comfort her from the pain of having the bill of a new creature come out of her through a hole in her side.

“Infect. Infect. Infect.” Gannet’s mind was being clouded over by the virus, and he felt the command every time he swiped at the sawctopus’ body. Though it had a sizable area scratched and bleeding, the flesh immediately adjacent blackening with the power of the Oracle, it didn’t seem to be working well enough. Then the creature roared in pain. When he looked, he saw that an arm had somehow been removed by the chemical man. The cloud around him had new colors and he knew that, as an Eye, he should investigate should infect direct infection possible infect for the Oracle. He looked again at the arm and saw his chance.

Apparently the sawctopus had decided to ignore Gannet almost entirely, regarding the being that had removed one of its arms as a larger threat. To add insult to injury, the eighth arm was being redrawn, this time thinner with a giant axe-head on the end. Before it could be completed, however, Zimmer saw Gannet charging for the gap and dove headfirst into the hole where the arm was moments before the new one was attached.

“Crazy bastard, may the Maker protect him inside this beast.” Zimmer thought. He then realized that the Maker was the one who had created this creature to test them, but prayed for his protection anyway. As the arms began their attack on him yet again, Zimmer changed from glass-infused bullets to a spiral that forked at the end: eggshells. Where he could still be crushed by the glass if he didn’t move out of the way in time, the arms would either break when the weight cracked the shells that they became, or collapse around him if they managed to hit him. Such an event had already happened twice since the first arm was broken, and with eight arms it was becoming harder to predict where they would come from.

“I can’t kill it this way, the arms will keep coming back when they break off. Either Gannet needs to kill it from the inside and find a way out, or I need to find a way to finish it from out here.” Though it seemed hours ago to him, the fight had only been going for a matter of minutes and he remembered that the sawctopus did considerable damage to itself in the beginning. Avoiding the next arm that came crashing down, he jumped onto it and began running up to the body, hoping that it would be a dumb enough creature to hurt itself in its attempts to hurt him. “Alright you big mollusk, let’s see how much damage you can do.”

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

---

Without much of his clothes, he couldn’t help but feel a little chilly.

Stop it, there’re more pressing matters at hand.

Yeah, right. Okay. So. Um.

Samael briefly wondered what was the use of learning so many things when he would just forget it right as he needed it. Then he realized that there was probably no first-aid class in the world that dealt with convulsing teenage girls spotted with glowing portals that were spewing out random entities. Out of her side, he could see something much too large trying to push its snout through. He desperately tried to push it back in, but it snapped at him with sharp teeth and that seemed to make it worse and she screamed a little louder…

Now that he was thinking of the portals, Samael couldn’t help but wonder where they all led to.

No, stop it. Don’t think about that. For one thing, the glowing spots were much too small to fit him.

More random blasts reminded Samael that there was an angry, rampaging, heavily armed crocodile nearby and though it was blind for the time being, it probably could hear. Maybe. If they could make sound, they probably could hear sound too. Maybe. And in that case, all the screaming probably was attracting its attention. Though it still had bad aim.

Okay. Okay okay okay what was he supposed to do first.

Make sure she didn’t hurt herself. That meant holding her down, getting her away from any dangerous objects, making sure she didn’t suffocate in her robes…

Uh.

Okay, yeah, he was demonborn. But he was biologically human. With all the hormones.

Ray Charles back there reminded him with another blast of its rocket launcher thing that he really needed to hurry up. And that wasn’t actually a well thought out nickname for it, he supposed. Gingerly, he first made sure that he wasn’t about to actually strip a young lady bare. Nope, she had another dress underneath. Somehow, even with her struggling, he managed to whisk it off. Weird spirits were escaping through the portals. The large creature that was poking its snout out was still trying to get through.

He glanced at the large robes, nice, silky, almost like bedsheets, and thought, why not? He had worn dresses before. Usually when he was a she. In any case, demonic seals weren’t going to hide themselves and also he was still cold.

He slipped the large robes on and stopped to wonder if he could somehow manage to cover his eyes up as well—

Another reminder from—oh shoot what’s a famous blind guy—Tiresias there got him moving and, almost tripping over the hem, he picked up the girl and started dragging her over to one of the recently made holes. He almost dropped her when a holy spirit burst out from her back and slammed into him, almost making him choke with the burning pain. (That was just another reason to not use the portals. Because there were apparently holy figures in abundance there. Oh yeah, and also it would probably cause her a lot of grief if this was anything to go by.) The girl kicked out involuntarily. Samael just pulled her through the wall as gently as he could. Then, looking back through the hole, he saw the crocogater still flailing around. Another small watermelon appeared in his hands and, twirling it around on his fingers once, he sent it flying out through the hole and let it splash in the water. Stevie Wondergater stopped firing everywhere, listened, snorted the air, and slipped into the water. There. Hopefully that would distract him a little bit.

And now for the girl still in pain.

Right, so the things flying out of portals everywhere was causing it, right? So plug up the portals—

The tomato was already in his hand when Samael realized what a stupid idea this was. He ate the tomato. Right.

First, make sure she doesn’t bite her tongue.

With his claws, it was easy to tear off a little strip of his new white robes and he almost stuffed it into the girl’s mouth before realizing, hey, putting something into someone’s mouth is a very bad idea.

He tried tying it around his forehead instead. After a moment, to make himself feel a little more comfortable, he lowered it a little over his eyes.

Okay, now what were you really supposed to do.

Right, right, lay them on the side…

The snout of the whatever-it-was licked his forearm and he recoiled. Then he got a swarm of golden bugs in his face. That burned too.

But, well, she was on her side. Still totally delirious. Sometimes screamed bloody murder. But he had absolutely no idea what to do now. So he kinda just stood around awkwardly.

Well, at least things seemed to be calming down. Relatively.

To pass the time, Samael played around with his hair, trying to make it so that it covered as much of his face as it could. Sort of force of habit.

At some point, while delicately arranging one strand to fall exactly over to the side of his nose, he noticed a floating square.

If he remembered correctly, that was the thing that erased his clothing before.

Jumping up, Samael zoomed backwards to the end of the hall. Or he would have if he didn’t trip over the hem of the robes. He rolled over once and sprang to his feet again, staring wide-eyed at the floating eraser thing.

Why should he care so much? Why should he feel so anxious about being ‘exposed?’ That girl over there. She didn’t care.

That doesn’t mean that nobody here does.

Plus the thing could probably erase him from existence. There’s that too.

