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**Schazer** · 12-15-2010, 12:33 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

Let’s just take things back an anachronistic step or eight. Quite some time before the Countess was leading her soon-to-be exterminated insectoid compatriots to their Last Supper (and yes, there’s a perfectly valid explanation for how a precision instrument like herself got a dumpster full of meat into Las Orbitas’ stadium, if you’d be so kind as to hang around), there was that issue of the fact Ouroboros had found the engineer. Had Algernon been in enough of the right kind of state to actually ask after a name, the amalgam would’ve jokingly and falsely referred to her now non-extant informant as Ken.

Not that that mattered much; seeing as whoever-the-hell-he-was wasn’t much more than bug food now, and even if Algernon asked his worm to trade his memories for a handful of sass and a substantial amount of suspension of disbelief, the shrieking made it pretty clear that anything (or one) organic in the immediate vicinity met a very unpleasant end as several thousand mandibled mouthfuls.

The Countess, meanwhile, just kind of sighed as Ouroborites poured from the ventilation shaft she’d eaten the grill off of and settled into a comfortable position. She even did ‘Ken’ a favour and rather glumly drove a foot between his eyes so the poor bastard wouldn’t have to sit through getting eaten alive.

The overhead lights died with a whimper as Ouroborous ripped out its electrical jugular. The Countess reformed her aural sensors so the screaming wasn’t quite so palpable, and plucked the first few prawns by their papery wings and tossed them on the metal-crushing gears in the back of her throat. Their crushed little bodies spewed pain-signal pheromones into the air; Ouroborous’ was visibly upset by this message and started sinking its collective jaws into less edible things like the rubber grip on the walkie-talkie, and the Countess’ feet. The slick purple rubbed off on the steely limb, making it prickle unpleasantly as the constituent nanites locked down and locked up. Wondering why these damnable insects didn’t have a “stop your shrieking and calm down” signal – actually…

It took downing a few more Ouroborites (and consequently angering the rest of them into clambering up to her torso, where even more of them got mashed up on the moving parts before those got gunked up) before the Countess had processed something useful, even if in her illustrious career of devouring metal and reforming it into something that would cause a lot of misery for someone else didn’t lend much experience into identifying it.

Somewhere in her core, the amalgam shuffled apparatus about into something approximating a chemical munitions factory. Compounds rendering Ouroborous’ tangle of limbs immune to its own paralysing slimy thermal blanket worked their way through the clockwork, took their sweet time getting to the peripherals, but eventually granting the jammed gears yield and letting the Countess limber up. There was the notable downside of the fact that now she had a consistent carpet of Ouroborites on her like an uppity scientist who’d pissed off Anansi, but she wouldn’t quibble.

Ken or what was left of him had about reached that point it wasn’t much use to any man, amalgam, or insect, but whatever the Countess was exuding was making Ouroborous stick around. The slick coat every cog and spring in the Countess was acquiring afforded her a rather fetching purple tint, but if the contents of her little wrist-bound vial were anything to go by the stuff was electrically conductive, too.

Which, if the screeching walls were anything to go by, could prove to be rather important.

The Countess scooped up the sad remnants of the walkie-talkie, its wires stripped of casing and thoroughly shorted out, thought better of extracting the Ouroborite still lapping up a bit of battery acid, and downed the lot. Cables insinuated down her arm, arranging themselves down its length as gently thrumming coils.

This sight, while quite striking in the lightless corridor, its air thick with chittering, ticking, scuttling, sparking, and the all-pervading smell of blood, still doesn’t really explain how this monstrosity found its way to the elf and the stadium and the dumpster full of meat.

Rest assured, I’m getting there.

Dragon Fogel · 12-15-2010, 12:43 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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**Schazer** · 12-15-2010, 01:03 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

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MaxieSatan · 12-16-2010, 01:32 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.

Schazer Wrote:and yes, there’s a perfectly valid explanation for how a precision instrument like herself got a dumpster full of meat into Las Orbitas’ stadium, if you’d be so kind as to hang around

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whoosh! · 01-04-2011, 08:53 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by whoosh!.

Slamming down a reserve - for real this time. I have words to prove it. Also an actual idea of what I'm doing.

**Schazer** · 01-06-2011, 09:48 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

The next problem: the dumpster.

The Countess fastidiously picked an errant insect off her shoulder, and ground it down meditatively while following the screams. The lightning arced from byzantium-tinged coils to the howling demolition expert on the floor ahead of her, lighting the place up to the olfactory tune of fried bugs and human. The smell prompted a second wave of Ouroborites to extricate themselves from the walls, until the smell of burning chitin overwhelmed the earthy tang of blood and charred skin. Despite their cooked kin discouraging the Ouroborites in this portion of the facility from lingering, a veritable train of the insects skittered in her wake, scrambling over each other in their poorly-informed haste to crawl all over the amalgam and its wing-crushing, mandible-snapping, leg-severing mess of gears and metal.

She kind of liked these ones, even if purple wasn’t really her colour. Several unfortunate workers later, the Countess was holding the elevator open (the typical way, so Ouroborous couldn’t get into the shaft and cause grief). She spun the one remote mine she’d managed to salvage from the first victim in her spidery fingers, humming a little over the sound of carpet being devoured. As the doors opened with a ding, it occurred to the Countess that with an entourage as voracious as this one there wasn’t all that much she needed to see coming. The amalgam stabbed a steel finger into the elevator’s ceiling light, vision exploding with little bursts of white as the power was siphoned from light to coil. A dynamo on the shoulder, perhaps? She’d think about it.

The Countess peeled off a bit of aluminum plating from the elevator’s interior, and pressed on. But not to the refrigeration stores. Not just yet.

Hauling a dumpster of bait would be somewhat redundant without there being a trap to set it in. The rink in the stadium was devoid of ice or even a sizeable puddle to get that derelict feel down right – technology had found easier ways for idiots to compete on low-friction surfaces without them putting knives on their feet.

Nonetheless, fiddling with some switches in a back room generated the gravitational field across the rink. Her Ouroborites were somewhat preoccupied with the vermin and scraps lying around, but if there was still power this deep in the station it was best Ouroborous in general didn’t get its mandibles into it. She cranked up the stadium lights in the vain hope that the boosted current would discourage the bugs, then shut off power to the rink before heading down to examine it closer.

It didn’t look edible (though Ouroborous rasped off the top layer of peeling paint anyway), which wasn’t a great start and gives you the first step in an embarrassingly short path to concluding how we got to the dumpster. The Countess skittered about across the rink until it was satisfactorily slicked with purple, by which point another battery of coils had arranged themselves up her arm. She’d need all the juice she could get.

The infamous dumpster was in the corner, wheels conspicuous only in their absence. Really, it was more of a metal crate serving the task usually reserved for a dumpster, which was for tossing a load of discarded/scavenged edibles into. It hovered about a foot off the ground on its flatbed barge, occasionally suffering a fresh scorch mark as the Countess punished any Ouroborites who got too close to the truck and its delicious power source.

The amalgam peered down a garbage chute, noting with some disappointment the lack of sharp-bladed fans, but somewhat relieved at the lack of a smell wafting up. A basement full of Ouroborites only taking a break in their gorging to produce more offspring didn’t appeal to her, if only because it meant she’d have to find a way down there.

The coolroom doors had just about bent her fingers to pry open, and the cold was certainly discouraging her branch of Ouroborous, but the Countess didn’t have time to mess around. She had a deadline to be keeping. Of sorts. She did what was needed, slammed the crate lid shut, and slapped the mine she’d picked up on the hinges before getting out of there. An attempt to coax a bit more speed into the truck shorted it out, which meant an irritating detour to get a new one after sharing the old with Ouro. Metal and organic circuits – it was a match made in a very, very messed up heaven.

Before time-dilatingly long, the amalgam got the meat to the rink, got the meat on the rink, then started melting and spinning out a trail of wire so she could blast said crate of meat open. After all the rushing about and preparation she’d put in, this last bit was surprisingly relaxing. Perhaps she could make a hobby of this, or learn to use a garrote.

Somewhere far above in the cavernous bottom floor of Las Orbitas, some fans shut off. Then some lights. Then an elf came staggering across the clearing, bound for the arena, and the Countess found herself struggling not to snigger. A spark danced from finger to filament, followed by a slightly beefier jolt to really get the juices flowing.

Surrounded by a now rather peckish little horde, the Countess rolled her supercharged shoulder and skittered after Holly. The shrieks grew ever closer – until, at some point while the amalgam lurked in the rows of seats, Ouroborous came pouring in. Holly was only a few steps or a good push away from standing on the rigged rink, too. Perfect.

“Enemy of my enemy and so forth.”

The tiers of seats were even more annoying to descend than scale with these legs, but the Countess liked to think it looked stately and predatory rather than at all awkward. She launched another small bolt at a pack of stragglers to hasten gathering them all on the rink.

Then the lights went out. The Countess sighed, and passed the time firing a few more sparks, waiting for her quarry (both Ouroborous and elf) to get onto the damn rink already. The crate of meat would serve as an excellent lightning rod, once the last of the prawns came down from the roof.

whoosh! · 01-10-2011, 07:18 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by whoosh!.

Aic stood up in the room of white a changed woman. The Quad, or whatever the hell this shrimp had been calling it, hadn’t taken effect as quickly as she would have liked. The first minute was just waiting, staring at that other full line on the mirror. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but the trickle of mucus down the back of her throat hadn’t been it. Aic only really noticed something was different when she found herself stroking the magazine clips in her pocket.

And then it hit her like a tidal wave. She was alive. And who wasn’t? Holly, that’s who. Good on her, the damn bitch. Grinning, she leapt up. This was a great situation. What had she been so moody about before? Some doomed relationship with an up-herself weirdo, that’s what.

Aic paused, her grin faltering slightly.

She really had to stop answering her own questions like that.

But that didn’t matter. What she going to do now? Her gun was gone (Dropped? Or forgotten?) and that wasn’t good. These guys she’d been shoved in this fancy cage with were real killers, or honest to goodness superheroes. At least for the superpower part, anyway.

Aic was distracted by the thought that she didn’t really have any way to express her pensive thinking. She made a note to herself to pick up a packet of cigarettes and a light somewhere to correct this.

But she could just go and hurt some people. That had been fun, in the past. These combatants were resilient buggers, that’s for sure, but they’d probably never been stalked by someone with intent to torture. And when it came to being on the other side of that encounter, Aic was the unbeaten champion.

