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MalkyTop · 05-19-2011, 06:07 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

Sarika thought about calling out Lillian’s name but ultimately decided against it as shouting would probably draw unwanted attention. That, and she had just seen herself draw unwanted attention by shouting. Another layer of headache laid itself atop the pile of migraines that had already made themselves at home, but really, what was another headache or two? It was almost a normal state for her to be in now. She could probably get used to it. She should. How else could she be sure to survive? For Lillian’s sake, of course.

Whispering didn’t attract unwanted attention. Sarika whispered “Lillian!” and then immediately realized how stupid she looked before deciding that if looking stupid helped her find Lillian, then it was probably better to look stupid. She tried going up another staircase, whispering ‘Lillian’ all the way.

And then, on the next floor, a tiny voice from the future replied, “Hello?”

Sarika blinked and paused before cautiously whispering, “Lillian?”

“Hello?”

Behind that door!

Sarika probably had never shoved a door open so hard before. She caught a glimpse of too-white hair and too-large eyes and too-pale skin before the image solidified into Lillian and she scooped up the girl in a fluffy embrace, weight be damned.

The smell….the smell wasn’t right…

Sarika let her go to allow her to gasp with delightful surprise, “Bird lady!” and she hugged her back the smell, the smell… and she stepped back again, her smile reaching her grey eyes. Had they always been grey?

“I’m so glad you’re alright,” Sarika said despite her increasing sense of anxiety. “You didn’t…nothing happened to you, right? You haven’t…you’re not hurt, or…”

“I’m fine.” Lillian continued to beam brightly. “Where’s the big bad man?”

“Marcus? You mean Marcus?” Why would she—wait, was it because…? “He’s not here.” How should she say this? “He’s...not a bad man. He wants to help.” Oh dear Hora, did that sound too condescending?

“But where is he?” Sarika wished that the growing sense of unease would just stop already.

“I don’t know,” she replied. Lillian’s expression changed slightly, causing her unease to skyrocket. Maybe she should—

Before she could blink, she found out first-hand how horribly painful having her implants being ripped out was. Not-Lillian dug into her arm like a wild animal, gripped her teeth around the thin wire, and tore it out. As soon as her blood smeared on the monster’s face, the illusion was broken and Sarika didn’t feel bad at all in kicking her away. Shit. It took out the staff arm. It took her staff.

Unarmed, Sarika turned to run away, but the girl-beast tripped her with her staff and grabbed onto her leg. The bird-woman took off her headdress and whacked it with it ineffectually until it simply got annoyed and started pulling on it to wrench it from her grasp. Sarika let go, making it tumble over backwards, and resumed running away with her mangled arm.

The creature washed its face for the second time today and put the headdress on. Twirling the staff around, it hoped that the bird-lady wouldn’t come across the big bad man first. It would be so troublesome.

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Stepping back a few moments ago, Lillian found herself in a room full of treasure chests. She had pretended to ignore them and sat down, afraid of what might happen next, unsure of what to do now, longing for things she lost. After a long while, she stood up and curiously explored the chests to get her mind off things. They seemed to be unlocked, which was a little careless, really. The first one she opened was full of gold. Now that was really careless. She closed the lid. After everything that had happened, she didn’t want to turn into a thief as well.

One chest was shaking and she studied that next. Was there something in it? Was there a poor animal trapped inside? Or a person? It looked too small to be a person…but it could still be a poor animal and if a poor animal was trapped inside, she should let it out.

She quickly learned that it was not a poor animal but a monster that looked like a treasure chest. As the Spirit pushed back its attack, she ran screaming out the door.

Now, she was in a smaller room. It reminded her of a closet. It was completely void of mean monster treasure chests. It was also completely void of friends, which she realized she dearly needed right now.

The door opened and Lillian jumped to her feet. The figure that stood in the doorway was unmistakably Sarika’s it’s not her it’s not her it’s not her. Sarika paused for a moment before running in and scooping up the girl in a cold fluffy embrace get away get away get away.

It was hard to concentrate with the Spirit raising every alarm it could raise. She was happy to see a familiar face. She was scared of…of…

Sarika let her go. “I’m so glad you’re alright,” she said, apparently not noticing Lillian’s increasing sense of anxiety. “You didn’t…nothing happened to you, ri—“

The Spirit finally gave her a sharp shove and the bird woman stumbled. She looked furious hurt. Lillian stared at her before running out of the room. Despite the Spirit lying to her, with fake monster treasure chests and not-Sarikas, maybe it was the only one she could trust here.

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**Pinary** · 05-28-2011, 01:49 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

As Lloyd slowly made his way around the room, checking thoroughly for the magical residues that would indicate that an illusion was covering an exit, his mind wandered.

"Mr. Conrad, welcome! Please, take a seat."

"Ah, Mr. Nameless-Font-of-Information, nice to see you!" He clapped the vaguely-described man on the shoulder, kicked off his rather muddy boots, and flopped down into the available recliner. "You people have excellent timing, you know. After running around that moor for days on end, a nice, relaxing chat sounds just about right."

"What were you doing running around a moor?" The man's tone was as nondescript as the man himself- interested and curious, certainly, but not overly so.

"Oh, the usual. I brought up a big, ill-behaved dog from London and ran him around a bit. Saw that Watson fellow again- I take it he's from a series?"

"Indeed. Arthur Conan Doyle's 'Sherlock Holmes' series, spanning four novels and fifty-six short stories. When did you see him before?"

"Oh, that had to be years back. One of the first books I set foot in, I think. A man named Drebber was murdered (poisoned, if I remember correctly), and Holmes came fairly close to figuring the whole thing out. He nearly figured me out as well- not as being from another fiction or anything, but as some foreigner who came in and inexplicably tried to obscure things. Now there was some fun- I tell you, if you SCP folks reading this could drop me in the rest of his stories along the way, that'd be much appreciated." He pulled the old magnifying glass from his pocket and twirled it around his fingers.
-Excerpt from The Fifth Interview, Dr. Werrington. (Post-transference)

Lloyd smiled a bit as he recalled his encounters with the brilliant detective. The personnel deciding on his books had done just as he'd asked, littering his future with chances to go up against him. The short story collections had been quite fun- going back and forth with Holmes was one of the most challenging things he'd done.

He didn't have much longer to reminisce, however, as he soon found himself peering at a vertical line of passive magic. Looking past it, he could see, quite clearly, a seam in the wall. It took a fair bit of effort just to look at it- every second he stared at the seam, the pressure to look away increased. Reaching out, he tried to touch it, but his hand merely slid to one side. He tried again. Again, his hand slid away.

Focusing inward, holding his hand steady, he tried again. He felt himself start to slide to one side, stopped, and drew in a breath. "Dispel," he murmured, his voice coming out entirely silently.

Magic works differently from place to place. In some worlds, it's an energy innate to every living thing and being shaped by certain skilled user by pure effort of will. In others, it's a manifestation of the strength of one's soul, guided by one's unconscious wishes into forms the caster can't really consciously control.

To the natives of the world the competitors were currently occupying, magic was simply an expression of one's voice. Some fraction of any words be uttered verbally, making vibrations in the air that others could hear. The remainder would instead move out on a separate plane, vibrating the magical energies that flowed around everything. Most human spellcasters were lucky to get half of their voice expressed as a spell. Elves, as distinctly magical creatures, lived at that point normally. Complete auditory silence, while not exactly rare among them, was at least something of note.

The counterspell whispered out of Eloyd'k, grabbing the shroud from the passage and yanking it cleanly away.

The pressure on him to go somewhere else please was suddenly lifted, and before him stood a clean stone archway, nothing particularly unusual-looking about it. Just a typical archway, leading down a boring old hallway. It doesn't know what you're talking about, it's just been sitting here, hanging out, relaxing, you know, that sort of thing.

Reaching inside his robe, Lloyd pulled out the magnifying glass he'd swiped from his favourite detective so long ago and set to work examining the area around the arch.

"What are you doing?" Karen, done with her prize, had come over to join Lloyd by the newly-revealed exit.

"Well, I'm not a rogue, and unless you multiclassed in that as well, we've got exactly one way of checking to make sure this passage won't collapse on us the moment we step through or some such."

"Alright, fine, fair point. You really think there's going to be a trap here, though? I mean, it was already hidden. Does it need another layer of protection?"

"Look." Lloyd shot her a glare. "Have you lived in this particular universe for years? Do you know what sorts of things the dungeon master likes to put in his modules? No? Well, when we land in your game for a round, you can put your hours and hours of experience to work pointing out the places where the game designers are likely to put traps. For now, though- Oh, hell." Lloyd lowered his already-quiet voice to nearly a whisper. "I don't care if you trust me or not, I just need you to close your eyes. Do it now."

"Wh-"

Lloyd spoke up again, doing his best to raise his voice as loud as he could. "Lillian? Be careful up there, we'll get you down, don't worry. Just hang on, okay?"

"Wait, Lillian?" Karen turned around to follow Lloyd's gaze. There, standing close to the end of one of the hallways Karen's destructive spell had blasted up through, just two levels up from the two, was the little girl, looking more scared and shaken than either of them had seen her.

Predictably, when the girl caught sight of Karen's glowing red eyes, she shrieked and ran back the way she'd come.

"Dammit."

"You could've told me she was there!"

"I wasn't clear enough who I was talking to up there?!"

"Whatever, just come on! He have to catch up with her!"

Before Lloyd could respond, Karen had already leapt up to the top of a nearby piece of rubble, making her way up to the hallway. Lloyd, swearing, shoved the magnifying glass back into his robe and started after her.

MalkyTop · 06-04-2011, 12:44 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

The pain. Oh, merciful Hora, the pain. They took away many things, but why couldn’t they take away pain?

…She was bleeding all over the place. In a giant castle with traps and monsters. With no weapon.

Well, shit.

Was she dying? Was she going to die? She couldn’t die yet, no, no no no…

Was she already seeing the future? She couldn’t remember. She might be already. No, she stopped a while back, didn’t she? No, no future vision, it’ll just confuse her more.

She wanted her staff back. She wanted her headdress back. She wanted her arm back.

Maybe she shouldn’t have left Karen.

A rustle up ahead. Sarika tried not to complain too loudly and stayed back, waiting to see if it was another monster or just her imagination. If it was a monster, she was dead. If it was her imagination, that probably meant she was slowly losing it as a result of extreme blood loss and thus would die soon. She didn’t really feel confident in her future.

Or…it could be a floating rosebush alien.

“Y-you!” Sarika managed to gasp. She honestly didn’t really remember the rose bush’s name and she had never asked, but it hadn’t attacked Lillian the last time she hung around it for an extended period of time, so it probably wasn’t too bad. Even if it didn’t talk much. “M-my arm, I need h-help…”

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Reudic couldn’t say that the round so far had been interesting. There were beasties and monsters, of course, sure, but, well, he could be considered a monster himself. He would fit right in, actually.

So mostly the bush had been roaming around aimlessly, looking around for someone familiar. Eventually, he came across the bird woman.

“…I need h-help.”

…Who was she talking to?

Reudic slid right in front of her and just stared at her for a bit. She continued pleading, apparently to him now.

“There—there was a monster, something with…with illusions…I almost died…you, you can help, right…?”

Reudic continued to stare impassively, although he was getting an idea about—

“Awk!” Sarika yelped, clutching her arm and stumbling back a bit. Reudic watched as she started breathing more slowly until she seemed calm enough to stand up straight. Blood continued to drip onto the floor rather rhythmically. “Alright,” she said, sounding in charge once again. “That thing seemed to want to get Marcus specifically, so I think we ought to warn him. And the others too if—Awk!”

Reudic had finally figured out what was going on and had snaked a tendril into Sarika’s gushing arm, releasing his toxins, which was really the only thing he had that could actually do anything in this situation. Then he completely deadened all pain she felt.

Sarika blinked. Then she rubbed her arm and winced in a very expectant way, though she didn’t feel a thing. Which meant she blinked again. “Oh. Okay. Silly me. Well, we should find the others now.”

The bird woman went back the way she came from and Reudic trailed lazily behind. Sarika was being amazingly lucid after getting an arm full of hallucinogenic toxins. Of course, maybe this was a delayed effect. Reudic couldn’t help but feel that he should be around if the effect ever took hold.

Many people probably couldn’t help but wonder how hallucinogens would affect future vision. Many people weren’t Reudic.

GBCE · 06-07-2011, 08:51 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by GreyGabe.

Marcus fired another round into the thing’s head, marveling at its durability. Finally though, the leonine creature stopped dragging itself towards him, and slumped to the ground in a foul-smelling heap. Marcus shook his head. He still wasn’t entirely sure why he had set off on his own, aside from the nagging feeling that there was something he needed to take care of.

Plus, he was somewhat irked at Karen. Like he had never been pushed out of the way of enemy fire before. Like he hadn’t worked with woman soldiers before. And sure, maybe he had let her linger a little, but when you live on a cramped ship with several other men (and to be fair, one woman, but Syl kept her comings and goings fairly private, and seldom deigned to converse with her fellow mercenaries) you could be expected to be a bit… but anyway that had not been what was going on! He was just dazed. From the fall. Yes. And anyway, he was old enough to be her father. Girl had her mind in the gutter. Shame, shame, shame on her.