The square advanced and he backed up a little. Then he realized that it was two-dimensional. Why was a four-dimensional(?) drawing program employing a two-dimensional eraser implement in a three-dimensional world.

Samael quickly jumped to the side of the eraser, expecting to see a thin line, and was completely surprised to see another square. But it clearly wasn’t a cube how the he—how in the world was this supposed to work.

The eraser launched itself towards him and, thinking quickly, he flung both hands up and tried holding it on the outlines. But oh yeah, those sides were squares too. Even though it was not a freaking cube.

Samael stared numbly at the square holes in his hands. He was at least somewhat relieved to see that he wasn’t bleeding everywhere, though he had no idea why. Certainly made things less messy though.

Another scream from the girl brought him back to the present events and he snapped his head towards where she lay. The pencil was back this time (Also freaking two-dimensional dear god he never noticed that how how how how how) and it seemed to be drawing a hole around her. Her screams seemed entirely unrelated to that, though, as she herself was still blinded by pain as even more entities decided to fly right out of her.

Holey hands far from his mind now, Samael ran back to where she was and swooped her up into his arms before she fell to her death (or fell forever). Two things he realized. One, he wasn’t all that adept at carrying nineteen year-old girls, especially when they were covered in shining portals that allowed things that physically burned him to pass on through. Two, carrying a girl bridal style was not a very good idea when the girl was having a fit.

She kneed him in the jaw. It was a gesture not entirely welcome.

She stopped screaming, though. That was nice. Or maybe that meant she was passed out. That might not be good.

The pencil seemed intent on drawing something incredibly dangerous as usual. The dungeons around him were actually colored and nicely shaded, and a tap on the foot confirmed that there was no going through and no stretching lines to go through. Besides cells, there were only stairs. Dangerous stairs that spiraled around a column with no railings and fifteen feet gaps between the walls. Probably were old and crumbly too.

He started lurching up the stairs and almost tripped on the hem of his robes. His new bandanna was sliding down his face. His arms were getting tired already.

This. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

Originally posted on MSPA by whoosh!.

---

Ke floated. An expanse of white cocooned her and among it, she imagined, she was little more than shifting splatters and streaks of black and grey. In a place such as this she was nearly invisible: the perfect spectator. Clicking her mandibles with pure contentment she hovered, completely at ease. The only thing that would make this place complete would be a story, an epic to play out before her eight eyes as she watched, so perfectly unseen.

As if in answer, a streak of vermilion clumsily smeared the white ahead. The artist paused, considering the colour, then dashed a few experimental shades alongside it. All red-orange, a dusty, rock colour that elicited a thousand memories for Ke. Memories of little arranged piles of wood, crowned with blazing flames that flickered and danced, pouring smoke into a dark sky, where little bright lights blazed and danced in return. And then, surrounded by that dusty red and surrounding that crackling fire humans would exchange words, the threads and tatters of those glorious tangled tales…

Ke’s attention flicked back to the present where the artist had picked his shade and was working in earnest. Red rock, almost torn from those treasured memories, was etched in ridges and valleys. Nothing anywhere near as large and inviting as the white, but Ke darted forward eagerly all the same. Her hooks sank into the dusty earth and she was scuttling across the new ground rapidly before Ke suddenly ceased to do so.

She paused, utterly tensed and rigid. By all rights, by the undeniable truths of her memories, there would probably be humans. And humans meant stories, no matter how old and chewed over.

Except something failed to fit, or even make sense. There was some untruth lurking, something undeniably terrible about this. And yet – didn’t that just hit the nail on the head?

She was denying it.

Ke sank to the floor, drawing in her legs.

don’t remember don’t remember don’t remember REMEMBER no no don’t you need to forget just this once NEVER FORGET no REMEMBER

Everything lurched out of wack and then the memories and the darkness flooded back, filling her like she’d been ripped straight open and then there was only terror left to fill her back up again. And there, through the haze of the remembered pain and that which this Tormentor had done was the everlasting tattoo that would keep on beating:

You are trapped.

She was trapped. By something insane, something smart, something that could build a better and more inescapable cage than all the humans she had ever encountered.

And so, pinned down like some smaller bug by the pincered knowledge that she could never, should never forget and of her situation, Ke curled up and trembled.

Eventually the fog inside of her being shifted a little, and she surfaced from the prison of fear gasping for reason and safety. But all she had was one goal, one hope to get out – she had to find the weakness in the cage. Ke rose on shaky legs, and staggered forward over the fake rock. She could only ignore the unanswerable questions that squirreled at the weaknesses of her shaken sanity (If this was just a drawing, how could she walk on it? Where was it coming from? Where exactly was this place?) and approach the edge of the ridge she was standing on. Wearily, she crawled yet closer and peered into the valley below.

What she saw was not a campfire, not a book or any form of written word, but it was a magnificent story all the same. With a booming voice and swinging ax, the hero of her next spun tale carved through demons with a bloodstained grin in a valley of death.

Ke was in love.

Swept away by the thrill of the battle Ke twitched herself into the air, her blood pounding with excitement and the artist’s infatuation for their new muse. Noiselessly she swooped towards the back of the monstrous creature, alighting gently on his armour, light enough that he wouldn’t notice, just as he turned and squinted at something at the top of the valley (the demons long gone due to the whims of the Tormentor). His weapons clattered and he moved swiftly through well practiced moves and meanings.

Ke did not care what was up there. She only cared that she had this warrior here.

“Tell me,” Ke whispered in a voice that filled the cleric’s mind. “Tell me the tales of your feats, O Warrior.”

Originally posted on MSPA by engineclock.

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SpoilerAnomaly is making me post this. This was not something I chose to do.

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Spoiler
Enjoy your ships.

Originally posted on MSPA by whoosh!.

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SpoilerI approve of all the wonderful things in the above post. [img]images/smilies/icon_heartbeat.gif[/img]

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SpoilerAlso here is a Ke because I was too forgetful to shoehorn it in my actual post when people might actually see it.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

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Spoilerengie's is more huggable. ;-;

THIS ALWAYS SAID "ENGIE'S"

ANYONE TELLING YOU DIFFERENT IS A COMMUNIST SPY

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

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SpoilerB-bu-whu--what did I do?

Originally posted on MSPA by Adenreagen.

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SpoilerMaybe PYP meant EClock's? Probably. I love how we paired up into twos instead of more. It makes the drawing cute. Especially how Ke and Rollo are.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

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SpoilerDefinitely meant engie's, sorry. Being up at 2 AM makes it easy to mix things up like that.

