death_gone_mad | Entries tagged with oom

( a fruitless investigation in Varrock )

omniscientSavant [OS] has begun trolling mnemonicPhagocyte [MF]
OS: We know it was you.
OS: We just can't figure out why.
OS: Do you seriously hate him that much?
OS: Come on; you aren't going to let someone else take credit for this.
OS: Hello?
OS: Are you even there?
OS: Am I just sending words to die in the abyss?
omniscientSavant has ceased trolling mnemonicPhagocyte

( A witch appears in Port Sarim )

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/70774.html

( Southwest Varrock )

( Afterwards, in Varrock Castle )

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/70164.html

"You know what, that's it. I am done with sneaking around. We've been training for war for months now and meanwhile the Phoenix are freely running around taking money that should be ours," complains Katrine. All around the room there are grumbles of agreement from members of the Black Arm Gang.

The imposter hiding behind Keli Raven's face and mannerisms would have enjoyed the onesided bloodbath that would have resulted from throwing the Black Arm Gang at the shrunken but well prepared Phoenix Gang. There are more important things than causing a minor gang war that would be over in maybe a week, however.

Keli answers her sister Katrine, "Straven got lucky and convinced the weaponsmaster to stay with him and got away with most of the crossbows. We had to be ready for that. I am getting tired of this too, but while we've been getting ready, they've been enjoying easy times." At this, members of the gang grumble. "They've been living easy," Keli says dismissively. More grumbling. "Thinking we are too busy hiding from them to do anything else. They've been getting soft."

"I am not too sure about that," a voice speaks up in the crowd. "If you hadn't noticed, some of us didn't show up." The Black Arms start looking around the room to figure out who is missing. Keli, visibly flustered, starts looking around, but specifically for the voice that interrupted her.

"If they don't know already, they'll find out eventually," Katrine says, sternly. "Waiting longer will just give them more time to find out and prepare for you, Keli. That is if they aren't doing that already."

"If they are preparing for me, they are dead," Keli growls back. But she hastily adds, "because we are ready for them; all that they are ready for is me."

The Black Arms start hooting and cheering, but Katrine's demeanor stays the same. "You are going to stay hidden. I don't want you to get hurt, Keli."

"Come on Katrine, she is our ace in the hole," speaks up one of the Black Arm thugs. "She's tough, too; remember that one time I stabbed her? And she's walking around like it never happen--"

"You son of a bitch, you did what?" Katrine pounces, but Keli intercepts. "I'll kill you! Let me go!"

"Katrine! I am fine!" Keli yells.

"I-I thought you knew," says the thug, shocked. "It was an accident! How could you have not known?"

"She didn't know," Keli answers back at the thug seething.

Katrine stops struggling and backs off, and looks bewildered at her sister. "When did this happen? How?"

Just then, someone, or multiple someones, start beating on the door to the temporary hideout. "They've found us! Get ready!" Katrine orders.

Keli, her nostrils flaring, her fists shaking, and enraged, angrily informs the room, "It's not them. It's zombies."

There is a clamour in the room as many of the Black Arms remember why there would be zombies outside. Lucien. But there is excitement, too. No one has ever seen Keli in such a livid state before. Things are going to go kaboom.

"Zombies are just a load of rotting meat, and what falls apart easier than rotten meat? We are ready for these bastards, whoever they are!" Katrine reassures the room.

"THEY ARE GOING BACK INTO THE GROUND!" rages Keli before kicking out the door.

Current Location: Southwest Varrock
Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/70015.html

( Sophanem (pg-13, but abuse and maybe implied non-consentual stuff) )

( Pollnivneach )

( Al-Kharid )

( Varrock )

( Daemonheim )

Current Music: Phantogram - You're Mine
Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/68321.html

...

This isn't working.

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/62599.html

The stone is deployed.

Yes, I feel it. It's little wonder no one has found the place yet; there are spells in place to disguise the weak spot. It is going to take more effort than it used to take to punch through. It may be best to wait for the next guard change. The weak spot has to show up then.

You don't have the power to do it yourself?

Though the other gods have mostly abandoned this world, they still interfere. I am not all powerful and all seeing, for the gods hide things from each other, and mortals learn from their gods. Especially the Mahjarrat, due to my idiot brother and ... other idiots. Stay out of sight, I don't want these idiots to think that they are colluding with humans.

Yes My Lady.

A contigent of scabarites is gathered, waiting on the vaguely humanoid red beetle seated at the high end of the room. The not-quite priestess of the new alliance between the Devourer and the Most Wise and Holy Scabaras looks to be deep in thought as she searches and waits. There was an evil in a far away land, an evil that needed to be extinguished, and the Mistress wasn't going to risk a march across the halfway across the world through the human kingdoms to get there. The yellow shelled insectoid scabarites stand ready with lances, longbows, quivers, and staves to leave, many on their first purification mission.

She stands and utters, "We go," providing little warning to the cold blooded scabarites gathered before her for the abrupt change of climate that comes next. The warm, smoky cavern they were in gives way to suffocating emptiness, then blinding light, back to emptiness. Then a cold, empty sky, and snow everywhere. There is a brief struggle somewhere in the ranks, then suddenly they are no longer outside, but inside a room even chillier than it was outside.

Eyes turn to face the invading insectoid army. Human eyes, but also icy globes and facets. The creatures made of living ice are the first to move toward the scabarites, as if they could sense what effect the bitter cold would have on their cold blooded anatomy. The red shelled one, however, showed no signs of drowsiness.

"UNNATURAL FILTH!!"

The Mistress' fire magic hits the fiendish living ice hard, and it warms up the room enough to give the scabarites a fighting chance. But it is not as warm as the caves back home, not as warm as the desert, but still they fight on. Room through room, they fight sleepiness, human warriors, archers, and mages, unholy spirits, giant spiders made of ice, trolls, trolls of ice, ice dragons, ice hydras, ice giants, ice demons, so much ice. And not just icy rooms and icy foes, but icy traps. And deeper the dungeon descends, and so to do the scabarites. They flames provided by the red Mistress consume the fallen, both to keep the living warm and to spare the dead from the necromancers she keeps screaming about, urging her dwindling army to resist the cold and the slugishness it brings, to push on through and rid the world of the necromantic stain. Down, floor by floor, past mighty demons, witches, behemoths. And huge floating tentacled eyeballs. And accursed frigid wind and magic.

Then...

"Praise Scabaras! We escaped that frozen hellAAAuuGGckK" The first scabarite to see the ice free room hits the room's floor with an arrow through his head.