Although… something was wrong.

Aic slowly spun around, flinching at the blinding white state of the room. It couldn’t be that someone was there. Only the addict knew where she was, and he’d fled, completely out of his mind some time earlier. A very long time ago indeed. No, she wasn’t being watched. This feeling of wrongness – it was much more like something was missing, an arm, a sense of balance, a response – a sibling.

Something dark rushed past behind Aic, softly trampling the floor.

She lurched around. The same hideous white room filled her vision. Filling her. That unutterable blankness. So it didn’t want to be seen. Or it couldn’t be.

"Yeah. Yeah! A sibling, that’s right. Only I never had a sister or a brother –"

- a thunderstorm, gently rumbling and illuminating the land in snatches at a time. Mud sloshes against her bare feet, the huge warm droplets of rain pelting her. In the distance she can see the stern silhouette of the mountains. A dark shape rushes behind her, softly trampling the wasted ground. She turns and opens her mouth to shout -

Aic stared at the white wall, her pupils huge, her mouth slightly hung open and her whole body quivering. With not inconsiderable effort she turned her head to look towards the only door, a dark slit punched out of the raging white. She needed to get out of here.

"You can’t get to me that easily, little sibling or whatever manner of thing you are," Aic slurred out angrily at the room. Its only response was to keep its silence.

"Yeah, I thought so."

More of the drug suddenly came into effect, immediately relaxing her and allowing her to regain her cool confidence, but she wasn’t about to waste it on insane visions. Instead, she followed her instincts and got the hell out of the room. All that white was giving her a headache.

Stepping out into the thankfully gloomier corridor, Aic tried to reassess.

'What do I need? A weapon, primarily, to save my skin from monsters hellbent on capturing my soul or what else it is they do. Something to eat. Flooding and hopping around museums to getting to me. And, and… more Quad.'

Aic turned back to the white storeroom, utterly silent. She then proceeded to retract her previous plan of never stepping foot in there ever again, if only for a few moments. When she was done messing around with her absolutes she stared down the corridor, unleashed a clanking, screeching laugh and scampered off deeper into the ship.

----

It was, however, not long before she was brought to an unpleasantly abrupt halt by the presence of another.

This one was lounging against a doorframe, enjoying a secretive cigarette outside of the watchful gaze of a higher-up. As it was, the sight of someone not dissimilar to a Medic rushing wildly through the halls startled the poor woman several levels. Within the seconds the faint glow of the cigarette was swiftly stomped out and her uniform fiercely tugged into a more orderly appearance.

"M-medic! What’s happening?"

Aic juttered to a stop and stared at the engineer. Wordlessly, she grabbed one of her arms and used it to shove her against the metal wall. Curiously enough, the victim was far too well conditioned in the ways of respecting authority to do much more than whimper in response.

"Where are the weapons?" Aic spat out the words like they were poison.

"Oh god… what…"

"Where!"

The engineer took one look at those mad eyes and their dilated pupils, and paled dramatically.

"What on earth has happened?" Her words were a little steadier, her eyes a little deader.

Aic paused, and glanced over her shoulder. The dark empty corridor stared back. Satisfied, she returned her focus to the trembling person she had pinned down.

"Something bad. If we don’t do something, the ship is liable to break up with us still inside in about, perhaps, twenty minutes. Maybe a little less. Do you understand?"

"But – the escape pods-"

"Gone!" Aic screamed into the others face, her spittle flecking her skin. "All gone! Your life is at risk, and by those mad gods that spit down on us you are going to help me!"

Once more the engineer was smashed into the metal, winding her. Again and again she suffered the full exquisite brunt of the cold steel that she had barely even registered before, other than to mutely accept them as dividers. Now she was all too aware of them, but not for much longer.

She was losing consciousness.

"Tell me," something hissed in her ear.

Suckered in by the sweet relief of the pause in the pain, the engineer could do little else but quietly acquiesce. After that, all she heard was the soft padding of bare feet before she slipped away in blessed blackness.

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MalkyTop · 01-17-2011, 10:52 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

”What’s even at a Naval Research lab that can get us out?”

“I don’t know, but as long as it gets us out before this whole place crumbles down on us…”

Chris and Douglas had been pretty much pals ever since they were next door neighbors, except for that one falling-out over a girl in high school, but they both got over it when she went with Brad freaking Jones instead. When Douglas went on and grew to be a rather good engineer, Chris tagged along, struggling to learn the same things he did. Douglas had to admit, this seemed a little odd to him, but he never questioned it or brought it up with Chris. Such a conversation could possibly lead to something awkward and he was content to leave all that drama alone. In any case, they were together, inseparable pals, whilst Brad freaking Jones was probably off in a janitor’s office somewhere, getting minimum wage. Both of them enjoyed speculating.

To be honest, being a janitor might not be too bad right now, considering how the whole station was going to hell. Well, it was supposed to go to hell in the first place, but not with them on it.

They both stumbled around in the dark, their headlamps wobbling everywhere as they glanced around for any of the sudden dangers that seemed to have popped up out of nowhere. Killer bugs, a demonic lava girl, bodies found everywhere…this was absolutely the worst time to be a rather smart and vulnerable engineer on Las Junkheap.

“Aw man, do you even know where we are?” Chris cried pitifully.

“Uh, well,” Douglas replied, not really wanting to admit that it was simply too damn dark to tell where anything was really and then he was interrupted by some lights coming on.

It was only a few, and they were flickering and dim, but they were lights. And, as the two watched, they were sure that as time passed, more lights came on, radiating from a certain point ahead of them.

“What the hell’s that?” Chris asked.

“I…guess we’ll find out,” Douglas said rather lamely and the two proceeded cautiously, ready to flee if any bug or flaming fire lady showed up. But all they found in the hallway ahead was some weird, strange, crude machine that was apparently plugged up to a hole in the wall and a rather tired-looking young man who was just sitting slumped on the floor, half his head covered up by a large, metallic helmet. An old-fashioned flashlight had fallen from his grasp.

The machine stood out from the rest of Las Orbitas because, even though the whole place was rather decrepit and abandoned, it was still designed with sleekness in mind. The machine, however, seemed clunky and noisy and not well-planned. Pumps and pistons were scattered everywhere with no real purpose other than to look busy. One exhaust pipe lead upwards and then curved back down to plunge into the confusing innards of the machine. Was its own exhaust meant to also be a fuel source? But…that’s impossible.

The engineer in Douglas urged him to come closer and examine the machine. “It’s…impossible. It just shouldn’t work not just in theory, it just shouldn’t work,” he muttered, taking off his headlamp and running his head through his hair.

“I’m just happy it does. C’mon, we’ve gotta get this guy out of here. Get his other arm, will ya?” Douglas strode back towards Chris, barely able to even rip his gaze from the impossible machine. He picked up the flashlight and turned it off before helping the man up.

As they started to move him, he groaned and groggily looked up. “Did…did it work….?”

Douglas hesitated under the flickering lights before saying, “Yes. It does.” Now that he could at least see partly around him, he knew exactly where to go. The circle of lights was getting dimmer further along the way, though. It was an amazing machine, but apparently not exactly efficient.

“I, I couldn’t…I didn’t know…”

“You made it, right? How does it work?” Douglas urged. His curiosity just couldn’t allow this to go by without a second glance.

“…My hat…I shouldn’t have two…thingies…wh-where, did it work…?”

“I think he’s drugged up, man. Don’t bother,” said Chris. “Just wish he could actually walk. Or at least not drag his feet…”

“It’s just…then how does someone completely high off his ass go and make some sort of machine that can power the place without even being really connected? Out of materials that I’m pretty sure we don’t even have?”

Chris shrugged, which was actually a little hard under the burden of the man’s heavy arm. “Eh. Maybe he built it and then got high off his ass?”

“But then what about the materials, huh? How did he even sneak in? I’m pretty sure he’s not part of the team! If he carried the materials in, how did he carry them all, and don’t you dare say his freaking backpack. And more importantly, how in the hell does it even begin to work?!”

Chris didn’t answer to this and as they walked on to the Naval Research lab, number ten or whatever, the only sound was the slow breathing of the man draped around their shoulders and the buzz of lights struggling to keep on.

“I…I have no…no damn clue…”

Douglas sighed. Well, they were almost to the damn lab that was supposed to provide them with a means of escape. As soon as they were safely packed away, maybe he could interrogate him more. Maybe when he was sober or coming down from whatever it was he was on.

**Pinary** · 03-19-2011, 03:57 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

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GBCE · 04-22-2011, 08:37 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

Thane paced methodically around the lab, muttering with each careful step. Periodically, his hands would flick blood onto the ground on either side. He paced in a circle, whose borders became stronger and more visible with each splatter of blood, and in its center was a beating heart.

Off to the side, slumping in a corner, was the drained body of Christopher Schmaltz. The hole in his chest still seemed to yearn for the heart that had been torn from it, and the ash-grey skin testified to the source of the blood Thane was still flinging onto the floor.

The lights had gone out a while ago. The only illumination came from the sickly purple glow of Thane's technoldritch cybomomination body, and a faint crackling of extracosmic energies racing across the circle. The ritual was nearly complete, but Thane still needed more power...

---

Chris and Douglas dragged the druggie genius and his strange machine along the hallway. They were approaching the Naval Lab, and as they did so, they could hear voices of other engineers ahead of them, around a corner. The machine provided a mobile umbra of light for them as they moved through the corridor, and was apparently noticed by a few of the engineers as well. Headlamp lights were suddenly fixated on steadily-more-illuminated bulkheads, as the engineers saw lights flickering on with no explanation. A head peeked around the corner. "Chris, Douglas!" The engineer, recognizing his crewmates, gave a friendly wave and started a quick job towards them. A few more engineers appeared from around the corner as well, mollified by their comrade's reaction.

"Hey Matthews, could you give us a hand here?" Douglas gestured with the arm that was hauling the machine. "My arm is about to fall off."

"Hey yeah sure thing. Is this what's powering the lights?"

Douglas grunted.

Matthews grabbed a couple of seemingly-randomly-placed pipes on the machine and started dragging it along the floor, puzzling over it as he did so.

"How does this... is it..." He glanced over at the pair of engineers supporting Algernon between them.

Douglas grunted again. "Yeah, it's impossible. This guy built it... we think. Good luck asking him how though, he's high out of his mind."