Marcus suddenly snapped out of his reverie, finding he had been wandering down a long, dimly lit corridor. Better stop that, Marcus, he thought to himself, not a good habit to get in. Getting mired in your own head’ll get you killed. He stepped over a poorly hidden trip wire, past the much more cleverly hidden pressure plate, and found himself at another intersection. A corridor ran off to the side in two directions, and directly ahead were a pair of large, heavy wooden doors. Shrugging, Marcus gave the doors a shove. They didn’t budge. Hanging the Retribution over one shoulder, he drew back, took a deep breath, and slammed his shoulder into the door. It gave way with a dull cracking sound, the doors squeaking on their hinges.

The room he found himself in was rather large, and filled with an impressive number of dead people. It was fairly obvious that the room was a dining hall, and that there had been a rather expansive feast in progress when whatever happened, happened. From the fact that everyone was still seated, Marcus was guessing poison was somehow to blame. Whatever it was must have been rather sudden, or completely painless, judging from the fact that the desiccated corpses were still mostly seated. At one end of the room, a table sat up on a large dais, and behind it a large chair. The figure there looked somehow better preserved than the rest of the bodies, but not by much. It wore faded, threadbare silken clothes and perched upon its brow sat a dully gleaming golden crown, and on the table in front of it was a golden scepter, which looked to be set with sapphires. Marcus grinned. Souvenirs! As he was about to head that way, he heard the patter of footsteps behind him, accompanied by heavy breathing. Marcus darted to one side of the door, and listened as whatever it was grew closer. He jerked back as it dashed past him into the room, suddenly skidding to a halt. It, or rather, she uttered a high-pitched squeak and turned to run right back out when she saw Marcus standing next to the door. Lillian gasped and took a step back, looking like nothing so much as a hunted animal. Marcus held out his hands to show he wasn’t going to hurt her.

“It’s okay, kid. Just, just calm down. You’re okay now, I can help you.”

Lillian looked somewhat skeptical, but relaxed slightly.
Marcus took a few steps toward her. “What happened? You get attacked by one of the monsters in this place?”

Lillian shifted from foot to foot, occasionally glancing past Marcus into the hall behind him.
“…Kind of, yes…”

“What do you mean, kind of?”

“Well, I—“

She was cut off by a second set of footsteps, rapidly approaching.
Marcus turned, hand on the butt of one of his pistols.
“…Sarika?”

“Marcus? Is that you? And… Lillian? Are you two alright?”

“Yeah, we’re fine! What about you, you look like hell!”

“I’ll be fine, now that I’ve found you two…”

Sarika made her way closer, leaning on her staff for support.

Marcus moved forward to help her, but stopped when he felt a small hand grab onto his.

“No! That’s not the bird-lady! It’s not!”

Marcus glanced at Lillian, seeing the terror plainly in her eyes. Then he glanced back at Sarika just in time to see a flash of something cross her features. Something dark and cruel. But then her gentle, pained smile was back.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about! Maybe there are shapeshifters in this old castle? You know how they like to move into these old, empty buildings.”

Marcus firmly but gently pulled his hand out of Lillian’s, and patted her on the head (Lillian hated it when grownups did that).

He took another step towards Sarika.
“Sarika, have you seen Dekowin anywhere? I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her this entire round.”

Sarika shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “Can’t say I have, Marcus. Let’s look for her together.”

Marcus nodded as if in agreement, then drew his pistol and fired three rounds. Not-Sarika took one shot to the shoulder before sliding sideways. Suddenly, Sarika’s appearance was replaced with that of a pale, strange young woman, whose unsettling appearance was rendered somewhat amusing by Sarika’s headdress, which she quickly tossed aside along with the staff. Marcus wondered how she had managed to get a hold of those.

Perhaps the girl-thing noticed the object of his concern, because she grinned evilly. “You know, she screamed…” The girl thing examined her wound nonchalantly. “Before I killed her. She screamed and screamed. But nobody came to save her.” The thing stuck two fingers in the bullet hole, and extracted the bullet, flicking it to the floor.

Marcus yawned. “Uh-huh. Sure. I totally believe you. You heartless thing, you.”

“Don’t believe me?” The thing shrugged. “It matters not. You’ll soon be able to ask her yourself. I don’t appreciate it when mere mortals enter my chambers without leave. And I cannot abide a human who goes rifling through my things, who murders my poor servants in cold blood!”

Marcus stared blankly at her for a moment, before he figured out what she was talking about. “In cold blood!? You’re kidding me. They were going to eat me!”

“Well, yes. They do get rather hungry, you know.”

Marcus holstered his pistol and swung the Retribution around. “Fine. You want to fight? Let’s fight.”

She grinned, revealing a set of pointed teeth. “Good! Have at you!”

Marcus didn’t even have time to line up a shot before she was in front of him, slashing out with one hand. Even though her nails didn’t look very sharp, they left four straight furrows on the chest plate of his armor. Marcus swung out with a swift back-hand, but the thing had already backed out of range. And why, exactly, Marcus thought as he began to fire, do I keep running into things that can dodge bullets?

Marcus hoped that Lillian had taken cover somewhere safe, because he couldn’t risk taking the time to check. His shots kept missing, and the thing was darting in again and again, leaving little nicks and scratches all over his armor, but ignoring his exposed face and neck. It was toying with him!

He waited, and when it darted in again, he swung the Retribution down… only to have it unceremoniously torn from his grasp, the strap hanging loosely around his shoulder breaking free. The rifle was tossed aside, and the girl-thing slammed one hand against his chest, sending him flying backwards onto one of the tables. Ancient dishes and bits of corpses went flying. Marcus leapt to his feet, drawing one of his combat knives and brandishing it in front of him.

“My, my. A knife! Oh, truly I am stricken with terror!” She laughed, and walked forward. “I do wish I didn’t have to end this so soon… you have such interesting memories, memories of other worlds and battles waged in the black sea of stars…”

Marcus’s eyes widened.

“And such battles! Buildings, cities reduced to rubble! Millions killed in the blink of an eye, many more left to suffer… it is glorious. You remember, of course. You remember their faces, their grimaces of pain, the chorus of their screams!”

“It wasn’t like that!”

“Not to you, perhaps. But to me, it is like a feast! Perhaps I won’t kill you, not immediately. Perhaps I will keep you for a time, and sup on the echoes of death that hide, locked away in your mind.”
She was only a few paces away, now. Marcus moved towards her, pulling back the knife… and stopped. It was her.

The girl from the hospital. He remembered, of course… he could never escape it, no matter how much he wanted to. He had seen many horrors during the war, both before and since, but this one had been the worst. The rebels had taken over a hospital in the city of Nith, a prosperous colony that had done its best to stay out of the war. They had rigged the building with explosives, planning to use the civilians to stave off Armada aggression. It didn’t work. It might have, if not for the fact that an important rebel general wasn’t the one in charge of the operation. If the rebels hadn’t just destroyed an Imperial space station a few months prior, killing hundreds of thousands of Armada personnel and their families. If Nith had declared for the Empire rather than trying to stay out of things entirely. It might have worked, or maybe things would have ended up just the same. Long story short, the hospital and several city blocks around it blew, killing thousands and trapping hundreds more. The Armada troopers on the ground (the ones not killed in the blast, anyway) rushed in to provide relief, digging through the debris for survivors. It was… Marcus had not been prepared for it. There were too many trapped people and not enough marines to get to them all. Marcus had found the girl by chance, as much as anything. There was too much rubble, though. He could see her, he could almost reach her, but he couldn’t get her out. He yelled for her to hold on, but he could tell she was bleeding, that…

She died with Marcus and five other marines only a few feet away. They couldn’t dig fast enough, couldn’t get to her in time to stem the bleeding. Marcus sat by as they wheeled her remains away.
And now she stood before him, her face smeared with dirt and ash, her blonde hair matted with blood. The knife dropped from his limp fingers.

Lillian watched, confused, from her place underneath one of the tables. She had been reluctant to squeeze between the skeletal remains, but the Spirit had urged her on. It seemed that the Not-Sarika had forgotten all about her. But why wasn’t Marcus killing it? Why was he just staring at it? Why wouldn’t he move?

MalkyTop · 06-25-2011, 01:42 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

So exactly…why did he do that?

“Also, thank you so much Re…Re…it starts with an ‘r,’ right?”

It would have been easy to just kill her, really. And technically, it would be helping her. Helping with all that pain, of course.

“’m not racist…I don’t mean to be…I mean, we haven’t done much together…I guess…do you talk…? Not that I think you wouldn’t because you’re a plant.”

But he also had to think about the future. He was pretty much the only non-humanoid contestant left. And, he had to admit, probably the most suspicious/least trustworthy/what-have-you. Or at least, that was possibly the others’ opinions of him. Maybe.

“…What would plants do for a girls’ night out…?” Sarika mumbled rather dreamily.

In any case, Reudic couldn’t help but think that it would be very useful having another contestant probably under his control.

“…Do plants giggle…?” she continued before turning to gaze at the floating rosebush beside her. “Do they?”

She stumbled and fell to the floor for the fourth time since they had started walking together. For some reason, she couldn’t help but burst into much-too-loud laughter.

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It was strange. He was just standing there. It was certainly the most…uh…tender? Was that a good word for it? It was the most whatever-the-word-was that she had ever seen him.

For a moment, Lillian’s mind couldn’t help but whirl. For a moment, she couldn’t help but think that this wasn’t Marcus, like how the treasure chest wasn’t a treasure chest and how Sarika wasn’t Sarika and how Karen wasn’t—well, actually she still wasn’t sure about that one, really, so it was more like how Karen didn’t seem like Karen.

But that was a silly thought.

Still, if the biggest, strongest guy around here wasn’t actually so big and strong, then what did that mean? What did all those things he had said mean? Nothing?

No, it can’t be. He was still big. And strong. And also sort of scary, honestly.

And if he didn’t snap out of it right now, he was going to, to…

“Ma-MARCUS!” Lillian shrieked from her hiding place. Despite her stutter, the shout was good and loud. Two faces snapped towards her, one surprised and one annoyed. Lillian tried to huddle away from the annoyed face. The surprised face turned away again, perhaps no longer surprised.

Then the doors suddenly burst open.

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“Sssshhh, shh,” Sarika said, holding up a feathered arm to motion Reudic to stop. The plant hadn’t even said anything. It continued doing so. “Something smells funny.”

Reudic had no idea why one would have to be silent when it came to smells.

After a pause, Sarika straightened again. “…No, actually it smells normal. Lemon smells are normal, right? I think that’s lemon. Do you actually smell? Besides of roses, I mean. The other smell. Wait! What was that!” Before Reudic could say anything, she added, “But it’s right there!”

“I don’t see anything,” he said before remembering why he hadn’t really talked much in the first place. Bothering to say anything at all resulted in very tedious time shenanigans he didn’t particularly want to go through.

“Maybe it’s Lillian?” she said hopefully before apparently remembering the last time she thought it was Lillian. In the meantime, Reudic kept watching. He saw nothing. Sarika touched her still-bleeding arm, then forced herself not to, then touched it again. “Maybe we should still check.”

Reudic was rather certain this would be a waste of time. Still, having an injured bird high on toxins chasing nothing was far safer than having an injured bird high on toxins chasing something.

“Let’s,” said Sarika.

“Let’s go,” said Reudic.

GBCE · 07-08-2011, 08:14 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.

Karen gracefully leapt across fallen debris that had once served as ceilings and floors in the ancient hallways. This part of the castle was a lot for furbished than the decrepit dungeon she had started in. To her left, where she had seen Lillian retreat was a wooden door with iron hinges. To think that the little girl would be surprised by a change of eye colour after all she had seen in the battle already. Karen began walking down the hall as Lloyd finally hauled himself up. On both sides of the wall, large, golden framed mirrors hung. Karen briefly offered a side glance at them, but stopped in her tracks. Her eyes, which she had just assumed had changed the colour of her iris, like she was used to seeing in the player killers in her game, but instead her eyes actually glowed, illuminatingly bright crimson. What caused her reaction to be so severe was a mystery to her, and her hand automatically felt the area around her eyes. She fed a little of her magic into her hand, attempting to do something to decrease the brightness. She whished she had some sort of interface to work with, but this she felt was like a “hardcore” setting. She recoiled from the thought, once again she was thinking about a deadly setting like a videogame. Those thoughts were dangerous.
When she lifted her hand, her eyes no longer glowed with as much fierceness, yet the iris remained pretty bright. It was good enough, she thought. It was only until the period of her being a “fair kill” ran out. She decided that the nature of what her eye colour meant was a pretty important fact to omit to anyone who asked. She risked a glance at Lloyd, who was silently complaining about something. She briefly wondered what it was like to go from a word and imagination game to physical reality when a shape appeared in the distance behind him. It took Karen a second to realize it was Sarika. She raised her arm, hoping Sarika would notice, when she remembered that if Sarika was going to notice, she’d have done so before even needing to try to get her attention. Or something like that. Karen never really bothered working her head around it. She just usually decided to do or not do something that Sarika had seen depending on her mood. Sarika did notice eventually, and began jogging towards them. She stopped a few feet from Lloyd, and peered over the large gap in the floor, seemingly taken aback.