"Archers!" hisses the Mistress, "Mages move up, everyone else move back. Sandstorms and Plague Swarms on my signal, then everyone rush the room. Lancers, be quick if you want to save lives."

A wave of flame spreads through the room quickly followed by the dark magic of the scabarite sand and plague spells. The remnants of the scabarite invaders pour into the room and quickly eliminate the few defenders actually there. This, coupled with the change of ... climate? ... gives the scarabites a chance to stop and rest.

The red carapaced Mistress, despite wanting to press on, pauses as well and surveys the surviving scabarites.

How did I manage to keep so many alive through that? "How many defenders were in here? Did anyone get a count?"

"Five?"

"I saw eight."

"Twelve maybe?"

"Much less than what we were fighting through before." The Mistress rummages through the chests and pots scattered about the room. There is food, maps, notes, mugs. "Eat, rest up," she says after shoving a few mouthfuls of food in between her mandibles. "We'll have to move again soon, I don't want to get caught defending." She fishes out a mug, walks over to the door to the next room, and uses the mug to try to listen for clues about what they would be facing next.

"What are you doing?" asks a near by archer.

"Listening. Shh," hisses the Mistress.

"Then why aren't you using your antennae?"

She gives him a severely annoyed look. "The sound carries better this way. Trust me, I know these things." You will be the the first to die in the next room. She carries on listening, but this time she presses her illusory antennae against the door as well.

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/61167.html

Goddess.

A pause.

All around her the clatter of weapons fills the cavern. Metal on metal, metal on wood, the twanging of bows, the crackle of magic.

Metal on chitin. The sickening sound of chitin being crushed and torn apart.

Revulsion.

"Eww I got lymph all over mys-"

There is silence as the scabarites cease fighting eachother, as if expecting something to happen. When nothing does, their eyes (and there are many eyes) turn to toward the red-shelled human sized female beetle standing on her two hind legs on a high place at the back of the cave.

Goddess?

"Sorry, I was receiving a vision. Why have you stopped? Why are you looking at me for?"

The eyes of several of the yellow shelled insectoid scabarites betray the location of an injured comrade.

The red beetle stares. "These sorts of things happen in real combat; I won't always be there to clean up the dead bodies for you."

Flames engulf the injured scabarite and a pained squeal escapes the burning body.

Oops, not dead. Oh well, it would have been cruel to leave it injured like that. What kind of life is there for a lame soldier? "None of you would had noticed if someone had been able to handle a little gore. Who was it? Who's not ready to fight?"

Several of the scabarites standing around the ash pile that was formerly their comrade now had baked on grey ichor staining their chitin. They were all hiding their disgust well, but none looked particularly guilty. None were about to point a claw at eachother, either.

"Fine. Practice is over, go purify yourselves. But know this - In order to purify the world of the various plagues that overrun it, it will be inevitable that their filth will stain our shells, and maybe our very souls. But we do this for inner peace. Eternal inner peace. Hiding from the world and from ourselves will no longer suffice, for plague spreads, and will spread until there is no solitary place left. There will be no unfilthy place; not even our innermost souls shall be unstained."

The scabarites scurry away to their individual quarters (yes, every damn one of them has to have their own damn room, ugh) to bathe and bathe and bathe and bathe and meditate on the day's occurrences. One will count his blessings later after not being incinerated for murmuring "Oh Lord Scabaras, why not fumigate the world and be done with it?"
The Mistress must have been distracted to not notice that.

After she's alone on her own room, the red beetle shifts her shape to her true form. A truer form, anyhow. The Fallen Goddess made flesh, trapped in an immortal human prison. She slips on a dress and retrieves a ghostly blue gem from her dresser. With a tap, the gem starts emitting light and an image of a human head is projected onto...... the air itself, it seems.

"Ah, it is you. You... It's not snowing where you are?"

"No, My Lady."

"Then why are you contacting me if you aren't anywhere near the Ritual Site?"

"I was, but the place was being regularly patrolled by Zemouregal's goons. I could not gather much information beyond what you had already told me about it, except for one interesting bit of information that lead me all the way east to the ocean. Well, almost."

"I would have incinerated you from here for cowardice if I did not know you better. You can avoid patrolling emptybrains easily. Out with it."

The image that the gem projects shifts, revealing a barren, rock, windblown terrain. Off in the distance are the ruins of a fortress. "Someone has been carrying off pieces of the Ritual Marker. The one at the Ritual Site isn't the original, but for bits and pieces."

"That's an old dragonkin fortification..."

"What? My Goddess, why did you not tell me this was here? Dragonkin? They are all but extinct, aren't they?"

"Why are you showing me this?"

"My Lady, whoever is carrying off the Ritual Marker, their trail ends up there. Where I am standing there is no snow, but fresh snow blankets the area near the fortress every day. The trail was hard enough to follow through the wilderness."

"... Have you been able to find why it snows there?"

"I have wandered closer, but it has been difficult to do so without leaving tracks of my own. I haven't found any of the the Ritual Marker or anything that would produce such unnatural cold."

"Why are you worried about leaving tracks?"

"There are odd people wandering the wilderness, some even managed to follow me but they were caught and carried off by the patrols here. There must be some structure underground; there is someone new patrolling everyday. And those that come up to patrol are careful about it, as if they don't want to be seen."

"Who is patrolling?"

"Humans from what I can tell, under the command of someone called Bill."

"Humans?" She thinks. Why would a group of humans take over a derelict fortress in the wilderness and why would they do that to the Ritual Marker? Are they trying to prevent the next Rejuvenation Ritual? It won't work, it only serves as a...

"Well trained, well armored humans."

Bill. She chuckles. So, she has found his hidey hole. "I want you to stay up there, but try not to be caught."

"I am honored that my life continues serve My Goddesses purposes. I shall lead more wanderers to the fortress so the patrols may speed their souls to you in my stead."

"NO! There is likely a necromancer present! If anyone discovers you, kill them yourself and dispose of the body far from that place. You are to not do me the dishonor of being taken into such a place or leading anyone else in there. You are mine and no one else's!"

"YES MY GODDESS!"

[Continue to the Demon Halls.]

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/60711.html

Word had gotten out about the fallout zone and most people with a lick of sense had cleared out. Unfortunately, that meant it had also become a refuge for the remnants of the Combine still on Earth. The local remnants, anyhow. There were small camps of Resistance and their allies dotting the "border" of the zone, and from here were launched hunting parties to attempt to root out Combine forces that were trying to regroup inside the zone.

These trips were dangerous but necessary. There was no way that the Combine was ever going to be allowed another chance to grab power. So into the irradiated zone the hunting parties went, following sightings by others of a soldier here, a synth there.

