The Great Belligerency [Round 4: Static]

Originally posted on MSPA by Captain Lhurgoyf.

---

((This probably would've gone up a lot earlier if I wasn't kept waiting.))

"Ah. Welcome, Aran. Such a pity - you and I could have been so successful in our efforts together. After all, we both are enlightened to the truth of the superiority of the human race over all else, are we not?"

"What's this all about?"

"It seems that we've come to a bit of a predicament, haven't we? You are standing here, my most noble guards are dead by your filthy hands, and the glorious jewel of a city that was New Shambhala is about to be wiped from the map. How inconvenient."

"...You aren't going to do anything?"

"And why would I, my good sir? Did you think that the city's integrity was, even for a fleeting moment, within my best interests? No, my friend. The city was but a tool. Whether it lived or died was, in the end, not a care to me. After all, what good is a ruler when the laws of this joust demand he not attend when this is over with? But in the time I have sat on the opulent throne of New Shambhala, as brief as it may have been, I have achieved greatness. Do you not see how many of the insolent, lowly, pathetic subhumans have been cleansed, leaving the pristine domination of mankind that I have so successfully managed to convince the benefits of to the leaders of this bastion? Thanks to my most noble efforts, this plane of being will soon become a testament to my philosophies."

Cole was speechless as Reinhardt stepped forward.

"And that is all I asked, seeing as I can see now how little time I have left amongst mortal coil. My job here is done."

A grin of diabolical satisfaction spread over the tyrant's face as he removed his visor, gazing into what passed as a face on his opponent's head.

"Go ahead. Kill me."

"Bu...is this a trick?"

"I assure you, Aran, a man as noble as I has not a need for jest. Kill me. Is it not what it is you seek?"

The two combatants stared at each other for what seemed for each of them to be hours.

"By now, be I alive or be I dead, it does not matter. Already the news has spread. When the populace become informed of the death of their leader, the fall of their city, the leader and the city that had exposed them to the blight of the alien menace, they will GAAAHK"

Reinhardt's masterly-crafted speech was instantly cut short as a chitinous claw dug itself into his heart. As Cole extracted his weapon, the body of New Shambhala's last leader fell to the floor in a limp heap, its expression still in the middle of oration.

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

---

"... just run for the evacuation shuttles as fast as you can."

The girl wasted no time in dutifully turning heel and running, every bit the frightened young women Girnham expected her to be. She rounded a corner, and the uncoordinated fear-driven runner transitioned seamlessly into a blur of motion, her passage felt more than seen. Her duties to the resistance, and to Rheinhardt, were suspended, if not finished entirely. The chaos of the city was feeding upon itself, and no longer required her attentions. The city was falling apart on its own, giving her the perfect environment in which to pursue her own goals.

The girl hadn't been idle while in the Administrative building. Such an unprecedented windfall of information was nearly irresistible to her. So she'd done some digging, and what she found hadn't disappointed her.

She knew where Minotaurus lived.

---

Ambrose quivered behind an emergency barrier, too shocked to move by the sight before her. All of the evacuation shuttles, destroyed. The city lurched again, and Ambrose felt herself getting lighter. It wasn't long before New Shambhala would be in free-fall, and with her aircycle destroyed she had no way to escape.

Her and tens of thousands of other stranded citizens; all humans, now that the purge had been completed. Ambrose felt sick just thinking about it; genocide was such an ancient, savage concept, and seeing it here made her feel... inhuman. More disturbingly, she knew there were many out there, in equal shock at their chance of escape stolen away, who disagreed. Disturbing murmurs on the 'net, before patches of it started going dark, suggested more favor than she'd been willing to entertain towards Vanhart and his disgusting xenophobia.

Ambrose clenched a fist. She wasn't going to die here. Not in this place, not with these people. She turned from the wreckage and began walking, mind working furiously. Think, she told herself, those shuttles can't have been the only way off this city. All those spoiled rich corporate-types and eccentric technocrats must have their own private shuttles or-Minotaurus! If anyone were qualified as an eccentric technocrat, it had been him. Even the fact that he was dead didn't stymie her ambitions; he had been good, but Ambrose had learned long ago to make sure she knew just enough about all her "partners" to be able to use it some day.

And she knew where Minotaurus lived.

---

The girl didn't expect him to be there, of course. His private residences were well hidden amongst a throng of other nearly identical apartments, hiding in plain sight. But she knew he'd take precautions against intrusion. Her presence would not go unnoticed, and the minotaur would come to her.

His quarters were spartan, yet elegant in their simplicity. She ran her hand along the wall as she paced through the rooms, noting how the doorways and hallways had been adjusted for someone of Minotaurus's stature. Her fingertips sent pulses into the walls, searching for hidden compartments; she was not surprised to discover many. His alarm system was impressively complex, but for someone with millenia of skill behind her, it proved little challenge to disassemble. She took special care to trip a select few triggers, ensuring that only his automated intruder alert system would be activated, as opposed to the various explosives and incendiaries which littered the walls, ceiling and floor of the unit. More importantly, the intruder alert would send a signal straight to him.

The girl sat back from her work and looked around. Time now she prepared for the Minotaur's arrival; and he'd kindly provided her with ample weaponry.

---

Ambrose would have considered herself lucky that Minotaurus lived so close to the evacuation shuttles, but she rather thought it wasn't coincidence. He'd always been a pragmatically paranoid son-of-a-bitch. Like it'd done him any good. Ambrose scolded herself; he'd still been a good person, and she had no right to think of the dead like that.

So lost was Ambrose in her own thoughts as she trudged through rubble-filled back-alleys that she barely noticed a small anomaly recorded by one of the city's many cameras. She'd gotten into the habit of having the video feeds from every still-operating camera near her position to constantly relay information to her, so she wouldn't be caught by any of those rampaging crazies in the same "contest" the bug-man was in.

The anomaly was more of a quick blurring of a section of the camera's video feed, and it took Ambrose a few seconds to realize something had just happened. That blur was very obviously not an artifact of the camera, and nothing she knew of could have caused it. Which definitely made it worth investigating. She isolated the feed, and restarted it from an earlier timestamp. Yes, there definitely was a blur there; it seemed to be about the size of a person, and it was definitely moving, but moving impossibly fast. The public cameras weren't of the highest quality, but they did have a decent ability to capture high-speed objects. After getting the timing down right, Ambrose finally managed to isolate a few frames capturing the object, and what she found was...

A girl?

Ambrose frowned. It was just some girl. A very serious-looking girl, and moving with incredible speed and finesse, but just a girl.

As Ambrose puzzled over the nature of her "anomaly", her eyes happened to trace the destination of the blur, and just as she realized where the girl was headed, she intercepted an intruder alert from Minotaurus's residence.

Ambrose pursed her lips and picked up the pace. This girl must be a contestant, just like the bug-man. And though she didn't trust him very much, she trusted the rest of them less. Worst of all, Ambrose had the sinking suspicion that this girl may be the "Julia" she'd been searching for. If so, it meant "Julia" was in her (sort of) friend's home, and Ambrose was going to figure out why.

---

The girl waited. She'd reconfigured the various traps to be under her control; she could set them off and direct them at will. She could have reset their IFF and had the Minotaur's own traps be his demise, but he'd already shown himself to be a crafty opponent, and if she was going to kill him, she'd damned well do it herself.

Plus, it would give her the opportunity to question him. And she had may questions.

She didn't have to wait long. The door to the unit opened, and through it stepped Minotaurus. He saw her instantly, and took a step forwards, closing the door behind him.

"Stop," the girl commanded. "I've got every defensive system in this place pointed directly at you. Move and you die."

"Why not just kill me now?"

"I could have asked you the same thing earlier today. You had plenty of opportunities to kill me; why did you not take advantage of them? You obviously want me dead."

Minotaurus shrugged. "Politics."

The girl pursed her lips. She could tell she wouldn't get any more out of him on that subject. "Very well. If you won't answer that question, perhaps you'll tell me why you want me dead."

"You'll figure it out. For now though, it is irrelevant."

"Irrelevant?" The girl smirked. "I did not take you as someone to give up so easily. You must have known I was here whan you received the alarm. How kind of you to come here for me, to die."

"You are mistaken. I did not come for you. I came for her."

He turned to face the door as it opened, and there was a quiet gasp. The girl moved to look around Minotaurus's massive bulk, and saw a lazily-dressed young woman standing stock-still, staring at the Minotaur, mouth frozen in an "O" shape. Then the girl recognized her. The shocked young woman before her was the same person she'd seen investigating her handiwork. Her eyes narrowed. Thousands of years of honed paranoia had taught her never to dismiss the improbable as coincidence. And for this woman to have come into contact with her twice in a single day was no coincidence.