Matthews shook his head. "If it's impossible then it shouldn't work, but it does, so obviously it's doing something perfectly reasonable but... I just can't figure out /what/..."

The group was quickly joined by more engineers, and as they rounded the corner they could see a small crowd gathered outside what was obviously the door to Laboratory 10.

Chris and Douglas let Algernon slump against a wall, and went over to the milling engineers. Douglas turned to Matthews, and asked, "What's going on? Why are you all outside?" Matthews gestured to a blank panel by the door. "The power's out, we can't get the door op-"

The panel beeped, and lit up. Everyone looked at it, then shifted their gaze to the trembling, makeshift machine which was mysteriously lighting the corridor's lights, and apparently the panel as well.

An engineer nearest the panel reached for it. "Well, I guess that's /that/ problem solved..." He placed his hand on the panel, and the door sliced open.

---

Algernon woke to a darkened corridor, lit only by the flickering glow of some out-of-sight fires. He smelled burnt flesh. His head felt funny. Inhuman cries echoed through the pitch-black corridors. He was supposed to do something, something urgent... he just couldn't remember what it /was/. He stood up and, wobbling a little, steadied himself against the bulkhead. He felt... very odd, though he couldn't quite place why. Then he remembered the machine. In fact, that was really all he /could/ remember. He'd made a machine... how did he make it? Nevermind, he'd done it, and it did something impossible, but it provided power... and he needed power... because... of... the darkness? No no, that wasn't right. He shook his head, trying to clear it, with no real success. He decided that he had to find that machine, wherever it had gone (it obviously wasn't here, because of, y'know, /darkness/).

Leaning against the bulkhead, Algernon began to trace his way along the corridor, and away from the ruined Laboratory 10.

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whoosh! · 05-03-2011, 10:00 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by whoosh!.

Blood Brothers' Roulette is a little known and rarely played variant on the classic Russian Roulette. Like Russian Roulette, the focus is on inserting a single bullet into a revolver, spinning the chambers and firing. However, Blood Roulette differs in that there are as many guns as there are players, and as many bullets. The outcome is also direly less impressive, as it is the hand of the opponent that is shot as opposed to your own head. It is also much more painful and harrowing to be a loser of Blood Brothers' Roulette.

It was this particular game that Aic found herself playing.

The room was gloomy, lit only by a single flickering bulb that cast a curiously harsh light on everything when it did deign to work. It was also cramped, almost every available piece of floor space barring the table at which she sat being dominated by white crates made of thick plastic (or perhaps some kind of metal?). On top of these towered even more of the boxes. Some had dates, numbers and names stencilled on the side, but these were few and largely grouped towards one side of the room. What was clear, however, was that all of them contained weapons.

The room was a veritable armoury.

Aic's opponent, a dark haired thirty-something with untidy stubble smiled at her and slid a revolver across the table with a hand that lacked two fingers. He smiled jaggedly. Next to him was a curiously archaic key, which he'd used to lock the door beforehand. He'd said something about “not wanting them to cause a fuss”.

“You're not nervous, are you? It's still not too late to back out.” If not for the snide edge to the comment it might almost have been construed as kindness.

“Nervous? No. I'm not counting on losing,” she replied, relaxing a little and giving him a grin of her own. Aic flexed her fingers, revelling in the cracking of bones and how unsettled Eight-Fingers was beginning to look.

“Don't intend to lose...? If you cheat, I'm taking your eyes.”

“Certainly. But I'm pretty lucky, Kalevi.”

Kalevi's eyes stared into hers, trying to discern the meaning behind those smug smiles and words. Whether he found it or not, his attention soon drifted to his own revolver. He schlucked it open, assured himself of the single bullet sitting in one of the six chambers, and clacked it close again.

“Whatever. Are you ready to go?”

“Hey, hang on. One question. What do you want if I lose?”

Kalevi grunted.

“You win, you get your weapons, no questions asked. You lose...” He gaze wandered to the rest of the room, his mind delving through all the possibilities.

“Nothing happens. You just leave,” he decided finally.

“What?”

He turned to look at Aic, her smile flushed out by uneasiness. The man shrugged.

“It's not that surprising. You're telling me you never get bored?”

Aic didn't reply to that one.
Instead, she snatched up the gun he'd given her.

“Great. Wonderful,” she snapped, sliding the revolver open to look at the single bullet inside. “Let's just do this.”

In that instant the whole atmosphere of the room changed. A kind of reverence overcame them both, an awe of the Gun. Wordlessly Aic did as she'd been told and angled the barrel of the ancient weapon at the man's splayed left hand. He followed suit, winking at Aic before lowering his sights to the game.

“Spin the chambers,” Kalevi intoned.

The rhythmic clicking of spinning bullets rose up in reply.

“Place your left hand back on the table.”

The reverential quiet still lingered, but the moment was closer now. Only a few seconds were left to drift away and then-

“On the count of three. One... two...”

Aic's heart rate accelerated into a silent frenzy, her eyes on the man's lips. Just a one more word, and then-

CLIK-CLIK.

No recoil ripped her wrist backwards, and no bones splintered like glass in her left hand. Hearing or no hearing, the gods of fate had smiled on them both. Perhaps. But then perhaps not, considering the expression on Kalevi's face.

“You fired twice!” The accusation was quick and bitter.

“I didn't fire once,” Aic replied pointedly.

He leaned inwards towards Aic, fury smouldering behind dark eyes.

“I said I'd take your eyes. And hey, you know what? That's actually starting to sound like a good idea.”

Aic threw back her head and laughed, letting loose a screeching squall of metallic movement. Kalevi slid back from her, but didn't stand. His expression had hardly changed. Even so, he could not succeed in being subtle about the revolver he now pointed at her head.

“What are you?” A deceptively simple question.

She said nothing at first, instead meeting his burning gaze with a coy smile. Then it flickered and she sighed, rubbing her neck.

“Relax. It's nothing,” she muttered.

“The hell it is. Tell me, or I swear I will hurt you,” he replied flatly.

“Put the handgun down.”

“Tell me.”

“This kind of ruins the spirit of the game, y'know?”

The poker face cracked and irritation flashed across Kalevi's face. “Now!”

“Look, you-” Aic faltered. She looked down at the table, her whole body suddenly tensed and small. “They had to reconstruct my throat. I- I had an accident. It was mechanical, but they made sure I could talk and breathe. That was the point. Laughter wasn't.”

“So. That's what the collar is for?”

“Yeah. I-”

Aic opened her mouth to try and explain it all, the poisonous air of the ruined earth, the boomers,

(the rain)

the Seventh Sanctum, but every single piece of that lost life flashed by like a torrent, a towering wall of that sheer amount of stuff in her head. She felt dizzy. Forgetting that she had a pistol aimed at her she tried to stand up, to convince herself that she was fine. But then she began to shake and her legs gave out; the floor slammed into her like a train, driving the breath out of her.

She was vaguely aware of Kalevi at her side suddenly. All of reality seemed to leap forward and blur in that moment. Aic tried to move, but every limb of hers felt a thousand times heavier. It was easier to be still.

He grabbed her head in his hands and wrenched it towards his own. His lips moved and slithered around various words, but it was too fast, too slippery for her to lip read. Her eyes rolled in their sockets. Everything. Hurt.

And then, among the streaking of senses a blinding moment of clarity slipped through, and a question fluttered to the forefront of her mind.

Am I Aic Or Acacia?

She lay there simply stunned by the devastating simplicity of the question. She struggled to produce the easy, simple, obvious answer that she knew. It was insane that she couldn't know, because the division had always been so achingly clear. Hate flared up for the other who wasn't her, but with no target for her rage it fizzled away in the confusion. And then, in a second flash of clarity, yet one more thought drifted into focus:

Quad.

Quad?

QuadquadquadquadQUADQUADQUADQUADQUAD-

Driven by that pulsing idea the terrible weight of her own body seemed possible to defeat, and soon she had achieved that herculean task of struggling into a sitting position. Kevali let go of her head slowly, as if scared she might simply collapse again without his support.

“Quad,” slipped free of her own mouth.

Trembling, stumbling hands brought out precious paper packets of white dust and a note of a strange currency that curled in her palm.

“I need...” Black spots clustered in her vision, dancing and vanishing and pressing against her sight as it began to drag her down into the darkness. Even so, it became pressingly important to say something, anything, to the man with eight fingers. It mattered more still that she should unfurl that crackling white paper and curl up that strange note, but this meant something. She had to prove to him, to anyone, to herself, whether that be friend or foe, that she wasn't a bad person for having to do this.

Quad was a mistake. But with more Quad, she could fix it.

She looked to Kalevi, silently pleading.

“Fucking hell,” was his emphatic response.

Then something big slammed against the door.

“What was that?” Kalevi slowly stood up, his gaze on the source of the noise. At present it remained shut, but still...

Aic jammed the Quad back into one of her pockets, and staggered to her feet. “I don't know... but it's not something good. No way in hell.”

He didn't reply, instead ambling towards to the door, pausing next to a nondescript crate to pull out a sleek assault rifle. “Pick something up.”

“What?”

Kalevi turned to fully look at her. “Get a weapon. Anything, I don't care. Everything in this room was designed with murder in mind.”

Despite the inherent uneasiness of the situation, Aic hovered uncertainly on the spot. “So... what? We try to blast each other's hands for a bit, then you're just giving your stuff away?”

He gave her a strained look. “Look, whatever's outside-”

BANG.

“Fuck!”

Kalevi instantly swung the rifle upwards towards the entrance, waiting. His whole attention was fixed on the door. Nothing else mattered.

BANG.

The metal dented a little. The hinges briefly strained, then crashedback into place.

Aic stumbled over to the nearest crate and tore the lid off, revolver still in hand. Inside were multiple boxes with words printed in a strange alphabet on them. She flipped one open, revealing only row upon row of grenade-like objects.

“Damn!”

She grabbed a couple and shoved them in a pocket of her white coat, but lunged for another crate.

BANG.

The hinges strained and stayed there. Slivers of light from the corridor were clearly visible.

Aic cast aside the lid of a crate sitting on top of a few others. Encouragingly, this one contained a few long, metal boxes with serial codes engraved into the metal. Her arms darted in and lifted one out, straining slightly against the sheer weight of the thing.

BANG.