There weren't enough radiation suits to go around, and the ones that the Resistance were able to scrape up weren't that great. Too restrictive, too clumsy. But the eggheads were able to build enough dosimeters to go around, so, just as long as things didn't get too complicated, no one would get too bad of a dose. No one had to stay in the Zone, no one who wasn't hiding ou--

"What is that?"

"What is what?"

"I see smoke over that way."

"A campfire. Damn cocky sonsofbitches, don't they know they are supposed to be hiding?"

"Well, it helps them that this place is so damn flat. They probably think they can spot someone sneaking up on them."

"Wouldn't a better vantage point be that hill to the east?"

"Too conspicuous; remember all the time we wasted searching it first? And its not much of a vantage point with all those trees, not unless you built a tower or are riding on top of a strider."

"Would have made life simpler if they had picked the hill."

"Eh... that's life. How are we going to do this?"

"Quietly, for now. We need a headcount and a weapons inventory before we start shooting."

It took several tries but she eventually remembered how. Hunting down teleporting prey was something she had not had the motivation to do in a long while. But it was like riding a bike, really.

Hold on, what's a bike?

She had motivation, so she relearned. The blue, one-eyed toads were curious things. So was everything else on this world, but chasing after something that had the sense to run away was a nice break. Well, a challenge, really. It is almost like the invasive species now overrunning the planet left their flight response on Xen, but brought plenty of fight.

Even the few Combine soldiers she found here and there didn't have the sense to run. What were they still doing here? Wasn't the destruction of the geneworm supposed to...

Oh well, whatever the Combine are still doing here, they provided her with clothing and curious corpses to puzzle over. They were were stuffed full of what looked like life extending machinery, machinery which disgusted her once she figured out it's purpose. Still clothing was nice, and armor even nicer. It got cold at night, even under the trees. The Combine's weapons were nice too, of course. Not that she needed it; the staff of light that she brought along with her not only survived the star's explosive rebirth and redeath, it came out of the event a great deal more helpful with spells, particularly with spells that incorporate chaos energy. It was decidedly unhelpful with anti-teleportation spells, however.

The trouble that she went through to hunt the teleporting toads had a nice, tasty payoff.

Yum, blue non-poisonous space-toads.

"It is just one elite."

"No helmet. I don't think it is an elite."

"I only see one OSIPR."

"One is enough with the right ammo. Hold on, thats that weapon that psycho was carrying around.Shit she's reaching for it--"

"SARAH! It's us! Hold on, don't uhhh... shoot?"

"What do you think you are doing?!"

"She survived a nuke, what were you thinking of doing?"

Current Location: 51.029925 N , 99.795360 E
Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/58893.html

[ooc:Millitimed to just after the Mongolia plot]

Awareness

Thump-bump

"No"

Thump-bump

"This world loves me."

Thump-bump

"This world needs me."

Thump-bump

The resurrected light of the dead star subsides in the cloud of dust and ashes

Thump-bump

Into the crown of the tree, the gray-brown tree that grows into the sky

Thump-bump

With a terrible lust and hunger for life and for the sun itself

Thump-bump

"I could have been it's goddess!"

Thump-bump

Like the star that gave it life, the tree grew too fast and glowed too brightly

Thump-bump

And it dies too soon. It sheds it's withered leaves

Thump-bump

Burning ash falls on the beating heart trapped in a cage of charred bone

Thump-bump thump-bump

But it is not only heat that burns, it is reality, thrown into chaos by the briefly resurrected star

Thump-bump thump-bump

And the winds howl in protest, they scream

Thump-bump thump-bump

As the former goddess of death

Thump-bump thump-bump

As the former goddess of resurrection

Thump-bump thump-bump

Arguably the goddess of destruction

Thump-bump thump-bump thump-bump

Gets dragged kicking and screaming

Thump-bump thump-bump thump-bump

Back into Life

Thump-bump thump-bump thump-bump

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/58758.html

Falling onto a dead Advisor is a nice way the break your fall, just for the record.

After a tumble, ███████ stands up, dusts herself off, and checks her equipment.

Ah! Her crossbow is still intact, and she has a good supply of bolts. Her armor piercers are mostly gone, but so are the targets she would have used them on.

In her part of the battlefield, anyhow. The Combine were still pursuing the fleeing Resistance elsewhere.

Where's her staff? Oh, there it is. "Eruni? Ayuni, Leeuni! Come to me!"

The three apes appear again. "Mistress, is that really you?" Eruni asks while Ayuni runs over to ███████ and picks through her hair.

"Feeling a bit full after that," ███████ says, grinning. "but I want to try that on more time, This time without a proboscis wiggling about in by brain." She rubs the back of her neck.

"That is her," Leeuni says. "Yes," confirms Ayuni, "I find nothing hiding on her scalp or under her scalp." "Do you really want to bring another Advisor here? Oh please don't, they have terrible voices, even from afar," Eruni complains.

"Don't worry my pet, you won't be in earshot of that Advisor. I want you to take this dead one and dump it in one of those pocket dimensions you have found. I wish to study it further." She chuckles to herself as she thinks of th grandiose plans the Advisor had for her body.

Eruni walks over to the Advisor's corpse, and then vanishes, taking the corpse with her.

"Good," says ███████. "Ayuni, I need you to point out the closest Advisor to Leeuni."

"There! I see a slug floating above that fight."

"I can't see it, but I trust in your eye. Leeuni, call it over."

"SEAWORM! MY MISTRESS HAS ALREADY SLAIN A NUMBER OF YOUR SPECIES AND WONDERS IF YOU ARE ALL SO WEAK AND DEFENSELESS. ONE WONDERS HOW YOU CONQUERED THIS PLANET AT ALL." Leeuni taunts.

The distant Advisor looks toward the source of the voice and notices the large gap in the Combines forces. It hastily communicates with the others and coordinates a closing of the gap.

(how?)

Most of the Advisors were up in the air, fighting the Dragon and the Black Lion on the opposite side of the field. There was no one closer to the gap, no one else who could investigate it.

"It approaches," Ayuni reports.

"You two go home."

"But..."

"I don't want any distractions, either for me or the Advisor. Besides, what would I do if one of you perished? I don't want my monkeyfaced 'sister' to regain her voice or her sight. Go."

And the remaining two gorillas vanish.

A sea of dead bodies and broken machines

(how?)

But only a human female left standing. Clothed in green robes, clutching a lance? and a crossbow??

(how?)

