Tournament round later.
Been busy with university stuf and work stuff and distractions.
Campaign
"Sorry."
My wall of flame gets moved to form a horizontal disk above me, boosted by the fire from the burning cloth before it can burn me.
it's a good thing heat rises.
roll away from the inevitable oncoming blow
I can't stay on the defensive like this any longer. They won't stop until I'm dead, no matter what I do or say.
Enough is enough, time to kill them all. They had their chance.
instead of having my flames simply form a defensive disk over me, I have them sweep over me and my attacker, and keep going, scattering to ignite the surrounding tents around us.
once my flames have reached the surrounding tents and I can release them without them instantly fading, I shift into my full-fox form and end my roll, allowing the cloth over me to fall through my flame-self as I change along with my clothes, leaving me standing on a flaming pile of cloth when done, their flames helping to obscure me.
As soon as I possibly can after changing to full-fox, I sieze the inner flames of all 3 of our attackers and slam them deep underground, followed by re-siezeing the flames from the tents and the burning cloth, leaving just enough to serve as seed-flames to increase my power over time, and immolate all 3 of them while they're having trouble moving.
I do NOT stop my actions and fail to continue to the next step if one of them is able to resist my attempt to cripple them, and I do NOT abandon my multi-target actions to focus on just one target. Handling large amounts of fire in large areas is what I do, I'm not single-target anyway.
You roll away from where you think a blow will come from. No sword comes, but you are almost stomped by something, receiving a glancing blow instead. The cloth is pulled away from your body and no longer obscures your sight.
You're too focused on dodging and can't maintain your concentration. Your wall of fire dissipates, revealing a third guard behind it that cautiously steps towards the one engaged with you.
The guard kicks the burning cloth away and quickly moves towards you, glancing behind him at the other guard
"Had enough?" he says, twisting his blade to point it at you. "Giving up so soon?"
((Action paused due to time.))
Campaign, Ike!
"It's almost as if I'm not good at anything other than dodging, no?"
Try to disarm him with my feet - put one foot on one side of the flat of the blade, the other foot on the other side, but a little further away, and try to use leverage to get it out of his hands and seize it for myself.
And if that doesn't work, continue dodge and recovery tactics.
The guard approaches you, still pointing his sword towards your head.
You once again attempt to disarm the guard, this time with your legs. Despite the fact that you are clearly superior, your execution is poor. And thus despite his surprise, the guard easily manages to block your blow, grab your leg and bring himself down on top of you, preventing you from escaping.
"Stop. Resisting. And. Surrender." he growls the words calmly but threateningly, each word punctuated by a punch in the face, the strength and hardness off the blows augmented by the sword's guard.
That hurt. You think you might have gotten an imprint of the guard on your forehead and if not, the bruise that will no doubt form will take care of that soon enough.
Your head is spinning.
Campaign
Zechariah took a deep breath in.
You're not ready.
"Yes. Let's do this. I think I'm ready. The sun is going down, anyways, so I don't think we'll have much time to talk anymore. Might as well continue while we still have the chance."
I thought you said you were going to stop spinning lies?
Zechariah relaxed his shoulders, pacing around slowly. He looked down at the ground and studied his feet.
"I probably won't be okay. I'm probably going to be unstable still. But that's the best that I can hope for now. Maybe later, I can find something else to help me out. But the answer isn't here. Not yet. Not anywhere."
You know that answer already. You're just afraid of it.
He shook his head. He couldn't let these thoughts begin to cloud his mind already. "I will.. manage for now. Don't worry about me. Worry about the ones we need to bring back now. That's the only thing I can believe in right now. I can believe in other peoples' futures."
Because you already know what you've done. You have a future, but not the one that you want for yourself, or for others. The truth is dark, and you know it. You just want an escape.
Zechariah turns to River. His eyes are sorrowful, yet determined.
"Are you ready?"
He looks uncomfortable when you talk, looking away.
"Yes. But I...""I am sorry." he says and grabs your head. You feel pain. You feel surrounded by coldness. You try to resist but he easily overcomes your mental defences.
The pain and uncomfortable feelings stop. The world seems to be going slowly, but so do your thoughts. Your emotions are somewhat... not dull, at least not as in weak. They are strong but... muted. Not colourful. Flat. Lacking much variation. And with a strong preference for happiness and acceptance.
"I wish I had my wings." you hear someone muttering from somewhere above you. The voice sounds familiar, but you don't really care about what it's saying or understanding what it means, if it means anything at all. You just lay there.
...
You can't tell how much time passes, but slowly it feels like your mind overcomes the effect or maybe the effect adapts to your mind, responding to your desire to not be the equivalent of a drug addled slave. You feel like it stops controlling your mind, but it remains there. You can control your own thoughts again. And somehow you feel more powerful for it.
"Good. You are stronger then you say you are. As I expected." You realize that the voice is coming from somewhere much higher than it should be. And then you realize that you have started the process of lifting him into the air and have already gotten him quite high. It gets harder and harder as he gets further away from you, but not as hard as you'd expect it to be.
You continue lifting him for a couple of minutes, until he calls out for you to stop.