Minotaurus spoke. "Welcome, Ambrose. It is good to finally see you in person."

Ambrose's face did something odd as multiple, conflicting emotions ran through her, before realization dawned. "M-Minnie?" she whimpered.

Minotaurus winced. "I told you not to call me that."

Ambrose began to stumble towards him, and the smile that had just begun forming on her face faltered along with her footsteps as her gaze went past him, to the girl glaring at her. This was the girl she'd seen... blurring here. She looked back and forth between the two. "What... what is she doing here? Do you know who she is?"

Minotaurus turned back towards the girl. "I doubt anyone truly does."

Ambrose rolled her eyes. Typical, terse, vague Minnie. "Ok whatever, important thing is I'm pretty sure she's dangerous, and-" the room lurched, and Ambrose's feet took a disturbing amount of time to reach the floor again. "-ok she's just dangerous can we leave now?"

Minotaurus smiled, ever so slightly. "She is no longer a threat to us."

"No longer a threat?" the girl hissed. "I've been a threat since the moment you failed to kill me! Now that you've kindly gathered the only other person capable of opposing me, I can assure you that I will not fail to kill you." The girl produced a device from somewhere on her body, and allowed herself a small grin of victory as her finger began to depress a button-

-and then she vanished. Ambrose started at the girl's sudden disappearence, and at the lack of explosions. For a moment she thought perhaps the girl had teleported out and left them with a room pumped full of gas, but that certainly didn't look like any teleportation technology she knew of, and Minotaurus was turning towards her and jeez he's a freakin' Minotaur (a part of her giggled at the obviousnous of his name), and he looked calm so she guessed everything was ok?

"Ambrose. I know you have many questions, and I assure you, they will be answered. For now, though, I have a job offer for you. My employer has been recruiting intelligent and capable people to help him... monitor certain events. I have never met a person more adept at information-gathering than you, and we have need of someone with your skill."

"I'll take it," Ambrose blurted. "There's nothing left for me here and if you're offering me a job it means you have a way off this city."

Minotaurus chuckled. "Indeed I do. Take my hand, Ambrose."

She placed her tiny, fragile hand in the Minotaur's massive palm. There was a shimmering, and the room was empty.

Originally posted on MSPA by Aryogaton.

---

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

He's dead.

Cole had spent relatively little time with Reinhardt, but the swordsman's views on non-humans had been made abundantly clear. His words in the first round had been upsetting enough, but then Cole had seen the consequences.

Cole had seen New Shambhala and been amazed at the variety of intelligent lifeforms. Reinhardt had seen exactly the same city and been disgusted - just because there were nonhumans.

Cole looked down at his neck, staring at the horn hanging on a string. The key to meeting with Anansi, if he could only blow it.

Minotaurus had promised him a weapon in exchange for killing Reinhardt. Cole had met his end of the bargain. He could only hope that the minotaur would fulfill his.

***

Ambrose looked around. A vast jungle surrounded the two of them; the only sign of civilization was the large, ruined temple in front of them. She turned to her partner.

"Is this where I meet your boss, Minnie?"

Minotaurus simply grunted before responding.

"I told you not to call me that. And no. We have to make a quick stop here first. I have to make a payment to someone."

Minotaurus unslung the bazooka from his back.

"It is in here. Unfortunately, my - or rather, our - employer cannot simply retrieve it without drawing unwanted attention. Gods generally prefer to make it difficult to find weapons that can kill them."

"Sounds like fun." Ambrose smiled. "You're not going to tell me I can't come along, are you?"

The minotaur chuckled gruffly.

"I know you better than that, Ambrose Lom. I welcome the company."

They entered the ruin, smiling.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

The backdrop lurched and Phil found himself lying on top of a thatch roof, staring up at a brilliant sun. His visor quickly compensated for the sudden brightness, overlaying a darkened mask over the sun and its rays to prevent it from blinding Phil, and he felt a small vibration as the air conditioner in his suit kicked in to keep the heat at bay. He blinked anyway, instinctively raising his hand to cover his face. The movement caused the roof, already strained from the unexpected weight of the commando, to cave in, dumping Phil unceremoniously onto the dirt floor of the hut below. A skinny, dark-skinned man wearing little more than a loincloth leaped back in surprise, letting out a cry in a language Phil didn't understand. He groaned back in reply. "Suit, translate."

"Unknown language," it reported back crisply. "Recording and analyzing samples." Phil lifted himself off the floor with a grunt, to find the man still staring at him, but with more curiosity than fear. He stepped forward hesitantly, extending a frail hand towards Phil, index finger aimed at the crescent moon on his chest. He spoke again in the strange language, this time almost reverently, and scrabbled out of the hut, pushing aside the scrap of woven grass strands that served as a door. Phil raised an eyebrow and took a few moments to glance around the interior of the hut. The walls were made of hard-packed dirt, and the only furniture in evidence was a woven grass mat on the floor. Well, the Executor did say they were primitive.

Phil walked out of the hut, pushing aside the curtain over the door, and found that he was in a small village consisting of about eight huts similar to the one he had just exited, all centered around a slightly larger one that was really just several merged huts. He glanced around and noticed that there were a number of dark-skinned men and women wearing only the bare essentials of clothing peering at him through cracks in the curtains covering their huts' doors. While they didn't seem overly hostile, Phil was painfully aware that he had no idea what their culture was like, and starting a fight could be throwing away an opportunity. He stood there awkwardly until one of the natives, a short and almost deathly skinny old man, worked up the courage to step up in front of Phil. He grabbed the commando's hand and pulled him towards the large building. While Phil could have easily broken his grip, he allowed himself to be pulled into the large hut.

A crude staircase lined the left wall, leading down to a lower level. Curtains on either side of the room led to the smaller huts Phil had seen merged into the sides. The back wall was flatter than the round walls of the hut Phil had fallen into, and two crude figures were carved into it. The left half was dominated by the figure of a woman with her head covered by a rendition of the sun; on the right stood a man with his head covered by a rendition of a crescent moon. Phil stared at the carvings for a moment, then turned back to see several other villagers had joined the one who had pulled him into the building. More peered in past the curtain Phil had entered through. All of their faces held an expression of awe. Three of them stepped forward, side by side by side. The one on the left held a sunbaked lizard, the one on the right held a clay bowl with a small amount of water in it, and the one in the middle held a chipped piece of stone which vaguely resembled a crescent moon. It took a moment for the realization to hit Phil. Oh shit, do they really think I'm a god?

Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.

---

The round hadn't ended as soon as the ship began to fall, of course; Ur had spent the few minutes between her rampage and her disappearance thrashing aimlessly about, destroying areas near the city's engines and snuffing out those lives that hadn't already been cut short by interspecies warfare or her own creations. Had she been more lucid, she would probably have relished the sensation of descent and the knowledge that soon, every last life on board would end at her hands; as it was, she simply succumbed to the inborn urge to destroy, unable to plan or even truly conscious of the non-immediate consequences of her violent outbursts.

Soon, though, New Shambhala faded away, replaced by null space and the Executor's droning. She took none of it in, as what little of her mind remained was as ever swamped by the incessant droning of trapped souls, no more aware of the nature of this new setting than she had been of the Rainy Place when first put there. An endless plain, carpeted with golden blades of dried brush, formed, and Ur was dropped senseless on it.

As her bare feet collided with the ground, shoots burst out of the soil, writhing creepers that spread quickly; scalloped leaves unfurled so quickly that they made audible popping noises, and as Ur simply stared slack-jawed into nothing, swaying slightly on her feet, orangish flowers popped open, scattered and received pollen, and withered. Tiny, greenish fruitlets became small, yellow-orange balls then became, large, garishly-red melons. All the while, a dozen pairs of eyes watched her miraculous appearance and the fruit's astonishing growth.

At first, the goddess had simply been still because the shock of transfer from one round to the next had forced her fractured pseudopersonality into another mode, and she simply hadn't settled on which one yet; as the force of iron-hard belief hit her from a dozen sources, though, she was immobilized by uncertainty and an internal struggle for a dominant reality.

Eventually, she simply collapsed, her touch causing more plants to spring up from the parched, cracked soil. Twelve men and women spoke in hushed voices, their tones betraying confusion, fear, and primarily hope.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

As Cole gained his bearings, he finally took notice of the villagers.

Or rather, the lack of villagers.

He'd expected a crowded village, or at least one or two people milling about. But there were none.