Wave after wave of pain washes over ███████. She lets it happen, she lets it knock her down to the ground. But she doesn't stay on the ground. "What is the maximum lifespan of you species?" she asks.

She gets slapped into the air by an invisible force. She doesn't land gracefully at all, but she gets up, and demands."What is the maximum lifespan of you species?"

(why?)

She is launched into the air again, and teeth grinding pain awaits her when she lands. "What is the maximum lifespan of you species?"

(why?)

The Advisor decides to find the answer.

{I am your Queen! I AM Your Mother.
You WILL Obey ME!.
You will LOVE ME!
FOREVER.}

(MUTANTEXILEFAILUREIMMORTALFAILURECRIMINALMUTANTEXPERIMENTEXILEATAVISMMONSTEREXILE how do you know of her?!)

The Advisor lifts ███████ and throws her much farther than before.

(why won't you die?)

███████ stands again. "Then let me ask a simpler question. How long do those bodies last y...I WILL NOT DELIVER THIS WORLD FROM THE CLUTCHES OF THESE WORMS AND INTO YOUR CLAWS!!"

The Black Lion roars overhead, harried by Advisors.

(fear)

███████ begins firing off fireballs at the Black Lion. Some hit their target, but most are deflected toward the pursuing Advisors. It is then that cats, felines of all sizes, start darting in and out of the edges of her vision.

(distress?)

Distressed giggling, laughing. Jaws, bone crushing jaws circling the charnel houses. Whooping, lowing, howling.

More cats appear. Panthers, lions, tigers. Claw beasts. "By what foul trickery are you avoiding me you slinking beast?" ███████ shouts at the harried Black Lion. Cats! Cats everywhere! "You are in league with the worm!" Magic isn't working. Projectile weaponry! She loads her crossbow and shoots at a phantom jaguar.

Lowing, terrible lowing. Screaming. Giggling.

(This is not Africa. This is... No, this can't be Africa. Not again.)

Whooping.

The ghostly cats begin appearing to the Advisor.

(how?)

"You where in league with them the whole time!" ███████ is loading and firing as fast as she can, but the cats keep coming, the Advisor keeps deflecting the bolts, the Black Lion is still too far away for everything but magic.

It was then that the first hyena appeared.

███████ is sent flying through the air again.

Packs of hyenas. Lowing, groaning. Giggling, chattering. Squealing. Waiting to pounce.

(this is not africa. this is... why can't i remember?)

"What are these creatures?! More allies of cats?? I WILL KILL YOU ALL!" ███████ searches for her special crossbow bolts. There are no more of the diamond tipped armor piercers, but there is … opal.

Searing light splits the sky and the air thunders in protest. Wherever the opal-tipped bolts land, lightning strikes!

The hyenas pounce and the cats are thrown into disarray. Bone crushing jaws and teeth snap at legs, at necks, at heads, at bellies.

(this is not ... home. i want to go home. how? where?)

"HUMANITY IS MINE!" ███████ fires a bolt at the large shadow the flying Black Lion casts.

Kra---THOOM!

Through the Advisor's mind and through ███████'s there comes an unearthly scream. A scream and images and words and fear and RAGE. Ragefear directed at Anticitizen One, the monster, the destroyer

(Tell me, Dr. Freeman, if you can. You have destroyed so much. What is it, exactly, that you have created? Can you name even one thing? I thought not.)

RageHATEfear of the gourd with the changing red numbers notagourdabombnotabombanurnacoffin

(what is this feeling?)

The GeneWorm Facility is consumed by light. Pure starlight unfiltered by thousands of kilometers of atmosphere and millions of kilometers of interplanetary space. ███████ rose to meet the light with arms wide open. She let it burn her clothes, she let the light taste her flesh.

Not a gourd
A bomb
Not a bomb
An Urn
A Coffin
Full of the Ashes of a Dead Star

She awaited the shockwave; the emptied out eyesockets of her grinning, blackened skull keeping their vigil of the light.

A Star That Grew Up Too Fast
A Star That Grew Too Big
A Star That Consumed Too Much
A Star That Burned Too Brightly
A Star That Died Too Soon
A Star Whose Death Seeded The Stellar Nurseries With Life
And Seeded the Clouds That Gathered Around Those Newborn Stars
With Death

And I Shall Show Them The True ~~Horrors~~ ~~Beauty~~ Of ~~Immortality~~ ~~Eternity~~ ~~Life~~ ~~Death~~

Current Music: An Ode to Death by Birds of Tokyo
Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/58389.html

The Resistance's retreat did not go unnoticed by the Combine. The voice of the Administrator had broken the Resistance's spirits.

The great machinery of the Combine pressed it's advantage, now uninhibited.

The work of the Scourge of the Kharidian Desert, (and apparently the Mongolian Desert) began in earnest.

She raised her staff to the sky, as if trying to scratch the bellies of the airships overhead. The staff roared. The sky roared. And columns of light tore through the clouds, tore through the smoke, tore through the airships, tore through the ground. The earth roared in response, and out of it came columns of fire and twisting winds rise to meet and envelop the columns of light.

The columns began moving around freely.

She was about to begin another spell when exhaustion hit. She looked into the sky and sees that reality near the firey column was twisting, tearing. "How much power did I put into that?" Then remembered. This world already had problems with reality bleed. The walls are paper thin. Having the power of the columns bleed back into the elemental planes of fire and wind prematurely would be bad.

Well, there was also the problem of tearing a hole big enough for reinforcements from the Universal Union to come to the rescue. Or refugees from infernal or abyssal planes or Xen or who knows where. Or invaders.

But power bleed is the important thing. She pushed herself to add extra flattening spells to the columns, then ducked behind a wall to collapse. The columns were carving their way Combine ranks, but it wasn't enough. She was supposed to had enough power to mow down the Combine forces that were advancing on her.

"Split your souls in twain, I will split your souls in twain, until you live no more -- Advoco insaniam haereticorum in pectus meus et animam meam."

The destruction wrought by the wandering columns began to feed her, but she was not fully recovered when Ayuni apparated by her side, panicked. "Mistress! An Advisor approache---AAAUUURRRGHHH!" There is blinding pain, knee buckling pain. "What is happening?! Why isn't this one dying like the rest??"

The Advisor drifted down from the sky and over Sarah's prone form. It turned its attention to the green eyed Ayuni, and lifted her up, and threw the gorilla away like a crumpled piece of paper.

(what? dying like the rest?)

(a little too much confidence in you)

(you are impressive though)

(you believe you almost caused a portal storm?)

(ha)

Some fool worm had stuck its head into her mouth. And it took all she had not to bite down, to crush, to rip, to tear the alien mind apart.

