Shoot it.
[Initiative! You: 2, Flamehead: 4]
[Flamehead's accuracy roll: 1-->6]
The snake thing shoots a gout of flame your way, which sails rather far off the mark. You shrug and point the gun at it.
[Your accuracy roll: 2]
Unfortunately, the shot you fire off is equally imprecise, missing the narrow form of the creature before you and possibly hitting something in the distance that you can't quite remember at the moment, in what is a spectacular bit of all-round failure for the both of you. You cycle to another pistol grip, keeping track of the two depleted ones. Two shots left, you suppose.
[Flamehead's accuracy roll: 5]
The snake responds by covering you in sticky fire, setting your body quite solidly aflame.
[Your endurance roll: 4]
You immediately respond by rolling around to put out the flames, which works, albeit puts you in a prone position.
Ah! Quiz time, eh?
So uh... MPD? Maxi Petroleum Development? What does that have to do with anything? I know we denied them a loan a while back...
Between life and death? Would it be dreams? Yeah, the dream state.
Radix and the world? Hmmm.. I'm gonna say Radix ends at the edge of our, uh, insanity? Yeah let's go with that
Yeah say this then head upwards
"DREAM STATE? THAT DOES SEEM TO BE AN APPROPRIATE SET OF WORDS FOR IT! FOR THAT, YOU SHALL BE REWARDED!"Instantly, the Angel of Impregnability opens up, its armored plates floating right off it as if they were held in place by nothing other than willpower, revealing a bubbling mass of eyes and teeth that slowly opens up similarly to a flower bud, a metallic sphere floating out of it toward you, gleaming pleasantly as it lands in the hand not holding your trusty war lizard. The sphere, once it touches your hand, seems to discharge some manner of silvery liquid that runs all over your body, infiltrating your tissues, rendering your skin rather steely, though nevertheless quite flexible as well. The sphere returns back into the Angel of Impregnability, and the process of its opening now happens in perfect reverse, slightly unsettling with how true it seems to every last detail. Shrugging, you proceed upward to the Unholy Chambers of Satiation, a green gate awaiting your entry at the top of the Conduit of the Skies, which you dive through readily.
What awaits you on the other side is a vast, incredible table made of authentic oak, a single plank over fifty meters wide and two hundred meters long, covered in mountains of grayish goop covering various plates. The gate you step in through appears to have two things next to it - a snack machine, completely regular as far as you can tell, and a coffee/rum machine, also very normal, complete with a few spotless mugs on a barrel right next to it. The coffee/rum machine seems to have a dial on it adjusting proportions of coffee versus rum, while the snack machine seems to have a set of numbered buttons and a display case filled with delicious-looking food and non-food items, although it seems to require money of some kind.
Further away, you become aware of things forming out of the grayish goop - humanoid figures, you believe, forming out of smaller or larger droplets of the stuff that run down the massive mounds. A few fall off their plates and begin to shamble about the area, the smallest being the size of a toy terrier, while the largest are about twice the size of the tallest man you've ever seen.
"HEAR THE WORDS OF RADIX THE OMNISCIENT! THE UNHOLY CHAMBERS OF SATIATION STRETCH OUT BEFORE YOU, WISE PERSON! HERE ONLY TOKENS OF GRAY WILL SAVE YOU FROM ETERNAL IMPRISONMENT! AN EXIT COSTS TEN TOKENS, AND WILL REMAIN PERMANENTLY OPEN ONCE BOUGHT! FOOD ITEMS COST LESS! TOKENS OF GRAY CAN BE FOUND ON THE LEGIONS OF GOOP! SOME AUTOPSY MAY BE REQUIRED! COFFEE/RUM IS FREE COURTESY OF RADIX THE OMNISCIENT!"Stock my hand into the gold core.
You stick your hand into the gold core.
[Your absorption roll: 4]
[Your endurance roll: 3]
Suddenly,
FACTS! That's all you really know to say about it - FACTS! True FACTS! All of them true, some of them slightly contradictory, a great deal more than slightly bothersome to know. There are so many FACTS, in fact, which is also a FACT, that a good deal of these FACTS are shunted into your thus-far inactive subconscious, which they fill out readily, and then decide (on their own, because they have all the FACTS and do not recognize your invalid opinions on matters) that the only way all of these FACTS could possibly fit into your brain is through cerebral enhancement. Of a sort. Of a sort because it is a FACT that your brain really has no space to expand. So the FACTS just crack your skull a little bit (just a little bit, along the seams, you'd hardly even notice) to make room! Your head suddenly expands, and from the newly made holes pulsating large hernias of dura mater holding within it blood vessels and brain matter filled with solid FACTS emerge, giving your head a very organically-grown, bulbous and very obviously wrong look, which you know is another FACT. Your head now looks wrong objectively, yes. It's not just a matter of opinion or good taste. And you have not even received any psychic powers in the process, a FACT you are also well aware of. But you do now possess the power of FACTS! True FACTS! And with this comes the ability to exposit like no other man come to the realm of RADIX THE OMNISCIENT wielding only Lynyrd Skynyrd and his wits, and also a Trained Attack Nautilus from the Depths of Irkalla, or TANDI, has ever before.
You immediately notice the FACT that the Onion of Truth is no longer golden, having become a dull gray, and all of its formerly golden layers seem to have become empty of FACTS. The liquid you touched is no longer there, leaving a hollow space where it once was, and the onion, no longer deserving capitalization now that you see its destitute, deprived state, seems to currently be falling apart.
get back up, and relax the pain away. Observe my enemy, and attack with precision
You get up, and attempt to relax the pain away, and succeed in relaxing your legs and collapsing again, although less painfully than before. You take heart in the knowledge that you have not relaxed your bowels at least.
((Will return to the Head of Listening and provide another boring, badly written story later. Have to say, the rewards are awesome.))
Stargazer felt the power of the stars coursing through her very being! She bowed low to the Head of Listening before turning to see what the ruckus was. Another star lord had come to the base of the ziggurat, she observed! Stargazer respectfully addressed the glorious newcomer while idly fingering the Plates of the Blessed Free Kings.
"GREETINGS, dweller among STARS! I am Stargazer, and I have come to bask in your GREATNESS! Do you have a name or designation?"
"Why, yes!" the creature below shouts from the bottom of the ziggurat.
"I am the Shadow That Abjures Newcomers, or ShTAN. I am very pleased to meet you, Stargazer, and I will do my best to shine as much of my greatness, humble as it may be, at you as possible. It's good work you did in there, after all. There is still more to do, however, and thus I stand here. And also ShTANd here. That is something I have not noticed before! Interesting!"
Author
Topic: Ephemeral Games: Game 2, the Fearsome Dominion of Radix (Read 25138 times)