If they had fled in terror upon the sight of him, they had done it both very quickly and very silently. He doubted that was the case.

Curious, he entered a nearby straw hut. Inside, three men sat on the floor, facing the center of the hut.

They're meditating, Cole realized. Perhaps the entire village is? It would explain the silence and emptiness.

He turned to leave, but then he felt himself held in place. A voice spoke in his mind.

Unknown, it said to him.

Cole found himself barely able to even think in response. All his mind could produce was a weak What?, which the voice promptly responded to.

You. Unknown.

A chorus of different voices echoed the word.

Unknown. Unknown. Unknown.

Finally, the monotony was broken by a new word from the first voice.

Destroy.

It was not a comforting change.

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

---

There wasn’t much to say. Two stories were finished. The city fell along with its tyrant, which is all she really asked for, right? It didn’t really go the way she wanted it to, but at least her job was done there.

Now she was somewhere different, a place that felt older than her, a place that had a…a motherly embrace, perhaps. It was a place of Oral Tradition.

This place was young, not like the city in the sky. It was young and still in the process of exploration. It had a new, vibrant culture, which meant it had different lessons and different stories.

The book was already scrawling down the story of the land but Soft tuned it out. The only way she wanted to experience this was from a real storyteller. A professional that she didn’t think she would see again.

She walked. There were no manmade landmarks to walk towards, so she walked towards the trees. She walked along a river. She came across an oasis.

An old man sat against a tree, close by the river. Nuts, fallen from the branches, lay scattered all around him. His stomach was like a drum, his skin like wrinkled paper, his hair like thistles. He seemed to be asleep, but his hands lashed out at the flies that landed on him.

Soft watched him until he opened his eyes and watched back. It was only then that she swept the cloak off her back and gathered nuts into it. A cup suddenly in hand, she scooped out clear water from the running river. She set these in front of the man and sat down in front of him.

“Please. Tell me your stories.”

The old man ate a few nuts, sipped from the cup, and lay back against the tree, his eyes closed once more. Then he started.

The world was a nut fallen from the Tree. There are many just like it. The sun was a nut that was set on fire by its inhabitants. It was the job of the Vulture, himself the indirect cause of the fire, to carry it around in the sky and keep the fire from spreading to the Tree and any other worlds. The Moon is now the closest living world. The stars are all the other worlds, all healthy and living and happy. Sometimes they die out. There will come a time when this world, too, will die out.

The Vulture was a well-meaning fellow, always searching, always curious. He never fully understood that his work was not something to follow. He pierced the Shell to see if more trees would grow when there were plenty of trees and nuts already. He destroyed trees, preventing more nuts from falling, building ugly things that couldn’t replace the destroyed tree. These things were always destroyed, condemned by higher powers. But once, the Vulture saw something in the aftermath of destruction. It was bright and hot. But before he learned anything more, the Tree shook off its excess dew and the falling water snuffed it out.

The Vulture could not find anybody to help him understand what had happened, and in fact, became increasingly aggravated by everybody’s warnings not to dig any deeper that he decided to fly off to a nearby world.

It’s uncertain what happened there, but whatever the Vulture did, it went horribly wrong. The nearby world was wrapped up in the something-bright-and-hot, everything and everybody on there completely destroyed and consumed. And it could easily spread to the other worlds and, even worse, the Tree. So the Vulture, with barely any time to act, took up the destroyed world with him into the sky. And he must stay in the sky forever, for even the dew from the Tree cannot snuff the world out. He must carry it always, knowing that everybody can see his mistake.

There were other stories about the folly of man, the respect of nature, the emphasis on preserving things as they are.

Fights were foolish because there was nothing to fight about. Agriculture was not done because why plant things when there are so many nuts to eat?

There were obviously many different stories, many different ways of life than one lived by the old man, but a similar sentiment roamed across the land. An idyllic, passive lifestyle. No wonder there was no progress.

Soft looked across the land as the old man continued telling the story and found it all very quaint and lazy. And then she found it all very relaxing and fragile.

There were more stories to listen to, more stories she wanted to hear, but they also had to be protected. Even she, with her axe and her nicely braided hair and her book, was a threat. Who knew what the others would do if she just sat around, enjoying Oral Tradition as it died again. She had to preserve it.

The old man abruptly stopped. With dramatic flair, he picked up a nut and patted it into her hand. As Soft’s fingers curled around the shell, he pointed towards nothing. Soft stood up, wrapped her cloak around herself again, and walked.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

A line of villagers trailed out of the main hut's entrance. Each carried a token or an offering with them, from handmade clay bowls to grass-weave blankets to the crude clay statue of himself that Phil was pushing away.

"No, go away. I don't want it," he muttered, knowing the woman wouldn't understand him anyway. She drew back, hesitated, then brought the statue forward again hopefully. Phil swatted it out of her hands with a snarl, knocking it to the floor, where it cracked into several pieces. The woman shrunk back, tears in her eyes, and dragged herself out of the room, the rest of the line pointedly ignoring her. Phil chuckled sardonically. I think I just ostracized her.

The line advanced and another villager stepped forward, but Phil stood up and stretched, ignoring the grass seeds the man offered him. "That's it, I'm officially bored of this," he said, striding out of the hut, the members of the line shifting to let him through with a quiet murmur. An older man in the back who was slower on the uptake than the rest of the line received a vicious shove from Phil on his way out, and found himself sprawling on the floor, the clay bowl of water he had been holding having shattered and spilled on the floor. His feet kicked up a decent amount of dust as he prowled around the village, doing his best to ignore the villagers peering at him from behind the huts. He found himself at the edge of the small settlement in just a few minutes, staring at the empty horizon.

Wait. Phil narrowed his eyes. "Suit, zoom to five hundred percent." The miniscule specks Phil saw on the horizon were suddenly magnified several times over, and were revealed to be another village, with equally miniscule figures muddling about in between huts of a similar structure to the ones in the village Phil was currently in, but made of some sort of different material. "Suit, abort zoom." The village returned to being a speck on the horizon, and Phil turned around, the corners of his mouth twisting into a demented grin.

---

Half an hour later, a woman in the neighboring village was making her way to the watering hole to fill up a pitcher when she spotted a group of people on the horizon. She cocked her head curiously and moved closer to investigate. Without warning, the lead figure, a good head taller than the others, pitched an object at her. The stone flew true and collided with her skull with a sickening crack, splitting her head and killing her instantly. The lead figure let out an excited howl, which was mimicked by the crowd; both then charged forward into the village. It was a massacre; the village was not prepared to repel an attack they had never been expecting, and the crazed mob of zealots fighting for and with their god, inexperienced though they were, made short work of them.

But Phil was nowhere near done. With a whoop, he kicked in the side of one of the huts. His followers immediately followed suit, throwing their remaining stones at the structures, then resorting to simply tearing them apart with their bare hands. It wasn't long before the entire village had been destroyed, its inhabitants unconscious and bleeding on the ground, many already dead. Phil let out a cry of victory and fired off a series of shots from his rifle; his followers jumped at the gunfire, looking up fearfully at the strange object in Phil's hand, then eagerly repeated his howl. They had no idea what was happening, and many were frightened, but anything that kept them in favor of their god was worth the cost.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Cole was almost disgusted. Was this some kind of sick joke by the Executor? Sending him to be helplessly torn apart by these people, mere moments after the round had begun?

After an instant that seemed like an eternity, another voice spoke.

Exile.

The words Destroy and Exile flooded through Cole's mind. Wonderful. His fate was being put to a vote, and he wasn't even being told why.

At least he was able to think now. Not that it helped much; he still wasn't able to move.

The words echoed, seemingly without end. Finally, there was a new word.

Uncertain.

Then, silence.

***

Minotaurus lowered his bazooka, breathing a sigh of relief as the giant scorpion was vaporized. That reload had come just in time.

"Ambrose!" he shouted. "Where are you?"

"Right here."

She stepped out from behind a corner, holding a bow and a bloodied arrow. She smirked wearily.

"You'd think they could have given that guy some armor or something. He wasn't very well protected."

Minotaurus gave out a chuckle, then stood up straight.

"We can't afford to stop now. They know we're here. If we take too long, they'll send new guardians in here."

Ambrose nodded, and followed Minotaurus as he walked forward.

The pair soon made their way to a four-way intersection.

"This way," Minotaurus muttered. He didn't hesitate for even a moment.

"What makes you so sure?"

"I know mazes. It's a talent of mine."

They walked down the corridors for several minutes, Minotaurus leading the way.

Then Ambrose screamed. The minotaur turned, and saw her being held by an enormous statue.