Inwardly, she was letting the Advisor root around in her mind. But she couldn't hide her hunger. She was salivating.

(hunger?)

(what are you?)

(human)

(what are you?)

(HUMAN)

(what are you?)

(I Am Humanity)

(hunger.)

The Advisor digs deeper and finds lives. Thousands of them.

(how?)

One life, thousands of years

(how???)

It watches how one human learns how to survive. How one human learns to thrive. How one human doesn't die, how one human learns to manipulate the forces of nature, how one human learns to manipulate people, beasts, nations, religions, GODS. How one human learns to kill. How one human learns to set the whole world ablaze with WAR.

A shadow in her mind, a dark shape that crawls, slithers out of the abyssal depths. Hunger.

(your mind will be a great gift to the Universal Union)

~~Sarah~~'s body levitated off the ground

(and we shall study your physiology)

and toward the Advisor

(and you shall teach us true immortality)

Immortality~~horrors~~

The dark shape turns, the fat worm, the overfed slug. HUNGER.

(and you shall teach us true power!)

The Advisor's proboscis emerges.

Leeuni, Ayuni, and Eruni apparate before the Advisor, who held ~~Sarah~~ aloft, her upper robes drenched in drool. Leeuni could sense her Mistress's hunger, could see it. But made no move. Instead it was Eruni. "Mistress! Why aren't you fighting? Demons! Your ears are mine! Come to my -" ~~Sarah~~'s arm rose and she showed her palm to the three gorillas. The gorillas were lifted by a mighty wind and carried away.

(WE SHALL BE GODS!)

The Advisor's proboscis struck the back of Sarah's neck and rooted up and down her spine.

The dark shape slid out of the recesses of her mind and was illuminated! It waved its multiple proboscii at the Advisor, it was a monster, it was deformed, it had vestigial teeth and a non-vestigial dorsal mantle.

I WILL FIND THE HIDING PLACE OF THESE OVERFED SEASLUGS
AND I SHALL SHOW THEM THE TRUE HORRORS OF IMMORTALITY!

{I Claim This World And Its Resources For The Universal Union. Join Us And Free This World From This Endless War!}

It did not float in the air, it slid on the ground, on a trail of its secretions.

{I Will Be your Queen. I Will Be Your Mother.
Come Child, Forsake Anger And Hate.
You will Only Know My Love,
FOREVER.}

(MUTANTEXILEFAILUREIMMORTALITYFAILURECRIMINALMUTANTEXPERIMENTEXILE)ATAVISMMONSTEREXILE

..., though suffering several mutations that made her and her spawn severely atavistic, eluded capture and destruction by purification agents. Her faulty genetic material was the greatest threat the young Empire faced, a threat that mater...

The Advisor rose into the air, still holding ~~Sarah~~'s body. It was no longer limp. It raised its arms, palms outward, and the firey columns ceased to be. It grinned, as it faced the gathered Combine army below. "How have I longed for this day. The day when I would soar high above the plains of battle!"

What is this? Has the Advisor acquired a sense of humor? Is it engaging in puppetry?

Waves of pain washed over the whoever was in earshot. "When every knee would bend in my presence again. When my name could be shouted on high!"

(what are you?)

You know what I am. You know my name.

███████
And with that, a large swath of the Combine forces was crushed. The Advisor and ~~Sarah~~ fell to the ground.

Ironically the fallen goddess of death had saved the lives of most of her deserters that day. And they didn't even have to strip her of most of her godhood to get her to do it.

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/58283.html

Inch by inch, foot by foot, the Furnace crept closer toward the Gene Worm facility, spitting out angry sparks at the Combine in its way.

In the sky where the Combine's combots but also a growing number of the Furnace's sparks, the white hot Jemr'h, looking for targets. Similar in profile but not in anything else.

In the sky too was a dragon, the flying beasts of the Combine, the Advisors, and the Black Lion, helpfully keeping out of sight of the Furnace. But there was a green eyed monster staring out of its place inside the Furnace, keeping an eye on the Black Lion.

The green eye kept silent about the lion for the sake of the ~~Resistance~~.

But it wasn't the Furnace's duty to immolate the Geneworm though it desired, it yearned to consume this artificial life-form the Combine so fiercely protected. It was a distraction from what was happening elsewhere.

Another Advisor fell from the sky. Dead. Otherwise uninjured.

"AYUNI! I told you to keep an eye out for any approaching Advisors!" Sarah yelled as the dead Advisor burst into flames.

"My apologies, Mistress, I was monitoring how the battle was proceeding elsewhere. It won't happen ag-"

The Combine combots start falling out of the sky. There still are jemr'h in the sky, but combots do not glow white hot. The one remaining combot gets shot down.

"Mistress, something has change on the Combine communications channels," informs the blue masked gorilla, Eruni. "The same message, across all of them."

"I hear the heretic!" hisses Leeuni, the gorilla with the red, bloody, lips. She brings the facemask of an Elite to Sarah. "You should hear, too."

Sarah brings the facemask up to her ear.

"...OW YOU caN Hear mE. iT's BEen a loNG tIme, hAsN'T iT, SinCE wE LASt spOKe? YOUr liTTLe rUSE wAs QUIte cLEVeR, bUT YOU shoulD kNOw By NOw thAT dECOyS woN'T deCEIvE us," the voice continues. "wE HaVE eYES AND eaRS eVERywhERE, aS weLL aS a HOST Of seNSEs thAT a mERE HUmAN CoULdN'T pOSSiblY coMPREheNd, LeT aLoNE uSe. YOUr pLAn wAs DOOMeD fRoM tHe stARt. iT'S alMOST tOUCHing, rEalLY, tHe WaY YOU keeP fiGHTing eVEn WHen iT'S uTTerLY fuTILE. YOUr fATHeR dId tHe SAME THing. YOU THinK he'S gONe, doN'T YOU? gONe to heaVEN OR Hell OR sOme otHeR ethEREal plANE HUmANs iNVEnteD to mAKe DEatH sEEM liKe AnyTHing buT obLIVioN? weLL, YOU're alMOST riGHT, AlyX. wE HaVE hiM."

This message was intended for Alyx. Sarah nearly decides to drop and ignore it, but...

These fools.

They think that there is a chance at oblivion. Oblivion without her. Through death.

"His PERsonAliTY. His MEMOry. eVERyTHing Eli VaNCe eVER wAs, aLL coPIed AND pRESERVeD, reaDY to BE acCESSed aT any tiMe. he'S reMARKabLY fORtunATe, rEalLy. he'S beeN GraNTed imMORtaliTY, IN spiTe oF His best efFORts to preVEnt HUmANiTY frOm aCHieving thAT dREAM."