Not much longer now. Risking a glance, Aic saw one wide, bloodshot and bleached eye briefly peer through the gaps before slipping away again.

The casing opened up smoothly, and there it was-

BANG!

Kalevi opened continuous fire on the shambolic mess of ruined human flying towards him, each of many rounds ripping little tatters of flesh and skin and blood away like a tree shedding leaves in a violent storm. But little tears were not going to stop a creature compelled by the power of Eldritch abyss. It collided with Kalevi at full force, smashing his head against a crate and sinking nails into the skin on his face. Immediately, the butt of the rifle was smashed into its skull. The head of the thing snapped back. Grasping the moment, Kalevi scrabbled backwards, away from it, but with several more hackle-raising cracks the neck of the creature realigned itself. Not well, but it's bloodshot eyes were unblinkingly focused on the man. It smiled, bleeding gums and cracked teeth lending yet more conviction to its appearance of a walking human error. He grinned back crookedly and pulled the rifle's trigger. A spray of bullets embedded themselves in the face of the brute.

Even then, it was not enough. The thing sprung at him again the second the gunfire abated, letting out a ghostly shriek as Kalevi's rifle began to click uselessly in his hand. Undaunted, he flung it aside and roared into the face of the beast.

Then, momentarily, he became vaguely aware of a faint buzzing began to rise above the madness.

And then, for a longer period of time, witnessed the gleaming, screaming glory of the thing's torso ripping apart from its lower body in an exploding torrent of blood and flesh and bone. With a wet thump, the creature landed on the ground. Slain.

Aic stood above the two of them, chainsaw in hand and face splattered with clotting blood. She mutely offered a hand to Kalevi. He grasped it and gasped to his feet, the rifle still held loosely. For a while, nothing was said. There was just a room covered in blood. And chunks of muscle and bone. And many other things besides.

“Right.”

“Hm.”

“Nice trick with the chainsaw.”

“Thanks. The manly roar was kind of cool too.”

“Not as effective.”

“Mm.”

A beat.

“D'you wanna kill some more?”

Godbot · 05-08-2011, 04:09 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Godbot.

Dark

and wet

and warm

but the thick, sickly-sweet scent of pheromone gas didn't like it

too dark, they said as they seeped through the hatchling ouroborite's bloated host carcass

and too small, decided two dripping scythes that ripped through the wet, rotted chitin overhead. The hatchling burst free of the husk of its mangled host corpse, stretching its brand-new mandibles. The darkness around it was thick and deep, and the gases were rich and choking – but here, insects flowed endlessly all around it. A dense tangle of claws and pincers made it impossible to see what was ahead, but the hatchling instinctively fell into skittering step with the others.

Even before its eyes had adjusted, a demand that it feed burned insatiably within it. It wasn't just the gases telling it to kill and eat, though the urge was there; It was that the work it took for the hatchling to grow and break out of the host carcass had already left it practically starving. It twisted around, searching for the husk that it had emerged from only a few moments ago – just one dead ouroborite in a sea of violent live ones. Jagged claws caught on each other and raked against the hatchling as it wrestled to turn back against the onslaught of insects. An unexpecting ouroborite crashed headlong into the hatchling, locking mandibles and struggling for control. The hatchling fought back frantically, trying to see through the endless swarm for its discarded host carcass, before something else snapped it up. In a moment of desperation, it squeezed its jaws and reared back to hack through the underbelly of the raging, confused insect in its way.

The flow of insects shifted just then, and a new swarm of ouroborites broke through to stampede over and through the hatchling, its quickly dying attacker, and everything else in their path. The hatchling desperately clung to the fresh kill with both claws as they rolled and tumbled helplessly against a surge of claws and a battle cry. Finally they were cast to one side, falling through a few ouroborites before the hatchling landed on its back. It scrabbled to pull itself up, and with its rapidly fading strength it ripped away the head of the carcass, holding it in its great mandibles as its proboscis and inner pincers hacked and tore away bloody pieces for the hatchling to promptly devour. Another ouroborite homed in on the freshly eviscerated corpse, followed by another – and soon, the hatchling was driven back by the ceaseless fighting, still carrying its kill's head in its jaws.

The Countess did her best to put the agitated shrieking and crawling out of her mind as she fixed her gaze on the ceiling. Well, of course it would turn out that way: Luring Ouroborous here by letting it eat the station's electrical systems was a fine way to cause a power outage. She should have thought of that sooner, she supposed.

At least this horrid place wouldn't be around much longer.

She drew back from the advancing swarms, lighting up in the darkness as she sparked in a thousand points on her body. Two legs shot out and sheared through ouroborites as she lifted her cannon arm – or rather, pulled it free of the tangled cloak of insects swarming across her – and began winding it up. As it lit up, ouroborites immediately scrambled over her spark vial, drawn to the light like, well... bugs. She shook a few off, shattering one or two against the floor, but more quickly arrived to mindlessly crawl across it. She clicked and sighed a small volume of her newly-synthesized “calm” scent. A few slid off of her as their muscles relaxed. She only really had to look like she was fighting, anwyay.

Holly's agitation gathered in her palm and manifested into a bright ball of electricity, which she hurled at the ouroborites skittering towards her. It sparked across the metal ground, sizzling insects and causing a few to burst. A few weak tendrils of electricity jolted from her body, frying two more without her noticing. Between the physical and emotional stress of fighting screeching insects in the dark and the mental and magical stress of throwing electric feelings at them, she staggered backwards. “Why is there a dumpster of meat in here?!” she demanded.

Her foot caught on a cable.

“That's a good story,” said the Countess. The intricate gears in her mouth ground and sparked, lighting up her face as she grinned in the darkness. “...but I don't think you've got the time to hear it.”

click

An electric current shot down the wires extending from her arm, snaking across the floor through the battlefield. When Holly shook off the cable, if fell onto an ouroborite, and immediately electrocuted it. She looked up at where the other end went just in time to see the corpses inside the dumpster burst into flames, and the insects crawling across it fall away in swathes as they were shocked to death on the metal surface.

And then the purple, conductive gel lining the ring began to light up.

...And then the stadium floodlights flicked back on, blinding Countess and Holly as Algernon's perpetual motion generator kicked in, supplying the stadium with a near-infinite amount of power through ruined electrical conduits. The floodlights lit up to full strength and then some, and a few shorted out or caught fire. A long-abandoned speaker started up again, blaring advertisements for the pristine spacefaring city of New Miranda, still under construction. The warning lights on the rink went on. Feedback shrieked through the loudspeakers, and Ouroborous shrieked back.

Countess tore the wires off her arm as she looked over her shoulder at the warning lights. One blew out as the rink's gravitational field powered back on after years of inactivity -

“...shit.”

...and then overloaded.

We can't control gravity. Gravity is a fundamental interaction of nature, and we don't know what causes it or how it works. We can't make a skating rink that controls gravity.

We can, however, make a skating rink that approximates that by repelling matter.

And as Countess learned, we can also break it.

First, the dust and purple gel floated into the air, coalescing into droplets. The insects followed, starting with the few in the center of the rink. A few shrieked in protest as they drifted into the air, but far more of them were just stunned, or in shock. Holly tried to run, but her feet left the floor. Countess scrabbled for the wire (read: lifeline) that she had let go of a moment ago as screws undid themselves and metal tiles shook loose. Holly had to duck and cover her head to avoid the dumpster flying overhead as the matter repulsion field began to power on faster and faster. The stadium seating was welded down, so it came apart at the seams instead, scattering rotted cushions and hinged armrests into the air, and the air rushing away from the rink hurled them against the walls. The lights flickered as the rink lit up brighter and brighter, its dull humming reaching a crescendo. The droplets of gel burst into flames, and the walls buckled, and the ceiling began to strip itself away until the air pressure quietly forced it to crack.

Air roared out of the hole in the stadium in all directions, causing nearby pressurized rooms and corridors to burst open. Giant slabs of metal violently tore themselves free from the walls and floor to crash against each other, and the matter-repelling plate slowly rose into the air – or rather, pushed the floor away from it, straining the thick cables that were rapidly feeding it with more and more power. Seeing her chance, Countess sprouted a knife from her hand and hurled it at the exposed cables, only to cover her face as the repulsion field hurled it right back. Ouroborites splattered against the walls, and the whole room split open along one wall, followed by another. With one final groan, the stadium finally burst apart, sending supports, plating and rows of seating hurtling through the lower levels of Las Orbitas as the overloaded repulsion plate similarly tore them apart. A sudden surge of air took Countess with it through a maintenance corridor to a residential area that had already been sealed off and partially dismantled. She frantically grabbed onto a passing row of seating, which promptly pulled her along as it smashed through the outer wall into -

As the remaining air shot away, it got very dark.

And dry.

And cold.

And quiet.

Countess soundlessly blinked her eyes as the outer hull of Las Orbitas came into focus. She absently let go of row of seating, and it drifted off in the opposite direction as she gently drifted away. The outside was unimaginably massive, stretching out into dull grey wings and sections for as far as she could see as it slowly, silently came apart at the seams. People lived here, once. Thousands of them. For years. And even looking out the observation decks – there, she was pretty sure she could see it out of the corner of her eye – she hadn't realized quite how big it all was.

...And now she was outside of it, was the next thing she realized. Pretty far outside.

Great.

**Pinary** · 05-09-2011, 01:32 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

Show Content

Deep in the bowels of the station, the old, decrepit dimension-flux core still laboured, barely putting out enough energy to power the flickering "maintenance required" indicators across its panel, let alone any of the ship's systems- those had long ago been moved to temporary auxiliary mothods. Though it had once harnessed the forces of the multiverse itself, drawing on the interplay between shifting dimensions, the core was now the last of its kind. They were dangerous, people soon realized, for more reasons than one. First and foremost was their inability to deactivate peacefully; any attempts to shut them down would invariably result in catastrophic explosions, causal violations, or even extrauniversal leakage, requiring decades of careful work to seal. The engineers had intended to take the core with them when they left, as a detonation so close to the Earth would be a loss to archaeology and tourism alike, to say the least, but unfortunately, the team who had been assigned to that hadn't exactly made it through the storm of wanton killings that had accompanied the contestants' arrival.

For the first time in years, though, something was changing about the core. As the impossible generator activated in a distant section of the station, a few new indicators came to life. The centralized power grid, focused on the antiquated core, was doing its best to balance the output of Algernon's invention, but its age (coupled with having much of its organic circuitry eaten) was rendering it unable to do much at all. The best it could manage was to feed some of the excess back into the the dimension-flux core, which, under normal conditions, would then be shunted back out to the city.