He readied himself to tackle it in hopes of breaking the statue - it was safer than a bazooka shot - but then he felt something cold and hard on both of his shoulders.

Turning his head, Minotaurus saw a second, identical statue trying to restrain him.

He quickly grabbed it by the arms and prepared for a throw.

***

Balance had to admit, this village wasn't what he had expected from the Executor's description.

It was still reasonably low-tech, yes, but they had crude smokestacks, implying a mastery of fire. There were clothes hanging on what seemed to be a laundry line, and the god couldn't help but notice that these people seemed to have pockets.

The most startling difference, however, was the crowd of villagers standing nearby holding signs and chanting "Welcome, Balance!" He certainly hadn't expected that one.

Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.

---

Well, this is certainly new.

The God of Balance looked over his welcoming committee. To h ave the foresight to expect his arrival, although they had forgotten to give him his full title, they had succeeded in surprising him. They were a modest bunch, for what Balance had expected to be a tribal race. They had managed to conceal most, if not all, of their torsoes and lower bodies. They had used chalk to write his name, which meant they had advanced to the point of written language.

This just wouldn't do at all.

"Welcome! We've been expecting you, God of all Balance. You must have many questions, yes?"

"Sure. I'll bite. What's with the reception? Usually we're pretty unexpected by the denizens."

"Yes, the major one. Well, our guru's are special, in a sense. Most other clans focus on spiritual or philosophical meditation. Ours, well not to toot our own hornes or anything, but we comminicate with beings across, um, reality. All of it. We get knowledge, gifts and secrets from so many different realms. Most of it is currently useless, but even I was shocked by just how useful pockets are!"

Balance stared into the man's eyes. He was happy, oblivious as to the workings of Balance's mind. They were advanced, at least a lot moreso than any other village around. And yet, gazing upwards, Balance found what seemed like a haze, one that spanned over the entire village like a dome.

"Ah, that. That's what the village west of here thought was what we deserved: isolation. They fear us, we think. They completely don't understand anything not from this world, knowledge included, so we're trapped. That would be a major problem in the near future, need food and water and such things. And obviously that's a tad unfair so..." He trailed off, gazing at Balance as if it would help get the message accross.

It was indeed an entrapment, complete, flawless, symmetrical. The clan had no hope of gaining enough power to get through. They were completely dominated by the powers of the rival guru's. Balance sorted that out rather nicely. Using his divine power he simply traced the source of the isolation field and saw what they were up to. Constant meditation, enforcing the field, telekinesis? Yhey had some kind of mental link at least, on several layers too. They were advanced in a whole other way from the clan Balance was helping. But they had complete control over another tribe, one that currently held a God in their midst. If Balance were to remove both himself and the bubble the equilibrium would be set. And with a village led by a so-called lunar god leading a massacre on fellow human beings, it wasn't a moment too soon. Balance harboured no ill against Phil deep down, but he really wish the man could keep his head down for five minutes without causing problems of symmetry. As the bubble vanished and he locked away the process to form another into the deepest depths of the non-pant wearing guru's minds.

He turned to the group conversationalist, nodded a simple goodbye, and left. They didn't question his passing, probably forewarned about that too. But Balance was concentrating on other things. He was counting how many murders a tribe had caused per person, forming ratios of pain and suffering, and sorting it out into equal piles for each member of the Crescent Worshipers.

He was pretty pleased with the sufficient levels of sudden, painful and agonizing deaths that plagued some of the proud denizens of the tribal world. But a part of him knew, it wouldn't end there. There was always more needing to be fixed. But he'd be there, always ready to tip the scales back into perfect balance.

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

---

The Vulture had a brother. He was the Crow. The Crow was different from his brother in many ways, which had often irked his brother before he had to carry the razed world. The Crow looked sinister, but did nothing more than eat, sleep, and chat cordially. Everybody loved chatting with the Crow because he often made jokes. He loved laughing at himself, but if anybody else ventured to make their own jokes about his drab plumage, he would grow quiet and stern. When the Crow became quiet and stern, disaster soon followed. So nobody ever made jokes about the Crow.

There are people and there are the Children of the Tree. The Children of the Tree were not as plentiful as regular people, but they held great power and lorded over their respective domains as maturely as they could. But there’s a reason they are called the Children of the Tree. Once too often, their antics would get out of hand. With their quite significant power, they were able to do most anything they wanted without consideration for the consequences, making the people deal with the aftermath. It was not a fair system, but nobody saw any other way. The Children of the Tree were fickle and not likely to listen to any complaints made by the people.

The Children of the Tree were prone to loud and raunchy parties that usually ended in devastation and quite a number of pregnant women. One party was too close to the Crow’s abode and he found himself staring at the ceiling of his home, begging silently for the noise to stop. When it didn’t, he flew outside and followed the noise to where the Children of the Tree were.

He immediately stuck out. He was certainly not as colorful as the Children, of course, and immediately, a group of the Children crowded around in front of him. “Turn around,” they said. “You are not a Child of the Tree.”

“Forgive a humble Crow for crashing this party,” the Crow replied, “and without having dressed well enough for this fancy shindig, but may I ask you to just turn the noise down?”

The Children laughed. The Crow waited until they realized he was waiting for an actual answer. “You may ask us, but the answer is no,” they said. “We want to be this loud, little bird. If you have trouble sleeping, then move somewhere farther.”

The Crow ruffled his feathers, which just seemed to amuse the Children even more. “You Children are a menace!” he finally shouted. “Everybody thinks so! When will you learn to at least respect the needs of those weaker than you?”

“Do you really expect some respect looking like that?” they replied and then laughed some more.

The Crow got quiet and stern. He waited for them to stop laughing. He waited for them to stop partying. He waited for them to get weary and placid and he waited for them to finally turn their attentions back towards him.

“You Children are a menace,” he repeated.

“So?” they replied. “If we are so bad, then why doesn’t someone stop us?”

“I will,” said the Crow, and he flew away. For the rest of the night, the Children made jokes about his mental stability and the lack thereof.

But the Crow did have a plan. He did not have the sheer curiosity of his brother, but he did share the Vulture’s intelligence and drive. Not only that, he had access to his brother’s old workshop. As soon as he flew back home, he holed himself inside the workshop and worked.

Nobody saw him for days. But he finally emerged from the workshop, a weapon in his hands. It was a glorious weapon, simple but brilliant, one that could kill the Children of the Tree.

The Children, of course, had continued their excessively hedonistic way of life. When the Crow arrived again, they stopped to jeer. The Crow paid no heed, flew very close to a Child that held domain over rivers, and killed him.

There was a stunned silence.

The other Children angrily jumped towards the Crow. The sky began to darken and crackle and the world beneath quaked violently. But the Crow simply killed two more and the rest drew back. They had never knew fear of death until now. It was hard for them to even conceive of mortality, and being so suddenly confronted by the idea left them terrified and confused.

The Crow killed another one. And then, they fled. They knew they could never return.

The Children had been a nuisance and nobody was sad to see them go, but the Crow’s actions had its consequences. Trees withered and died, there was a long drought, and for many years, whatever nuts were left was rotten. The land would recover in time, but not for a while and the Crow saw the devastation he had caused and felt remorse. He gave the Children he had killed the proper burial rituals and set out to hide his magnificent weapon. It was not one to be used lightly, in anger and malice. Such a powerful weapon could be useful in the future, however, and so the Crow hid it away.

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

A powerful weapon that could kill gods. That would be useful. But, well, there were still rules to abide by. A hero needed to take the weapon, and really, only when the entire world was thrown in chaos. Also, which of the gods should die? Though it didn’t even have to be one of the gods. Anybody who would help move them away from here by dying. Though they had to deserve it, of course.

Hero…she should probably find Cole. Despite his refusal to be a proper protagonist when she wanted him to be, she couldn’t give up. His story hadn’t finished, after all. And really, he was the only one she was fairly certain she could at least bully into submission at some point. He was a, um, scientist thing, right? Some sort of scientist thing. Didn’t they like preserving culture a lot? Oral Tradition was very important; even he had to see that, right?

The book already knew of the place where the god-killing weapon was. There were already people there, not really anybody she met or remembered. Maybe they were possible candidates for heroes too? They were certainly closer to the prize.

Still, Soft was sure she oughta at least check up on Cole.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

The silence of the villagers was unnerving. Cole had reasoned that they were unable to decide on his fate; were they so paralyzed by this indecision that they were unable to do anything at all?

Then Cole noticed one of the figures surrounding him drop dead, before his image faded from the mindscape.