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

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A floating eye thing with razor blades spinning around it and laser eyes. (Or, uh, eye.) Are you kidding me.

Samael vaguely recalled playing some sort of video game with a boss that was somewhat like this. He may have even programmed a boss like this at some point. He bet that the protagonists didn’t have to fight the boss while carrying a young woman and trying to stay on a very dangerous staircase that was growing steadily more dangerous as a misanthropic eraser tried to wipe it away under his feet.

The large eye floated up to the side and into his view. Immediately, a soft and rotten orange appeared and landed on it, splattering stinging juice everywhere. The eyeball didn’t give off a satisfying roar, but it certainly was blinded. With no real way to blink, it was stuck with citrus juice running down painfully. To be safe, he also dropped half a grapefruit on it.

He probably couldn’t do anything about the eraser, though. The only thing he could do is keep not falling, which he was getting good at, despite his new robes tripping him up every once in a while. Just keep running until the end of the stairs…the end…wait, where was the end…?

Samael glanced upwards briefly, very briefly so that he could go back to watching where his feet went, but it was long enough for him to catch sight of the pencil up ahead, still drawing the spiraling staircase. There was definitely no end in sight.

Maybe…if he just threw himself off…then it was simply just going through reincarnation again. Right? And it would be his last chance to do so…so it was better sooner than later, before someone else died. Considering how the girl in his arms must be feeling right now, she might not mind either.

…Okay, actually, people usually do mind death. She probably wouldn’t like him deciding for her. And looking at her, he felt that she probably needed his help right about now. So just dying at this moment was out of the question. Right now he had to figure out how to stop all this…uh…portal…thing. But first, he had to get off this stupid staircase.

As the eraser gleefully tried to erase the steps directly under his feet, he leapt off the side, which seemed to stun both pencil and eraser for a while until a giant, square watermelon popped into existence underneath the two and they collided with its tough surface. Samael dropped the unconscious girl, a little stunned, then realized that with a homicidal pencil and eraser after them, it wasn’t the time to be winded. The watermelon was rather heavy, especially with two people on it, but he managed to get it to speedily float away.

Apparently, the pencil hadn’t bothered to draw anything this high, but now it was hurriedly trying to draw a wall in front of him. Another tomato appeared and, as the watermelon wobbled slightly, the tomato impaled itself on the pencil, covering up its point. As the pencil struggled with this new obstacle, Samael sped by and out over the rest of the castle dungeon building thing. Woah, did he really climb that high? Amazing he didn’t pass out from exhaustion.

The giant watermelon continued to pass over unfinished walls and rooms and started drifting lower. Beside him, more spirit god things continued to peer out of the portals on the girl. They thankfully didn’t burn him, but he had a feeling that this crap had gone on long enough, and also they were breaking his concentration. “Okay, you know what, you guys, mind staying in that place where you’re staying or whatever? For now?”

Something that was furry and owlish and fox-like at the same time stared at him before hopping out and bounding away on air. Many others followed its examples. “Seriously. Stop it,” he warned, while retying the strip of cloth around his eyes.

Seeing no consequence, they were practically pouring out now, feeling bolder with every transgression. The large snout thrashed, still unable to fit through. “ENOUGH.” Various fruits suddenly pelted any exiting spirits, surprising most and causing a tactical retreat. The cleverer ones glared at him, eyes glinting oddly, before conceding victory. The snout hesitated and disappeared. “Just…give her a rest,” Samael added cautiously, not sure if they could even hear him anymore.

Well, that problem was solved. “Uh.” He coughed and tried to shake the girl awake, but paused. It would probably be really awkward if she woke up and found herself on a giant watermelon with a guy who was wearing her clothes. So maybe he should—

The watermelon crashed into a line as it drifted a little too low and jolted the whole vehicle, startling the girl awake. “Guh—wuh…what!” She squawked, almost jumping to her feet as Samael tried to steady the watermelon. “I, uh, what, what the!” As he thought, she could not easily accept that she was sitting atop a flying watermelon. She whirled her head around, trying to make sense of things, before catching sight of Samael. She stared at him with wide eyes, possibly the eyes of someone who thinks she has just been kidnapped, and then said, “You’re wearing my robes.”

“Well,” Samael said, and stopped. “Um,” he started again. “I g-guess…I am…?”

Neither of them had time to ponder this fact as, having lost concentration again, Samael didn’t notice the watermelon drifting too low until it crash-landed and deposited the both of them rather forcefully into some beast’s legs. All six of them.

The long, thin legs gave the appearance of some fragility or at least something easily unbalanced, but though the dog…thing stumbled as they crashed into it, it remained upright and stared down at them with impossibly huge eyes. Samael gaped at it before rolling away from an attacking leg. Judging from the way it looked, it could probably stab right through him.

The girl had already gotten up and was stumbling away, eyes wide. Samael was about to get up when something seemed to whip past the side of his head. Looking down, he noticed that one impossibly long leg was hooking itself in the square hole in his hand.

Looking up again, he saw the dog thing staring back. It didn’t seem capable of even knowing what it was about to do. As it raised another leg menacingly, Samael tugged at his hand and stopped immediately at the burning pain. He looked up again.

Oh come on.

Originally posted on MSPA by cyber95.

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Reserved

Originally posted on MSPA by engineclock.

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Gannet fumbled blindly, fingers scratching uselessly at the slippery flesh surrounding him. His body was pressed awkwardly against the insides of the massive octopus, and it was dark, it was too dark, what was he doing here, how did he- k-kill it infect it I-I-I I don’t c-can’t- what was crushing him? It was everywhere; blood was filling his mouth, his nose, he felt it soaking his clothes and his skin and it was black, blacker than night but filled with blood and he couldn’t smell anything or see it at all. His limbs were being crushed under a living weight and he couldn’t move, he was trapped, he was going to die here in this place-

Desperately he scrambled for a grip on something, anything, and plunged the tips of his nail-and-bone claws into the inside of the octopus blindly. It screamed, loud, too loud, he could hear it resonating somewhere above him and he felt the creature shudder with agony and lurch from side to side. The motion would have made him nauseous if his mouth wasn’t already filled with blood, flat and dull tasting and fake. He tightened his hold on the twitching muscles and felt them ripple in response. It was alive, though it shouldn’t be, it smelled and tasted wrong, all wrong. Agonizingly, he dragged himself further inwards and upwards though somewhere in his head a voice was saying no no air is back go back go back/ go forward kill it for us kill it go faster kill it tear it apart- what was he supposed to do?