"Keep it steady. Keep it level. Do not look. And whatever happens, do not let anyone hurt Theri."And with that, he stops talking. You don't dare open your eyes or even move at all. You focus your everything on maintaining your concentration.
...
A long time passes. The effect on your mind slowly fades, much like the light around you does, until nothing is left to go through your closed eyelids. It gets harder and harder to maintain the required energy. You feel like you have to move, your body aching after being immobile for what feels like hours. But you dare not. Better to maintain your concentration, to focus on one simple task above everything else.
The only time you open your eyes is when the ground rumbles and a beam of light flies out into the sky. The extra light offers some respite. The moon has risen and what little light comes through the smog helps, adding itself to the light you take from the volcano. The moon looks... different. Much less craters on it and somehow... You don't know if it's your imagination or a feeling of awe of looking at an alien sky, but it just feels... different. It's hard to define.
...
More time passes.
Sweat. Heat. Dizziness. Hunger. Pain in body and mind.
Can't concentrate. Can't think. Can't do this anymore.
You hear something clatter on the ground nearby. A *thump* of cloth hitting the ground accompanied by the *clink* of metal.
You open your eyes, fearing there's something approaching or worse that something fell out out of the sky. In front of you is... nothing. There's only those improvised bags River had with him.
<D̸̡͘͘͢o̡̧͢͞w͠҉̢̢n̢͡.̸҉͝>Finally! You sigh a sigh of relief and start slowly lowering the platform. But even as you do so, you feel the darkness overtaking you. You're barely holding on to consciousness.
You can't maintain it anymore. The crystal shard falters for a moment, becoming transparent before disappearing completely. They fall.
Your entire body aches, your muscles feel stiff and your joints crack as you move. It's hard to keep your balance. For a moment you feel like you're going to fall too.
You reach the trio of naked men as fast as you can and inspect them in the dim light of the volcano.
River's left leg has been broken after impacting a stone. The leg lies limp in an an unnatural manner, bending at a point legs are not supposed to bend. There is slight bleeding from a tear there.
Nikolai's arm is bent in an unnatural way behind his back. Probably dislocated.
Alan looks fine, if a bit thinner than you'd remembered him. A closer inspection reveals that he appears to have dislocated his right ankle.
All three look alive and... not well, but at least breathing.
River slowly opens his eyes, barely conscious.
It's late. The moon has almost reached the other side of the horizon.
You feel like you need a shipping container full of food, a few swimming pools of apple juice and a few years of sleep to think of beginning to recover. Even standing up takes superhuman effort.
Xantalos and NAVYou are rising higher and higher, one helping the other. One enemy defeated. Now it's time for another. Both feel fear for the unknown, you can see it in each other's mind, but it is overshadowed by confidence.
A second enemy defeated. Too easy. Still rising. Still not enough. Soon you will reach it. To tame it, defeat it, master it.
There it is.
The Enemy. The Light. Only a part, but still powerful. Filled with confidence, you dive in it. You bathe in its fires. It hurts. A pain, but a good pain. A pain that means you are strong, alive. Enjoyment. Pain and enjoyment. Both of you, fighting and holding your own together.
One day you will return and complete your challenge. Defeat it properly. One day you will destroy this light. One day you will be undefeated. Each time you fight, you will devour something bigger. Until one day you devour everything. The earth, the stars, space and time. Entire universes will fall apart at the whim of your hunger. Until one day you can devour the Light, devour the Creation itself.
But for now, it is time to return to the darkness. The silence. You dive down and everything becomes nothing.
((You can now attempt to wake up.))
OOCThankfully lady Luck decreed that there be no further delays or permadeaths, only horrible injuries. DAF got lucky with that first roll. On the other hand, lady Luck apparently has a new grudge against Ike. Hopefully, with Alan back alive his "normal" passive luck-o-magnetic properties will apply and restore equilibrium for the rest.
I do appreciate that, thank you. I just often feel bad that other people have to wait on me for something like that. I really get involved in the stories that I participate in, and I want to see them come to fruition, so it kinda makes me irritated with myself whenever I cannot do my part.
It's tough. I've been going through a rollercoaster of different life events. Some things have not been looking so well lately. My life may change dramatically soon. I'm just hoping for the best and waiting for the inevitable drop.
So, thank you again. I just wanted to make sure that I was able to do my part, and that I was not harming anyone's experience through my tardiness.
Your writing is fantastic, and it was what inspired me to launch my own RtD. Yeah, it's pretty mediocre, but I think that it's a nice place for me to showcase a story of my own.
Thanks once again,
Artemis.
I'll agree with the others. I don't really think that's the case. I think we're more or less at the same level (at least as far as I can judge myself). We just focus on different things in our games and use different systems and different writing styles. You know, different people, thinking differently. A difference in general game style. Which is a good thing to have.
The point is that you got inspired and tried to do something and ended up doing something good that people enjoy. I'd call that success.
I don't know what to say about the rest other than wish you the best.
And don't feel like you can't take a break. RL comes first.
Poll
15 (42.9%)
Author
Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1148667 times)