“Hey Sarika, I was wondering when you would catch up.”

“Oh, hey, uh, what happened to the floor… and the ceiling and oh my word….” Her goggled eyes peered upwards to find the image of the sky where ceiling should be.

“Nothing much, giant monster, immune to my magic, had to break a lot of stuff. The usual, but I got a new sword out of it.” She, twisted slightly, allowing the huge blade barely managing to balance in its black leather sheath to show off. Sarika edged across what little of the floor still left hanging from the walls to join to duo.

“Oh, we also saw Lillian, but…” Karen stopped talking, but Lloyd, quiet as he was, continued the sentence for her.

“But she ran away after seeing Karen.”

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So her name is Karen. She has destroyed my home, bested the Argent One, and stolen its sword. I’ll kill her, and her annoying companions too. Sister, you saw a girl enter did you not?

Yes.

So that must be this “Lillian”

The male is Marcus it seems.

No need to name him, you have the upper hand.

Yes, sister.

The interlopers must die. I’ll make sure this girl doesn’t interfere with your fight, and then I’ll kill the pointy eared one.

This Marcus didn’t believe I killed the feathered one.

Denial, most likely.

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“So that leaves Marcus and Reudic unaccounted for.” She surmised, turning once more to face the doorway. The mimic quickly closed the distance between them, intending to just run her through with one strike, but Karen pivoted on her foot a lot faster than she expected. Suddenly her face was mere inches away from her own, that silent, tired looking eye gazed back at it. The eye showed no emotion, just indifference. But the mimic could see more, behind the eye. While her sister saw images, she saw words, emotions and sometimes raw thought. Karen’s mind was far from silent. One part of her mind was complaining of the pain in her body, another focusing on her replenishing supply of “magic”, another telling her that she had the physical reserves to move for quite some time, she even knew just how much money she was carrying to the smallest currency. The mimic threw these thoughts aside before they threatened to deafen her mind. It reached out deeper to siphon Karen’s current personal thoughts. She was remembering something recent, and a mixture of surprise, loneliness, and joy surfaced from it. Was it to do with the person it was imitating? With no chance to attack with Karen able to react so fast, she plummeted into her body. Karen grabbed at its shoulders, but it leaned onto her, almost hugging. Lloyd raised an eyebrow at this but said nothing. The mimic gave off a quick apology, but delved deeper into Karen’s mind. There, again the same mixture of emotions that she had felt from her memory. Her heartbeat quickened. So this Karen was a shy girl after all, even with her brave demeanour. But something else occurred in Karen’s mind. A revelation. Suddenly her shy excitement turned into a battle ready one.
The mimic drew back enough to look into Karen’s face, which was no longer masking her emotions. She was angry, and with her eyes blazing, she struck fear into the mimic.

“You weigh too much. Sarika wouldn’t have tripped. You are not her.”

Throwing away the plan, the mimic rammed its arm into Karen’s belly, having already made use of the metallic shape of the arm to form a clawed deadly version that would rip out the girl’s organs. It impacted, and just as it tried to tear away at the flash, merely scraped the cloth of her dress, and heard a metallic scraping noise from underneath.

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

Karen was holding onto a fake. A creature of the world. A copycat. Sarika was featherweight but this thing weighed more than Karen did. It had assumed the metal arms were made of iron, a much heavier metal than Sarika had. It also hadn’t copied the bird like anatomy of her perfectly. It also didn’t know of her future-sight. And now it was trying to kill her. Karen was glad she kept the small amount of armour under her clothes hidden because it had just saved her life. There was nothing but some chainmail around her torso and the embarrassing looking thing that served as her lower armour. It revealed so much of her legs that she wore the dress over it. The sexism with the warrior class had always annoyed her. They looked like hot-pants for crying out loud. Practical for running sure but there was no chance she was letting anyone know they were there.

With the chain keeping her organs in their proper place, she had to get the mimic away. It was too close to draw her sword, too close for fire too. So Karen planted her feet and performed an uppercut while covering her fist in stone. She punched the mimic in the chin with a horrible breaking noise, and leapt back when it fell away. She couldn’t remember much of the abilities of her brawler class, too many patches and skill changes in the game she never took note of. But she definitely remembered all the fighting moves her mother had taught her. As the mimic regained its footing Lloyd thrust his palm out, sending a strong pulse of magic, launching the mimic off of its feet and sending it crashing through the wooden doorway. Karen nodded a quick thanks to Lloyd before drawing her sword. She rushed through the doorway, and stood shocked to see not only the mimic and Lillian, but Marcus and an unknown female present as well. Marcus seemed to take the commotion better than the rest and tossed a knife upwards and caught the blade before he threw it at the girl. She stepped to the side, keeping her eyes on the knife as he drew his pistol. By the time she recovered the gun was level. She managed to slip out of his sights as he pulled the trigger, a bullet streaming across the room. As it connected in the far wall Karen charged the mimic, who was taking a new form. By the time Karen had taken a second step it had taken the form of a young blonde woman, who was both beautiful and strong looking. Karen didn’t even flinch as she brought the sword down on the creature that dared to take the form of her mother. The mimic shifted its shape to something thinner as it barely missed being cleaved. Karen’s sword didn’t collide with the floor as she stopped its momentum with her powerful arms. As the mimic attempted to claw at her she brought her arm up, bringing a pillar of flame between herself and it. It drew back, surprised, and Karen spun her body around, giving her sword a wide arc to build speed. It came down once more from above, once more barely missing the monster. Karen had no time to focus on Marcus as she began to realise she didn’t have the tools for the job. She planted her right foot and twisted her body around, throwing her sword in a horizontal spin towards a point in the room that could both hit the mimic and miss her ally’s. The mimic ducked low, letting the huge blade pass over its head, but soon found Karen holding a katana. She had drawn it at the last second, and was already striking. It came down across the shoulders of the mimic, causing it to shriek in pain. It looked her in the eye, focused, angry. Suddenly, the girl that Marcus was fighting was thrown into its path, and they collided. Karen saw her begin to change shape, and she realised that they had both been mimics. Marcus had drawn his shotgun and was pointing it directly at them.

“I wouldn’t move if I were you. At this range I don’t even have to aim. These are some very special bullets after all.”

The mimics shared a look with each other, and remained still.

“So, what’s the deal here exactly?”

“Hungry”The mimic that Karen hadn’t met answered. Karen decided to name it Tulip for her own sake.

“And you’re fresh”replied Francesca. No, maybe Cecelia. Or Natalie?

“You eat humans. That’s gross. Now tell me truthfully this time, what did you do with the feathered girl?”

“Like I said, she’s dead!” Laughed Tulip (Rosemary?), “And she was delicious, I kept some around to cook for supper.”

Lloyd decided it was finally safe to enter, and clapped his hands merrily.

“Well this has shaped up nicely. Ah, there she goes,” He motioned at Lillian, still hiding under a table. “A little distracted thanks to our heroine, but finally our venture finds us in pleasant company. You can probably come out now, strength in numbers and all that.”

“I agree.”

As the new voice sang out, the trio of contestants turned their heads. Lloyd was the closest, having just entered the door. A long fingered red hand wrapped around his head, and threw him to the floor several feet away. Marcus turned his gun, which was grabbed before he could shoot and hoisted into the air, and by proxy so was he. He received a lanky kick to the gut, which caused him to drop to his knees. Karen had the best look at the tall creature. It was wrinkly, red, and had some sort of elongated snout on its face. Two large and hollow looking eyes turned to her. Karen didn’t rush the creature, instead she tried to leap over the mimics to get to Lillian. Something stopped her mid-flight. The new arrival had simply extended her (Karen could now see it had a feminine figure) hand and Karen had stopped. And with just the flick of this hand, she was catapulted into the wall. She felt the air get knocked out of her lungs as she collapsed on the floor. Her hand gripped the carpet as she rose her head in defiance.

“I can see why you two had such trouble. These… guests seem different than the rabble of old.”

Karen saw Lloyd rise to his feet and try to fire a small meteorite at the red figure. With its palm raised it simply batted the rock into the wall. Marcus too got up and tried to stab at its abdomen. She grabbed his arm while launching Lloyd into a statuette. Karen found this interesting. She too rose to her feet, but felt a huge weight crash down on her and she smacked against the floor. She still managed to resist enough to glare at it. She heard the mimics mutter something about a “mother” and put the pieces together in her head. One big happy monster family. However, something then occurred that even Sarika probably couldn’t have seen happen.

“Geddof them!” Yelled a screaming bloody mess of feathers as it leapt onto the red creatures back .

As its attention was diverted, Marcus did two things. First he slid his sidearm towards Lloyd. Second was that his knife was sliding towards Karen. The mimic matriarch flicked its lanky fingers at Sarika, who was launched off and sort of bounced off the floor. Marcus tried to tackle her while it blew the gun out of its trajectory. Karen managed to get a grip on the knife and was jumping to her feet, her other hand already summoning a ball of fire. She threw both at the same time, hiding the knife behind the fire. She managed to mask it as one action, and when the fire was deflected the knife wedged into its hand. She scowled in pain, and was knocked off balance when a large shard of ice impaled into its foot. Suddenly vastly outnumbered the matriarch’s daughters rose to join the fight, but Lloyd managed to throw them back to the floor. Suddenly, there was a massive brawl in the room, one fought with teeth (Sarika), nails (Tulip(?)), claw (damn I forgot the other’s name-mimic), fist (Karen), magic (Lloyd), telekinesis (matriarch) and an assortment of close quarters combat techniques (Marcus).

And Lillian was watching it all.

**btp** · 07-17-2011, 10:30 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by bobthepen.

If you have ever been an elf, you would have found you possessed an innate fondness for many things familiar to your race. You would take pleasure in brisk walks through crisp forests, indulge in the fair sweetness of songbirds’ calls, and revel in the subtle magic whisking through the air around you. However, you would also discover an equal disdain for other things. You would avoid caves, have a much lower tolerance for unpleasant company, and - as Lloyd was finding out - most certainly not enjoy close quarters combat.

At the onslaught of the three mimics, every aspect of Lloyd’s elven sensibilities (and a good part of his human ones) wished to remove himself from the slashing, snarling, shooting brawl as quickly as possible. Being in possession of not a small variety of mystic spells, and having no short experience in manipulating others, Lloyd quickly formed a simple but effective plan.

He hoped Marcus would forgive him.

While dodging clawed blows, Lloyd ducked behind the black-armored mercenary and invoked his incantation. The silent words, undisturbed by the clamor of the fray, rode through the ether towards Marcus’ aura. The words bent and twisted around the firing combatant, enveloping him in a thin, untraceable layer of magic. Lloyds mouth fluttered furiously to complete the spell, feeding it the words and sounds it needed to take effect. At the final moment, another red-fingered claw flew down on the elven caster, and Lloyd, mouth closed, spell complete, nimbly jumped away.

Each combatant noticed the effects of the spell in their own way. Lloyd received that subtle acknowledgement that his incantation completed. Karen was struck with a feeling of nostalgia. Marcus’ thoughts and memories were drowned away by his deafening heartbeat and fiery infuriation. And, the mimic mother felt the none too subtle impact of an armored boot to the face.

Marcus shouted. His battle cry, degraded by rage into a blend of caustic profanities, pierced through the murderous hunger of the mimics. Confronted with the sight of the mercenary’s engorged muscles, throbbing veins, and furious aura, even the flesh-eaters experienced a sudden trepidation. The mother mimic, pinned beneath Marcus’ boot, in indignation ripped her claws into the mercenary’s thigh. Neither wincing nor noticing the pain, but instead seeing the extended arm as a target for his fury, Marcus gripped the wrist of the creature, shattering whatever bones it possessed. In a single jerk, with the mother still pinned, Marcus tore the arm from its sinews and sockets and flung it violently across the room.

The memory-eater, enraged at its mother’s dismemberment, lunged its lithe frame at the berserk Marcus. Spikes, fangs, and dozens of faces from Marcus’ past materialized on the mimic’s midair body. The pleading cries begged Marcus not to attack but the spell and the taunt only fueled his rage. Grabbing the gun holstered on his back, Marcus swung the weapon like a club, bashing the creature into the floor. In the next instant the creature’s form writhed and twisted around the multitude of shrapnel fired again and again from the club-like gun. With each shot blood and bone splattered as the mimic struggled to maintain shape.

Marcus took two forceful steps forward, his anger focused on the mutilated mimic who taunted him with his memories. He completely forgot about the one-armed parent he had subdued moments earlier, and the mimic mother took hold of the opportunity. Dozens of scythe-tipped tendrils sprouted from the creature and darted towards Marcus’ exposed back. Lloyd, however, having gained the proper distance rained fire down on the tentacled mother. Each tendril shriveling back at the fierce heat. Karen, noting her chance, leapt above the flames and drove her sword into the beast.

-----

Meanwhile, the thought-eater, seeing the turn of the fight, feeling the fear of demise present in its family, pressed against the nearest wall and quickly blended in with the stonework. Cowardice overruled rage and hunger, and there was more to fear than death by these invaders. At least, it considered, one goal here had been accomplished.