Under his skin he felt a rush of nerves, like a net of ice spreading over his muscles and pulsing with light and air and water- always water…. he felt his eyes starting to roll back and shook his head frantically. Blue lights flashed in the back of his head and filled his vision; there was no black, there was no blood in his mouth and throat, it was water, only water. Thick and reeking of life and the dead and the bones of fish and the screams of gulls, Gannet remembered the sea’s scent and it cleared his head.

He had killed an octopus once. It had been white, and small, and its suckers clung to his arms even after it was dead and he was eating it and it would not release him though it had no will left to do so. He remembered the way it had struggled when he pulled it from the water and how its eyes were bright even in death. There was no difference between that one and this.

The ice under his skin flexed and he wrenched his claws sideways, pulling himself further upwards, pushing down on the shredded muscles he left behind him. The octopus roared again, longer and louder this time, and through the blackness of its insides and the blood filling his nose he smelled its sickening terror. The rubbery flesh he was slicing apart spat still more of the creature’s life onto him; dully he felt its pain and confusion raging around him as he burrowed deeper and deeper into its quivering body.

It wouldn’t be far now, the blood and the water told him. All things that live have a means to die.

“Easy there!” Zimmer cried as the tentacle he was standing upon suddenly jerked sideways and the titanic beast below him bellowed in pain. By some miracle of God he hadn’t managed yet to slip off the seething body of the sawctopus, and he prayed that he would hold divine favor for at least a little while longer. The damned thing’s skin was slippery, and it was taking all his concentration just to stay upright without it lurching all over the place like a drunken housewife. As long as it could stay steady enough for him to reach the head-

As if in response to this thought, the sawctopus groaned and veered sideways, swinging through the air towards a huge and sinister-looking castle that was assembling itself from nothing. Zimmer suspected the creature was no longer making clear decisions, if ever it had been; in fact, it had started to pull its arms in towards itself, tangling them together in a thick, coiling knot. In doing so it carved huge, raw slices into its own flesh with its now-reckless blades, as it had done when newly drawn, though it gave no indication of noticing other than the occasional, earth-shaking shudder- no doubt, Zimmer told himself, the result of having a certain unstable individual placing his entire person directly into its body.

The arm he was standing on started to descend, and the alchemist half-breathed a startled prayer before noticing with a pang of dread that its glittering saw had begun to slice through the air above him erratically, making huge sweeps in his direction and arching high over the creature’s body like a scorpion’s tail. Apparently it hadn’t entirely forgotten him, then, and if the beast was looking for a fight then by God he’d be more than pleased to deliver.

Planting his boots squarely on the massive tentacle, Zimmer carefully took aim at the serpentine shape towering above him with his pistol. In the half-second before he pulled the trigger, he saw the beast pause as well- its arm, long and slender, hung in the air with the tension of a bridge about to collapse and shook with tremors of pain. Slowly, almost mournfully, he felt a roar build up through the soles of his boots, the sound emerging as a huge, terrible scream of agony and fear as the saw started to fall.

Zimmer fired; the bullet hit almost instantly. He had just enough time to watch the red flesh flash creamy white before the arm smashed down like a world collapsing on itself. It rushed past him, missing by a mere few feet and ruffling his hair with the wind of its passage, and he heard the horrible crunching sound of it breaking into a thousand pieces on the beast’s own head.

The noise the sawctopus made was the sound of something so overwhelmed by fear and pain that it has left the realm of reason entirely. A huge black pencil swooped in and began to redraw the newly lost limb, but the creature swerved away in panic and began to lope awkwardly over the landscape, crushing walls and trees and odd, grinning sculptures under the loops of its frantic arms. Zimmer was helpless to do anything but try to remain atop the maddened thing, and quickly leapt from the stump of its arm to just above a massive, glaring eye. Its skin was slick with blood and he nearly fell as the sawctopus continued its maddened rampage, wailing without pause. He noticed with brief interest that it had actually began to swing at the darting pencils with the few arms not occupied by fleeing, though its aim was far too poor to actually connect. Was the cursed thing rebelling against his Lord? What kind of sick test was this turning out to be?

No matter, he reminded himself, angling the pistol’s barrel down into the sawctopus’ skull. His Maker wanted the beast dead, and he was in no mood to argue.

One of the Tormentor’s lower right eyes twitched in annoyance at the scene playing out on the tablet before him. Run away, would his little pet? Damn. He’d been so fond of it too. Oh well, he told himself. There was always more to torment where that one came from. He’d let it see how it liked faring by itself against this pair, and when he felt like drawing more of it he’d remember to make them a little less susceptible to pain, as boring as that would be. Maybe he’d add guns to the next ones… yes, and with poison bullets as well! Might as well give them armor, too. Can’t have one’s contestants getting lazy, now can we?

Smirking, he gave up on trying to attach laser chainsaws to the ends of the octopus’ arms and searched elsewhere for a new victim to play with.

Under the walls of shaking muscles and agonizing flesh, Gannet gasped for air amidst the torrents of blood from the sawctopus’s wounded innards. His arms burned as he clawed for leverage; things gave way and broke under his hands and surely the blood was everywhere now, it was in him, around him, everything he could see and the only thing he knew. He was starving, burning, buried alive in the body of a tortured animal, Oracle help him he was dying and he was soaked to the bone with the blood of a monster. Impossibly he smelled smoke again, no longer water this time but fire and glass and knives- he was hungry but felt no hunger; all he wanted was blood and it was on his tongue and burning him and eating him alive, it wasn’t his, never his, no no couldn’t be no no no stop stop stay away you said it wouldn’t touch us you said it wouldn’t touch where are you going WHERE ARE YOU GOING DON’T LEAVE ME HERE DON’T LEAVE ME-

His hand plunged into something soft and the screaming renewed and the world was moving and bleeding and dying and the gods were howling for mercy, all things above and below must die in their time but not I-I-I- I am the mouth of the gods and you will do as I say and you will kill what I tell you to and you WILL END THIS NOW YOU WILL DO AS I TELL YOU AND YOU WILL TEAR OUT THE HEART OF THE GODS THEMSELVES MY ACOLYTE YOU ARE MINE ONCE AND FOR ALL