IMMORTALITY

IN spiTe oF His best efFORts to preVEnt HUmANiTY frOm aCHieving thAT dREAM.
thAT dREAM.

IMMORTALITY

"he'D beG YOU to jOin hiM. iT'S juST toO Bad YOUr SpeCIes iS nO lonGER ELigiBLe FoR THaT. Of couRSe YOU HaVE onLY YOUrselVes to BLame FoR THaT, doN'T YOU?"

"HUMANITY IS MINE! MY SPECIES! HOW DARE YOU TEMPT THEM WITH IMMORTALITY! YOU DO NOT OFFER THEM ETERNAL PLEASURE, YOU OFFER ETERNAL SUFFERING!" Sarah bellows at the sky. "YOU DO NOT KNOW THE MEANING OF IMMORTALITY!"

"They choose well. They choose salvation. They choose oblivion."

Those humans still at ~~Amascut's~~ side have only a brief moment to stare agape at her before they hear the call from Alyx. They run. Away from the GeneWorm. Away from the Combine. Away from the madwoman. And they empty the furnace.

"The Resistance leader is ordering everyone to fall back," Eruni reports.

"I WILL NOT LEAVE WITHOUT MY ANSWER!

If thou openest not the gate to let me enter,

I WILL DESTROY THE COMBINE MYSELF!

I will break the door, I will wrench the lock,

I WILL BRING DOWN THE WALLS THAT HIDE THE WORM!

I will smash the door-posts, I will force the doors.

I WILL FIND THE HIDING PLACE OF THESE OVERFED SEASLUGS

I will bring up the dead to eat the living.

AND I SHALL SHOW THEM THE TRUE HORRORS OF IMMORTALITY!"

And the dead will outnumber the living.

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/57859.html

When the first Advisor had mysteriously dropped out of the sky, dead, it was a much needed morale boost for the Resistance fighters fighting beside "Sarah".

She had turned her part of the battlefield into hell on earth, and called forth monsters, one of which called forth what unmistakably were demons. Though the planet was now overrun with creatures from Xen, though the twisted and deformed victims of the headcrabs looked and sounded like tortured souls that had crawled out hell, though the flesh of the half-synthetic lifeforms looked half-dead and riveted to their life-sustaining and death-dealing machines, none of those were demons. The monstrous gorilla, the one who heard every whisper, pulled true demons, if there ever were such a thing, from behind their hiding places behind the veil that separates worlds.

"Sarah" was a leader, but not a benevolent leader, not a protector. Not by a longshot. Such conditions made people desert, and those who caught her attention or the attention of the green eyed monster serving her were incinerated. There were still many who fled. There was battle everywhere, they could not escape that. But they could escape the furnace Sarah had created and the scorched earth she left behind.

But those that stayed with were forged into weapons, hardened against the efforts of the Combine, and given the sharpest of edges. She had her fireballs which homed in on the Combine forces and never missed their mark, she had those odd exploding backwards-flying combots which glowed white-hot and harried the enemy. The three monstrous gorillas all had great strength and rapidly moving walls of force which came from their masks. The one wearing the red mask that evoked either lips or teeth had the gift of tongues and a loud voice that could inspire courage, inspire fear, induce confusion, and taunt into overconfidence and blind rage. It also had a voracious appetite for skin and an immense hatred for the gasmasks the combine soldiers wore. The one wearing an unblinking envious green eye as a mask had a gift of sight so great that the Combine couldn't surprise Sarah and the Resistance still remaining with her. The one wearing the blue mask evoking an ear had the ear of the demons it summoned and intercepted the Combine's communications, giving Sarah and those who remained fighting along with her an even greater advantage.

The Resistance had their guns, guns that aimed true for the weak spots of every half-synthetic monstrosity and machine the Combine threw at them and coax the grand flying beasts into flailing and falling and crashing into the ground troops they were supposed to support. And soon they had the Combine's weapons as well. They were learning, memorizing, studying, experimenting. They were becoming slayers.

Then came a brief pain that washed over everyone, but then it halted, followed by a loud THUD.

There, on the ground before Sarah lay an Advisor. Silent, still. With naught a battle scar.

Sarah screamed in frustration. She pointed her strange staff weapon at the Advisor's body, and yelled, "You stupid, weak, overfed SLUG! You couldn't stay alive, could you? How many of you will have to die before I get to even ask a question?" Her staff then hummed loudly, and the Advisor burst into flames.

Oh, what a great morale boost. A funeral pyre. For the Combine.

Current Music: When Animals Attack by Institute
Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/57705.html

They just had to keep this from her. They just had to tell her in the last second.

No. This was beyond last second. This was hiding in a corner trembling while fucking cat worshipers gave speeches about how they where going to take their world and their futures and...... fuck fuck fuck the slugs the maggots can have this world this world can rot in hell

It took some convincing to get the red haired woman, one of the strange allies Ms. Vance and the Freeman found, to stop shaking and to come out of that corner.

Well, she wasn't so strange, nowhere as strange as the others. Where on earth do they find these people? At least she was human. Completely human, just, dressed strangely. There are tribes still scraping by in Asia where redheads who aren't pale as ghosts or completely covered in freckles is a common thing. Yes, and they regularly wear head to toe green robes and carry around interesting looking walking sticks. That such a people can still be doing well when the Combine is concentrating its power in Asia speaks volumes.

There is no such tribe. Even as scared as she was, she was still projecting a strong field of ignore that, that's completely normal.

She didn't come out of the corner until well after someone asked Sergeant-Major Shephard to move away the flying robot Lion. Where the hell did he find that thing? It was then she said a prayer, watching the lion as it flew off. "The Goddess of Destruction is fickle, but may she look with favor upon our efforts. May she see our willingness to do her will is greater than that of the Combine so that she will add her wrath to ours."

What a quaint religion that tribe must follow.

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/56572.html

Spring is slinking its way back into the desert. Not that winter makes much of an impact, but spring is still noticeable. Various plants decide to show off the flowers they have been working on during the latter part of the winter and various small insects take flight to visit the displays the plants have put up.

It is a special day, one that comes every four years, since calendars need to be readjusted and houses need to be given a thorough cleaning. Or houses need to be changed, altogether. Although Sumona of Pollnivneach may be an oddity in town, most notably refusing to even be nicknamed Ali, she still participates in the Moevyng Day traditions along with everyone else. It's a good day to do an inventory of the shop. No one is likely to come in anyway.