Needless to say, these were not normal conditions. Shunting that power back into the city was impossible, so it built up in the core instead.

An indicator flickered halfheartedly to life- an overload warning.

-

As the door to the laboratory slid open, Thane sprung into action. With his instinctual knowledge of the station's functions, he'd formulated a plan, and he only needed a few more sacrifices to make it work.

It was a grand plan, he had to admit, smiling inwardly as he grasped one rather surprised engineer's neck and snapped it as he threw the man into the room. There were systems available to track life signs, and while they were capable of narrowing the parameters down to such precision that one person could be tracked based on their breathing patterns, the abomination had no interest in that. Instead, he had opened them wide, as wide as possible, even taking a few values past what would strictly be called "alive." He'd coded exactly one exception in, and that was himself. He would take that data and feed it into the ritual he'd prepared- in his mind, the technologies and ancient rites merged and flowed together seamlessly.

Moments later, he had everything he needed. There were only five engineers remaining alive, each with all four limbs broken. Two wept, two screamed, and one simply stared at Thane as he moved. He dragged the five into positions spaced equally around the circle of blood he'd prepared, and, satisfied that he was ready, began the ritual. Soon, every scrap of life on the station would bend to his will.

In left hand, he grasped a raw power cable, from which he would draw the electrical energy he would need. In his right, the data cord, bringing the locations of every single piece of life on the station flowing into him. Terrible forces began to swirl, barely contained inside the circle he'd drawn on the floor. He began to chant, intoning words that, had the men surrounding him been able to hear past the forming gale, would have driven them all mad within moments. The ritual began to take shape, and Thane readied to unleash the forces he'd wrought.

-

In a distant chamber deep in the city, another tiny indicator flickered to life.

Overload.

Not a warning, not a precursor, not an instruction to get out now. A statement of present fact.

-

Thane's eyes flashed open. The cable in his left hand felt wrong now- it was drawing in, pulling from him instead of gushing forth. It dragged abominable, mashed-together energy with it, taking Thane's intents and plans and methods and pulling them into itself.

They travelled down the cable, into the central power system, and were pulled into the dimension-flux core, along with most of the power in the station. Inside it, they whirled, and they merged with the impending multiversal tear to form something different.

Thane's clean, ritualistic plans to take every living thing and make them his servants came together with the core's intention of ripping a hole in reality itself. The two concepts mingled, and from them was born a compromise.

Everything in the station that could by any stretch of the definition be called alive was grabbed, as it would have been, and held in the grasp of unholy energies. They were not, however, converted into eldritch slaves, bent to Thane's will. Instead, the dimension-flux core seized them, held them for just a moment, and then flung them bodily into another universe entirely.

Just one being remained, his ritual a failure. The city began to rattle around him. Thane knew what was happening.

Las Orbitas broke up around him, and he burned.

-

In the next universe over, a single man appeared. He fell to the wet, spongy ground with a splurtchy noise, and after a moment, he stood. Looking around, he found himself in a hilly, swamplike area, a dense fog covering most of the lowlands. In the distance, he saw what looked like small, squat structures, and near him, a boardwalk had been constructed, formed of what looked like driftwood and... were those bones?

As he picked some moss from his bushy beard, he heard steps echoing out behind him. They sounded like boots, two pairs, walking casually along the boardwalk. Drawing his blade, the man faced them.

Two people came into view, a man and a woman. The woman, old, wasn't particularly tall, but something in the way she held herself made the newcomer suspect that she was used to being taken seriously. The man, though nearly a foot taller and quite heavily built, walked a few steps behind her, lugging a large quantity of wood in his arms.

The pair stopped when they saw the newcomer, but only briefly. They approached him, stepping off of the boardwalk and onto the hill he'd found himself on.

"Oh, bless, another poor soul's here," she said, her tone soft and motherly. "Did you come from another of the battles as well, boy?"

He lowered his sword to his side. "I, uh... I came from a battle. Sort of." He cleared his throat. "There's this, uh... This demon, he calls himself the Controller. He-"

Faster than he could process, the woman had torn a reed out of the ground near her and brought it whipping sharply against the man's shoulder. "Don't you speak that name!", she warned, all softness gone instantly from her tone. (Though the term motherly would still likely be accurate.) "We know all about him, believe you me. You were forced to fight by that abominable beast, and you somehow managed to escape. I've heard that story a thousand times over, told by every poor soul who's ever made their way here. How did you manage it, hm?"

The newcomer was taken aback. "There was a, uh, a mage in our competition, who could use mirrors as gateways. As she died, she poured her life into one final act, and I fell through the opening she created." He passed his gaze around the swampland, searching. "Are you saying it worked, that I'm actually free?"

The woman chuckled. Gesturing to the two men, she started back on her way along the boardwalk. "You could call it freedom, if you like. He can't find us here, but none of us have a means of going home. You're not being forced to fight, but you're still trapped."

"So, wait. Who are you? Where am I?"

"Stars, child, you're slower than my grandson." The man lugging wood grinned a bit at being mentioned. "Most of us here were in a battle of our own, once upon a time. One way or another, we came to escape, and for some reason, we ended up here. When it became evident that we were no longer in our ex-captor's clutches, we began to build." She stopped walking and turned to face him.

"I am Encel, one of the first of the Escaped. I was in one of his battles when I was a girl. I've lived here for something like fifty years. This is my grandson, Fenn." He tried to wave, but nearly dropped the stack of wood he was carrying. Encel sighed. "My daughter and he were both born here, along with a number of others. Mostly, though, people just show up, escaping battles one way or another. Sometimes we get just one person, like yourself. Other times, it's everyone in a battle. By now, there are thousands of us, scattered around.

"There are a handful of larger villages, a good many smaller ones, and some people prefer to just strike out on their own. Of course, they rarely get far."

"Why's that?"

She shot him a look. "Think for a moment, boy. Most people here came from a battle to the death, hand-picked to be there. Some are content to settle down, build huts and boardwalks, and make a life here, but more than a few just run off into the fog, and anyone just wandering around runs the risk of getting attacked.

"Do stay out of the fog, by the way. When I arrived, it drove whoever would breathe it into an incredible rage, and we lost a number of people to fights and the like. In the years since then, though, it's... fermented, maybe. It's subtler, now, driving you to paranoia and insanity rather than just rage. It wears off soon after you leave it, and it takes longer to build than it used to, but still, you should steer clear of it.

"Not to mention that it's where most of the runaways live..."

As the trio moved down the boardwalk, flashes burst out across the horizon, and a moment later, every living thing that had once been on Las Orbitas (save one) suddenly found itself hanging above a swamp.

-

"Chair recognizes Nikolai Lutetian, Ennel Mining."

"Thank you. We are all reeling from the deaths of the engineering crew aboard Las Orbitas, and I'm sure I'm not alone in apprehension as to the impact the disaster could have on Humanity's Cradle. In this time of tragedy, we must take action to prevent these events from repeating themselves. I urge the Council to approve funding into autonomous androids, which would be capable of performing this task more safely and more efficiently than any human team could manage."

Show Content

MalkyTop · 05-09-2011, 10:55 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

Thinking didn’t hurt. But it did tire him out. He tried not to think too much, but he had never had these many blank spots in his memory before. It was just too tantalizing, in a dismaying sort of way, to explore the hole-ridden cloth of his mind, beyond the incredibly vague memories of ‘the machine.’

He remembered his sister…though he didn’t remember her name. Instinctively, he clicked open the locket around his neck but apparently he had lacked the foresight to carve in her name. Well…when he found her, maybe she wouldn’t mind if he asked?

He remembered lazy Saturday mornings and eating cereal that was ‘part of a complete breakfast’ in the same way that a dead bat or, say, a can of mold could be part of a complete breakfast. He remembered learning how to ride a bike, though he was never sure if he succeeded. He remembered the divorce and then he remembered meteors, or were they called meteorites? He remembered the walking. How could he forget the walking? He spent most of his life now, just walking past abandoned fields and cities. He remembered when the worm latched onto his head and then he made a few friends, ran away from a few enemies, and then things were a little blurry after that. Okay, definitely a lot of gaps, but how long and how many? It was impossible to know now. Losing precious memories was a bit sad, but just the fact of knowing you forgot a significant chunk of your life and would never know what it was like, would never relive it again, that was more than sad. It was depressing.

Oh yeah, he also remembered suddenly teleporting from some futuristic thing to a swamp. Mostly because a lot of swamp was currently covering him after that splash. What was up with that?

Algernon trudged through the swamp, managed to get lost despite not even having an idea of where he was going in the first place, struggled around in circles a few times, then headed back the way he came without realizing.

Hang on, when did he get a backpack?

Algernon immediately tripped over something and got a face full of swamp muck.

That something was an unconscious engineer, or he used to be unconscious before Algernon tripped over him. Now he was awake and very aware that his limbs were still very much broken. He was also very aware that if he opened his mouth to scream, he would likely suffocate because he was lying in a swamp.

Algernon pulled him up and he coughed out mud and gunk. “Um, sorry.”

The engineer let out the scream he had patiently held in. Algernon, not entirely sure what to do in this situation, slapped him. It was a very weak slap, but it silenced him for now, and the young man continued to just hold him up in a sitting position as he shivered and breathed heavily.

“Um. Are you, uh, okay?”

“No I’m not,” the engineer snapped back. Apparently that asinine question was enough to bring him back to some sort of functioning normality. “There’s four others here, we’ve been arranged in a circle. Go help them. I can sit up on my own.”

He was still shivering. But he did seem sure of himself. Algernon treaded carefully around, nudging things carefully. “…Why are you all arranged in a circle?”

He grumbled something half-heartedly and coughed up more mud as Algernon drudged up another engineer, this one who hadn’t been patient with his desire to scream and was now gagging on swamp mud. He didn’t gag for very long, that is, he threw up everything that he had accidentally inhaled so that there was nothing much to gag on anymore. When it was confirmed he could balance well enough on his own as well, Algernon moved on to the next one. And the next one. And the next. All of them he had to slap up a little. All of them were in varying degrees of traumatized. The last one (the muddied ID card that somehow managed to stay pinned onto his coat said ‘Chris’) gaped up at him after coughing out mud and said, “You’re the high guy!”