I hope he was a "Destroy" vote, Cole thought.

Then he realized that he could move again.

Looking around, he saw panicked faces throughout the mindscape. And then he had an idea.

"This is the fate of all who defy me!" he shouted. He'd feel rather silly if it turned out they were reading his mind and knew he was bluffing, but it wasn't as if he had anything to lose.

Panic rippled through the crowd of men, and a moment later, the mindscape dissolved, and Cole found himself back in the hut.

One of the three men in the circle before him was dead. Another was staring at the corpse, terrified.

The third stood up and faced Cole. An angry look filled his eyes. He carried himself with an aura of leadership.

"Are you the chief of this tribe?" Cole asked him.

The man glared.

"Unknown language," he said, nearly spitting out the words. "No place. Should die."

Then he let out a sigh.

"Powers fading. Cooperate. No choice."

By the look on his face, speaking Cole's language for even a moment gave the man a sense of intense disgust.

"What exactly are you talking about?"

"Village. East. Forbidden knowledge. Sealed. Broken. Destroy!"

Cole was losing patience. He changed his arm to a scorpion's claw, grabbed the chief by the torso, and lifted him up. The old man winced as Cole's bioelectric shock flowed through his body.

"Let's try speaking in complete sentences, shall we? I've gathered that you don't like me, and I'm not all that fond of you either, but the sooner you explain things in a way I can actually understand, the sooner we can end this conversation."

The chief growled, but he knew he was at a disadvantage.

"Your language is abominable," he said. "Outside our world. Unknown. That horrible word of yours is the only fitting one."

Cole started to squeeze.

"Get to the point already. I'm not here to argue philosophy with you."

"The village to the east. They looked outside this world, into the Unknown. They tried to tell us of it."

Had Cole been judging by the man's expression alone, he would have expected the other village to be building concentration camps.

"So we sealed their village, and all their knowledge," the Chief continued. "Their Unknown. But the seal has been broken. They are loose. And we cannot restore it! It is as though the knowledge has suddenly vanished!"

Balance, Cole realized.

"And you want me to help you fix it."

"We sensed other unknowns besides you," the chief said, looking incredibly disgusted. "One of them must be the cause."

"I imagine so. And if I do help you resolve this little problem, what will you do for me? Will you simply try to destroy me again?"

The chief grunted angrily.

"Leave this world," he said. "We make all knowledge of you and your horrible unknown language disappear. But cannot until problem is solved."

Cole flung the old man against the wall of the hut.

"Frankly, I see no reason to help you. Your least favorite word is 'unknown'? Mine is 'God'. And that's what you were until a few minutes ago."

Cole walked away. They couldn't stop him.

As he left the hut, he turned back towards the chief, gasping for breath.

"Perhaps now you can use your intelligence for something besides maintaining this world's ignorance."

***

Ambrose wiped the blood off her face. Minotaurus grabbed the horns of the ram charging him, and flung it into the wall behind him.

"We're close," said the minotaur. "Be ready. I doubt the weapon itself will be unguarded."

They walked further, and came to a chamber. A pedestal stood in the center, the blade of a sword plunged deep inside it.

A small crow perched on the sword's hilt.

"What took you so long?" it squawked at the duo. "I was sure you were going to get here fifteen minutes ago!"

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

---

Minotaurus gave no outward reaction, but Ambrose certainly did. Nothing should have really surprised her anymore, but a talking crow making a poor first impression on her crossed some sort of invisible line.

“What the hell is that?” she spluttered out. Some big test of strength, she could deal with. But this was just surreal.

“I’m right here,” the crow said crossly. “If you’re going to talk about someone behind their back, why not actually talk behind their back instead of in front of them?”

“Sorry,” Ambrose instinctively replied before realizing she was apologizing to a crow.

“Forget about it. I’m just a crow. Don’t really have much of a name. You gonna pick this up or what?” Neither of them moved as the crow hopped agitatedly on the hilt.

“Excuse me for hesitating,” rumbled Minotaurus, “but I’m a bit reluctant about grabbing an ancient, god-killing weapon inside a chamber with no obvious guardian or traps. Besides you, Crow.”

“What? Me?” Everything the crow squawked sounded vaguely insulting. “I’m no guardian! Or I guess I sort of am! But yeah, I wouldn’t put it past them to have some stupid trap right here, huh?”

“You don’t…actually…know?” Ambrose said skeptically.

“Birds have needs, even the ones that happen to be folktale heroes.” Here, the bird puffed out its chest in pride. “So, yeah, I left this place alone for a while. Wasn’t like I knew some surviving god’d come across it and get the brilliant idea of building this whole thing around it! Nobody wants to guard some ol’ sword forever and ever, y’know!”

“Do you at least know what would happen if we took the sword right now?” Minotaurus asked, sounding quite disgruntled.

“Nope!” the crow replied, much too cheerfully for comfort. “But hey, I know what y’all’re up to! You can just take this thing whenever you figure out what to do.”

The two glanced at each other briefly. It was a shared look of disbelief and annoyance.

“I don’t see what exactly is so special about this sword that it can kill gods,” Ambrose suddenly said.

“Well,” replied the crow, eyes glinting with humor. “If you stick around here, maybe you’ll see.”

“We’re wasting time,” Minotaurus grunted.

“I’ll say!” the crow added, though the two didn’t bother listening to him. It flapped away as the bull-headed man grasped the hilt. “Who even cares what’ll happen! That just makes things more exciting!”

The sword groaned out of its place, sliding roughly out of the slot. As soon as it was free, the whole room shook. The ornate pedestal itself rose, the floor beneath it breaking apart to reveal that the pedestal had in fact been connected to a giant snake-like beast wearing a fancy helmet.

“Thieves!” it screamed. “Trespassers and thieves!”

“Who’s the thief?!” the crow roared back in anger, swooping down to scratch at its eyes.

Minotaurus hefted the sword experimentally in one hand. “Perhaps we can see what’s so special about this sword now.”

“No!” the crow said, still blinding the snake-beast. “You can’t kill him! It involves the lore of the land and such—just leave him to me!”

There was the quite obvious problem that the snake-beast was a monstrous size while the crow was simply crow-sized. But any distraction was a welcome distraction, even if it was bound to be short, and Minotaurus ran out of the room, followed closely by Ambrose. The stone underneath their feet continued to shake as they rushed past all the obstacles they had overcome not too long ago.

As soon as they escaped the temple, it tilted halfway into the ground and collapsed. The two barely looked back. The crow hadn’t done much to endear them to it and though it acted as though it knew what they were doing, ultimately, they were about to give it to someone who, more likely than not, would not use it in the way the crow would want it to be used. In the end, the crow was just a foolish figure acting as a wise one.

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

There was no other place to go besides the village to the east. It was preferable to get to an inhabited area full of people who probably didn’t want to kill him and he only knew of two inhabited areas, one of which that was full of assholes. So Cole really had no choice.

Still, he couldn’t help but notice how useless of a direction ‘east’ was when he didn’t know which way was east. And he couldn’t go back and ask the pompous asses which way to go. Not after walking out like that.

The sun was high enough in the sky that he couldn’t tell which way it was going and whether it was even rising or setting, so he couldn’t use that. And, tempting as it was, going off in a random direction in a place like this was a good way of getting lost.

He went in a random direction anyways.

If this were a movie, the scene would then pan out to show which direction the village really was, thus frustrating the viewers as they watched the protagonist blissfully head in the opposite direction. But it’s not. The closest thing to a movie it was would be the narrative running through Soft’s mind. And she was indeed quite frustrated. She might have even been tempted to shout ‘The other way, doofus,’ though nobody would have heard her.

At least the god-killing weapon was now in play, though.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Minotaurus excused himself as he contacted his employer.

"This is Minotaurus."

"Report."

"Aran performed the task I gave him. We have retrieved the weapon, all that remains is to provide him with it."

"We?"

"I have recruited Ms. Ambrose Lom. I have not told her any sensitive information about you, and I have no doubt provided you with sufficient data on her from my time on New Shambhala."

"Noted. This is acceptable. I have another mission for you which cannot wait; I will transport the weapon to Aran separately. In the meantime, continue to follow protocol regarding what you tell Ms. Ambrose."

"Another mission?"

"I will provide you with details upon your arrival. I have reason to believe this channel may not be completely secure. You may wish to inform Ms. Ambrose that you will be leaving the dimension."

"Understood."

He walked over to his new colleague; she was examining the sword with surprise.

"This doesn't look like a god-killing weapon," she mused. "Just seems to be an ordinary sword."

"Its power is sealed in this world. But we have no time to discuss it right now. My employer has sent us on another mission. We will be leaving shortly."

"Aren't we supposed to be giving this thing to that creepy bug guy?"

"That will be taken care of-"

He was cut off as they disappeared.

***

The Executor was well attuned to the Void between dimensions. As such, when a powerful object passed through it, particularly one headed towards a world he was already observing, he could not help but notice it.

At first, he attempted to interrupt the transfer entirely. But it soon became clear that the item's sender had other ideas; he could resist, but it took far more power than he was comfortable with using.

Relenting, he settled for merely disrupting its path. It seemed likely that someone was interfering with his battle; hopefully the object's new trajectory would impede their plans enough to discourage future attempts.

***

Soft looked at the sword that had crashed in front of her. Yes, this was clearly a weapon suited for a hero.

He just needed to earn it. As soon as she caught up to him, she would tell him that. And perhaps teach him a lesson about going in the right direction.

***

When Cole arrived at the next village, it was in ruins. Huts burned to the ground, bodies everywhere.

It was fairly obvious that one of his opponents had been this way. He idly wondered which one.

Then he saw a woman, badly wounded, lying against the ruins of a hut. She coughed and groaned; he walked over to her.

She muttered something incomprehensible, and pointed in a direction. Then the last of her strength gave out.

Cole could only hope she meant "they went that way". With nothing else to act on, he flew off in the direction she had indicated.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Not long after Balance left the village, he sensed that something was wrong.

The floating rocks arguing with each other were his first clue as to precisely what.

"I'm telling you, it's a lobster, not a scorpion!"
"Don't be absurd! Why would there be a lobster here? I don't think we even have an ocean."

That directed Balance's attention to the next oddity - the gigantic crustacean awkwardly flailing about on its back nearby. The first rock had been correct - it was, in fact, a lobster - but so out of its element as to be hopelessly out of place.

He sighed, and focused on the rocks, sapping them of their knowledge and placing them back on the ground; then he focused on the lobster, changing it to a scorpion and shrinking it in size. But something still seemed off. In fact, it seemed to be getting worse; two seconds later, a frog hopped past him, and was promptly gobbled up by a fly.

Balance gazed off in the distance. The horizon seemed to end in a mountain, no matter which direction he looked in. But was this not supposed to be a plateau? That implied a lack of mountains.

He looked at his scales; they were waving back and forth dangerously. There was something wrong with the balance of this world. But from the Executor's description, the Eternity Plateau had sounded remarkably balanced. Aside from this village's isolation by the others, which they were unable to fight back against until he had released the barrier...

Balance slapped his forehead. That was the problem. The balance of this world was so delicate that merely removing that barrier had thrown everything off. He would have to restore it, or at least counterbalance it. Unfortunately, he could sense new disruptions emerging nearby; he wouldn't be able to fix the barrier from here. He'd have to go to one of the villages involved and work from there. Naturally, it made sense to work from the closer one.


Upon re-entering the village, he sensed his own work, still recent. Traces of it remained; he could undo it quickly, restoring the state of both this village and the one that had produced the barrier.

Of course, the issue with restoring the barrier in such a way was that he would be inside it himself. That would prevent him from repairing the damage the others were doing, particularly Girnham.

After a moment's thought, he settled on the solution. He would restore the barrier now, undoing the damage from his first hasty attempt, and then take it down again, but this time he would do it more carefully, so that the balance would be maintained. It was the simplest and fastest approach.

He focused on his past actions, and undid them. The village was surrounded by a dome once more, much to the surprise of its inhabitants, who had just begun to make plans for using their newfound freedom. A crowd of them gathered around the god, and began shouting at him.

"Calm yourselves!" he said, holding up a hand. "This is only temporary. I made a crucial error before, this time I shall avoid it."

Grudgingly, the mob's jeers turned to grumbles as they hoped he wouldn't take too long about it. They simply stood and watched.

***

Carl sighed as he noticed the barrier go back up around his village.

"I told them. I told them it would be best to leave right away, but no, they insist on packing and planning. Well, their loss."

And so he wandered off. He had a lot of villagers to teach baseball to if he was going to get the Eternity League started.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

Balance drifted to the center of the village, resting his hammer on the ground and lifting his scales up to his torso. He blinked, and the dome reappeared, causing his scales to gravitate rapidly until they finally settled into a flat pattern. He sighed with relief, glad that he could still reset the situation so he could attempt to solve it properly.

Ignoring the groans emanating from the villagers at the reappearance of the dome, Balance sent out feelers to decide the best way to balance the removal of the haze from the shield. While it mostly blocked the view of the outside world, and the view of the inside from the outside, it also served as a bit of a beacon. Balance knew what he wanted to vanish from the equation - the impaired vision - so he elected to balance the equation by turning the decrease in opacity into an increase in the effectiveness of the beacon. He checked the idea with his scales. They remained flat, confirming that it would end in equivalent balance.

The haze quickly began to gather itself near the top of the dome, congealing into a nasty-looking cloud. When all the haze had gathered, the cloud it had formed expanded rapidly, turning into a dark cloud bank, roiling and twisting in place, but never straying from its spot above the village. It stood out blatantly against the clear blue sky, a black smudge hovering above the village.

Balance moved on to step two. To the naked eye, it appeared that the village was already freed from its entrapment, but Balance's eyes were far beyond such primitive assessments. There was still a field of isolation locking the town in place, making it impossible to leave. After thinking for a moment, he decided that the easiest way to solve this issue was to simply flip the entire equation. He lifted his scales again, and again they showed that his conclusion balanced out.

Strange machines materialized on the backs of each of the tribal dwellers in the village, shaped like a box, with a radio antennae on the end. They immediately began to power themselves by feeding on the energy of their hosts - not enough to kill, but enough to bring all the members of the village to their knees within seconds. The telepaths in the other village suddenly found their former mental net not snapped, but flipped inside out, leaving them with an isolation field encircling their village, one powered by the machines on the backs of the tribe who greeted Balance.

Balance strode out of the village, heedless of the villagers, who had found themselves in a new situation they were not very fond of, having unwillingly switched places with their captors. Those who had the strength cried out to him; those who did not simply moaned as he passed by. Balance ignored those who reached weakly for his ankles, already focused on correcting the next imbalance, mulling over the issue posed by Phil's band of zealots.

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

---

After a long while of heading in one direction, Cole finally saw smoke. Then he saw the village. Then he saw how devastated the village was.

He found himself in the middle of the ruins and he looked around. Collapsed huts and dead, scorched bodies littered the ground and it seemed that this time, there were no survivors left.

He stood there.

What the hell was he even doing?

He stopped and thought and realized after a few seconds that he really had no goal. At least, there was nothing set in front of him. There was nothing he felt he could do here, or really need to do, besides defend himself if it really came to that, but so far he hadn’t really met anybody—

“Hi there, lost wanderer!”

Oh.

Cole turned. Soft was standing there, leaning smugly on a burning wall like a 80s leather jacket punk, but without any of that. She seemed extremely unworried about all the fire.

She was also holding a sword, which he was sure that she didn’t have before. Maybe she took it out of her stupid giant book.

No doubt she was here to tell him what to do and order him around and endanger him for some stupid little lesson.

“What do you want?” he sighed.

“Weeeelllll you look kiiiinda lost, so I figured you might want some help!” She started swinging the sword around. The point sliced through the dust every so often.

“I’m not even going anywhere.”

“Yeah, exactly, ‘a wanderer without a purpose.’ You’ll come into town as a mysterious stranger and then—“ Soft stopped herself, suddenly staring upwards rather than at Cole’s buggy face. “…aaaanywaaaays, I know eeeeverything about this place. I can tooootally tell you where to go.”

“Where you want me to go,” Cole corrected irately. “Go away. I don’t want you around.”

Soft – and there was no other word for it – flounced her way to Cole’s side. “Awww, I know last time we met we didn’t leave on good grounds, but it’s okay, I forgive you.”

Cole snorted, but Soft deftly ignored it. When the man started to walk off, she swung the sword in front of him. It had an audible sharpness to it, which he thought was only in the movies.

“And look at you! You’re so confuuuused and loooooost, you need me.” (After all, who else knows how the story goes?)

“I was fine without you,” he spat.

“Fine! Fine! That was how you got so loooost in the first place! You walked away from me and you were pulled into a scheme you should have never been pulled into with the allure of a reward that you still haven’t gotten yet! And probably never will! You were planning on getting a powerful weapon but you haven’t planned on what to do if you didn’t have it! No wonder you’re so lost!”

Cole stepped to the side. The sword followed suit.

“But dooon’t worrrryyyyyy~ I’ve got eeevvverything under controool. Hey, wanderer, you know what this sword is?”

“What?” Cole asked, getting the sinking feeling that he already knew the answer.

Soft smiled up at him. “A god-killing weapon.”

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

---

In a vast, empty plain, a violent cry of frustration raced across the listless grass. A young woman stood alone, shoulders heaving with the effort of calming herself. She closed her eyes. Focus, she told herself, be calm. Be still.

The round change had caught her severely off-guard; the battle was proving somewhat more difficult for her to adjust to than she'd originally anticipated. And then there was that girl...

She'd been too reckess, to aggressive over the past two rounds. It was time to build, to think, to wait for the moment to present itself.

The girl scanned the horizon, and her eyes narrowed as she focused on something in the distance. She began to walk in that direction, as and she did so, she changed. Her face abandoned the narrow petiteness of "Amy", darkening in tone and strengthening in cheekbones, to assume features resembling one of Asian heritage. Her hair fell out, and she removed her clothing. Her body began to shrink, and lose some of its youthful roundness, becoming instead wiry yet muscled.

As she walked, finally abandoning the "Amy" identity, she contacted her brother, and informed him of the situation. Upon returning her attention to her battle, she allowed her new mouth a small grin, slightly excited to see precisely what he would do with the new information.

For now, though, she had other matters to attend to. You can tell a lot about a people by how they treat a naked stranger.

---

It was approaching dusk as the strange woman walked into the village. Like so many others on the Eternity Plateau, its inhabitants - immortal sages of mystical power, all - had never experienced change, newness. They had discovered all they could long ago, but this woman represented something outside of their knowledge. Word passed quickly as her figure was spotted approaching the village, and a silent gathering formed, awaiting her arrival. She walked up to them, uncaring as to her appearance, and stopped. For a while, nothing happened, as the woman and the villagers regarded one another. Then, as if by unspoken agreement, the villagers parted to let her in. They followed her to the village center, and brought out leather rags to cover her as they were so covered.

The sun continued to droop below the horizon as the villagers and the woman sat around a newly lit fire, and the immortal sages, ageless and knowledgeable as they were, sat in fascination of this newness that had found its way to them. The woman, for her part, remained silent throughout the night, yet the villagers learned much, in their own ways. They observed her actions, her slight reactions. They wanted to learn everything they could from their new guru. And the woman had much to teach them.

And so the young woman, now completely free of her old identity, was integrated into the village. While the other combatents attended to their various atrocities, the woman waited, and the villagers learned of her ways. Learned of secrecy. Anonymity. Illusion. Efficiency. Fascinating new concepts, all. The villagers ate up her teachings, infinitely wise to their meaning, incredibly naive to their purpose.

The villagers learned. The woman waited. When crack of blood-curdling screams and rumble of a thundering horde echoed across the plain, the woman knew her waiting was over.

---

Phil grinned as his helmet display zoomed in on a distant village. He'd been walking towards that weird storm cloud for a while now (it was the most interesting thing he could see anywhere so hey why not), and had unfortunately been experiencing some irregularity in his encounter with other villagers. His followers were getting rather bloodthirsty, bless their hearts. So when a new target presented itself, he was understandably happy. He turned to the horde behind him, raised his gun above his head, and with a righteous, fearsome howl, began the charge towards their newest conquest.


Three hours later, under a cloudy, starless night sky, he was severely disappointed. The inhabitants of this village had proved much less... run-away-and-screamy than previous. They had simply... surrendered to his oncoming horde, lying down flat on their stomachs. A few of Phil's men had killed some villagers out of spite, but their heart wasn't really in it; it's not the same to just stab some limp body on the ground.

So after taking the women, children and elderly as slaves, outfitting the men with weapons and making it very clear that disobedience meant death, Phil's horde moved on, still hungry for blood, unaware of the true nature of what it had just absorbed.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Reserved.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Of course she would end up with it, wouldn't she.

"Fine. I suppose I have little choice but to humor you. What great lesson must I learn in order to prove myself worthy of this sword, oh great Spirit?"

As expected, Soft completely ignored his sarcasm. She did seem a bit taken aback, though; she hadn't thought quite that far ahead.

Then she saw the spot of darkness in the sky. Ah, that must be important! Something so strange was certain to be relevant to the story. Perhaps it was going to be a blight on the land or it represented a ruler's cruel heart that needed to be calmed.

Regardless, she had to guide Cole to it. The story would become clear from there, obviously.

"Right!" she said, pointing to it. "Do you see that black spot in the sky? You must confront that darkness. When you have faced the challenges it poses - hey! Don't just fly off, wait for me to finish!"

"No."

"YOU HAVE TO LEARN HUMILITY AND RESPECT! GET BACK HERE AND BE HUMBLE AND RESPECT ME!" she shouted. But he was already gone.

Why did he have to be such a difficult hero to deal with? She sighed, and began to follow him towards the beacon.

***

After slaughtering another three villages, Phil was feeling better. That unsettling, quiet village had put him a little ill at ease, but seeing his conquest continue had mostly taken his mind off it.

So he was more than a little shocked when his army stepped in and were greeted by the words "PLAY BALL!"

Curious, he brought two men with him and motioned to the rest to stay at the village entrance. He wanted to watch this.

A tribesman stood on a small mound of dirt, holding a rock in his hands. In front of him, another was holding a large staff. Behind that man was a third, crouched and holding out his hands as if he expected to grab something; and a masked tribesman was watching them all.

The man on the mound threw his rock. The man with the staff swung, but the rock was too low and bounced off the ground, into the waiting hands of the crouching man.

"STRIKE ONE!" the masked man shouted.

Phil was taken aback. They spoke his language, and they were playing baseball. Just how many weird villages was he going to find around here?

***

Carl sighed. The second village wasn't picking it up as fast as the first. How was he even going to have a real game at this rate, let alone a league?

But he wasn't going to give up. He had a dream, and dammit, he was going to make it a reality.

Some distance away, outside the village's borders, a robin swooped down towards a fieldmouse and clutched the struggling rodent in its talons.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

Involved as they were in their game, it took the natives a few minutes to notice Phil and his horde standing and watching them. Phil, of course, was the only one familiar with the concept of baseball, and the bewildered faces of the villagers behind him made this abundantly clear. The umpire called a timeout. As the players stretched and wiped their brows, staring curiously at he newcomers, he walked up to Phil.

"Welcome to Obtanda!" he said warmly, hand held out expectantly. "I am Botan, leader of this village."

To his credit, Phil was caught slightly off-guard. He shifted his rifle to his left hand and shook Botan's hand, breaking off after several seconds when it was clear Botan wasn't entirely clear on how long a handshake was supposed to last. "Nice to meet you," he replied, deciding to go with something neutral. "Are you...playing baseball?"

Botan nodded approvingly. "Why yes, we are! I see you are one of the Enlightened."

Phil chuckled. "I don't see why knowing about a national pasttime qualifies me for enlightenment. I'd always been led to believe there was more to it than that."

"Ah, no, I must not have been clear. I did not intend to imply you were an Enlightened One, but that you were one of the Enlightened."

Phil took a moment to digest the sentence before deciding it wasn't helpful at all. "I...see. And you decided I'm Enlightened just because I knew about baseball?"

Botan shook his head. "You also speak the tongue of the Enlightened. I assumed only the Enlightened possessed this knowledge, with the exception of those they chose to teach it to, like us."

It clicked in Phil's head that whoever these Enlightened folk were, they spoke English and could play baseball, two things he was pretty sure were only evident on earth. "What'd the Enlightened who taught you baseball look like? Was he covered in bugs? Or was it a she?" He highly doubted either Julia or Cole would've been interested in teaching a village baseball, much less how to speak English, but it didn't hurt to check.

Botan looked taken aback. "Ah, neither of those descriptions fit. He was about as tall as that one." He walked up and gestured towards a man of about medium height in Phil's group of followers. The man began to raise his rock but Phil waved frantically at him, and he put it down in confusion. "And he was about as wide as...as..." He looked around, but none of the lean-to-emaciated villagers seemed to be of the right build. Finally, he settled for just spreading his arms out at his sides, indicating a slightly pudgy figure.

Phil sighed, wishing he had more to go on, the memory of the military dossiers he had once been accustomed to receiving on his targets came to mind. "That's good enough, I suppose." He grudgingly accepted that unless he wanted to start a real interrogation, he wasn't going to get much else out of the man, and doing an actual interrogation would take more time and resources than he was prepared to spend pursuing something he had no reason to believe wasn't just another dead end. Phil, and his mob of zealots, was proof that these villages didn't always know what they were talking about.