-----

Marcus approached the memory-eater. The spell was wearing off but his firing did not stop. The creature, beaten beyond consciousness, only stared blankly at Marcus. With each shot, the face the creature wore was distorted and torn. In each lull between blasts, the creature formed another face from the mercenary’s memory. There was no logic or cunning in choosing the identity it projected. It could be a friend, a stranger, a comrade, whatever memory the dying mimic could reach.

The shots slowed as the spell faded away. Gradually, pain and awareness returned to Marcus. Though he continued firing and though he knew the images here were made by this monster, he found himself stunned at the hesitation - or excitement - some personas produced. He shot enemy solders, old relatives, a few celebrities, even a few faces that almost held his fire. Finally he stood, staring, at Sarika.

It may have been that she appeared in his mind, it may have been the form the mimic had grown accustomed to recently, regardless, it was the last form it took. As the burning smell of the skewered mimic mother filled the room, Marcus lowered his gun at the near lifeless face. The creature let out a few small, somber gasps for air. She was wounded and beaten, but he had to be sure.

It was a hollow crack as his boot fell down.

The three stood in silence, panting, for a moment. Then Karen, startled, spoke, “Wait, where’s Lillian?”

----------

It was dark. She thought her eyes were open but she could not tell for sure. Lillian had seen the carnage the others were enduring and had done her best to shut it out. She had shut her eyes tight and clenched her knees and did her very best to think of a place that was not there. Perhaps it had worked?

For a moment she had felt a coldness grip her. It wrapped around her like a chilling slime. Before she could cry out, the coldness engulfed her completely. Suddenly it felt as if she was falling backwards and downwards very quickly. She thought she felt air rushing by but her hair did not flutter in any breeze. The journey ended quickly.

She landed on a chair or perhaps a chair appeared under her? Either way, it was dark, and cold, and she was sitting upright with dangling feet and something hard at her back.

Hello Lillian.

The greeting was more of a thought than a phrase. Though it clearly belong to somebody other than Lillian or the Spirit. And why hadn’t the Spirit warned Lillian that someone was nearby? After all the dangers and movings and creatures and...

Lillian gripped her wrist and the coldness grew far more bitter.

I’m sorry for bringing you here like this. Believe me, it was sudden for myself too. To think that anyone, even one so frail, could enter the castle without coming through the entrance. I had to take the time to talk with you.

“Where’s-” Lillian spoke.

She did not want to come. So I sent her elsewhere. I’m sure you’ll meet her again.

“Who-”

Now now, I know you have many questions, as do I. But first, do you mind if I tell you a story?

MalkyTop · 07-26-2011, 09:27 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

It was amazing how much trouble one little bird with an injured wing could get into. Anybody else, they would sit down, rest a bit, maybe try to bandage the wound up. Usually they didn’t jump into a fight when the fighters on both sides were better armed. Sarika’s weapon of choice had been right there, actually, right in the middle of the room, along with her headdress, and she had completely ignored them in favor of jumping on the thing that had stolen them in the first place.

Reudic found himself thinking he was making a mistake.

But, luckily, he managed to lead her away. Partly by subtle mind prodding, partly by dragging her out the broken door.

He was quite relieved, though, that her arm had stopped bleeding. After he had stopped the flow of blood by binding it tight, it didn’t take long for the wound to scab over. That didn’t make the whole gash thing all hunky-dory, but it was better and she was definitely less likely to drop dead.

Right now, he was waiting patiently as she lied on the floor.

Sarika pressed her uninjured wing against her eyes. “Aaaagh, what haaaaappened? I thought I was…uh…” She paused for a moment. “…I wanna take a nap…”

“Not a good idea,” Reudic said, though he wasn’t all that sure if it was actually not a good idea. It probably wasn’t.

“Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled, still rubbing her eyes. After muttering a bit more, Sarika pulled herself onto her feet using Reudic (which he did not appreciate much). She proved herself very hardy by not wobbling much at all as she shuffled her way off in a random direction.

“But the other guys were there, right?” she said, once again not really talking to Reudic in particular. “Pretty sure they were…so…where’s Lillian…?” Everybody kept asking that. The rosebush was pretty sure he was very tired of everybody asking that, and frankly, he couldn’t see the usefulness in looking for a small, weak child. It was probably better for everybody to just ignore her, actually, as she continuously distracted everybody else from the real goal they were reaching for. Reudic was utterly convinced that it would be better for everybody if Lillian was dead.

“Woah. Woooaaah. Woah. What’s this?”

Reudic looked down. Sarika was suddenly holding some sort of large orb. It had a handprint, which neither of them had. The bird woman still tried rubbing a wing all over it. When Reudic noticed she was actually using her injured one, he smacked her. She stopped doing so.

“Well, at least I can throw it at something if I need to,” she said and tucked it carefully under her arm. Reudic couldn’t help but think that any monster that was threatened by an injured bird with a small metal ball as a weapon (one-use, too, unless it could fly back like a boomerang) was probably not much of a monster at all. He was in the middle of this thought when, once again, he heard, “Woah. Woaaaaaah. What’s this?”

Again? How many things could someone find that was interesting enough to pick up in the span of one minute? Reudic was suddenly suspicious and he offered this new item much more scrutiny.

It was a rather small pendant. Reudic was somewhat certain he had seen it before and so decided it wasn’t some mystical cursed artifact that turned wearers into a werewolf-vampire thing. He went about trying to remember where he had seen it before.

“This is Lillian’s thingy, right?”

Lillian, Lillian, Lillian. He really was getting tired of all this.

“She’d probably want it back? It’s important, right? So she’s close, maybe.”

Reudic hoped that something else would happen to change the subject already.

Dragon Fogel · 07-29-2011, 06:43 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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GBCE · 07-30-2011, 09:39 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.

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**btp** · 07-30-2011, 06:09 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by bobthepen.

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**Pinary** · 08-06-2011, 06:24 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

Immediately, Karen and Lloyd started searching. They looked under tables, behind tapestries, anywhere a frightened little girl could hide, throwing things aside and generally making a mess of the room and doing their best to avoid focusing on the dead things. It worked... mostly.

While they rushed around, Marcus just stood. He stared down at his boot and the puddle of translucent goo that had once been a shapeshifter. The thing had dissolved when it died, and he'd gotten a front-row seat to watching Sarika's face melting away into a puddle of nothing.

He'd seen death before, of course, and caused it a good chunk of the time. Most of the time, though, it hadn't been quite so... intense, maybe. A lot of it was business at the time, with no personal attachments to get in the way, and when it hadn't, it'd been his friends getting killed around him while he survived. Having to face a barrage of remembered faces, shooting friends and relatives and people he'd failed, all with a haze of bloodlust blurring the line between necessary and not... it left him aching, and not just physically.

Lloyd, on the other hand, was just aching physically. Elves weren't exactly built to be thrown into things, let alone things made of stone, and he'd never made a habit of getting himself into situations that lead to it. He was much more the "plant an item and watch things unfold" sort, and when that didn't work out, he usually went with a plan that involved running and/or hiding.

Karen was mostly just occupied with finding Lillian. She'd been through combat plenty of times, and while the situation may have been a bit unusual, as far as brawls went, it hadn't been anything massively special. It was over, she was alive, and her concern had turned to the little girl who really shouldn't have been there to see all of it.

After a few minutes of searching, though, neither she nor Lloyd had turned up any sign of her, and Marcus was getting tired of them rushing around, searching for someone who just wasn't there. "Look," he eventually said, "it's obvious she's not here. Can't either of you just use magic or something and track her down that way?"

"I'd need some way to target the spell at her," Karen replied, fairly exasperated by the search as well, "and since she's not here and I can't exactly add her to my friends list right now, that's not really feasible."

"Same for me, basically," Lloyd added, "I'd need something of hers to base the spell on- an item I could use to form a connection."

"Great, perfect. Glad you're both here to help."

"Hey, at least we're trying! What about you, how do you propose we find her?"

Marcus snorted. "Well, for starters, you could just look around."

"What do you think we've been doing?!"

"Please. You've been checking for Lillian, but you've been ignoring everything that isn't her. Things like the smear of blood where Sarika was dragged out of here, or maybe the missing puddle of corpse?"

"Missing what?"

Marcus gave him a glare. "One of the things we were fighting is gone, and I'm guessing Lillian and Sarika went with it. Find it, find them."

Lloyd and Karen had to admit that he had a point, but before they could respond, the sound of an explosion echoed down the hall outside the door.

-

The three of them rounded the corner a fair ways away and found Sarika giggling to herself a few meters away from the smoking corpse of what had once been a lion-sized spider of some kind. Reudic floated two or three meters away, apparently apathetic as usual.

"The creature ran this way from the far end of the hall," the rosebush explained. "Evidently it encountered a trap in the floor."

Lloyd snorted, and Marcus might've found it funny as well had he been in a better mood. Karen was more concerned with Sarika's injuries.

"Are you okay?", she asked the bird-woman. The response was inaudible behind the assorted giggles, so she just went with a check-up the old-fashioned way. It didn't take her long to find the talisman.

"Lillian," she breathed, her mind whirling through possibilities. Fractions of a second later, though, before anyone else could even respond to the discovery, one possibility locked itself in place and anger flared through her body. She slammed the already-injured prophet against the wall, shaking the pendant in her face. "Where is she?! What happened to her?!"

Marcus and Lloyd rushed forward, each grabbing an arm and hauling her back. "Whoa, whoa," Marcus said, "look at her. She look like she's in any state to do something to her, even if she wanted to?"

"Marcus is right," Lloyd agreed. "Look, you're worried, I get that. How about you give the pendant to me-" he took hold of the talisman dangling from the bracelet she held clutched in her hand- "and I'll use it to get a tracking spell going."

It took a bit of coaxing and convincing, but Karen eventually calmed down enough to hand it over. Marcus kept one hand on her shoulder, and Lloyd started to work some magic.

GBCE · 08-07-2011, 12:26 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by TimeothyHour.

Reudic’s species takes a much longer time to escape infancy than most species- a complete 15 solar cycles or so- mainly due to the amount of time it takes for the biological processes that allow the species to float in air to develop, along with sentience. During these 15 solar cycles, Viridioflorans are rooted to the ground and are lovingly tended to by their genetic progenitors. The memory system for the species is developed right before their first flight, and as such one of Reudic’s first memories was around that time. Now, floating here, at this time, it came back to him, like a white lie, like a broken promise.

The plant under the heritage of Otsaceae bobbed slightly in the air, still tethered to the roots of the ground. In a clearing the child floated, patiently waiting for one-who-birthed-seed and one-who-pollinated-flower. They had left suddenly, but he (or she? The plant had not yet assumed a preferred gender identity) was confident they would be back soon.

From the edge of the woods surrounding Reudic, there was a rustle. Out into the clearing it ran- a small-beast. Although seemingly harmless, young, tethered Viridoflorans were on its list of viable prey. It rushed at the plant, climbing up the tether onto the floating section, and began chewing at its young, supple vines. The plant shook in pain, desperately trying to throw the small-beast off of it.

“N’kklatash pftara! N’kkrasar tanabir! Kostaptosho! (One-who-birthed-seed! One-who-pollinated flower! Help me!)” he cried briefly in the Viridofloran’s spoken tongue. The sound echoed off the daylight sky, racketing through the tries, desperately trying to reach the intended recipients.

There was no answer, however. No rescue. No love.

The beast was still biting at the plant, and once again he called.

“N’kklatash pftara! N’kkrasar tanabir! Kostaptosho!”

Again, no answer. No rescue. No love. And now, no time.

Reudic whipped out a vine in self defense, releasing a variety of chemicals in an emotional response. The small-beast collapsed onto the ground in a heap, promptly standing back up in response to the impact, and once again tried to climb up to the plant.

There was something wrong with the beast, however. As it climbed, its footing slipped, and once again it crumpled to the ground. It looked up at its former prey, and stared. Pupils dilated, as if it was seeing something that was not there, seeing beyond the earth and the forest and the rain and the endless survival, struggling, struggling to survive…

The small-beast quickly died as the vines instinctually wrapped around it, snapping its fragile neck, consuming it. That was the day that Reudic learned the first thing it ever truly understood: survival.

Suddenly, in the distance, a giant spider appeared, running down the hall, charging, thirsting for blood, thirsting for death. Sarika, in her increasingly drugged state, was in no condition to fight back, and Reudic might have dealt with it, if not for the fact that a jet of flame charred the spider at the last moment, reinforcing the cruelness of survival in Reudic’s head. Somehow, the events around him continued to remind him of the past, and another memory resurfaced from the murky depths of the mind…

“Hey! One-who-is-different, get over here!” the plant called with its chemical signature. Reudic ignored him. If he did go over there… it would not end well. He floated on, planning to hunt for food. His progenitors had never returned, never to answer his now-meaningless call, and he had quickly taught himself to hunt. He never knew why they left him. He desperately hoped that maybe they had died, instead of abandoning him. Yet, deep inside, the plant was almost sure they had just left him. Left him to die.

“Did you hear me, moss-who-leeches-nutrition!?” the aggravator from before called out again, this time bumping Reudic into a tree. “You are a slime upon the ground-that-gives-life! WILT AND DIE!”

Gritting his metaphorical teeth, he turned to his instigator. He wanted so badly to lash out, to kill these tormentors. Instead, he calmly replied, saying, “What have I done to bring about this anger-of-fire? How do I deserve this-”

“You have received this because you continue to live! Many tolerate your flowering, but I demand the death of abominations like you! I CHALLENGE YOU TO HUNTING-THAT-PRUNES-THE-WEAK!”

It lashed out, tangling itself into Reudic’s vines, tearing, whipping, and pain once again rocked The Plant’s body. He could take it no longer. For many solar cycles he had been beaten, mocked, shunned by his society, and he could take it no longer, he had to lash out. The pain reminded him of that first kill, that small-beast, and he released the psychoactive chemicals into the attacker, and much like that beast, it slid off the Viridofloran and crumpled in a heap onto the ground.

The plant looked into his former assailant, and the former assailant looked into him. Yet, like that small-beast, years and years ago, it did not truly see Reudic. It looked beyond. Beyond the earth and the forest and the rain and the endless survival, struggling, struggling to survive…

And before he could think, Reudic killed him. He wrapped his vines around the being, and suddenly it was in his stomach, digesting, dying.

And that marked the first official moment of the plant’s exile from society, along with the second thing he truly understood: To truly live, to look past survival, is to relinquish to death.

Suddenly, Lloyd, Karen, and Marcus rounded the corner, the three humans stopped at the sight of the spider.

“The creature ran this way from the far end of the hall,” he said in reply to their inquisitive looks. A few of them laughed, and then three of them then turned their attention to Sarika. Suddenly a commotion went on between them, and the name of the little girl was mentioned once again.

Lillian. The child. He turned to the massive amount of content that was downloaded into his mind. For some reason, humans revere children, in all ages, no matter what. Like they were some kind of pagan god, a representation of all that is good and holy, and childhood the veil under which this purity was protected.
Reudic knew enough from his own childhood to know that was false. Children are terrible, and there is nothing good, nothing sacred, about them. They’re monsters, beasts that shun anything abnormal, anything new.

The plant saw all this human knowledge, years and years of philosophy and storytelling. He stood before the horrible splendor in its entirety, and rejected it.
Something snapped, like the cracking of a neck, like the breaking of a heart, and years of repressed hatred, mindless rage, released.

Constantly constantly constantly reminded of the little girl who was worshiped praised always accepted never shunned never hated always loved. Who was she to deserve this always wonderful in the eyes of ignorant humanity the moronic other contestants that would GIVE THEIR LIFE for the stupid girl who couldn’t survive without them who would die in the instant without the prodding and protecting and watchful eye. Oh he HATED her he saw her eyes looked into them and she was looking beyond death and life and the rain and the forest and mere survival she constantly looked past and saw that wonder that demanded she died and so he would comply.

They were searching for Lillian the Mongrel and he heard the words of Lloyd the Idiot and his incomprehensible putrid magic now it glowed and pointed towards Lillian obviously because that’s all they ever went towards Lillian Lillian Lillian she had to die to free these men poisoned by their mammalian knowledge oh yes he would hunt he would become the animal that his society shunned and men feared give up to the rage oh he had to take that path to the girl and use it for himself so that they could not protect her and she would finally lose her life.

Lloyd didn’t expect Reudic to hit him with his vines, and his light Elven frame wasn’t really the kind to be hit by things. So when they pounded upon him, briefly filling his mind with toxin-induced illusions, he fell over without much effort. And before the group could react, the plant took the glowing, pointing pendant and floated off, looking for the girl who he intended to kill, calling out words in his native language:

"“N’kklatash pftara! N’kkrasar tanabir! Kostaptosho!"

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GBCE · 08-12-2011, 03:27 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by GreyGabe.

Marcus grunted as Reudic charged off.
“Whelp. Looks like the twig finally snapped.”

Karen’s hands curled into fists. “Now isn’t the time for jokes!”

“Nope. It’s time for action.” Marcus reached down and hauled Lloyd up by the front of his robes. “You go on ahead, I’ll catch up along with these two in just a minute.”

Karen frowned. “Are you sure? Your leg…”

“Just scratched. Big momma or whatever she was couldn’t go through my armor that easily.” Marcus shrugged. “I’ll spray it with disinfectant, but that’s all it really needs right now.”
Karen nodded, satisfied, and ran off after Reudic.

Quickly, Marcus pulled out a canister of anti-septic spray, and let himself have it. By the time he was done with his myriad cuts, the can was mostly empty. He stuck it back in a pouch and turned to his two charges, neither of whom looked to be fit for a high-speed chase. Lloyd stood unsteadily on his feet, and Sarika had slumped down onto the ground, cradling some sort of metal ball.

Marcus shook his head (Which had been slowly developing a whopper of a head ache since… the fight? What had made him flip his shit like that? It wasn’t like him, that was certain…). He gathered up Sarika, who grumbled but didn’t put up a fight. With his free hand, he made sure he had picked up all of his weapons, before grabbing Lloyd by the arm.

“Okay, let’s go…” Marcus set off at an easy run, pulling Lloyd behind him. The elf/wizard/bookworm stumbled a few times, but managed to keep up.
He had to stop once to adjust his hold on Sarika. It was a bit awkward carrying her in one arm. “You know,” he muttered, “We have really got to stop this kind of thing. People are going to start talking…”

Sarika, for her part, ignored him, her attention focused on the metal ball.
Marcus shrugged, and silently hoped he wouldn't take a wrong turn.

---

“…Do you mind if I tell you a story?”

Lillian shook her head. The voice didn’t sound mean, at least not for the moment, but that didn’t mean she was safe. She hoped if she let it talk it would let her go, or maybe someone would come find her.

The presence sighed. “Good… good. It’s not a long story, but it is… eventful.”

“Long ago, back before dark magics and beasts had engulfed this castle, this place was inhabited by darkness of a more… mundane sort. This place was the home of a king, a king both great and powerful, a formidable warrior and skilled ruler. For all of his ability, though, he was a man both petty and cruel. The slightest fault, the slightest dissent, earned torture or death. What he wanted, he took. But what he wanted most could not simply be taken, oh no. For what he wanted, more than anything, was an heir.”

“Now, he had a queen, the most beautiful woman in all the land, or so it was said. But there was a problem; twice she had borne him children, and twice she had borne him daughters. He wanted a son, though, a young man who could learn the arts of war and conquering. So he delivered his wife an ultimatum… she would bear him a son within a year, or she would be disposed of along with her two daughters, whom she loved fiercely.”

Lillian listened, rapt. Her captor trailed off for a few seconds, and Lillian interjected, “What happened next?”

The voice chuckled. “She bore him a son. Just not the kind of son he had been hoping for. Together with her daughters, she had hatched a plan… a plan to do away with the king, and make sure he would never be able to hurt them or anyone, ever again.”

“The queen… my mother, with the help of a powerful wizard once wronged by my father, made a pact with forces of darkness unknown on this world for aeons. In return for the power to destroy the old man, she would grant the darkness a vessel so that it may walk the face of the world.”

A hint of madness was creeping in at the edges of her voice, and Lillian’s hand moved to her bare wrist. She felt vulnerable, truly vulnerable, for the first time in her life.

“You should have seen Father’s face, before we killed him, in front of all his little nobles. I will cherish that memory until the day I die. We unveiled our little brother, our master, and how the little humans screamed! We fed well that day, better than any time before or since.”

“It wasn’t enough, though, not for my dearest brother. And so we kept eating, and eating, until there was nothing left, and still it wasn’t enough. And then, well… you know how it is with old, empty castles. They attract monsters like flies to rotten meat. That combined with the call of my family’s unique power… we built quite a little dominion. And then you arrived with your little friends.”

Suddenly, Lillian felt herself tipping, and she fell face first onto a cold, hard floor. She scrambled around, pressing her back to a nearby wall and rubbing at her chin, which she had struck in her fall. Wherever she was, it was dark, but not nearly as dark as where she had been before. She could see the last of the shape-shifters, standing a few feet away, grinning at her with its wide mouth and sharp teeth.

“For some reason, your presence has caused my brother to stir…” The room rumbled with a deep, thundering growl, as if to punctuate her statement. “He does get quite hungry when his slumber is disturbed. Hopefully your companions will prove an ample meal for him. But you… you have potential. With my mother and sister gone, I would be ever so lonely… So tell me, Lillian; Would you like to be my new sister?”

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GBCE · 08-16-2011, 09:27 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.

Karen threw another fireball at the back of the plant as it made its getaway. Reudic was uncharacteristically fast for what had been a fairly slowly hovering plant prior to its rampage. As such it managed to tell where her fireballs were coming from due to the heat and light they gave off and easily dodged them. She was also having difficulty with her spells. It was tricky to build the necessary fire without burning herself normally, but while moving it became increasingly hard, and so did aiming, and since Reudic would never tumble if it dodged while moving it was free to do so as much as it wanted.. As Karen prepared to launch a homing spell she saw a green tendril snake out and slap a familiar looking slab of stone as it hovered passed. A jet of fire narrowly missed Reudic as it triggered another flame trap, but her spell flew through regardless. She knew it was a weak spell, not even enough to harm Reudic, but she had hoped enough to slow it down, or scare it into thinking she had the upper hand. She waited for the streams to stop and ignored the remaining embers as she leapt over the trap. After another minute of running she rounded a corner only to find herself with two possible exits. An open window let in a cool breeze while a dark stairway branched out to the right, leading down. Karen couldn’t tell which path Reudic had taken, and choosing incorrectly could waste enough time for the round to end.

If she had to choose she would rather spend her time looking for Lillian. While Reudic had taken Lloyd by surprise, it had lost that element entirely and was now a clear enemy. Once he was back to normal, all three of the more hardened entrants would be able to take Reudic easily. While Sarika was even more helpless than usual with her missing implant, she had a power to keep herself safe.
The case of the amulet theft meant that Lillian had nothing to protect her. She was vulnerable and missing. Karen was willing to spend the rest of the round finding the little girl. As a plus, if she could get everyone looking in one group, minus Reudic, the chances of any one of them dying would decrease.

Accepting that it was the best decision she began heading back the way she had came, leaving a small hidden fire trap in her wake in case Reudic tried to backtrack. As she passed the still smouldering stones she wondered if she could help Lloyd and Sarika recover from the toxins given to them. It dawned on her that her alchemist class could be useful, with the right ingredients. She closed her eyes and envisioned a wheel with icons spread out on the circumference. Each icon stood for a class. Currently the image of a witch hat and another of a sword were glowing. She concentrated, causing the image of a vial to shine.

A new weight dropped on her shoulder, and when she opened her eyes she was a satchel hanging by her waist. She unbuttoned the flap and began seeking out certain ingredients and instruments, laying them carefully on the floor one by one. After that she slowly began manually preparing each ingredient, sometimes grinding leaves down with a mortar and pestle, and watering down the pulp, or using her magic to boil a liquid and coughing as the dark smoke wafted through the air. She had to be very careful since she could easily make a mistake, while in game she wouldn’t have needed to be so diligent. After a while Marcus eventually caught up with her, and asked her what happened to Reudic. His eyes darted to the scorch marks a few feet from her kneeling form, and then to the rows of alchemic items spread out in front of her.

“He got away. Two paths, stairs and a window. I figured curing these two,” She glanced over to Lloyd and Sarika’s semi-conscious forms, “And then finding Lillian took priority. She’s the only one that can come to serious harm once those two get back to normal. How’s the leg?” She asked, while carefully funnelling a black liquid into two separate vials, stopping both with small corks.

“It’s fine” He lied, though Karen had expected as such. The smell of blood was still pungent, yet that may have been Sarika. Karen motioned for Marcus to rest them by the walls while she tried to cool her newly mixed anti-toxins. She inspected Sarika first, since she was the first to be subjected to the toxins. Karen carefully removed the seer’s goggles and inspected her eyes. Karen had never studied aviary eyes, and was very surmised at the sharp, yet golden stare that Sarika gave a funny looking portrait on the fall. While like Lloyd the toxins were diluting her pupils, the false future visions were wreaking havoc with her. Karen removed the stopper from the first cure and tried to pry open Sarika’s mouth, a task easier said than done.

After a brief struggle Sarika gave in to the witch’s efforts and drank the black liquid.

“Will that even work?”

“Dunno.”

“What’dya mean you don’t know?”

“I paid good money for the ingredients. This thing usually cures boss level debuffs and poisons. But the effects it has now are unknown. Could be poison for all I know.”

Karen watched Sarika intently while Marcus fretted about her fake ignorance. Karen probably shouldn’t have been playing with the mercenary, but watching his reactions lifted her spirits in this grim battle. Everyone needed to blow off steam once in a while, this was just her way.

“Huwzhu- DAMN THAT HURTS.”

Sarika, having regained both her sanity and her sense of pain was writhing around clutching at the crimson mess of down that had once held her staff arm. Karen quickly muttered a healing spell to sew up the scabbed wound. She apologised quickly as she prophet asked what had happened.

“We found you being led around by Reudic. Apparently you lost your arm to a mimic beast, but we killed them all.”

“Probably all of them.” Karen added.

“Whatever. Anyway, soon after Lillian disappeared.”

“Again?”

“Again.”

“And all we found was her penchant.”

“Which Reudic stole.”

“And left Lloyd in a mess on his way out.” He pointed a thumb at the Elven mage, who was currently trying to hogtie a man named Holmes to stop him finding a hollow bible. Karen pushed back his head and tried to get the glass tube into his mouth, yet Lloyd resisted far more harshly than Sarika, while remaining far less loud.

“You might want to grit your teeth before you do that.” Sarika added, aware of what was going to happen.

Karen was forced to jam her thumb between Lloyd’s molars to keep his mouth open. She silently thanked the seer for the heads up, and poured the black liquid down the Elf’s unwilling gullet.
As he regained his psyche they recapped what they had just told Sarika.

“But now we need to figure out a plan.”

Karen was quite sick of Marcus’s plans, and stood boldly and announced her own.

“We go down.”

“Why down?”

“The towers are empty. This is a castle. Where else would a young maiden be magically transported?”

“You plan to look for her with cliché? That’s just reckless.”

“You got any better ideas lay them down, because right now we have nothing to go on. Either we stick together for the first time and get something done instead of aimlessly getting ourselves attacked or one of us runs out of luck and gets themselves killed. The Monitor can’t stop us teaming up, so lose the lone wolf attitude.”

Karen glared at Marcus, not caring about the height difference between them. After a while Marcus admitted defeat and let the witch’s plan unfold.

“What do you think we’ll find down there?”

Karen once again felt the sensation that something very horrible was happening.

“... We need to move. Now.”

She checked that everyone could keep up with her as she ran through the corridors, back to the hole leading several floors down. She shouldered Sarika and leapt, while Marcus and Lloyd climbed down.

“It’s that bad feeling again, “ She whispered into Sarika’s ear, realizing that this was probably why the seer let herself be carried in the first place, “It’s down there. And isn’t alone.”

As the ragtag team of adventurers made sure that the magical field around the door had been taken down by Lloyd they set off down the cold and hard stone steps, not fully comprehending just what lay ahead.

Show Content

MalkyTop · 08-30-2011, 06:01 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

Sarika hung on to Karen as tightly as she could as the wind ruffled her short hair. She should have been thinking about Lillian. She should have been thinking about whether they would make it in time. Maybe even thinking about the ‘bad feeling’ Karen mentioned for the second time (was it the second time?). Mostly, she was thinking about how much her entire wing was throbbing right about now. It was somewhat hard to ignore.

The stairway curved infinitely downward. In front of her, stairs. Behind her, men clomping on stairs. She was being carried by a woman younger than her, a girl, even, who didn’t seem to tire at all and probably wouldn’t tire ever. And one somewhat vital appendage was throbbing and it was the only thing she could focus on.

She kind of missed being oblivious. When people had to worry about her and she didn’t have to worry at all. Maybe she could somehow get nicked by Reudic again. Then at least she would be somewhat happy at death, even if it was a delirious sort of happy.

…These were very unhealthy thoughts.

She kind of wanted her headdress back. Oh, and her staff too, that would be nice. But as they all continued barreling down the stairs, she had a heavy sort of feeling, the feeling that whatever happened next, it was the endgame (endround?) and they wouldn’t really be going up these steps again. It wasn’t really a premonition, per se, though she treated it as one. She morosely bid her lost items farewell.

The stairs ended at a heavy door that was quickly beaten down by Karen, though Sarika couldn’t tell how she did it because she blinked when she futuresaw it. Through the door was an admirably large amount of treasure, including one impressive-looking sword. There was also a lounging monster.

Lloyd and Marcus caught up, neither really out of breath. If they were the sort of men who would do things like gape at lounging monsters, they would have used their saved breath doing exactly that. Instead, they spent their precious time by noticing that there was a lounging monster with its back turned towards them.

There was a door on the other side of the room. It seemed very prudent to sneak around the beast and make a break for it, since there seemed to be a lack of Lillian here. A lack of Reudic too, though that was not necessarily a good thing.

Sarika quickly insisted on walking by herself again and the four of them snuck into the room.

And then the four of them jumped out when a bladed tail swung from above and smashed the floor in front of them.

“IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIII--” rattled a voice that was presumably the monster’s. The booming voice then quieted down a bit when the monster coughed and said, “—I say! You are all certainly not authorized to come into this room, considering that these various trinkets and treasures do not belong to you. So what on earth do you think you’re doing, hmmmm? You thought you could just waltz on in here? Make trouble for both me and you?”

The monster, a large, serpentine thing, raised its head to glare down at them. Amazingly enough, just by talking, it managed to stun all four of them into silence.

“Now, you all seem to be at least somewhat civilized, so I expect you to just turn around right now and—“

The monster broke off abruptly, having been interrupted by the sounds of Lloyd’s uncontrollable laughter.

GBCE · 09-08-2011, 07:35 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.

Sarika was by no means heavy so Karen could barely feel a thing as she helped the seer down the stone steps. She knew that the weight difference was probably due to her not being human, but she wondered just what, if anything, the bird woman ate. She could hear the steady rhythm of the two sets of footsteps behind her, one a pair of heavy boots, and the other... some kind of sandal from the sound of it. Karen half expected the elfish Lloyd to be wearing flip flops, and barely managed to stifle a chuckle at the idea. She needed the humour. If a girl her age couldn’t laugh during these situations she would no doubt go mad with despair.

Soon, a large wooden door blocked her path. She didn’t even check for locks before she shifted her weight and kicked, planting her foot heavily onto the door and shunting open. She admired the result as she thought to herself; you didn’t enchant two doors in a row to block the treasury. If they broke one, the second would just be a laughable waste of resources.

She should have seen the dragon-like creature coming. Tabletops always had them, people made fun of the title of the most famous one if they were ever missing from the action. She heard Sarika ask to be let go, so Karen freed the use of her left arm by doing so. Her right hand instinctively went for her sword. Dragons were always a pain. The hardest bosses were always dragons in Legends of Fate. People had tried for two years to become strong enough to beat them, but even hardened guilds and groups would fall apart at the seams to defeat them.

They always wondered who the Karen was that kept getting the kills first. They always wondered who the player was that could do what ten could not. Sometimes she brought Coal along if he was around, but he was nowhere near as levelled as her. Nobody was. Now she thought of how this creature would attack. Sweeping tail, check. Fire breath? Always a possibility, but fire was something she was more than comfortable with now, and had ways of stopping it from hurting her.

As Sarika walked forwards she managed to have their presence announced. Karen watched the monster’s tail rise above the open doorframe, and as Sarika made to dodge backwards she too retreated into the safety of the staircase. Yeah, this thing was going to be a tough fight. But Lillian had to be somewhere passed it. If she was wrong about all of this, no, she forced that train of thought from her mind.

Nothing prepared her for the accent of the monster. High strung, old English and completely out of place. What was even more shocking was to find Lloyd bursting out into a fit of hysterics. The almost muted Elven version of him was being uncharacteristically loud, which Karen was being slightly creeped out by.

“So, how do you want to handle this, being what I assume is the person most used to this kind of thing?”

“Chopping of its head, ripping off all the scales and talons and then selling them at ridiculously high prices to anyone dumb enough to waste all their money is usually the normal tactic with dragons. But I think I’ll just keep attacking it until it either stops fighting back or dies.”

“ “You going to need backup for this? I’m pretty sure dragons aren’t immune to guns.”

Backup. Let Sarika and Lloyd, both recently intoxicated, one a criminal mastermind and the other heavily wounded walk towards almost certain doom alone and finish off a mere obstacle between them and Lillian, or let them do the rest while she finds something to replace her sword.

She hated being selfish, but her eyes knew a prize piece of loot when they saw one.

“Piece of cake. Besides, this thing is just blocking our path, not holding the hostage. I’ll be leaving the rest up to you three.

She stepped out from the corridor as the serpentine monster rose to its full height.

“Soooooo, you’re going to make me do this the hard way aren’t you?” It sighed, obviously not happy with her choice.

“I’m prepared to take you down if it means they get through that door, if that’s what you’re implying.”

The monster was obviously finished with its diplomatic act and lunged out. Karen had her sword drawn in the blink of an eye, even with its seemingly overbearing weight. As its head barrelled towards her she coiled her body and swung, cleaving into the pointed chin and hitting the jawbone. It recoiled backwards, getting clear from her swords range. Karen assumed this was going to go well for her, she was far more powerful than any rulebook would allow in this setting. On the other hand, she was on a tight schedule, so decided to go all out from the start.

As it coiled around the room, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, Karen did something the others couldn’t understand. She rammed the blade of her sword into the stone floor, leaving the blade jutting halfway out. She clapped her hands together and muttered an oath, a spell, and began to shimmer.

A second image of Karen split from her, and another and then another until there were five in all. They each seemed corporeal to begin with, but began to solidify within second. Each of them approached her immovable sword, and touched the hilt. The first pair drew the two katanas from inside the staff-hilt. The third just removed the entire staff itself, twirling it around for effect. There was enough of a hilt for the original Karen to remove the sword, as the fifth simply stood barehanded.

Karen knew this was the only time she was going to be able to use this spell. She was actually scared of it, in the realistic workings. She feared each would have their own mind, would preserve their own being above anything else. But they were temporary forms and they would know that.
Clones. Simple, throwaway copies with less than a minute of lifespan. She hoped they understood that the end justified the means. What she had done was immoral on so many levels. But she would remember her own sacrifice as if she was in their place. All five of them charged, two slicing away with as many attacks as they pleased. They could use any amount of force or magic they wanted. They wouldn’t be around to care about pain, injuries or magic levels. She knew they would use berserk, apart from the magic casting one. The beast tried to crush, bite or claw them but every Karen inherited her speed and agility. They each made short work of it, drawing enough blood that much of the treasure began to be soaked in it.

As each Karen began to disappear they combined the staff once more. But the beast was nearly done, as Karen leapt high above, readying the strike that would end its life. But she was too sure of herself, as the monster threw out a long tongue that wrapped itself around her midsection. She was instantly aware of her folly as it careened her into the wall, crushing her. The pain wracked at her body explosively. Her vision became blurry as she realised that the tongue was holding her in place as the head approached. But she had her sword. She couldn’t rely on the exploding sword idea, she needed time to prepare that. But from the corner of her eye she found a fatal flaw in the snakes plan.

In one deft movement she swapped the direction of her sword, and lifted it as a javelin. In front of her loomed the gaping maw that threatened to end her life, or a huge target to finish the fight. She overexerted the muscles in her arm and threw the massive blade with all her might. It plunged into the pink wall of flesh and into the creature’s gullet causing it to writhe in pain. It swung its head around bringing her into an arc as she remained in its deathgrip. She tried to burn her way through the flesh, blackening as much of it as she could. Its grip finally relaxed and she slipped free, falling painfully into a pile of rather pointy treasure. As she lay panting, she barely heard the monster crash into the opposite wall as it bled to death.

The next thing she knew Marcus was standing over her, offering his hand. She gladly took it. He hauled her out of the shining pit of expensive looking objects, congratulating her on a job well done. She just checked to make sure she was able to walk, reprimanding herself for making a stupid mistake. You don’t try to make a flashy finishing move when your life was on the line. She was an idiot. She could have died.

And in a way, she had. Four copies of her gave their lives to help her and she nearly died anyway.
She just tried healing all the painful spots as they rejoined the group.

“Your sword landed somewhere over there.” Sarika pointed out, wincing as she did.

She didn’t care about the sword any more. She raised her hand, calling her staff to return. It lifted from the ground and sped towards her waiting palm. She felt within it, feeling the presence of her dual swords. The chunk of metal she had been using as a sword was too heavy and unwieldy for her tastes. It needed both arms to use, and a lot of room to swing. She couldn’t maximise her potential as a witch while using it. But another sword was waiting for her, she knew it. She made a detour to where the serpent had first been waiting, finding the blade wedged into a solid gold podium. It was big, shaped to a curve with several edges jutting out. The hilt had an almost dragon like appeal to it, with the blade having a point sticking out from the bottom. Across the length of it was an emblazoned dark patch that separated the dull back from the keen edge, and two semi circles of sword were missing from near the point and just above the hilt.

It was a sword designed to kill monsters, not to be wielded by one. Karen prepared it for her own use, and within a minute was swinging it around to get a feel for it. Satisfied, she swung the staff infused blade over her back and into the leather holster, joining the group as they finally moved on from the treasury, all the while Karen felt they really were getting too close to something even she was getting more and more fearful of.

And hoping that Lillian didn’t die before they reached her.

MalkyTop · 09-25-2011, 01:06 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

Despair comes in many flavors. There’s despair that comes hand-in-hand with death. There’s despair a la mid-life crisis. And then there’s the despair of knowing your very purpose, your only function and use to the world and realizing that there was no way for you to achieve it due to certain circumstances that make you completely useless.

The Spirit, housed in its little pendant, swung lightly from the tendrils of its thief. It was glowing. It was lighting the way towards Lillian. The Spirit couldn’t stop this, nor could it even mislead the bloodthirsty plant. It couldn’t escape, couldn’t even move. It had failed to protect its ward and it was about to fail again, no, even worse, it was about to lead her murderer straight towards her.

What would be worse? To stay swinging amongst the leaves of a murderous bush in the small hope that somehow, it would be able to protect Lillian when they both got there? Or to attempt to escape from its thief, generate a constant barrier to prevent him from picking it up again so that he would never reach the girl while she was in the hands of who-knows-what?

