"This intrigues me. Would you care to elucidate?"
Plans you say? Ask about this.
((Hey no need to worry piecewise, I'm still enjoying this immensely.))
The Most Beautiful smiles in a distant way. "The last stand of a foolish man."
Whimper and yowl for attention, while holding my shin and trying not to bleed out.
You whimper and yowl for help until, through tear filled eyes, you notice that your blood is behaving oddly. It leaks from your leg and pools on the ground around your feet, and from that pool stretch streams with perfect square edges and hard angled geometry. The blood flows out in a jerking, unnatural way, forming a strange square-ish symbol around you. It even flows out and sits, unmoving, atop the flowing water of the stream. As you watch, you feel your mouth moving automatically, like someone is shoving their fingers between your teeth and awkwardly working your jaw up and down.
Ask some questions."So, what exactly do you do around here? As a god, what are you most good at?"
Dianne looks up at the god.
He seems to ignore your question, instead focusing on the sky.
"Wha? Really? Wow, you are Most Beautiful! Thanks! Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to try it!"
Believe in the power of the Most Beautiful. Go drink some water. Probably a pretty big gulp, really.
You take a gulp of stream water. It kind of tastes like apple cider with a fairly heavy hit of alcohol. It's an odd sensation, because it's like the burn of the alcohol only hits once the fluid has been in your mouth for a second or two. Even the consistency of the fluid changes slightly. You wonder what caused it to become apple cider instead of straight vodka? Hmm.
"KITTY!"
Dave grimaces with indecision, looking back at the injured cat from atop the warbeast.
On the one hand, he hated the idea of leaving his companion down there to suffer; on the other... something about such creatures had always given him the willies. Some kind of deep, ingrained ancestral memory that made him reluctant to trust them, no matter how cute and harmless they seemed.
Allow my desire to aid the cat to duke it out with my species' instinctual distrust of felines.
Depending on which impulse emerges victorious, either drop everything and rush back down there to carry the poor widdle kitty to safety, or curl up in a foetal position on the warbeast and cover my ears to block out the cat's piteous cries.
You look over the railing of the warbeast and listen as the cat's yowling distorts and is replaced by an impossibly deep voice for the creature's size. It shouts, over and over, "GLORY TO THE CONQUERING KING! GLORY TO THE INFINITE EMPIRE!" as a horrible bloody sigil forms around its feet.
Hyenakles gets the Engine Spirit's attention. "The cat's possessed, and there's some kind of weird glowy thing on the horizon. I think it's time to get going. Could you walk us over to the trees, and try to get everybody's attention?"
Ask above.
"I'm already walking it! Do not interrupt my revenge!"
Keep pulling the ropes, eventually I find right ones and uproot the forest!
The Warbeast Lumbers forward a few steps and then, in direct opposition to your frantic rope pulling, turns and faces the sky. It stares at the glowing light in the distance and then drops to its knees.
"A chariot of Fire" The engine spirit mutters in disbelief. "The warbeast hears the call of its master. I cannot make it obey!"
Float back on over to Xankarvo. I know who I want to be near when magic shit goes down.
"So, I talked to the hyena, and he told me nothing of use at all. Except that I should strive to maim that cat thingy, which is probably a good idea anyway."
AMEND: After speaking with Xan, go back and tell any stragglers to regroup at the warbeast. Then go there myself.
If sufficient lift is possible, psionically airlift the cat with me back to the warbeast. No need to mind the wounded limb. If this is not possible, oh well. I'll get over it.
You float down towards the cat, but as you get closer the air itself gets heavier. You feel like you're straining to push yourself through molasses, and then through wet cement. You move via an exertion of your will; a will far greater than yours has condensed itself around the cat.
The Most Beautiful raises his hands to the sky and speaks again, in the voice which echos through the entire world.
"It is time to sing, My children."
Above him, the glowing thing in the distance seems to close in ever faster, accelerating towards the oasis like a meteor skimming across the atmosphere and leaving behind a thunderstorm gash in its wake. Aurora boils out in all directions and the closer it gets, the brighter and move visible the burning core at the center of the traveling sunset becomes. It is a fallen star trailing limbs of white hot plasma, an ember falling from heaven.
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Topic: The Infinite Heavens: More than one way to skin a cat. (Read 336006 times)