DO IT

Zimmer held his breath and pulled the trigger at the same time as a blackened claw tore through the sawctopus’ other eye, its fingers slicing through the soft tissue with a wet ripping sound and a narrow arm following it out. The flesh under Zimmer’s feet turned white and cracked; the eye under him went milky and shattered. Blood welled up from the wound but calcified immediately as Zimmer fired four more rounds straight down. The damned beast was still fighting even in its death throes, surely a fifth of its head must be eggshell by now, though that might not be enough to finish it off-

Someone gasped behind him and the alchemist whipped around to see none other than Gannet staggering from a massive hole where the sawctopus’ other eye should have been, his entire form soaked with the beast’s ichor. He watched in horror as the other man freed his leg from the last few tendons still clinging to it and spat out a mouthful of blood, coughing and wiping the fluids from his eyes. Underneath them both, a high sort of whining sound started; it resonated through the massive body of the dying beast like a plucked guitar string, gathering more and more strength until it was at a pitch that seemed like it would split Zimmer’s head in half with its sound and its rage, higher and higher until it broke into a last, terrible roar that shook the beast’s form for one last time before fading slowly, agonizingly, into a deathly silence.

The body of the sawctopus sank to the ground, the few arms still left airborne crashing to the ground and plunging their blades deep into the earth. It softened underneath their feet, the tension leaving its form along with its life, and Zimmer turned back to Gannet proudly.

“Job well done, I’d say,” he said cheerfully, placing his pistol back in its holster and adjusting his coat. “We make quite the team; I daresay you’ve rather got a knack for, er- handling these sorts of creatures. Bit reckless, but I’m not complaining about it. I still can’t quite believe you managed your way through the entire beast’s body, though, my deepest commendations.”

Gannet blinked, then grinned back, his teeth stained with blood. <font color="#345557">“I have done as the Oracle commands. You were of much assistance and it is good to have you.” He gestured around the body of the sawctopus, drops of blood flying through the air and landing on Zimmer’s coat, who pretended not to notice. “I cannot smell anything but this dead being. I am not sure what lies around us.”

Zimmer glanced around; the sawctopus’ fall had destroyed a section of the castle he had seen before, all black stone, sinister towers, and random, disconnected walls. Someone screamed, far off- possibly a female or high male voice, though it was difficult to tell. No one else was immediately visible, though for a second the alchemist thought he saw something spindly lurch past a wall at the corner of his vision. Quite likely it was just his mind playing tricks on him. Stress and all that. No need to worry about things that weren’t immediately available to deal with, hm?</font>

Beside him, Gannet tensed. The scent of blood and death had started to clear just enough for him to catch something new, something far worse… the chemical man’s smoke cloud, already filled with new colors and a strange pale glow, condensed with interest as he noticed Gannet’s staring. He said something that the blood-soaked man didn’t hear; he was already striding past the corpse of the sawctopus. Something was wrong, there was something wrong, he felt it, it was getting clearer and clearer, he could smell it now, stronger than ever-

“Gannet! Gannet, what in the name of God are you doing?” Zimmer called behind him, having to run to keep up. “Damned fellow’s going to get himself killed, running off like this.” With a frightening burst of speed he saw his strange ally duck around the corner of a wall, still without explaining himself. What had gotten into the man? Perhaps the beast they’d slain had some sort of toxin in its blood, or Gannet had hit a poison sac in its organs somewhere; it would certainly explain why he was acting so strangely. Stranger than usual anyway; he wasn’t willing to place any bets on what this fellow considered “normal”.

He rounded the wall to find that, much to his surprise, Gannet had stopped and was standing before a startled-looking young man who, upon closer inspection, appeared to be wearing a bizarre set of partial armor and missing half an arm. He was also naked except for a pair of blue shorts. Zimmer didn’t see how this was at all appropriate to the situation, but then he supposed that the gentleman had his reasons, however odd they may be. His ally seemed to have him cornered, at any rate, and from what he could tell the armored fellow was none too keen on this fortuitous meeting.

Gannet stared down at Martin, tilting his head slightly forward to sniff carefully at the air, though he was sure of the scent now. He had had to chase it but he had been right, he was always right, the Oracle would not gift him a sense that was not perfect. He bared his teeth at the figure before him and told it, “You are dead.”

Martin blinked and slowly prepared to run. <font color="#666666">“Look, calm down-”

“You are dead.” Gannet clicked his thumb and forefinger together in front of the thing’s chest sharply. “Your heart does not beat, you have no blood to flow. You move but you are not living. You breathe but it is not air.” He narrowed his eyes. “You do not smell of the living.”

He grinned suddenly, fiercely, and took a step back as an idea struck him. He should have come to it sooner, but he had to know what it was first, had to be sure of this for the Oracle. He was a good Eye unlike some, he did not assume things that were not true, he did not lie about things because he was not sure of them. He was better than a Tooth to be certain. The Oracle had every reason to grant him this journey.

Still grinning, Gannet spoke more softly. He did not want to alarm this being if it could be helped, though without the scent of fear he could not be sure if he already had. “I ask for you to forgive me. I caught your scent and I had to know… You are the dead-that-walks. I see this now.” He blinked slowly, content. “It is good to see that you have not yet been destroyed.”</font>

Originally posted on MSPA by cyber95.

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"Don't worry, Martin! I'll save you! ...Somehow!"
Rollo dug impossibly deep into his pockets until he pulled out about 20 to 30 good feet of rope, with more still apparently hidden away. He bit off the length and quickly formed it into a lasso. Martin was at this point fleeing from the monstrosity, but it wasn't too far away yet. Rollo threw the lasso, which managed to hook itself onto one of its surprisingly sturdy back legs.

"H-hey y-you j-jerk! St-stop ch-chasing m-my f-friend!" Rollo stuttered with every hit against the floor he took. Being attached to a running leg didn't seem quite as good and idea as it did before. With great effort (and lots of the floor colliding with his face), he managed to make it to the leg, and with some difficulty, scrambled on top of the creature, having retrieved the rope. Without warning, the armadillo's cap was replaced by a cowboy hat, and a lollipop found its way into his mouth.

"Now I think you oughta just settle down," Rollo requested of the monster, in his best deep cowboy voice. Now, the Stiltwalker was probably annoyed when this small thing climbed up on it in the first place, but its mood certainly wasn't elevated when that small thing wrapped a rope around its head and jerked hard. The Stiltwalker lost balance momentarily, whether it was out of surprise or simply being knocked back from the tug. In retaliation, the creature stopped its pursuit of the cyborg to wildly thrash around, trying to throw its passenger off. Rollo took to this with a hearty "Yee-haw!" and rode the Stiltwalker like a mechanical bull.

As he ran, Martin looked behind him to see Rollo's antics. He would have wondered what he were doing if it weren't for the fact that it was ludicrously obvious what he was doing. A cartoon armadillo was riding a terrifying monster like a bucking bronco and Martin wasn't certain whether or not it was the strangest thing that had happened today. Despite the Stiltwalker having been slowed down, Martin didn't stop running. It could still come for him if Rollo were knocked off or ignored or something.

As it so happened, Rollo was knocked off rather quickly. The Stiltwalker's attention now appeared to be redirected, which was not entirely unsurprising. Rollo quickly looked where Martin was running off, and fled down an entirely different direction. This thing obviously had an effect on him. No need to lead it back over to him again. Rollo rolled himself up into a ball and rolled faster in such a way he hadn't since the Sega lawsuit several years ago, so he could at least gain some distance. The gained distance was just enough to lose all over again as he flattened against a brick wall that wasn't there a moment ago. Peeling himself off of the wall, he couldn't help but notice a particular feeling he had. There was food nearby. Some kind of fruit, perhaps? It was getting closer, too. He didn't have much time to wonder about it, though. The Stiltwalker was getting closer. Quickly, Rollo scrambled behind the wall in an effort to hide. Just a few seconds later there was a big SPLAT! and a loud THUD!

The girl was already stumbling away as Samael was looking at one of the creature's long, thin legs, which was currently occupying the middle of his handle, making escape rather difficult. The next few moments consisted of a stare-off between Samael and the Stiltwalker. Just as another leg was lifted menacingly, the silence was broken, by none other than an armadillo with a flamethrower.

"HEY YOU! Get off or get toast!"

Both of them stared at Rollo for a moment, the large eyes of the creature glaring, even. For once it decided to stick with its current target before switching to a new one. Rollo didn't approve and showed his disapproval with a shower of flames. As the flames cleared, the stiltwalker managed a blink before crumbling to ash, its eyes managing to get a moment of hang-time before falling into the pile. About half a leg was still left, jammed in Samael's hand still, although it was easily removed.

<font color="#6A8455">"Oh, uh, th-thanks," Samael wasn't quite sure how to react to this series of events, as the confusion continued to escalate. I mean, there was a cartoon character standing right in front of him! The demon was about to stutter out some kind of query, but he was interrupted.

"...hey wait a minute, aren't you Micheal LaGribbe?"

"I-I'm sorry?"

"Yeah! Yeah I didn't realize it at first, but you animated me once! Golly, this is kinda weird! I never got to meet one of you guys in person before."

Kinda weird was a bit of an understatement. When he had that animation job in his last life, he wasn't quite expecting it to come back to him like this. He wasn't even there very long!

"Uh, yeah. Same here," Samael managed to get out. What was there to say? There were some situations that one just couldn't prepare for, and so far this day had at least five of them.

"Anyways, we should probably get going before it gets up again!" Rollo suggested, gesturing towards the pile of ash.

"When it gets- what?"

"Oh like they ever stay down with this thing," Rollo was impressively managing to stick the entire flamethrower back into his pocket, "I've used this in lots of places, and they're always back after a while. Plus, we should catch up with your friend! And maybe find Martin again! And-"

A low rumbling was heard in the distance. Slowly, Rollo turned around to look behind him. At least twenty feet tall, and rolling right towards him and Samael was an object he was hoping he wouldn't see. At the sight of the giant soccer ball, Rollo couldn't help but let out a girlish scream. What kind of soccer player would be needed for a ball that big? There was only one reasponse to this monstrosity.

"RUNNNNNNNNN!"

Rollo and Samael immediately began to run as fast as possible from the fast approaching sport ball, towards Dorin.</font>

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"Hey, Doug. Whatcha watchin'?"

"I'm not quite sure. The guide said that a Rollo toon was supposed to be playing right now, and, well, he's definitely in this, but..."

"Huh, weird. Who's that guy there?"

"Some kinda former demon guy or something I don't know. It started off really violent and it's kind of twisted. I don't know how the fuck Jerry fucked up the programming slots so bad, but the boss is gonna tear at him as soon as he can. The phone's been ringing nonstop since this started. I didn't even know we had this."

"Well then, I don't know about you, but I kind of want to see where this goes. I'm taking an extended lunch break."

"Oh, definitely. I'm not missing a moment."

Show Content

SpoilerYour regularly scheduled Rollo cartoon will instead be replaced by Relentless Slaughter. Very Special Episode indeed.

Originally posted on MSPA by Adenreagen.

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“That I haven’t been what, now?” Martin was puzzled. If he HAD been “destroyed”, then it would’ve been game over, and one way or another, he’d be out of this game. But how Gannet (by the wide grin that Rollo had told him about, it HAD to be Gannet) had said destroyed made him wonder just what sort of game this was. He wasn’t sure which contestant was with Gannet, but he wondered if these two were available party members since Rollo had disappeared in the fight with the Stiltwalker. “ Never mind that, now,” he thought aloud to himself, silencing Gannet before he had the chance to answer. “What’s important right now is, who the hell are you and how do I get out of here? None of the interface works, and I want to at least get some of my inventory back.”

Gannet and Zimmer glanced at each other, Zimmer’s expression puzzled and Gannet with his usual wide grin. Zimmer shrugged and decided to get the introductions out of the way.

“You’ll have to excuse my… acquaintance. He seems to become over-excited by some of the strangest things. I’m Lieutenant Matthew Zimmer, alchemist. You can call me Lieutenant, or Zimmer, or even Matthew, if you’d like. This here is Gannet …” He hesitated, looking to Gannet to supply a last name. When he grinned but remained silent, Zimmer shrugged and went on. “Gannet. At any rate, we’re glad to see that another contestant has survived this far and would be delighted if you’d travel with us. Strength in numbers and all that. It will make passing the coming trials against us that much easier, and I would very much like to NOT fail my god. If I remember right, you’d be Martin Holden. You’re also a robot, though you don’t seem quite the same as you were originally.” He glanced significantly at his arm.

That’s it, something is definitely wrong. He’s the second computer to mention that my arm has changed. He talks like a normal NPC though, as though this all was real. “Coming trials”? I wonder what that’s about, though it makes sense that a game should get harder as it goes along.

“Alright, you two can join me, but before anything else I’d like to get Rollo back. He didn’t seem like the greatest party member, but he has been helpful in a way. He couldn’t tell me how to reach the menu, but he could at least remind me who everyone was and what I’m supposed to be doing. At any rate I want to-

Connection Lost.

Zimmer and Gannet were both surprised when Martin slumped over midsentence.

Gannet’s grin, which already threatened to take over his face, got slightly wider. So much to see. So many things to learn from this new creature, this dead-that-walks. The oracle will be very pleased when I return.

“The lad’s fainted! I hope these spells don’t happen to him often, or he might not be as helpful as I’d hoped. I’d best try to bring him around.“ Zimmer reached into his coat and carefully selected his bag of smelling salts, double-checking to make sure that Martin wouldn’t be inhaling anything toxic. As he began wafting them under Martin’s nose, he decided to figure out what they should do.

“Gannet, what do you think our next move should be? If we help Martin, here, do you think he’ll remain on our side? And what of Rollo? Martin said Rollo helped him before, and if we save him, he’ll be indebted to us for sure. I know we’re in a fight to the death and all, but I feel the more of us work together, the longer we last to pass the Maker’s tests. It’s a wild hope I know, but I think it’s the best chance we’ve got. Your thoughts?”

Gannet didn’t have to ponder long, or really at all. “We help them. The oracle will be pleased when I return to tell it of so many new creatures. This one hasn’t been with us long, but I have learnt much. I would like to learn more of him, and his companion. I am an Eye, not a Tooth, having something to protect me would be good. He must rise. We have to move.”

Zimmer looked up, giving Gannet a puzzled look, which turned to surprise when he saw where Gannet was pointing. Giant ramps were being drawn to direct something, and they were directly between two of them. As Gannet was about to continue, Martin started coughing from the salts.

“Ah, he’s back. There’s a good chap, take your time getting yourself together, but do be quick about it. We may have a problem soon”

Martin sat up and, remembering that his arm was missing, pushed with his right arm and stood up. Looking at the two staring at him, he tried to figure who they were and was about to reach for his notebook to check when he remembered his pants were gone.

Rollo…the Stiltwalker…”excuse my… excited…can call me…or even Mat-…survived…travel with us…" He was surprised. It was one of the few times he had remembered anything when he woke up to the “Connection lost” in the bottom left corner. He missed his notebook, but there wasn’t much he could do about it now.

“Hey Matty. Can you and Smiles here help me find Rollo? I think he’s probably in trouble, and I’d like it if we could help him out since he’s one of our party members.”

Overlooking being called ‘Matty’ for the time being, Zimmer pocketed his smelling salts and decided that Martin accepted their offer to work together. “Very well,” he began, “but do you have any idea where he might be? I assume from where you were running from before, correct?”

Where I was running from? What on earth is he talking about? “Err… Right. If we could just get Rollo and figure out how to get out of here, that’d be great.”

“Others come.” Gannet’s voice startled everyone. Though Zimmer and Martin looked around, they couldn’t see past the giant ramps around them, but they began to feel, rather than hear, a rumble in the distance. “They move quickly.” He took a deep breath and widened his eyes. Colors began to swirl in his eyes, though there were wooden structures blocking his vision, Gannet could still “see” them in a way. “They flee something.” What that was quickly became apparent, as a giant soccer ball rolled past one ramp, headed directly to the next. In front of the ball ran two figures, a small one rolling like the ball that chased it, and a taller one that appeared to be carrying a screaming figure.

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Rollo and Samael immediately began to run as fast as possible from the fast approaching sports ball, towards Dorin. Though she was trying to get away, having so many spirits leave her body in the most painful way possible was very crippling.

Samael grabbed one hand and Rollo grabbed the other, both trying to pull her away from the soccer ball. “C’mon girl, this isn’t the time to be tired, it’s time to move!”

Dorin doubled over as something began to work its way out of her side. It was even smaller than the snout of the thing that had tried earlier, but still hurt. “I can’t… “

“Dorin. Please. I know it hurts. You have to move.” Shik was floating ahead of her as the two half-dragged half-carried her. “Please. Run.”

Dorin tried. She really did, but she didn’t manage to get more than twenty steps before she tripped in her heels. Even without her robe getting caught on them, they were still higher than any she had worn before today. As the ground came up to meet her she heard an angry “Fuck it” as Samael picked her up and continued running. Though the hole in his hand burned from the portal it was pressing against, he didn't dare put her down unless she was safe.

Out from under her ceremonial gown, a floating armadillo came out of Dorin’s side. It was small, but on top of all the other spirits today, Dorin passed out from the pain it inadvertently caused. It floated next to Rollo and they both looked at each other, then in the same different direction, then back at each other, than forward again until the spirit vanished. Clearly, a spirit of comedic timing and a very inappropriate one given the situation.

After running for a time, Rollo decided that nothing would show up to stop the ball, or him, like there usually was. “Dive to the side! It should go past us then we’ll be safe for a while! One…Two…GO!” As the ball rolled past, a pencil came down and quickly scribbled a rough oval. There was a *click* and it turned blue. They ended up diving into a pond. Though Rollo didn’t mind too much, since the soccer ball was gone and he still wondered where its player was.

Samael on the other hand didn’t like being in the water again and quickly got out to keep himself and the unconscious Dorin as dry as possible. He looked to see what else would happen and saw the pencil quickly drawing a giant ramp to turn the soccer ball, then another and another and yet another. He quickly saw that their running wasn’t over and that the Tormentor wasn’t done with that particular obstacle.

“We should keep moving, that soccer ball is going to be back in a minute” Samael said.

“And who knows how big the guy who owns that thing is going to be!” Rollo squealed.

“The guy who owns…” Samael realized that Rollo was right. The Tormentor may have drawn it, but he would’ve drawn something to start it moving, and it’d have to be pretty big to kick a twenty foot ball hard enough that it’d still be moving.

The Tormentor rubbed his hands together. In truth he had used a ramp much like the ones he kept drawing to start the ball rolling. Heh. Ball rolling. But to play off Rollo and actually create the very thing that he feared most? It would take some time. He picked the pencil, went to a so-far unused corner of the canvas and began drawing.

“Where should we go, Rollo?" Samael asked.

“Well my buddy Martin and I got separated by the Stiltwalker thing, so we should find him. He’s probably still running he looked so scared. The sooner we find him, the sooner we can help each other. I think he went…” Rollo looked side to side, faced one way and pointed in the other, “that way.” Rollo got out of the pond and felt a rumble. Looking behind him, he saw the soccer ball had gone full circle and was again coming up to them. “Uh-oh, here we go again!” He curled up into a ball again – there would be another lawsuit after this, he just knew it – and started rolling away from the soccer ball.

Martin followed with Dorin as fast as he could, getting out of the way. As the ball rolled past, another set of ramps was drawn, bringing the ball around again. Again they dodged it, and another set of ramps formed. Each time they dodged, and each time ramps appeared, always forming a tighter loop. Though it originally took a few minutes for the ball to turn and continue the chase, it soon took a matter of seconds for the ramps to angle it at them again. Unless they got rid of the soccer ball it would never stop chasing them.

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Samael looked down as he ran. Dorin had another spirit coming out of her. Judging from the sniffing and prodding Samael felt against his hand, it was the snout of that too-big spirit again. She was wailing in pain, but whether or not she was conscious or if it was a reflex from the pain, Samael had no idea.

“MMMAAAAARRRRTTIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNN!!! RRRRUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNN!!!”

The three of them could hear it from where they were, even though the three in front of the ball were still hundreds of feet away. As the three cut a corner, the soccer ball turned the last ramp before Gannet, Martin and Zimmer and moved its way towards them. They began to run, Gannet taking big, loping strides, Martin keeping pace with his bionic legs, and Zimmer pumping his knees as fast as he could to keep up.

Martin had a new fear: being crushed to death. Gannet did not want to fail the Oracle, and the virus in his mind continued to pump more and more adrenaline to prevent him from tiring. Zimmer just didn’t want to die in this place and fail his Lord on one of the first challenges.

Despite this, when Zimmer looked over his shoulder, he ran into the ramp, snapping a board as he ran into it and fell through. “Rise, Lieutenant.” Zimmer looked up and saw Gannet offering a hand. His grin, always cheerful but unsettling, was even more so given the life or death situation they were in. He took his hand, and was pulled to his feet. As he was about to thank Gannet, he again began running, so Zimmer realized that courtesy would have to wait.

When the soccer ball ran over the ramp, the broken board punctured the ball half its length. Though the ball now had a slow leak and a board jutting out its side, it was by no means stopped.

The Tormentor looked up from the corner he was working in and saw this. “His…talent…finally shows itself, eh? Well, it won’t matter much longer. Soon they’ll all have something much bigger to fear. Heheh. HehehehehahaHAHAHAHABWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!

As they were running, the ground suddenly shook and a violent wind blew past them all. Looking over, Zimmer saw a crater to their left. A pencil appeared, many of them, in fact. All began drawing circles with lines coming from them. Though they looked like balloons, each was colored black and the lines sparked. The ones with shortest lines –fuses, he realized, having worked with such things in the R&D branch – exploded and left more craters, shaking the ground and almost tripping some of them. One bomb exploded close to Zimmer, who stumbled and kicked Rollo into the air.

As Rollo panicked, one of his worst fears realized, another explosion sent him backwards, and he hit the giant soccer ball. More specifically, he hit the plank jutting from it. Square on the end. This forced it the rest of the way into the ball, completing the puncture. The ball popped – rather, it blew up. All the air rushed out of the hole, tearing it larger and allowing more air to out. The rushing air blew the pencil tools and bombs away, leaving a clear area immediately around them.

“Good work, Rollo! I’d never have thought to try stopping the ball with a direct attack. You’ve saved us all!” Zimmer cried as he ran up and shook Rollo’s hand so hard the armadillo began to wobble.

“I did? I… I guess I did!” Rollo jumped into the air and when he landed there was a large medal on his chest. “I guess I am a hero. Who knew?”

As they all began to catch their breath, they realized that a vast majority of them were together and no one knew how to react. Dorin, however, got everyone’s attention by screaming in agony as the creature in her side continued to force its way out, managing in one lunge to get its lower jaw out, stretching the hole painfully.

Samael took his whole hand (rather than the holey one) and began trying to push the creature back in to stop it from hurting her. He partly succeeded by forcing it back to just its snout, bringing another cry of agony from Dorin. “I could use someone’s help here, this is painful to me too.”

There was a rumble as something large hit the ground and yelled in fury. Even though none of them could see it, they knew whatever it was wasn’t going to be good.

“I think we’ve got bigger problems,” Martin said, looking towards the sound.

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As Jerry was clearing out his desk, a pink piece of paper attached to his computer monitor, he heard people talking about the show. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t get the show off the air. Every time he tried to turn it off, or put on a Rollo rerun, the damn thing just wouldn’t go away. The phones were ringing off the hook. Some with late-teens and twenties who approved, but mostly with crying children and outraged parents.

“Man, Henry,” Doug was saying, “Why was there such a long commercial break?”

“I know! Except for this one infomercial a few years back, that was the longest break I’ve ever seen. Hopefully that’s the last one that long for a while.”

“True that. Can’t believe the boss doesn’t care that we’re watching this.”

“He’s got bigger problems. Did you hear that they shut down the entire department in charge of airing the program and it still wouldn’t turn off? It’s gotta be some kind of hoax put on by a disgruntled employee.”

“Who? Everyone I know loves working here. Even Jerry whistled the theme song every day when he left. The last disgruntled guy we had was Michael LaGribbe, and he passed away years ago!”

“I’m not sure, but the boss’ll get to the bottom of it, mark my words. I’m not moving from this chair ‘til it’s done.”

Show Content

SpoilerBOOM! Cranked that bad boy out and it only took 4 hours. Man, I've been trying to write off and on for a while. Today I decided "Screw it, I'm getting this thing done, and I'm gonna try to make up for everyone not putting anything." I know I made it kind of awkward to put everyone together, but if the next person wants to split them up, thats fine by me. Or keep them together and write for them all, that's fine too. I just wanted to get SOMETHING down.

It was fun to use Martin's malfunction as a plot device to get Zimmer and Gannet a private chat. Feel free to use it, I'm not holding the rights.

Political commentary with Henry and Doug? It WAS a long gap. Also got to bring in Samael being a Rollo editor in a past life (thanks Cyber). He was disgruntled at one point! Imagine!

I was planning on starting a "Final Boss" pieced from everyone's fears, but I realized the round hasn't gone on long enough. Something for later maybe?

Jerry, Henry and Doug are now secondary Rollo characters.

If anyone notices a continuity error, let me know and I'll fix it.