She is cleaning out one of the shelves when she smells something slightly rotten. Which makes no sense. She doesn't sell anything that could rot. Things that can kill, poison, crumble, crush, stab, and dessicate, but not rot. No. Rotting things is not in her style. What is that?

Sometimes, a good nose is a good thing.

Are those? Apples?

It's coming from the back of the shelf. It is a pile of apples. When did she bring apples into the store? And what's sitting on top of them?

She pulls the thing out and stares at it.

It's a t-minus device, with a slayer gem jammed into it. Well, it was. The gem and the t-minus client have grown into eachother. Moreso than when she stopped experimenting with it anyhow. Feh, a momento from Milliways. It must have been surviving on the apples all this time. Why haven't the apples rotted completely by now? Well, without the server, what good is the client? The modifications she made to it probably won't let her listen in on the Temple Knights anymore, thanks to that brat Savant. It would probably be best to ash it and recover the gem from it.

But, you know what they say. Curiosity killed the cat.

She opens the t-minus device, after some coaxing.

"..."

"... no ..."

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/55533.html

[ooc: Immediately after leaving Milliways to face its impending doom]
Home again, again, jiggity-jig.

With a swift kick, the pile of ashes that was the scarabite who saw too much is no longer a nice pile. It is just one more bit of choking pollution in the caves below Pollnivneach. ███████, the owner of the boot doing the kicking is only able to walk a few steps before a sudden increase in magical pressure from behind her knocks her down. The stolen goods spill out from the bag she carried in from Milliways.

"WHO DARES? WHO IS SO FOOLISH?" she yells out as she recovers, quickly turning around to roast her assailant.

She says it to an empty room. There is no one there to turn to ashes, no one there that could have knocked her down.

Except for herself.

She turns back to the bag and the contents that have escaped, sensing something wrong.

op4 op2 op5 op6 op8 op1 op7 op3

op5 op8 op1 op6 op4 op2 op3 op7

op6 op3 op1 op2 op8 op4 op7 op5

The devices. They are active. They weren't doing anything when she created them and had stayed quiet until now. Now they are anything but quiet. What spell is this? Like the devices she created and scattered about the grounds of Milliways, these were pumping out magic. But what kind? It was familiar in the details, but so foreign in the ... These things aren't alive, how can this be a spell? Sure, their creation required really rare elemental ore. But.

It is too loud. Someone will hear. Someone should have heard. The others, they will hear. And they will know

"They can't know, not yet, not this way," not while the apocalypse can still be averted. The wildly changing magic fields are making it hard to focus. She tries forming a fire spell, but it fizzles. Again she tries, but instead of a fireball forming between her hands, a mudball forms before her eyes and falls to the ground with a SPLAT.

Then, silence. Not only did the devices stop doing whatever they were doing; they also ... stopped existing. Everything else that was in the bag stopped existing as well.

The bag itself flickers in and out of reality. ███████ only has an opportunity to give the bag a quizzical look before it decides to stop existing as well.

Go home. There is more time there.

Then three great beasts appear. Monstrous gorillas, each wearing face mask representing the gift of the goddess ███████ stole to create each beast. The Blue Ear speaks first. "Mistress, what was that noise? Reality was screaming."

"It was singing, Eruni," says the Green Eye, "but how confusing the sight."

"It was heresy, Ayuni," say the Red Lips who had been watching her mistress while the others spoke. "But not as loud as the Word, and not as clear as the Truth. Mistress, whatever it was, it has been hidden from the other gods. No heresy can be louder than what I proclaim."

"Thank you for thinking ahead, Leeuni," says ███████. "I am not too sure it was heresy, though. It was something, though, that would have alerted the others."

"Is that not our goal? To alarm, to alert, to rouse to war?" asks Eruni, "If I have heard, and Ayuni has seen, they know, despite your bellowing, Leeuni."

"What you heard and saw was my bellowing," Leeuni answers curtly.

"Stop," commands ███████. "Indeed, we want to stir the gods to war, but not one united against me. It wouldn't be a war, even if Bandos got involved. Such a thing could finally convince him that he can't just breed an army and send them to die. It wouldn't be a war. Who do I have? You three? A few bugs I have misled?"

"Misled? You are showing them the true path," says Leeuni.

"You know what I am to the other gods? Minor. My whole family, minor. My father's stupid pets, even more so." ███████ looks down. "Who am I? Forgotten, nameless." ███████. That is her name. ███████. The name her father gave her when he still loved her. ███████. "It would not be a war. It would be a little nondescript box they would put me in until they where ready to destroy the world. Until they where ready to destroy themselves. Until they see no good in the world."

"Until they have their eyes opened," says Ayuni.

"The universe will be cold and my prison will be out of the reach of their frozen limbs by that time. What waste, so much effort to keep the warmth of the universe from consuming the universe. May their cold tears tear into their faces, if it comes to pass, while the only remaining fire in existence drifts beyond their reach."

███████ lifts her eyes. It is the hope of the gods that would keep her imprisoned, it would be their hope that would condemn the universe to cold, indifferent loneliness. But she has more than hope, she has seen the end of the universe. The fire is not imprisoned. The fire warms, consumes, and shows what mercy truly is. In the end, not everyone dies alone. The fire unites. They die together, fighting the end. United.

She stretches a hand to the machinery that has gained her entrance to Milliways so far. It rumbles, but does not awake. A second try, and the machine stirs, protests, and falls back asleep.

"The universe has been released from its prison, and has fallen to the mercy of the fire," she says with a smirk. "The end of the universe has ended."

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/55206.html

She isn't standing before the great unblinking eye anymore, if you could call what she was doing standing. She wasn't even physically there, for that matter. She is, however sitting on the ground far out and away from Milliways Bar, doubled over and trying not to vomit.

The skies are still clear and dark when she orders the vigilant sh'elh hovering over her away.

The time loop again

The vigilant sh'elh returns, leaving the rest to their patrol. ███████ then enters her trance again.

She is before the great unblinking eye again and again it asks the same question. Somehow. "Why do you approach Sköll when you cling so tightly to your existence?"

"I do not cling!"

"Then why do you not come closer? I can not smell you from that distance."

"Why do you desire to smell me?"

"Desire? Foul temptress! I have no desire. It is Destiny that I smell, that I eat, that I devour. Do you truly wish to wallow forever in your ignorance? You do not know what forever is! You shall not find what you desire, you will find despair."

"You are not the Sköll I know. Why do you have his name?"

"I have devoured many suns, and I shall devour many more. You have the name Amascut. Why do you have her name?"

