AC: Round 2 - Group 1

[Revenant]

This thread is reserved for members of Group 1. The thread will open at noon on September 7th (Pacific time) and will be closed after two weeks.

Good Luck!

Group 1
Hysteria
Itera

[Hysteria]

Talen blinked away the darkness that he had become familiar with. The magic that the man running the tournament had was truly amazing. Like a leaf upon the wind Talen felt himself float to come down on a new island, with a new challenge. The youth found himself standing between two small hills on a rough dirt path, apparently at the top of this islands mountain centre. Talen’s eyes focused on the ground, rough and dry it seemed that the altitude was inhospitable to anything more than a few rough tuffs of grass. The air was cold, carrying with it only the tiniest hint of a sea breeze. More amazing than height of where he stood, was the height of where he was going.

The chibimon centre that had been the on the youth’s last island had been replaced by a giant structure. A massive tower reached towards the sky until the tip disappeared into a ring of white clouds. The structure was incredible, far bigger than anything Talen had ever seen and lined with ornate carvings. It was only when Talen allowed his gaze to drop did he realised that the path moved down towards a giant wall crafted from the same white ornate material. Behind the wall Talen could see little but the faint green of plants climbing up the towers base.

Following the path down led to the only gate the white wall seemed to have. On either side stood two large white warriors statutes, complete with shields and swords. Talen had seen this sort of thing before, races building statues of guardians for protection at the entrances of their villages. It made entry all the more interesting. Talen turned his head as another figure appeared next to him. The youth wondered briefly of the other he had left behind on the last island, but he didn’t dwell long.

Regardless of what he thought of having to work with another person, he did admit that this one had a certain visual appeal that he found interesting. Talen himself wasn’t exactly a prim specimen. He looked no more than a thirteen year old boy. His short black hair was messy, and contrasted with his pale skin. The boy was wearing a lose black t-shirt with his a grey number nine on it and baggy black pants. As always he wore a small smile on his face.

[Itera]

Itera had briefly considered evading the attentions of the tournament host and playing some games with them. While it would have been a pleasant surprise for them, fairies were, in general, not in the business of amusing other people. That was for humans. It was much more interesting to be surprised and amused, so Itera quietly submitted to sleep.

That was after laying out a laxative-laced cookie for whomever it may concern.

Sleep came and fled like a monk with a catamite. Disorientation hit Itera with total force when she opened her eyes. Everything around her was very significantly different from a few minutes before, when she had been staring at a hole smashed into the top of a mountain by an incredibly large dragon made of magma, ashes, and hatred. Now everything was distinctively not on fire and more resembled two breast-shaped hills with a rude dirt path running between them. The early afternoon shadows of the trees darkened half of the path.

Everything was also upside-down.

Gravity came back from break and Itera fell the rest of the way to the ground, her upside-down and airborn arrival courtesy of a tournament facilitator currently straining away over a pit. The thump of her landing was mixed with a surprised squeak. When everything had settled, everything from her waist and above was covered underneath her flipped-over skirt, leaving two legs splayed in the air. The boots were dark red and solid. The stockings were white and thin. The unmentionables were lacy black and dangerously cut.

It only took two or three seconds for Itera to regather her wits from headbutting the ground. There was a complicated swirling of fabric, then she was upright again with her offensively frilly dress the right way around. Her mob cap was displaced and half of the ribbon-bow was crushed. There was dirt lightly coating much of her outfit. These anomalies paled in comparison to the biggest one: the fairy had flushed a bright red from the base of her neck clear up to the roots of her hair. If it were night, the blush would probably be luminescent of its own right.

"Did you see...?" The question came out as a hushed whisper. Normally, Itera was not the stupid sort to ask rhetorical questions, but shock, confusion, and a passing concussion were jumping up and down on the bouncy couch of her sanity at the moment. Of course he saw. He had found the visual appeal quite interesting.

[Hysteria]

Talen couldn’t help the smirk spread across his face as his eyes fell upon the fairy’s sparkly bits. The youth has expected to see some interesting things during the tournament, but that had not been one of them. He turned his head away and looked towards the white tower that stood as their goal. Although he could have lied to his companion, he could have shrugged it off as nothing, what had been seen could not be unseen, what had happened could not un-happen.

“Although I could lie, I did indeed see.” The youth ran a hand though his dark hair and glanced at the ground, “I’d love to talk more about your privates, but we should probably get this show on the road. Twinkle-toes, you can call me Talen, or perhaps The Great One, or some similar incarnation of god. What you can’t do is get in my way, because I am not going to lose this because I get stuck with some fairy that can’t fly straight.”

The youth spat on the ground and lifted his eyes to his comrade. Not an inch of his face moved as he stared into her eyes. His eyes betrayed his history, a being that was older than time itself, that had split itself in half, and in half again to join the material realm. The boy broke the stare and nodded his head in private agreement with himself. He turned from the fairy and started walking towards the white gate.

From a distance a voice sounded. The initial note booming, before it trailed off amid a torrent of loud coughs.

“Greetings!” The voice sounded like a chipmunk had formed a pop band, ”I am the mighty guardian of the tower!”

The giant white statues of warriors towed nearly as high as the wall itself. Each one easily the size of three men, with the width of two. