Shad
Midnight
Joined: 25 Aug 2006
Post Count: 2684
Location: Lion's Maw
4252503 Potch
200 Soldiers
38 Nation Points
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 Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 2:03 am Post subject: 060 - Wishful Thinking |
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[size=150:2okwilqi]Wishful Thinking
[p:2okwilqi]"Damn it all," Glenn yelled as soon as they were outside. Sure enough there was no door behind them, just the side of another wooden row-house.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Did we just..."[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Yes."[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Demons and robots and monsters and machine guns, we run from a lousy ghost." Blue sighed and began to scan the area. The setting was no different, but a good bit livelier. Where the dark age streets they'd traveled through yesterday comprised an empty ghosttown, this one was bustling with timepiece people wandering about. They were in a town square. Two peasant women sat next to them knitting; a jester juggled near a fountain in the middle; men and women browsed an assortment of storefronts jutting out from the houses that surrounded them. A hundred playful youth, screaming babies, busy buyers, and wary livestock channeled a pre-industrial human drone through the air. The medieval city had come to life.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]Glenn was exhausted by the endless tricks. Surely Blue felt the same. Every scenario seemed to come at them spontaneously, with no end in sight, just an exercise in the random, an endless game. "Tyne, cut the crap," Glenn called to the air. "I thought you brought us here to test our strength. If you wanted to test our wits congratulations, you've successfully pissed me off. Now come out and fight me or send us out of here, just get this over with."[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"That child has been crying all mornin' long. Someone ought to smack it," one of the knitting women stated.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"I say we gut it and throw it in the river," the other replied with a cackle.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"You sound like a crow," Glenn griped, turning to her in his annoyance.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Mind your business brat," one said, not bothering to look up.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Maybe we should give him what he wants."[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Do you think its time dear?"[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"He needs a good thrashing."[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Let me finish this row and we'll teach him." The two went on knitting.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"We've got to think of something clever, something we haven't done before," Glenn said to Blue. "Do you have any ideas?"[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"We've been moving in generally the same direction for over a day now," she replied. "I don't think there's any real end. I mean, this is supposed to be a puzzle, right? Or do you have some enemy that's got such a vendetta he's just lured you here to torture and kill you?"[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"If so I suppose it has to be about me," Glenn speculated, "or Andrew, or Marcus, I don't know. There was no way for Tyne to predict you would be here, or even Anwyn for that matter. I don't really have any enemies. Andrew might, I know he's tangled with mages in the past, but if there was one this powerful and this vindictive I'm sure I'd have heard some story about it. It's irrelevant. If this is meant to kill us maybe it's already too late. We have to assume it's a puzzle - it's still being presented as such - and if it's a puzzle and the key isn't simply navigating out of it, the exit has to be something already at our disposal."[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Do you think... check what you're carrying, check anything, see if there's anything on you that wasn't there when we traveled here," Blue suggested, beginning to do the same.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]Glenn went flying backwards into the side of a building, lifted off his feet by an enormous fireball. Blue rolled backwards away from the blast instinctively and pulled out her knives. The two women were on their feet, facing her, energy channeling in both of their hands. Thinking fast, Blue darted to the left, kicking off a wall next to them and springing toward the first woman's side. She got one quick uppercut slash into her right arm before they both, having turned to her, let out another blast.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]She hit the wall hard, caught at close range between the two women and a building. Moments later the ground shattered upward in a line from where Glenn had fallen, sending all three of them into the air. Close enough to the house to grapple onto a second story window sill, Blue broke a harsher fall, but still dazed from the first attack she couldn't hold on long, and fell back to the ground. The two women had a rougher ride, falling straight back down.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]The wounded one stayed there, unable to move as her arm bled out around her. The other rose to her feet dazed as Glenn came rushing towards her. He cut across with his sword, but she teleported to his side, just out of reach. He cut again and again, but she blinked around him away from the blows. Unprompted his sword turned red and fire sprang out around it. Another new ability? He didn't hesitate to use it, whirling around in a full circle, too slow to possibly catch her, but the fire lingered and as she blinked to his side again her garments were set alight.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Vermin! Scum!" she screeched, falling back in a blaze. She fell to the ground and rolled, smacking at the fire on her, looking again like the helpless hag she'd appeared to be. "The devil is within you!" she howled. "May he consume you!" Glenn felt a sudden grip stay him. A terrible rage seemed to creep up in him, as though her words had meaning. The Zicron Blade turned black, hollow, empty, evil, it exploded in his hands with such a concentrated force that he flew across the entire town square and slammed high into a building on the far end. The woman dove upon her friend as the burning subsided, and in an instant the two were gone.[/p:2okwilqi]
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[p:2okwilqi]"Glenn? I saw you blink, are you alright? Glenn?" He opened his eyes. Everything was blurry. Blue was leaning over him. He tried to move, but he felt more than drained, completely empty. His muscles twitched for a second, but he couldn't lift his arms. "What the hell happened?"[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]He turned his head to the side. The Zicron Blade was sitting there, but he didn't feel the typical draw to it. He felt terrified. "Get that thing out of my sight."[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Wha?..." Blue looked at the sword and moved it obligingly aside. "Are you alright? I mean, mentally?"[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"I'm fine," he responded, the challenge snapping him out of his fear if not his fatigue. "Those two were the real deal. They weren't just some conjured horrors or helplessly deformed victims, they were real mages in the service of Tyne."[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"You sure?" Blue glanced out the open door where the fight had been. They were inside. She must have dragged him in, out of the hot sun, but again they'd not been transported anywhere. "Here, drink this." She handed him a flask of water. "I brought it with me, it's not that black rain water from earlier. ...But I've been drinking that stuff all day, and I'm telling you it's just fine."[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]Glenn raised an eyebrow, but not his arm. He couldn't even reach up to clasp the thing, she had to tilt it over his lips. "Where did they go?"[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"The one you were fighting grabbed the one I took out, and they both just disappeared," Blue explained.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"The combat magic she was using is one thing, but if this place is magically bounded you can't just teleport out of it," Glenn explained. "Krivin tried I'm sure. Do you know where they went?"[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Believe me I checked around. I wasn't about to let them sneak back up on us. The rest of the people here are just illusions, they took no notice of me or the fight. I checked all over the place. I don't know if you noticed, but this square doesn't even have a road out. Buildings circle the whole thing, and they all look identical inside with no other exit." How long had Glenn been unconscious?[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"If she had to grab her friend then they weren't pulled out by the spellbinder. It has to be something else. It's like they just willed their way out of here. Talk about frustrating." Glenn closed his eyes, tried to recall anything they may have missed. What was the key?[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Wait," Blue said.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Hmm?" His eyes shot back open.[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]"Maybe you're actually on to something there. I have an id---"[/p:2okwilqi]
[p:2okwilqi]And the two were in a dark forest.[/p:2okwilqi]
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NDR: Consider Glenn out of the running combat-wise. He's going to need some recovery time. |
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