She is … surprised. Silence, as she wonders what this thing could have meant. The implications for each possibility are ponderous.

Before she can answer, he asks again, "Why do you approach Sköll when you cling so tightly to your existence?"

"I do not cling, I told you! I am bound!"

"Bound by what? Why are you there and not here?"

"... What?"

"Why."

"… You are making no sense. Why am I talking to you?"

"Yes."

She is pulled away again, back to Milliways. She is doubled over again, cursing. How? That wasn't the same amount of time. It couldn't have been.

The stars disagree, however. Only a few hours until morning.

"Why do you approach Sköll when you cling so tightly to your existence?" asks the great eye.

"I do not cling, you stupid, overfed wolf! You asked me why I am not here. Where am I?"

"There."

Gone is the unblinking eye of Sköll. In its place, another like it, full of nervous energy and careening though an archipelago, stealing and washing away the sands that make up the low lying islands.

"Well, it is time that I finally get here," greets the hurricane."I have been waiting."

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/54695.html

It is days, it is hours, it is seconds, it is centuries. It is the end of the universe. In the grand, wide view, it is a great sponge being dessicated. The voids, great and small, and so cold, grow as the life, the heat, the moisture of the great, unmoving creature wanders away. Away from what is, what still exists, never to warm another living thing again save for the most rarest of coincidences.

And as the voids grow, what is gathers itself into great clumps and thin strands and film. Delicate, full of tension, ready to pop and tear and further unbound the great voids, isolating each little island of existence in a sea of emptiness. As that what still is gathers itself to itself, for warmth, perhaps, it only isolates itself from the warmth of the rest of the universe, immersing itself in the frigid waters. Paradoxically.

This is Time's doing.

A severe sickness washes over her and she awakens from her trance. It hasn't been hours. At least, not many. The day couldn't have come and gone either; someone would have disturbed her and the sh'elh. The sh'elh appear unperturbed. She orders the one keeping vigil over her to join the others in order to let her eyes adjust to the dark. As soon as they do she studies the stars intently to determine how much time had passed.

So, that's what that was. The time loop. Only this time it is many times more gut-wrenching a sensation than when she first stepped through the Front Door.

She calls one of the patrolling sh'elh to herself, then enters a trance once more.

In finer detail, what exists can't be seen gathering to itself. There are voids. And more voids. And more. Then things that exist. Swirling islands of brightness and of dark, more beautiful than the most precious of gems. Strings of islands, archipelagos. These were the great strings and sheets and clumps of existence that were gathering to themselves in the grand view, but in this detail the islands were drifting away from eachother. Slower than the grand voids where expanding, but still hard not to notice. In yet finer detail, these islands are not islands. They are young stars and dust, debris swirling around in eddies; they are ancient stars, swarming about an unseen hive.

So many stars in so many islands in so many archipelagos in so many clumps and threads and films of existence. And what of the voids? What can hide in the great vast void? Who would bother looking?

In a sense, all these stars are her kin. Any could be her father's brothers and sisters, or perhaps their children, or their grandchildren. Why couldn't she have been a star? Instead she was born Death.

Then she remembers. Stars. Galaxies. There are names for these things. There is no father, no mother for each individual star. There is only birth of the new, triggered by the death throes of the old and by bumps in the eddy. And by the movement of stars that no longer give light, but take matter.

Stars that are no longer stars. Black Devourers.

She takes notice of one of the galaxies full of young stars and dark dust. A galaxy that looks to be unraveling, the eddies in which the stars swirl greatly disturbed. A planet, cold and dead, races past. And there a star, ripped from what it knows and into the void, its destiny to shine its light on nothing until it can shine no more. More and more, until the disturbance is found.

A great disk of light, stars torn apart. Swirling circulating, the iris of a great eye. The pupil. The black, light consuming pupil. In it the universe reflected in horrifying detail.

"Why do you approach Sköll when you cling so tightly to your existence?"

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/54522.html

The Fool... why did she... ugh. If Tower agreed to the idea... No!

Tower is a fool as well. Another believer in the cycles. Just like Icthlarin, curse his name and his stupid jackal face.

Throwing rocks at the Window...

The Fool has his own ideas. Yes. He brought it up. She was just advising him. Discouraging him in fact! Yes!

Hopefully he wasn't too discouraged, though. It might provide a useful distraction.

███████ looks back to the red floating ball of molten rock that is following her, providing light and heat on this cold winter night. Why did the Milliways' makers decide it would be a good idea to mimic the climate of someplace that might as well be considered polar? It hardly gets warm in the summer.

She kicks at the snow. Her outfit might have kept her warm for a while, and possibly longer if she was going to be active and moving about, but she needed to be still, possibly for a long time. And the bunnies. The bunnies stopped her last time. But now she has... umm... shoot, she still hasn't come up with names.

"I am going to need more sh'elh," she says as she gets a comfortable distance away from the majority of the buildings on Milliways grounds and then some. One good thing about Milliways' cold winter nights is that the cold discourages prying eyes. Who would want to spy on her when there is a warm bright fire inside the tavern. Or inside the forge for that matter.

The Fool is a special case. Ako too. What is with that girl? And Carlotta?

Oh well, she might as well have friends. People are less suspicious of friendly folk than they are of loners.

The red orb following her becomes two, then four, then eight, then sixteen. "Clear away the snow and give me a nice dry thinking space. Set up a patrol, I don't want any interruptions." She points out one of the fiery orbs. "You stay near me. This cold is distracting on its own."

She was originally thinking of summoning up jemrh, but those are only non-distracting when creatures that know about the jemrh's tendency to explode are involved. No, sh'elh are better deterrents in this case. She watches patiently as the sh'elh circle around her first melting the snow, then drying out the grass below. The intense heat is bothersome but she only has to endure it for a moment before she sends the sh'elh away to start their patrol before they set the grass on fire.

After a minute, she takes a few deep breaths and sits on the ground. Guarded by the strange creatures of floating molten stone and warmed and illuminated by the one that stayed behind, she finally feels ready to try again what she failed to do before. She closes her eyes, and lets her consciousness venture out. Out beyond herself, beyond the warmth of the sh'elh. Out to where she can feel the currents of magics and other strange energies that flow through Milliways, out to the barrier separating Milliways from the end of the universe. She lingers there, studying it, marveling at it, before reminding herself that this is not her goal. Not this time.

And so she lets herself go beyond, out into the dying universe, to search for herself.

Are you still there?

Crossposts: http://never-b-free.livejournal.com/54210.html

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███████ , devourer of souls

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