“What?” Algernon replied, a good response for an exclamation like that.

“You’re the druggie with the machine thing!”

“I don’t take drugs.” At least, not that he remembered. “Um. Who are you?”

“See? See? You don’t remember. ’Cause you were high.” Algernon decided to give up for now.

“Um. So, you guys can’t get up, right?”

The first researcher scowled at him and said, very pointedly, “Our legs are broken.”

Yeah. He couldn’t carry them all. And he didn’t want to create something just yet. Only if he had to. “Right. So. Will, uh, everybody be okay here? I think I’ll just, uh, find some help…”

It just so happened that nearby was what could definitively be called a man-made walkway. Very encouraging. Looking down, he could see a figure of a large man and he shouted and waved and slipped down the slope at him. As he slid his way closer, he couldn’t help but notice something about the man that he really should have noticed before and that was he had a ridiculously large amount of arms, all crowding his rather muscle-y torso, all of them occupied by a load of wood. The hundred-armed man squinted down at him. Algernon pushed himself up and grinned nervously. “Um. Hi. Sorry to bother you. I sort of just got here, uh, dunno how, but there’s like, five guys up that hill and they sort of got…broken arms. And legs. They’re really broken. Um. We could really sort of use your help getting into town. And stuff.”

The hundred-armed man continued to stare dully down at him. Algernon’s grin faltered a little. “If, if you don’t mind or anything.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The five engineers were not very calm when they caught sight of the Hecatonchires but the big guy managed to get them down into a nearby town despite some of the more delirious deciding to struggle the whole way. They were all dropped off at a shabby little hut that Algernon supposed was what counted as the clinic around here. With a grunt, the hundred-handed one lumbered away to whatever job he had to do. Algernon waited outside, taking in his surroundings. He could have accepted a little town in the swamps. Those who didn’t have stupid little hungry worms stuck on them often had to hide out in weird places. But a man with a hundred arms? It was these sort of things that fired pistons in Algernon’s puny little head, pistons that powered an engine that spouted out the thought that, hey, maybe he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Though he couldn’t imagine where he had gone where hundred-armed fellows were the norm. And apparently scarab-headed men. And fishmen. And crystal people. Okay. He was probably in another dimension. Though he had no idea why he would be. If he did that himself, then that was stupid of him. Past-him should have known that other dimensions were freaky places.

“Sir?” A soft voice meandered its way to the dark-haired man. “Your friends will need a few weeks to heal up, but they should be fine soon.”

“Um,” Algernon said, a word he seemed to be using a lot lately. “Thank you, er—“ Once he turned around, he paused in mid-stutter. The doctor of the town was certainly too familiar. Older than she should have been, but familiar.

“You don’t look all too great either…would you like a check-up as well…?”

The question hung in the air. Algernon couldn’t help imagining a cloud of awkward tension slowly descending. He tried to dispel it by just giving a simple answ—

“You’re my sister!” he blurted out stupidly.

The doctor, who looked remarkably like his sister but his own age, stared at him. After a few seconds of silence, a dull feeling of dread bounded up to Algernon and subtly whispered to him that maybe he had just embarrassed himself in front of a woman who wasn’t his sister at all.

MaxieSatan · 05-16-2011, 09:37 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.

Holly stared off into space for several minutes, trying to process what exactly happened. First, there were Ouroborites. That made sense. Then, Countess had… tried to kill her? Or the Ouroborites? Actually, in all probability, it was both. Then everything started floating, and then she was in space and probably going to suffocate, and then The Controller had—

No, he hadn’t. Every time a round had ended before, he’d shown up. Holly’s increasingly fractured mind, not helped by the fog she was carelessly inhaling, attempted to piece this together. If for each round there’s a speech by that guy, and this time there wasn’t… It could be either an illusion, or an escape, and Holly wasn’t going to take chances. She’d heard there was a way to fight illusions, back in school. She placed the claw on her right hand, and raked it across her left cheek. She placed a drop of the dark red fluid on her left index finger, and pressed it against her tongue. The familiar metallic taste was there.

So, if she was remembering correctly, this was really happening. That was a good thing, probably. She remembered how much she had been enjoying this at the start, how pleasant it was to get sensitive areas to tear at and dolts to confuse and roofs to blow up. She sighed as she looked out at the mist enveloping her surroundings. She’d gotten lazy, thinking it’d be simple, like always. It had never been much of a challenge, which was good, because the more she thought about it the more she realized she wasn’t even…

She frowned. Of course she was a good wizard. She’d graduated with top marks, or something, she was sure of it. More importantly, this fog was starting to irritate her. She couldn’t see her own arm in front of her. She waved her hand at it ineffectually, in an attempt to dissipate it. She could see a silhouette, though. Slightly hunched over, eating something. She bit her lip. Was hunched over bad? She didn’t think it was good. What kind of food is there in a swamp, anyway? Mushrooms? Crocodiles? Certainly nothing good, I’m sure. Screw that guy and his swamp food. She turned around and attempted to walk away. This resulted in her falling face-first into the muck, after which she realized she had been in a tree. She leaned against it, wiping her face off only to get a brownish-green glob affixed to her hand, and sighed, before properly trudging away from the man. Within five minutes, she managed to end up in the same place despite having gone in a straight line.

She blinked. She wasn’t sure, but she was almost positive this wasn’t how swamps were supposed to work. Unless it was, like… a magic swamp. She’d never been in a swamp, magical or otherwise, for reasons she was becoming increasingly aware of. It was difficult enough to move from all the sludge and water piling up in her shoes; the fact that moving didn’t even change where she was only made it more irritating. She sighed and headed over to Eating Man, bending down next to him.

“Hey. You. What are you eating?”
Eating Man turned to face her, his face covered in equal parts scars and filth, and scowled. “Don’t want what you’re selling. Get out.”

“Well, I’d like to, but I managed to walk back here.”

“You think you’re clever. Coming into my house with your vacuum cleaners, telling me you’ve got the deal of a lifetime, and then they sprout limbs and start slashing at me, and you laugh. I don’t want it, you hear me?”

Holly blinked. If he hadn’t lost her at “vacuum cleaner”, he would have lost her with the sprouting limbs bit. He let out an odd noise. She rolled her eyes. “Okay, mister. You want me to prove it?” She proceeded to walk away from him, only to end up right back next to him from the other side. “See? Can’t do it.”

The man responded by flailing at her with a crude shiv. “Out! Don’t want it!” He managed to slash the elf a couple of times on the arm, earning a faceful of flame for his troubles. Holly winced slightly as a tendril of fog snaked into her palm, the ring she wore futilely attempting to ward it off. Crazy man. Other crazy people? Need to get out while I still can. She halfheartedly kicked his corpse as the smell of burnt flesh mingled with the swamp gas in the air.

As it happens, with Otto Platz III dead, space stopped warping in on itself quite so much, and it was much easier to actually go somewhere. Holly was finding it hard to tell where she was going, but she was almost positive it was somewhere else. She narrowed her eyes, seeing a place where the fog was less thick, and began running. She reached the edge, and saw a hastily-constructed array of shacks, before tripping on the boardwalk and slamming her face to the ground. As she picked herself up and sucked in relatively fresh air, she quivered, her muscles barely supporting her.

She’d start new here. She’d help people, she could do that. They just couldn’t find out what she’d done. If they found out, bad things would happen to her. Then again, that seemed to be the order of the day for everyone involved. She wondered what had happened to Aic… no, what had happened to Acacia, dammit, and who cares about her anyway. She wondered what had happened to Algernon. She laughed a little at the idea of the poor sap flailing around with that worm on his head, then bit her tongue. That was not a good start.

After staggering to her feet, she shrugged, wiped herself off a little, and decided to see what she could do about getting herself some money.

**Pinary** · 05-16-2011, 10:13 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

Show Content

**Schazer** · 05-19-2011, 11:21 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

The Countess just waited for a long, muddy moment, gears protesting against the mire. Ouroborites chittered as a disconnected chorus, the shriek of leg on chitin replaced with the weaker gnashing and gurgling of the horde’s last survivors. Each of them drowning alone.

The Countess was drowning, too - in static. A faint, desperate click-click-click was horribly audible above the rest of her ceaseless ticking, each click leaping with ever-fading faith into frequencies devoid of Control.

Nothing. The Controller had vanished.

His agent’s legs finally twitched and whirred back into reluctant life, and the amalgam rose from the swamp. It was difficult - her previously meticulous, graceful, clashing and whirring had been replaced with something disjointed and fighting against itself. Neither clockwork nor nanites could honestly be aided by a bath of thick mud; it just compounded on the Countess’ feelings of being lost and alone.

It was a swamp. Swamps were full of mud, which was just the kind of inauspicious start to her unwanted isolation that she’d never asked for. Exquisite. There were low voices out in the mist, approaching; the Countess just waited.

Sure enough, a lantern, followed by three silhouettes, materialised. One humanoid (holding the light), one hulking, and something hard to look at that glowed gently behind them.

“Please, help.”

The brute and the human glanced at each other, exchanging between them the lantern with a rounded device. With a glutinous, unpleasant sound, the latter jumped off the boardwalk and waded toward the Countess.

“Shut down your communication system.”

“Pardon? I’m not sure what you-”

The Countess tried to feign ignorance. The human was so unimpressed, he flickered out of existence before reappearing with a splash behind the amalgam. Slapping the device on a shoulder blade, he leapt back to his companions upon the boardwalk and took his torch back.

“Your possession of such dangerous instance is known,” rumbled the large one, not sounding particularly unfriendly. It lifted a shaggy paw, holding a coil of rope. “Assistance, explainment acquired proper upon co-operation, processes due concurring.”

“That’s an explosive charge on your back,” added the human. The mutual dislike was almost instant.

MalkyTop · 05-22-2011, 06:32 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

Show Content

”I still don’t really get it,” he said. Somehow, he had allowed himself to be led inside where the doctor, Galatea, calmed him down a little. Now, all of a sudden, he was patiently waiting to go through a check-up.

“All you really have to know is that I look different to everybody and my appearance changes about every day or so.”

Algernon frowned and contemplated his feet for a while. “So how does anybody ever recognize you?”

Galatea finished cleaning her hands. “Mostly I tell everybody to look for a female they recognize. Did you get any recent injuries?”

“Not that I remember. I feel pretty fine, I guess.” They went through the whole charade anyways, hammering knees and checking eyes and crap. “…That probably gets really weird sometimes, right? I mean, you could look like…uh…someone’s wife.”

“Take off your shirt,” she said in reply. He did so, trying to decide whether this situation was supposed to be awkward or not. Before he could argue that it wasn’t quite as awkward as he probably was making it out to be, Galatea said, “What’s that?”

He glanced down. There was some slightly smudged writing on his arm. “I don’t really know,” he admitted. “I guess I wrote it myself. I don’t remember.”

“You don’t really seem to remember a lot of things,” the doctor replied before trying to read his arm, twisting it at an angle while moving closer. He tried to read it as well, but Galatea’s head happened to be in the way. So instead he waited as she read. Her lips thinned.

“So, what do you remember?” she asked suddenly. “What happened before you got here?”

Algernon thought for a moment. “I don’t really know how I got here in the first place. I guess the last thing I really remember doing was walking around some metal building looking for a machine. And cooking dinner. That last one probably happened a while back.

“So you don’t know how those engineers got hurt.”

“No, I—hey!” Algernon, feeling a wet piece of cloth slap against his arm, tried to wrench himself away but found Galatea’s grip too strong. Either that or he really was that much of a weakling. “Don’t wash it away! It might be important!”

“Trust me, it’s not.” She started rubbing it out. Algernon, realizing that struggling wasn’t really doing much, went a different route and grabbed Galatea’s arm instead.

Staring at her intently, he said, “Look. I don’t know where I am or how I got here. I’m trying to find my sister. I really need to find my sister. If there was something so important that I had to write it down in case I forgot, then it’s probably at least part of an answer to any of the above. Even if it’s not, I think I would have wanted me to read what I wrote. So just let me read it.”

Okay, lesson learned. It’s pretty awkward to talk about your sister with someone who looks like your sister. Algernon continued staring at Galatea-not-his-sister, though he was quite obviously wavering already. Galatea sighed. “Your message from the past didn’t have to do with any of that. And you probably can’t read it now anyways,” she added, lifting the cloth to reveal a mess of ink before just scrubbing the rest away.

------------------------------------------------------------------

“I could probably tell you how you got here.”

Algernon made a muffled sound to signify that he was listening as he was pulling his shirt and vest on again.

“You were teleported here in some manner by accident. A one-way deal only.”

Algernon made another muffled sound and pulled his head through his shirt. “Oh come on, if you can get here, then you can get out.”

“No. You can’t. If you could, everybody here would go home. In fact, I wouldn’t be here to help your engineer friends out. First things first, you probably need new clothes.”

“What’s wrong with my clothes?”

“For starters, you were wallowing around in the swamp with them. I have no idea what else they’ve went through. You’re also going to need a place to stay and you’re going to need a job. If you’d rather be in a place with a more—“ here, Galatea made a vague hand gesture that Algernon was sure had no meaning in any situation, “—human population, I could probably point you in the right direction. If you want to stay, well, I’ll point out a place with an open room. Either way, two rules you need to know: don’t stray off our boardwalks and if you find yourself in a lot of mist, get out of there as fast as you can.”

Algernon’s eyes flickered towards the window. Yes, the people were sort of odd here, but really, they couldn’t be that bad, right? “I should probably stay. For my, uh, engineer friends.”

Galatea nodded and the two headed out and walked briefly to the center of the ramshackle town. From there, they ducked into the largest building, which honestly wasn’t saying much as most buildings had one floor and, only judging by the size, two rooms and maybe one smaller one.

The owner of the building seemed to be something like a giant rattlesnake that someone decided would look better with a few guns stuck on any old way. Could it even use the guns? Well, they seemed to be attached to his body in some way. Algernon stared into its unblinking eyes. He found himself feeling a little bit unsafe. “Uh,” he said, glancing at Galatea, hoping that she was showing at least a little bit of discomfort so that he would know that this snake wasn’t actually—

“Greetingsssss. Isssss thisssss a newcomer I ssssssee?”

“Yeah. Algernon, meet Chambers. He lets people stay here ‘til they get used to things. Or ‘til they get around to building a house.”

Algernon laughed nervously at the name as Chambers continued to stare him down. “Sorry, uh, do you actually talk like that?”

“No, but you types seem to expect that.” Chambers offered him the end of his tail to shake. It also was a gun. Algernon tried to shake it carefully. “C’mon, boy, be a little relaxed. You’ve escaped, haven’t—ah, I mean,” Chambers quickly added, catching sight of Galatea carefully signaling him to stop. “You don’t mind a small room, do you?”

It took quick reflexes for Algernon to not repeat ‘escaped’ in a questioning manner. Instead he said, “Sure.”

Galatea left them as Chambers led Algernon to the stairs, which seemed to be several different staircases meshed together. Stairs for regular people, stairs for slightly larger or smaller people, stairs for people who happened to not have legs…it took up quite a bit of room.

“Been a while since anybody’s come,” Chambers said amiably while slithering upwards. “You’ll have to clean your room yourself, by the way. Try not to disturb the other guests…though I suppose there’s really only one other. He’s much larger than you, though so really, don’t disturb him unless you dearly want to see Galatea again. Unless you’ve got something else up your sleeve…?” Chambers was eyeing him again. “That thing on your head’s pretty interesting, kid. What’s the story behind that?”

“Yes. I mean, uh, nothing. There’s no story. It’s nothing. It’s a pain in the neck.” Oh shut up, you are being such a moron shut up shut up.

Chambers eyed him even more, possibly keeping score of something, before pushing open a door. “By the way, do you need new clothes?”

Algernon had been planning on doing some other stuff but he supposed if two people in a row commented on his clothes, maybe he should get some new ones after all.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The new clothes were loose, sort of itchy, and very brown. Also, now he had to pay them off. He would have to get to that eventually.

“Hey,” he said, poking his head through the door. Galatea still looked like an older version of his sister. “I need to talk with my engineer…friends. Um, can I?” The doctor just nodded and waved him over to the next room over. The five engineers were silent until they noticed him and started chattering when he closed the door behind him.

“It’s the craziest thing! That doctor looks like my mom! But younger!”

“I hope you can tell us what the hell’s going on here.”

“Well, you know, not that my mom’s not young in the first place.”

“Excuse us, we may be a tad on the crazy side at the moment.”

“I hate swamps I hate monsters I hate this job.”

“I think she looks more like my elementary school teacher.”

“Alright everybody, shut up, you are all morons including me. What the hell’re you here for?”

The last remark surprised Algernon and so it took a while for him to respond. “Well, I was going to ask you what was going on, but, uh, I guess you don’t know?”

The engineer, who was apparently taking lead, scowled at him. “No. We don’t. I’m pretty sure it’s your fault, though.”

Before Algernon could decide whether or not to feel hurt, another engineer piped up, “Sorry, he’s tactless because we’re all a tad crazy right now.”

“Oh, stop saying that.” The other engineer sulked in his bed. “When you and that machine—“

“Yes, machine, right, I wanted to ask about that,” Algernon cut in. “I mean, I’m trying to find it right now but I don’t really remember what it’s like or even what it exactly does so I was hoping maybe you could tell me or something?”

“I’m not the one who built it,” the lead engineer said in such a meaningfully scathing way that Algernon completely missed. Apparently, he had also forgotten sarcasm.

“Okay, but what does it look like?”

There was silence for a few moments. “It looked really stupid,” offered the engineer with the nametag that said Chris. Algernon decided to give up again.

After exchanging good-byes with Galatea again, Algernon headed out towards the swamp. Whatever was going on, he had to get home and he was fairly certain that the machine, whatever it was, could help. I mean, it had to do something besides light things up, right?

Dragon Fogel · 06-01-2011, 08:02 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

So, it's been one week since the last post.

Therefore, GUEST POST COMING SOON.

**Schazer** · 06-01-2011, 09:07 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

Not if I reserve up in this bitch first.

Dragon Fogel · 06-01-2011, 09:54 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

Funny you should say that. I have what's essentially a Countess post all written up.

I think I'll hold on to it for a little bit as incentive for you to get yours done quickly.

**Schazer** · 06-02-2011, 10:58 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

"All right. It's off."

The human turned to the glowing spirit, which made a chiming noise more chilling to the agent than a blood-curdling screech. Snatching up the rope tossed toward her, the Countess managed to hitch herself up despite the joint-locking mud. While the shaggy hexapod hauled the amalgam from the swamp, she enjoyed a delectably tense, terse conversation with her captors.

Well, maybe she was being pessimistic. Considering the circumstances, it was hard to blame her.

"So, you knew I was broadcasting. And where."

The human just glared.

"Are you taking me prisoner, then? When I've done nothing wrong?"

"All paralleled, procedurals disruptance concerning. All circumstance concerned, legitimacy, no?" The creature chuckled a little; the human sighed.

"Bear, let me do the talking."

"Clementing."

"Look. Whatever your name is."

"Countess."

"Ok," agreed the human once the glowing creature had failed to spot any lies, "Countess. We know where you came from. It's the same way these two ended up here."

The Countess frowned, as best as her features could accommodate the expression. "Do you mean a Gr-"

"You say those words in front of Jasnasć here, and you'll be given a real reason to be scared of her."

Bear had chosen this moment to reach over the boardwalk, grab the Countess by her less-lacerating-to-touch midriff, and lift her from the mud. She savoured the loathing, eye-to-eye glare she exchanged with the human, before the creature dropped her with a clatter. Her joints ached, and there was a weird crick in her neck - doubtless caused by some insidious piece of swamp-weed jamming her gears.

"Ambulates?" grumbled her captor.

"Thank you, Bear. It'll be slow going, but I'll manage. I think."

"Concording. Tasked merest, Countess' assignment posting Shrine-"

"Bear," growled the human, "I said. I'm doing. The talking." He strode off down the boardwalk - Jasnasć drifting behind him - and had gotten about two lanterns ahead before turning. The Countess pre-empted whatever exasperated reply he had.

"I'm clockwork. This is mud. It's not a particularly auspicious combination, dear."

"Yeah, well. This fog? It's worse. For everyone. Like hell I'm staying in it longer than I have to."

"Then why insist taking on me prisoner, hmm? It seems you hardly lack-" the Countess pointedly glanced over her shoulder, as best as she could, to the bomb attached there "- the technology, to shut me down from afar. Leave me to rust."

His mouth opened, as though about to snap something, before a thought crossed his mind and he snapped it shut again.

"Decreed," was Bear's cheerful explanation.

"Uh. Yeah. It's just the law, all right? If you want to go and rust once we're done with you, be my guest. But you're coming back to Holm. Because it's the law. Then you can do whatever the hell you want."

whoosh! · 06-02-2011, 07:47 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by whoosh!.

Reserving because this is okay apparently.

MaxieSatan · 06-07-2011, 11:45 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.

“What do you mean ‘no money?’”

Ruby Melatu LaReed sighed as she gently sprinkled water on a bonsai behind the counter, which shortly thereafter bloomed with sparkling sapphire earrings. She eyed the elf, and the irritating multicolored bolts spouting out around her, somewhat apprehensively. “Hon, we got folks comin’ in every couple months with a brand-new kinda scratch lining their pockets, and we’re in a swamp, which ain’t exactly the best source of precious metals. Barter’s more convenient is all.”

Holly Tallbirch stared back at her with the wide-eyed gaze of someone convinced they’re talking to an insane person, a stray bolt of magic shooting from her index finger and turning brass-and-opal vine, hanging above the counter, into a very narrow and sparkly guitar. “You run a jewelry store,” she said, gesturing at the display in the counter for rather unnecessary emphasis.

LaReed scratched her neck and shrugged. “S’what I’m good at. Sides, you’ve come looking in here, so you got no right to complain.” She leaned forward on the counter, smiling with impossibly sparkly white teeth. “And I can tell you ain’t just here to browse or introduce yourself. You want somethin’, right?”

Holly begrudgingly nodded and gestured towards the topaz ring on her left hand. “I need a couple of these, so that, uh…” Another bolt produced a rubber band, which stayed stubbornly motionless in midair, despite Ruby’s bemused attempt to grab it. “So that doesn’t keep happening,” she continued. She nearly followed suit and leaned on the counter as well, then thought better of it and shuffled backwards slightly. “How much do you want for the job?”

Ruby stared closely at the topaz ring, a glint coming to her eye, and a rough seed slowly formed in her palm. “You’re new in town, right? Ain’t no charge, ‘specially if it’s for somethin’ as important as that. Don’t want you turnin’ anybody’s hands into lobsters, or anythin’.”

Holly laughed nervously as Ruby shoved the seed inside a pot and sprinkled water on it. A shrub quickly formed, with several identical rings appearing on it like berries. Ruby tossed two to the elf, who hastily placed them on her left hand. Both sighed in relief as the crackling and bolts died down. Holly smiled softly. “Thanks. Thanks a lot. I promise I’ll pay you back sometime.”

Ruby laughed, scratching the back of her neck again. “Hey, no problem. What’s your name, by the way, newcomer?”

Holly took only a fraction of a second longer to respond than she normally might. “Cherry! Cherry Ironwood. Nice to meet you, Ms. LaReed.” She looked at her feet for a moment, then back at the owner of the jewelry store. “So… you said everyone who lives here is from a battle? These things are common?”

She nodded. “More’n you’d imagine. But those of us who make it here, we get by. Always nice to see some new people in town, since it means they didn’t die or stay out in the mist… that fella you talked about, he’s Otto’s grandson. You’ll probably meet Otto soon enough, seein’ as he’s more or less mayor of the place. Shame it happened to him, but that sorta thing happens, y’know? Livin’ here, you learn to deal with it. Least it’s gettin’ better. Maybe someday, it’ll actually be a nice place.”

Holly nodded. “Yeah… well, I’m here now, so I’ll try to make the best of it. Thanks for the rings, and like I said, I’ll pay you back sometime.” She smiled widely, waved, and left the store, ready to get herself established.

MalkyTop · 06-13-2011, 11:59 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

”Well? What do you think?”

“He left his bag in his room. I took the liberty of searching through it.”

It had always bothered Galatea how a giant snake could undo zippers, but she had ultimately decided that she would never ask. It would be rude. “So?”

“Got a bunch of weird shit in there. Useless knickknacks…and a human arm.”

“A what?”

“Just the bones. Something really odd about it. Gives me the chills.”

“He really didn’t seem like the type.”

Chambers nodded his head absentmindedly. “Intuition says he’s not gonna be like ol’ Vellir. Seems like an idiot, but still hiding stuff. I can’t be sure what he’s like.”

“Well, in any case, I don’t think he’ll be much use to the town…he can’t do heavy-lifting, he’s pretty focused on leaving and I think he has a one-track mind…”

Chambers suddenly interrupted her. “Didja search him, by the by?”

“Well, no.”

“He has a gun in his pocket.”

Galatea was fairly certain that she would notice if a person in front of her had a gun in his pocket and frankly, she was insulted that Chambers unintentionally implied that she couldn’t. “Well, how do you know?” she asked, trying not to sound affronted.

“Guns are my thing, ya know?” Chambers gestured with his tail cheerfully, apparently unaware that his explanation made no sense whatsoever. “So, he has a gun. It’s unloaded, though.”

“…You can’t know that.”

Chambers just shrugged, his various firearms clanking together. Galatea couldn’t help but feel even more confused.

“In any case, s’pose we oughta keep an eye on him. Can’t say I completely trust a man with part of a skeleton in his pack.”

Galatea couldn’t help but agree.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He couldn’t say that he had thought this trip out very thoroughly. He could’ve brought some food, perhaps. Or maybe had an idea of what to do beyond ‘walk on this wooden path and look for something mysterious.’

He could try exploring off the manmade path (…or whatevermade), but he had just gotten new clothes. And it was probably better to ask someone with more familiarity with the place for help.

…What happened if you walked through the fog?

Maybe he could ask someone later.

The boardwalk felt like it was sinking. Probably his imagination.

…He could swear he heard some buzzing. It was really…it wasn’t annoying. For some inexplicable reason, it was nerve-wracking.

…Maybe his imagination.

Still, by the time Algernon arrived at the next town over, he was lightly jogging after full-out running for several minutes. He paused to catch his breath and gazed about at this new town. It was certainly much larger than the place he had left. It was busy, he supposed. People were definitely striding around purposefully. A few of them looked at him oddly. One person looked at him odder than the rest. It was a woman. And by the look on her face, he was sure she recognized him.

She seemed to freeze, a look of…surprise, perhaps, maybe even horror, on her face. And then that vanished. “Algernon!” she called out, waving invitingly. The young man looked around uncomfortably for a moment before walking up to her.

“Hey,” he replied, a little surprised that he found somebody who actually knew him. Maybe figuring what the heck was going on would be easier than he thought. “Um. Hi.”

The woman was smirking at him, but seemed to catch herself and replaced it with a genuine smile again. “You haven’t changed at all. But I’ve changed quite a bit! So, did you meet anybody already? I see you got new clothes,” she said, her eyes flitting about. It was then Algernon actually noticed that her ears were unnaturally long. Sooo…was it the same thing with big palms…? “I wouldn’t have recognized you if it weren’t for that worm on your head! Hahaha!”

“Hahaha,” Algernon repeated, still fidgety. It was never fun talking to someone that knew you even when you didn’t know them. “Uh, listen. I’m, uh, I don’t really mean offense, but I don’t really know who you are.”

The woman stared at him blankly for a few moments before smiling again, wider than ever. “Oh! No, no, that’s okay, that’s fine. Hahaha. We knew that could happen, right?”

“Hahaha,” Algernon agreed as the woman then wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “You wouldn’t mind, you know, ah, telling me who you are again, would you…?”

“Cherry,” she said without hesitation, still uncomfortably close. Crowds passed them by, apparently seeing nothing unusual.

Algernon continued to feel unpleasantly disoriented. He had been in this sort of situation before. An apocalyptic wasteland is a small world after all and sometimes he ran into people he had supposedly met before and had to explain that he had involuntarily forgotten about them. But nobody ever really, uh, interacted with him like this. Which just begged the question just what the hell he was doing during the worryingly large interval of time he just couldn’t remember.

Oh god. He really hoped he wouldn’t regret this question.

“So, Cherry,” he coughed as the long-eared woman continued laughing and leaning on him. “What exactly…uh…happened…? I mean, I kinda just…found myself here and it’s sorta…I sorta don’t really remember much…so…”

“Oh, well, we were in space earlier. Someone died, I s’pose, so now we’re here! Which’s good, ‘cause I was in a lot of trouble, then.”

This just brought up a whole shitton of other questions.

Cherry just continued, apparently unaware of his increasing bewilderment. “It’s okay, though, that bastard didn’t show his ugly mug, so I think the whole thing’s done. What a bastard. That thing he did to you back then, that was just, it was like he was teasing you. But that’s the worse teasing I saw. You’re alright, right? Not too traumatized by that? Well, he’s gone now. But the others’re probably here. Do you remember the others? Um, maybe not? Hang on, let me tell you. If you see a bunch of really large bugs, don’t go near them. If you see a sort of metally spider woman, she’s called the Countess, stay away from her too. Um, there was also a guy called Thane…” She trailed off for a moment, but before Algernon could even begin to ask what all of this even meant, she started up again. “Oh. And Acacia. Shaved head and this clunky necklace sorta thing. Stay away from her too.”

It was the darkest she had sounded during the whole thing. Algernon stood silently for a while as Cherry continued to lean on him with her arm wrapped around his neck and her hair shoving itself in his face. It didn’t seem like she was going to continue. “Uh,”

“Sorry, I’m gonna have to cut this short,” Cherry suddenly piped up, patting him on the back before finally separating from him. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to do. I mean, I still haven’t actually gotten a place to sleep yet!”

“I got one,” Algernon suddenly said without entirely meaning to. Cherry stared at him oddly. He looked away and kicked the ground a little before deciding that now that he said it, he should probably finish it. “I mean, uh, I just got a room back in the other town…so…”

Cherry just laughed again. She really laughed a lot. He had no idea whether it was a good thing or not. “How sweet of you. But I can take care of myself. It looks like it’s getting late, soooooo…”

“Yeah. I guess I should go back.”

“Kinda silly of you to walk all the way here.” And there goes another laugh. She walked off, waving a good-bye. Algernon watched her turn the corner.

Oh goddammit, now he was just even more confused than he was before. There was death involved. There was supposedly a figurative bastard involved. Who did something to him that he didn’t remember. He wasn’t sure he wanted to remember.

Death. And apparently very questionable people.

What did he get himself involved in?