It was torment to not know the state of Lillian’s well-being. But it was also torture to even think of witnessing her death. Should the Spirit urge Reudic to slow down or speed up?

Maybe the worst part was that the Spirit didn’t even have a hypothetical god to beseech, to plea for her safety. It simply had to wait with its ambivalence and suspense.

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

Reudic continued onwards, completely unaware of any nearby dilemma wreaking havoc on any pendant. The plant had no similar questions. What he only focused on was going faster, faster, faster, find the girl before anybody else. Kill her, break her body before anybody else. If he concerned himself with anything else, he was almost certain he would fail in his goal, so he continued driving himself forward with amazing bullheadedness, crashing through anything that got in his way, either barreling through monsters or flying past them while they triggered traps in their attempts to catch him.

And then finally, he burst into a completely darkened room.

It was musty and cold and smelled of iron, though none of those things really mattered to a psychic rosebush that much. What did matter was that there was no light besides what was coming from the doorway and the pendant. But that was enough to illuminate the corner where Lillian and her captor were.

Reudic didn’t entirely understand what was happening between the pseudo-woman and the girl. She was holding her high, her breath a dark wispy thing cloaking up the room, her face much too close to the other for her to have any good intentions. The shapeshifter glanced up, surprised and irritated, and Reudic slammed into the both of them, causing her to drop Lillian and him to drop the Spirit. He immediately wrapped his tendrils around the girl’s neck and squeezed.

“NO! YOU ARE NOT HARMING MY SISTER!” The shapeshifter leapt, slicing off any strangling vines with her claws, and the two of them started a struggle as Lillian fell to the floor once more.

In a corner, the Spirit sat and watched. It watched Lillian writhe and cough, scratching at the thick vines still wrapped around her neck. It watched her cough out dark, wispy smoke, and it sat and worried.

GBCE · 09-30-2011, 12:38 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by GreyGabe.

---On Board the ISV Timber Wolf, In Orbit around Menouthis IV, Approx. 7 Standard Hours After Captain Marcus White's Disappearance---

"I'm telling you, he just disappeared!"

"People don't 'just disappear!'"

"Tell him that. Oh wait! You can't. Because he disappeared."

Van Owen cursed and slammed his hands down on the table. They'd been going over all of this for hours, checking surveillance footage, checking scanner readings, arguing, and generally accomplishing nothing.

Rodriguez and Benson both swore that he had just vanished in a flash of light, right as they were gearing up for their mission. The camera footage wasn't much help. The recording went to snow for a few seconds, and suddenly the boss was gone. There weren't any unusual readings on any of the ships instruments, plus they'd run over the whole ship with a spectrograph, a Geiger counter, hell, even a goddamn thermometer and nothing was even slightly out of the ordinary.

"We need to call in someone," Rodriguez said, for the fifth time that day.

"Who are we gonna call?" snapped Silverson, from her spot in the corner. She began speaking in an exaggeratedly deep voice, mocking Rodriguez's origin planet accent. "'Oh hey is this Imperial Fleet Dispatch? I'd like to report a man vanishing in a flash of light from my armory.'"

"Okay."

She continued, ignoring him. "'What's that? Why yes, there is a history of mental illness in my family! Do you think that there might be some connection?'"

"Enough!" Van Owen glared at her until she fell silent, still smirking. "I don't know what to do, okay? We'll keep running scans, and we'll hold this orbit for a few days, but if he doesn't turn up... I'm going to have to declare him MIA."

The others frowned, avoiding Van Owen's gaze.

"Alright," He said, standing up. "We're going to go over the whole ship, top to bottom. Grab your portable scanners, and check for any anomalous readings. Move it!"

---

While Karen had been distracted by the acquisition of her sword, Marcus had quickly taken the chance to snag a few choice bits of treasure for himself. After all, what was the point of killing the dragon -- or watching it be killed -- if one couldn’t take some of its treasure? A few gold coins here, a large jewel there… he quickly decided that a crown was too bulky to carry or to wear, and the ornate battle-axe probably wouldn’t be all that good in a real fight… but what was this? A scepter of some sort? It didn’t really look like a scepter though, it was far too thin, and didn’t have that bulb on the end like the ones he had seen in pictures. Maybe it was a wand? It looked pretty valuable, anyway; a thin length of wood covered with gold filigree and tipped with a large ruby. Shrugging, he shoved it into a handy pouch with the rest of his loot and slipped back over to stand by the others, who either hadn’t noticed his side trip or had chosen to ignore it.

Karen finished testing the balance of her blade and joined the group, moving through a door opposite the one they had entered. They were in a long corridor, now, that stretched away into darkness. Lloyd lit the way with some sort of magical whatsit, while the rest clustered around him. Their footfalls seemed to be muffled, and when anyone chanced to speak, they found their voices oddly dampened.

Marcus was not, on the whole, a man prone to flights of fancy or an overactive imagination, but he began to feel a deep sense of foreboding, and a feeling almost of being watched. He imagined he could see things, just beyond the reach of the glowing light emitting from Lloyd’s upraised hand… but when he would look closer, nothing would be there.

Suddenly, all light was lost as Lloyd’s spell winked out. There was much muttered cursing and shifting about before a new light came on with a click.

“How long have you had that flashlight?”

"Uh… the whole time.”

“And you’re just now using it?”

Marcus mumbled something about batteries as he fumbled with the light, finally managing to clip it to Retribution’s side.

“Anyway, now we see the truth.”

“Hmm?”

“Your primitive hocus pocus magical whatever is no match for good old modern technology.”

Ignoring the rolling of eyes and shrugging of shoulders, Marcus took point, walking slowly and making sure to shine his light carefully over the floor and into any dark corners.

“Anyway, why did your light go out?”

“No real reason, I just thought I saw something. Lost my concentration.”

…

“Did you hear something?”

“What?”

“Listen! It’s kind of like growling and yelling. Hear it?”

“Just barely… sounds like it’s coming from straight ahead.”

A short time later the group found themselves at a door. The noises emanated from the other side. The door was an ugly affair, darkly stained wood carved with a plethora of leering, demonic faces whose eyes seemed to glitter dully in the dim light. Marcus didn’t take too long to admire them before leveling a kick straight at the latch. The wood splintered, and another kick granted them entry.

It was a chaotic scene that greeted them. Reudic and the last of the shapeshifters were wrestling with one another, though Reudic seemed to have the upper hand at the moment. Lillian lay a few feet away, a vine wrapped around her throat, struggling weakly. Sarika wasted no time shouldering past the others, staggering to grab Lillian and try to pull her away from the constricting vines. In response, Reudic began pulling her towards the center of his mass, dragging Sarika along with her. Marcus leapt to grab the bird girl, while Karen stepped forward and swung down with her blade, severing the vines holding the child. Marcus yanked Sarika and Lillian back, while Karen stepped nimbly out of the way of a vine sent lashing her way.

Lloyd leaned over Lillian, who seemed to labor for each breath, despite the absence of the choking vine. And was that smoke coming from her mouth? Karen covered them, slashing at any creeping plant matter that tried to dart past her.

Marcus had other things to worry about. Most of Reudic’s attention was focused on the still thrashing, biting creature stuck in its grasp (apparently his drugs weren’t having as much of an effect as they usually did, though the creature did seem to be slowing down). But that state of affairs wouldn’t last much longer. Marcus reached down towards his belt.

Lloyd slapped him on the shoulder.

“What!?”

“Bracelet! The girl needs her bracelet! Over there.”

Lloyd pointed to a corner, which of course was very close to Reudic’s mass of tendrils.

“Why?”

“Primitive hocus pocus. Just get it!”

Karen tossed a fireball towards Reudic, who reacted with surprising alacrity. He shifted the limply struggling form of the shapeshifter to take the brunt of the blast, causing the creature to screech in pain and begin thrashing once more. Marcus nearly felt sorry for her. He tried to edge around Reudic to get to the errant piece of jewelery, but every time he got close a vine darted to slash at him, the thorns dripping with drugs or poisons. Growling, Marcus grabbed his last incendiary grenade from his belt, intending to finish Reudic once and for all, since the overgrown shrub seemed disinclined to reopen reasonable discourse.

As Marcus brought the grenade up to pull the pin with his teeth, a loud bellowing roar sounded out, seemingly from everywhere at once. The sound seemed to knock the wind from him, causing him to grunt in pain and fall to his knees. The grenade slipped from loose fingers, still inert. He managed to keep hold of Retribution only through intense effort.

Around the room, the others were suffering similarly, all except for the shapeshifter, who crowed with laughter, ignoring her cuts and burns and a dozen drugs coursing through her veins.
“HE COMES,” she screeched, “HE COMES TO FEED AND TO BRING OUR NEW SISTER INTO HER SECOND LIFE!”

The roar tapered off, leaving Marcus drained and gasping for air. He slumped sideways, barely keeping himself from sprawling onto the floor. The others weren’t much better off. From somewhere not too far off, a loud rumbling began, as if something long dormant were stirring into life. Something very, very big.

Marcus suddenly wished that he could be practically anywhere else in the multiverse.

GBCE · 10-03-2011, 07:54 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by TimeothyHour.

reserve?????????

GBCE · 10-04-2011, 11:14 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by TimeothyHour.

“HE COMES HE COMES LIKE THE WINDS OF DEATH UPON YOUR COLD CHEST HE COMES LIKE A THUNDERSTORM LIKE A GOD OF WAR HE COMES LIKE YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE IN THE MIDDLE OF NIGHT HE IS DESCRUCTION HE IS DEATH HE IS EVERYTHING THAT BURNS LIKE HATRED BEHOLD BEHOLD BEHOLD BEHOLD-”

The shapershifter screamed in mad ecstasy, releasing a scream that rebounded off the stone walls, like shattering glass, and the room darkened in a wave of black.

“HE WILL CUT OF YOUR HANDS AND LET YOU BLEED. HE WILL TAKE YOUR HEART AND CONSUME IT. HE IS THE END. HE IS THE END. HE IS THE END OF EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING-”

A darkness darker than dark appeared like a wisp in the air, and it looked over them all. They could feel its gaze slipping over them like slime, like a film of grease that stained stained like there deepest fears.

And then, then it flew right into the shapeshifter’s open mouth.

Reudic felt it. He felt the darkness, he heard the darkness the darkness the darkness the darkness like eternity a heartbeat. His vines unfolded like wings, and they wrapped, wrapped, wrapped around Karen and Lloyd and Marcus and Sarika and Lillian and the drugs, hallucinate, hallucinate hallucinate into your brain like a flood

And darkness.

~~~~

She was on the monorail again, again and again and again. It would roll on through the tracks, and each time the earthquake would happen and she’d tumble and crash into the ground, feel the torment, see her parents die, but the train would go on, around and around the track, and she kept falling and seeing people die and feeling the pain.

It was terrifying. She called out for Cole, an Admin, anyone, anything, but they were all in the train, falling to the ground with her, dying. Becoming corpses that didn’t simply evaporate with time, they rotted and that was perhaps the worst part of watching her parents die, seeing the blood and the flesh and death turn into relentless decay destroying everything.

She wished she could have died with them. But no, she was alive. Karen was as alive as could be, and felt Every. Single. Thing.

~~~

Lloyd awoke in darkness.

He was tied down, with ropes made of the binding of universes themselves, and struggled as he could, he could not escape. He felt as if he would never escape. Ever.

“Hello, Mr. Conrad. We’ve been expecting you.”

A man in a black suit appeared in spotlight, his clothing almost glowing with polish. He had no face, but instead a mask, and it was the cruelest, most eternal smile he had never seen. Or would ever see. Instantly, Lloyd knew that his name was Mr. Smith, he was representing the SPC foundation, and that Lloyd was here for interrogation.

“I regret to inform you that I will be interviewing you today. The Foundation has tired of the way you avoid their questions, and so they’ve decided to use… more rigorous methods.”

Blood began to pour from Mr. Smith’s eyes like tears, and Lloyd, for once, was afraid. He knew they question they wanted to know, and they asked it every time, and every time is was a churning in his gut, a black hole, consuming, consuming everything. He knew the question, like a broken song, and it was terrifying.

“Why?”

~~~~

Marcus was familiar with gunfire. But not like this. It was too calculated, it was too intentional.

It was genocide.

His eyes barely let him process the chaos. Everyone hears things about genocide, maybe a few pictures here and there, but it’s nothing. It’s nothing compared to real thing. This was hell. It was hell. Deaths everywhere, screams of mothers and children and babies who would do this who would ever do this to anyone.

And then Marcus looked down. It was him. He was the monster, the relentless killing machine that destroyed anyone and anything but no he had conscience he had MORALS why would be do this-

Marcus fired another shot. It looked vaguely like his mother, a good woman, a strong woman. She was dying, dying in agony and pain and fear and horror, but the gun kept firing and the robotic implants inside him kept screaming kill kill kill kill

There was nothing Marcus could do, but cry with the woman, a mourning of the dead.

~~~~

Sakira only saw darkness.

But no, this was darkness in the future. And it was that unthinkable sight, that nothingness when she saw when confronted with her death. Blackness like staring down a cliff, the vertigo of an unthinkable height.

She couldn’t move, as much as she tried. No, she was going to die, she was sure of it, she was going to die beholding its herald, a death befitting for one who could see the future.

But it never came. Ever. The act of seeing changed the results, and she knew, she knew the moment she looked into the present she would die forever and ever, never to be buried in one of the mounds of her people, never to die the way a prophet deserved. No, this was her fate, to sit here, forever, confronted with death and the very impermanence of the future.

And the thing that frightened her more than else was that she couldn’t help but be ok with it. She felt something die inside her heart a little, perhaps, or maybe she was just imagining it.

~~~~

Lillian saw bogeymen.

Vines and tentacles and shapeshifters and darkness, hands and screaming and fighting, fire and death and trains running in the spaces between universes. And there she was, standing in the midst of it all. Among fear, among death among I’M HERE GIRL. YOU ARE MINE, NOW. I AM DEATH, SWIFTLY FALLING LIKE NIGHT. I AM NIGHTMARES, HORROR AND FEAR. AND I’M HERE FOR YOU, LITTLE GIRL. HERE TO TAKE YOU AS AN OFFERING, AS A FEAST. the demons that screamed for her among HIM.

And He stood there, in all his horror, before her, and laughed the most gruesome laugh. He was everything he said he was and more. Lillian couldn’t help but tremble with fear and revulsion. As an instinctual reaction, she looked down at her wrist, where Spirit should have been.

A scream slipped from her lips, echoing off the nothing that surrounded her. Spirit was gone. Spirit had abandoned her. In her greatest need, she needed protection from this horror, and she found nothing. And although she called out for it, deep in her heart she knew it would never come.

And it never did.

**btp** · 11-08-2011, 05:53 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by bobthepen.

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Now if I were to continue to describe the images and terrors that The Darkness and the toxins channeled through Lillian's mind, there is a very good chance that many people would wish to remove this story from the shelves, and you yourself would have some difficulty in continuing to read it. I shall simply say that it is now time for us to drop all pretenses, and to say what the presence of so many monsters and descriptions and mandates of grandmasters have been foreshadowing: this is not a story with a happy ending. Lillian does not survive.

However, before you close this story in frustration at the author having spoiled what may have been the most important part to yourself, allow me to add another tidbit. In all of her life Lillian had never been as afraid and confused and abandoned as in this moment, but it was this moment as in most moments of great challenge, that defined exactly why such a small and frail girl was chosen for such a dangerous and enormous battle.

Among all of the images and fears and temptations The Darkness pushed unto Lillian (which we will not go into), there was in all of them a very common but difficult to see theme. For "darkness", that true void and emptiness which is the anathema of light and warmth and life, is a very different thing than The Darkness. For in order for "The Darkness" to be all that which it claimed, horrors and nightmares and fear, it would have to give up the very things that make it able to claim and claw and hunger. In essence, the very fact of its existence as a being, with individual thoughts and desires and character is a part of the light of life and existence. For true darkness is where nothing exists.

This was the first lie that Lillian saw.

Now when you are being barraged by a multitude of fears and horrors, it is very difficult to complete any sort of complex thoughts. It is quite impossible to rely on logic or emotions or drawn out memories. The thoughts are quickly shattered. However, small thoughts, simple thoughts, tiny thoughts of your own can often manage to bubble to the surface, complete before fear tears down your attention. It was such with the simple truths Lillian's father had passed on to her. From his daughter's young age the physician imbued in her a respect for life and appreciation for all things that exist.

Once, when Lillian was quite small, a tar-black wood snake had found its way into her room. Being a cold-blooded creature, the snake sought out the warmest spot where to curl up and digest its recently caught dinner. It was a very cold night and while the house was much warmer than the outside, it still was not quite to the snake's satisfaction. It was its seemingly good fortune then, when it flicked its tongue and sensed the air, that it saw a reasonably sized heater hiding itself underneath a series of blankets.

That heater was, of course, a tiny Lillian, having recently fallen asleep for the night. As with most children her age, she had a healthy fear of snakes, and a very healthy fear of strange black things slithering up her leg as she slept. She awoke, saw her bedfellow, and cried out in what was (at that point) the most terrified she had ever been.

Naturally her father, who was still awake at the time, rushed into the room and, seeing the snake curled and hissing at the kicking and crying child, picked it up out of the bed, while sustaining no small number of bites, and left the room with it in a hurry.

Lillian wondered and worried for some time what had happened to her father. Had the snake eaten him? Perhaps he was wounded and needed help? Oh but what match was such a small girl for such a evil and terrifying snake? She spent several minutes rocking on her bed, scared for her father and hating the wretched snake before finally, her parent returned one arm slightly bandaged.

"Lillian, are you alright?" he asked her in his caring tone.

Lillian could not respond. So relieved was she at her father's safe return that she flew at him in a ball of tears, all of her worries and reliefs for her father and curses for the snake bubbling out in a mishmash of sobs.

Her father comforted her, rocked her gently and assured her that all would be fine. She begged him to not send her back to bed. He smiled and asked if she would like to stay up with him for just a bit longer which she gladly agreed to.

He picked her up with his non-bandaged arm, in that way he could do much more frequently before she grew too big, and he carried her over to his study.

"Would you like to meet someone?" He asked her.

She nodded.

"Now you, didn't have a very good introduction but I thought maybe you would like to see..." he trailed off and pointed over towards the fireplace. There, in a wide bottom jar, lied the small black snake, asleep and as content as could be next to the warmth of the fireplace. Lillian looked at her father concerned but curious, and her father explained how the snake was just looking for a warm place to stay, and how no it was not poisonous, and how in many ways it was very useful for catching mice, and how he planned to find a nice place outside and away from people to let it go in the morning.

Now that was not the only time Lillian's father refused to kill a creature and instead treated it as a houseguest, but it was the time that stood out in Lillian's mind the most. It was the time when looking back she could recall her father's words that "nothing that exists is truly evil" and it was the core of that truth that bubbled to the surface in Lillian's mind and revealed the first lie of The Darkness.

I AM DEATH. I AM FEAR. I AM NIGHTMARES COME TO CLAIM YOU.

Now were Lillian left to herself she never would have the chance to realize the second lie. She would just know that the Darkness could not be exactly what it claimed to be, but that alone would not prevent the terrors from breaking their way into her fragile mind.

It was here that Lillian owed her greatest debt of gratitude to the Viridiofloran, Reudic Otsaceae. Had Reudic not stolen the bracelet and charged towards Lillian, the others would not have followed as quickly as they did, and the ritual which the sister of the darkness wanted to take place would have completed without interruption. Now Reudic, still ready to choke and break the small girl wrapped among his vines found to his extreme frustration that the shapeshifting darkness refused to allow him his pleasure. Where his tendrils constricted, The Darkness pushed back. Where he sought to snap the child, The Darkness refused him passage. The realization Reudic came to was infuriating.

The Darkness, even this evil force which claims to be death and destruction and all evil, even that was trying to preserve the life of the young girl! No, Reudic would not allow this. The one thing he desired, the one goal he had tried to accomplish to prove and avenge everything about himself was being thwarted not just by his former comrades but by this supposedly malevolent being? Unthinkable. Unbearable. In a fit of rage Reudic sought to break The Darkness from Lillian. He forced his toxins into the sister and hurled Lillian as far as he could manage.

This small action broke the flood of terrors swarming in Lillian's mind. Like a diver gasping for air in a storm, her thoughts broke into a world of clarity, just before the waves drug her underneath again. It was enough. In that small bit of time, Lillian, reeling from all the fears and horrors, knowing almost instinctively that this being was lying to her, and feeling the ferocity with which it sought to get her back, she knew the truth.

It needs me.

That single thought managed to escape before The Darkness took hold once more. However, in that thought the idea that The Darkness was going to consume her, to claim her, vanished. She was not simply a victim of this malevolent being, it needed her for something. Maybe to escape this castle or to continue existing or from loneliness, she could not tell nor bring herself to think through such things. The very idea, alone, the knowledge of the second lie, that the creature was not a darkness independent of all others, that in actuality it very much desired and needed Lillian for whatever reason, gave the small girl the determination to struggle and fight against it.

It would have been a very futile fight had it not been that Reudic had, albeit unintentionally, tossed Lillian within arm's reach of the brightly glowing point bracelet. As Lillian struggled, both physically and mentally, her arms flew and her legs kicked and she screamed (though now out of determination, and no longer terror), the smallest part of her finger brushed against the edge of the bracelet.

The spell was broken.

As Lloyd had beseeched them earlier, all it took was a single touch from the target to undo the spell placed on The Spirit. It had found its charge and was no longer bound by magic to light the way.

It was then that another battle took place, one which revealed the third and most important lie The Darkness preached to Lillian. She had never been abandoned.

A battle in the realm of spirits is not entirely different than a battle on the physical plane. One could easily imagine The Spirit, free from its shackles, standing sword in hand before the looming dragon of The Darkness. The Spirit's twirled its blade, engraved with words of compassion for the girl. The Darkness breathed vows of fire and curses. One could picture the Spirit, far smaller than the hulking beast, but with a determination that far surpassed the cowardice inherent in the foul-hearted creature. The Spirit would charge, shouting into the fray, dodging blasts of flame summoned by The Darkness. With sword in hand The Spirit would slash at the nearest part of the beast, blade deflecting off the armor-like scales. A claw would swing down and a spiked tail would whip back narrowly missing the caretaker.

The Spirit would look, eyes darting about, searching for a spot of weakness. As the beast shot heated blast after heated blast, The Spirit would see in the creature's neck a spot unprotected by steel plated scales. While dodging, the sword would be sheathed, and the bow removed. The Spirit would draw an arrow - it only had one - and take aim at The Darkness' neck. Trusting everything into this final effort, The Spirit would stand its ground, bow cocked and drawn between its fingers, sweat dripping down a sienna lock of hair, and eyes locked on where the arrow would fly. The Darkness would recognize such a tactic and seek to end it, launching a blast of its own. Fire and bolt would meet one another and pass through on the way to their targets. Arrow would strike the neck and the flame would singe and crackle leather armor and armored plates.

But determination would beat cowardice, and wounded, The Darkness would spread its wings and fly off to find another realm, a different host.

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Dragon Fogel · 11-17-2011, 01:19 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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**btp** · 12-14-2011, 05:49 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by bobthepen.

When The Darkness was expelled from Lillian, the frustrated Reudic took advantage of his singular opportunity. Removing a pistol from Marcus' side, the Viridiofloran wrapped his tendril around the trigger and fired a series of shots. Half of them hit their mark.

The Spirit was exhausted from its encounter. For those simple moments, it was unable and unaware to prevent the danger towards its charge.

With his goal accomplished, the Viridiofloran released his hallucinating victims and cried out in a shriek of victory and release.

To the remaining contestants, the body of Lillian lay silent. A quiet pool of blood trickled out from underneath her. There was no movement, no light or life left within her.

Her wrist was barren. The bracelet was gone. It had vanished without explanation.

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Dragon Fogel · 12-14-2011, 07:22 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

The Infinity Express had served countless passengers over the millennia. But the information on precisely who had served was very well-guarded. That fact alone had drawn the Monitor's attention to it; what, exactly, were its operators trying to conceal?

The train itself had been the least-defended source of that data. Its passenger logs were encrypted, but with the Monitor's processing power, that had been more of an inconvenience than a serious obstacle. The more severe issues were the sheer size of the database, and the fact that the Monitor was uncertain of precisely what he was looking for.

As a starting point, he decided the simplest option was to check for anomalies. He simply looked over every passenger on the list and scoured for information on their point of origin, known activities, possible gaps in known activities, and anything else which might point to someone who should not have been on that train, yet had been.

In doing so, he came across a familiar name. One he hadn't expected to turn up again, least of all here.

The Senator had been on that train.

He hadn't expected to pick up that trail. Not that it was likely to matter, as the man was certainly long dead by now; the record was thousands of years old.

Nonetheless, if only out of a sense of curiosity, the Monitor recorded the man's destination.

And then he adjusted his plans for the next round.

***

As Lillian's life faded away, the other combatants vanished from Castle Suterrea. They then found themselves in the center of a large field. Around them, a frozen scene of carnage and death seemed to be playing out; the fighters in this battle all seemed to be wearing numbered uniforms. In the distance, the combatants could see a large ring of seats surrounding them, filled with people.

"Welcome to the Deathball Stadium," the Monitor's voice said. "As you might suspect from the name, Deathball is an incredibly violent and dangerous sport. The participants use all sorts of dangerous weaponry, and even savage beasts. The casualty rate is incredibly high, but the sport is immensely popular with the spectators."

The Monitor unfroze the scene for a moment, save for his own combatants. The crowd in the stands erupted with delight as one player sliced another's head off, and kicked it into a distant goal.

"Right now, the Deathball Championship is going on. The best teams in the world are all here to compete. And given the rate at which they lose players, they're often looking for new recruits. Powerful and skilled warriors who can grant their side victory."

The Monitor paused, and moved the frozen battlers to one team's dugout. Six players were chained to the bench, and they looked extremely nervous.

"The warriors rarely get a choice in the matter."

Then, without warning, the battlers found themselves transported again.

"For the moment, you have all been dispersed throughout the city. This will offer you some time to prepare yourselves should you be recruited to play, or to avoid the recruiters if you so desire. You will have a few hours before the next game begins, use them as you will."

And time started again.

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