Otherworld (part 10)
Mr Zoat
Dedicated ragequitter
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1st May
13:21 GMT -5
Morning brings the chatter of bird-analogues and the rapid culling of beetle-analogues by their snapping beaks. Winged insects don't appear to be a big feature here, with pollination-duty being taken by pseudo-hummingbirds and small climbing pseudo-reptiles, but fairly tanky-looking scavenger beetles are ducking and covering as they go about their carrion-seeking duties.
The journey down Columbia's road system was… Interesting. It was as if we were flicking between intersections and villages with the rest of the network appearing only as momentary blurs. At the same time, the rattle of the solid metal-rimmed wheels and the clopping of the horses' hooves were completely constant. Since this appears to require a highly trained speciality and doesn't work -or doesn't work safely- in a built-up area, I don't think it's got the sort of wider applications that Ted and I look for. But if we work out how to train a person as quickly as possible… Maybe.
"Checkmate."
And I've just lost the thirty-second consecutive chess game to Leonid.
"Can't we play something else instead?"
"You mean, like that board game you wrote? Or perhaps like that card game you made that comes from your universe, that no one else can understand?"
Abednego glances back.
"Games of skill are perfectly good pastimes, but I'll not have gambling in my cart."
"I don't gamble, Mister Abednego. But my grandparents taught me basic arithmetic using card games. I really don't see what the objective difference between chess pieces and cards is."
"People are wont to gamble on cards, even if you do not. People do not gamble on chess.
Leonid shakes his head. "In Russia, people gamble on chess games. More often on card games, but chess is very popular."
Abednego doesn't look impressed.
"How about Othello?"
"I know it not. Be it a gambling game?"
"W-. You can gamble on just about anything. You don't even need to gamble on poker."
"I be unconvinced-."
"Mister Abednego." Mr. Yao taps our guide on his right shoulder. "Can you give us some idea of how much further we have to go?"
"If the weather holds… Two more days' travel."
"And you're sure we can't just fly there?"
"Be you proof against maleficium most foul?"
"Highly resistant? Magic can't find me, and my spell eater amulets tend to nullify spells that try and affect me."
He frowns. "Magic cannot find you?"
"Scrying me or scrying my location won't work, even with a blood sample. Any spell which is supposed to guide itself to a target won't if I'm the target."
"That is a strange thing. Forgive my doubt, but such a claim is so at odds-."
"You can check. Even if you prove me wrong, it's a useful data-."
A red-white beam blasts through the cart just in front of me, burning into the ground beneath!
"Was that-?"
Abednego throws himself off the cart, hands reaching for his pistols as Mr Yao opens his mou-.
Ow! Need to start training with Justice League members who aren't Lanterns.
His mouth, and the sky vibrates. For a fraction of a second I see three… Shapes? And then they vanish again. I form a plasma initiator construct and launch it up into the sky as Leonid shoots upwards, flickers of fire leaping from his hands in all directions as he tries to find his target. No hits then I activate my construct, the activation energy of every gas molecule dropping to near-zero and causing an area about fifty metres in diameter to transmute into electrically charged plasma! Still nothing.
Ring, scan everything you can and extrapolate everything you can't. Also, armour.
Working.
And in the mean time, dismissing the plasma initiator and quietly cursing that we were right and we Lanterns did indeed lose access to our subspace storage, I send a torrent of orange filaments outwards in all directions. Five hundred metres, no contact. A kilometre… Nothing. A mile? Still nothing. Genuinely not there or exotic defence? Don't care. I turn filaments to blades and swing-.
My hands fall from my arms, my constructs failing at-
Call rings!
-once, a blade I can barely see leaping for my face!
A barely-heard sound, the noise of the very cogs of the celestial mechanisms of the universe rusting and grinding, the space in front of me flickering-.
And I see my first Sheeda as my blood-covered rings reach my arm-stumps, orange knives manifesting and stabbing-. And being turned to mist by the Sheeda's armour, fine, x-ionised knife.
A beam of red-white energy punches through my chest and vaporises my heart, along with a chunk of my torso.
Armour back punch with the knife restore chest bangs of pistols knife cuts armour draws blue-green blood. Knife evaporates Sheeda armour glistens crumble gauntlet evaporates.
Feed Us.
Sheeda armour grey thin pale face fears.
Feed Us.
Sheeda gasp fall back energy pulse parried pulls stone cracks Leonid flies through gone.
Gone.
Ow.
I set myself down on the ground somewhat unsteadily, planting my feet as my rings finish knitting my body back together. Looks like I-.
I raise my right hand to my face and feel a dozen minor cuts as they are erased by the orange light.
I took a beating I didn't even feel. And… I touch filaments to my severed hands and disintegrate them.
Mr Yao is singing…
Singing…
Singguh. Singing something hypnotic that I'm blocking with construct earmuffs. Abednego's dropped his pistols and has witch-signs glowing in each hand and Leonid is looking from Mr Yao to me… Looking for instructions?
"Mister Abednego, do you know what that was?"
"A Sheeda warrior."
"I-."
"I bid you wait. Once they leave, they seldom return at once, but I would not see a man dead for my laxity. If you are targeted, it be wise for me to share a little of what has befallen us."