Botan grinned. "That is good." He gestured towards an area filled with clay benches fashioned into a crude set of bleachers. "Would you care to watch? It is the top of the eighth."

Phil paused. "Actually," he said slowly, an idea occurring to him. "Does either team have an opening?"

Botan took a moment to respond as well. "Would you like there to be one? Having an Enlightened play with us would be a great privilege."

Phil nodded. "Make it so."

A few minutes later, after the players were back in position and Phil's followers were crowding the makeshift bleachers, Phil stepped up to the plate, hefting a baseball bat made of what his suit identified as wood - a fact which confused him, as he had yet to see any trees. He patted the plate and choked up on the bat then prepared to swing, praying he hadn't gotten rusty in the...wow, nearly a decade since he'd last played. He took a couple practice swings - the bat was curiously heavy for being made of wood - and then nodded to the pitcher, who wound up and threw him a fastball.

A loud crack came from the bat as Phil connected with the ball, knocking it far off into the distance. Judging by the way the outfielders started to run after it, then stopped as they saw it sail over their heads, Phil decided it was a homer, and looked off into the distance to see how far it would go.

That was when he saw the dark cloud in the sky, which he didn't remember being there when the round had started. He knew instantly it had to be one of the other contestants - The Executor himself had said nothing new was supposed to happen in the Eternity Plateau. And as much fun as he was having reliving his memories at the moment, he knew he didn't want to stay in the Eternity Plateau any longer than he had to, which meant finding another contestant, and killing them as quickly as possible, was his best course of action.

He turned to Botan. "Sorry to cut this short, but I really have to go. Important Enlightened business." He was about to toss the bat to the village chief, then thought better of it. "I'll keep this, though," he said, hefting it over his shoulder. Having a melee weapon other than his rifle might be useful - he didn't want to risk breaking it by hitting it too hard on something.

He strode off towards the source of the disturbance in the sky, his followers leaping hastily off the bleachers to follow him.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Balance suddenly stopped in his tracks.

He could feel the imbalance approaching. Girnham was heading this way.

The god smirked. This imbalance might be simpler to correct than he thought. Destroying Girnham would only end the round before Balance could correct any remaining problems, but humiliating him in front of his followers was another matter. He could simply tell them that they had incurred the wrath of the gods by renouncing the old ways, and they would return to their old lives.

But before that, he would need to prepare. He had his limitations, after all. He needed to maintain the balance; his earlier carelessness had taught him that it was even more critical to watch his actions in the Eternity Plateau.

And so he thought.

From here, with some concentration, he could identify the precise size of Girnham's forces.

If there were an army equal in strength opposed to them, that would bring the system closer to equilibrium.

Balance turned to the south and walked towards a village in the distance. He had work to do before Girnham arrived.

A few minutes after he left, a small lizard meowed.

Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.

---

On a structure that could have been called a hammock or a plinth depending on how the viewer was looking at it, a beautiful woman rested, a beatific expression of serene calm gracing her otherworldly features. The reeds that had been woven to form her bed swayed gently in the calm breeze, and the twilit sky above reflected its ruddy-gold light off of every glint in her hair, on her skin, off her weapon. As the stars above faded into view and began their vigil, a similar watch was kept over the unmoving figure of fertility.

---

The Children of the Tree were rightly called that, as everyone knew; their power and stature had meant that they could do as they pleased, and none had been able to discipline or teach them. They had grown and stayed as children, filled with the pettiness and selfishness and shortsightedness of youth. Fearful and hateful, those who didn't share in their divine gifts smiled and tried to be forgotten or ignored, tried to let the children have their own way and have their fun. The time would eventually come when the Crow would see them gone, but before that day the Plateau was filled with worry and strife as the children had their parties and their fun.

---

The moon was rising in the sky above uncountable nearly-identical villages. Many of their inhabitants made to sleep, while many were just beginning to rouse themselves; some payed their devotions to the glowing sphere, believing various legends featuring it or trusting it to be watching over them; some simply watched it for a time, fingers trailing through the dust as they meditated on its glowing beauty. It was just another cycle in an endless world of endless repetition, and beneath its timeless celestial gaze the timeless rituals of a timeless people played out. But in one tiny hamlet, bowls of water and plates of dried fruits were placed at the feet of a mysterious interloper, a palpable aura of new hope hovering over the silent watchers huddled near what they had never dared to believe they might see again.

---

But for all that children are filled with spite and their own wants, they can also embody selfless and pure love, innocence, and the simple truths of happiness. And so it was with the Children. Callous and unthinking, most would treat the world like a toy that could be replaced if broken, but a rare few held in their hearts a true devotion to their duties or a gentle love for those they shared the Plateau with. They were well-loved in turn, and many treated as kind parents rather than the terrible god-kings most were viewed as.

---

Nearly unblinking eyes never tore their gazes from the nest of reeds even as the wheel of the heavens spun overhead. For hours, nothing happened and their hope was drawn taut across the scene; perhaps it wasn't what they had thought, or worse it was but she would never awaken. Not even the call of a night bird punctuated the darkness and stillness, and the village was filled with the quiet susurrus of breathing in silence. With no warning, as the moon was reaching its zenith, that tight thread of hope was plucked by an invisible hand letting loose a resounding note of change: the still woman's face shifted to an expression of consternation, and she waved a hand vaguely and half sat up. A dozen gasps sounded in tandem, and a dozen quietly disappointed exhalations followed as the woman fell back to her bed and back to her stillness. Though she hadn't truly risen, the watchers' resolve was stiffened: they knew she would wake now. They only had to wait.

---

On the day that the Crow had taken his creation to the children, the world had shuddered with their passing and their flight. And while hearts were lifted by the absence of the cruelly capricious, they shuddered with the world at the loss of those who had been kind and those who had been good. It was for the best, people told themselves. The world would heal, and those who had embodied love and fairness had been far outnumbered by those who would laugh as they collapsed mountains or flooded rivers. But for all that they knew things were better now, they never forgot the names of those who had touched their hearts.

Varela, Who Shapes the Clouds

---

Stars ceased their watching before the villagers; streaks of pink and orange spread from the horizon, warmly sending the twinklers to their beds.

---

Liamten, Who Paints the Beasts

---

As the moon ceded the sky to the sun and the last dredges of blackness faded to blues and whites, another stirring rose from the reeds.

---

Kirith, Who Sees the Moon

---

She shook as she roused herself, her eyes still closed as she sat up and reached to touch her face.

"Amala, Who Tends the Garden," exhaled an ancient man clutching a large fruit.

"Amala, Amala," came answering whispers.

"Mother Amala."

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

The viper coiled around the tree trunk, watching its target, slowly moving closer. It slithered up the tree to the branch where its victim lay.

It waited. Its prey would prove dangerous if provoked, but the viper was eager to sink its fangs into the succulent honey of the hive.

The bees flitting around their home moved inside. The viper moved closer, edging forward carefully.

Then, it opened its mouth wide, and lunged forward.

Its jaws snapped shut on empty air.

The viper looked around, puzzled, hungry, and frustrated. It slipped down to the ground and decided to hunt for easier prey.

Meanwhile, the hive reappeared on a rock some fifty feet away. A few drones flew out, and warped away, scouting for a better spot for the hive.

***

Cole's journey was suddenly interrupted as he found himself flying into absolutely nothing. Curious, he looked down; there seemed to be a village below.

A strikingly empty and familiar village, in fact. He had seen the layout of the huts before, and the lack of people outside of them suggested that this was the village where his journey had begun.

Wonderful. He had gone around in a circle. He dropped to the ground for a closer look.

He couldn't re-enter the village, not that he had a particular reason to; the invisible force keeping him from flying over seemed to extend to the ground, as well. That was strange.

Hadn't the old men mentioned something about a barrier? Perhaps they'd decided to simply keep the unknowns out of their own village, and not worry about the rest of the Plateau. Well, as long as they weren't playing gods to the place any more, Cole hardly cared.

He carefully walked around the village, reasoning it would be easier to work out where he couldn't go on the ground rather than the air, where there was nothing to navigate by except the beacon. As he felt his way around the barrier, he heard a buzzing sound; he sighed as he felt the now-familiar zap as whatever insect it was struck him. He had plenty of bees, wasps, and flies of all variety already; what use was another one?

Finally, he found his way to the other side of the barrier. He looked towards the beacon and readied his wings.

"And let me guess, that way is east," he muttered to himself as he took to the air once more.