13:21 GMT -5
Morning brings the chatter of bird-analogues and the rapid culling of beetle-analogues by their snapping beaks. Winged insects don't appear to be a big feature here, with pollination-duty being taken by pseudo-hummingbirds and small climbing pseudo-reptiles, but fairly tanky-looking scavenger beetles are ducking and covering as they go about their carrion-seeking duties.
The journey down Columbia's road system was… Interesting. It was as if we were flicking between intersections and villages with the rest of the network appearing only as momentary blurs. At the same time, the rattle of the solid metal-rimmed wheels and the clopping of the horses' hooves were completely constant. Since this appears to require a highly trained speciality and doesn't work -or doesn't work safely- in a built-up area, I don't think it's got the sort of wider applications that Ted and I look for. But if we work out how to train a person as quickly as possible… Maybe.
"Checkmate."
And I've just lost the thirty-second consecutive chess game to Leonid.
"Can't we play something else instead?"
"You mean, like that board game you wrote? Or perhaps like that card game you made that comes from your universe, that no one else can understand?"
Abednego glances back.
"Games of skill are perfectly good pastimes, but I'll not have gambling in my cart."
"I don't gamble, Mister Abednego. But my grandparents taught me basic arithmetic using card games. I really don't see what the objective difference between chess pieces and cards is."
"People are wont to gamble on cards, even if you do not. People do not gamble on chess.
Leonid shakes his head. "In Russia, people gamble on chess games. More often on card games, but chess is very popular."
Abednego doesn't look impressed.
"How about Othello?"
"I know it not. Be it a gambling game?"
"W-. You can gamble on just about anything. You don't even need to gamble on poker."
"I be unconvinced-."
"Mister Abednego." Mr. Yao taps our guide on his right shoulder. "Can you give us some idea of how much further we have to go?"
"If the weather holds… Two more days' travel."
"And you're sure we can't just fly there?"
"Be you proof against maleficium most foul?"
"Highly resistant? Magic can't find me, and my spell eater amulets tend to nullify spells that try and affect me."
He frowns. "Magic cannot find you?"
"Scrying me or scrying my location won't work, even with a blood sample. Any spell which is supposed to guide itself to a target won't if I'm the target."
"That is a strange thing. Forgive my doubt, but such a claim is so at odds-."
"You can check. Even if you prove me wrong, it's a useful data-."
A red-white beam blasts through the cart just in front of me, burning into the ground beneath!
"Was that-?"
Abednego throws himself off the cart, hands reaching for his pistols as Mr Yao opens his mou-.
Ow! Need to start training with Justice League members who aren't Lanterns.
His mouth, and the sky vibrates. For a fraction of a second I see three… Shapes? And then they vanish again. I form a plasma initiator construct and launch it up into the sky as Leonid shoots upwards, flickers of fire leaping from his hands in all directions as he tries to find his target. No hits then I activate my construct, the activation energy of every gas molecule dropping to near-zero and causing an area about fifty metres in diameter to transmute into electrically charged plasma! Still nothing.
Ring, scan everything you can and extrapolate everything you can't. Also, armour.
Working.
And in the mean time, dismissing the plasma initiator and quietly cursing that we were right and we Lanterns did indeed lose access to our subspace storage, I send a torrent of orange filaments outwards in all directions. Five hundred metres, no contact. A kilometre… Nothing. A mile? Still nothing. Genuinely not there or exotic defence? Don't care. I turn filaments to blades and swing-.
My hands fall from my arms, my constructs failing at-
Call rings!
-once, a blade I can barely see leaping for my face!
A barely-heard sound, the noise of the very cogs of the celestial mechanisms of the universe rusting and grinding, the space in front of me flickering-.
And I see my first Sheeda as my blood-covered rings reach my arm-stumps, orange knives manifesting and stabbing-. And being turned to mist by the Sheeda's armour, fine, x-ionised knife.
A beam of red-white energy punches through my chest and vaporises my heart, along with a chunk of my torso.
Armour back punch with the knife restore chest bangs of pistols knife cuts armour draws blue-green blood. Knife evaporates Sheeda armour glistens crumble gauntlet evaporates.
Feed Us.
Sheeda armour grey thin pale face fears.
Feed Us.
Sheeda gasp fall back energy pulse parried pulls stone cracks Leonid flies through gone.
Gone.
Ow.
I set myself down on the ground somewhat unsteadily, planting my feet as my rings finish knitting my body back together. Looks like I-.
I raise my right hand to my face and feel a dozen minor cuts as they are erased by the orange light.
I took a beating I didn't even feel. And… I touch filaments to my severed hands and disintegrate them.
Mr Yao is singing…
Singing…
Singguh. Singing something hypnotic that I'm blocking with construct earmuffs. Abednego's dropped his pistols and has witch-signs glowing in each hand and Leonid is looking from Mr Yao to me… Looking for instructions?
"Mister Abednego, do you know what that was?"
"A Sheeda warrior."
"I-."
"I bid you wait. Once they leave, they seldom return at once, but I would not see a man dead for my laxity. If you are targeted, it be wise for me to share a little of what has befallen us."
Last edited:
Naturally, resisting the urge to cheat via the ring?
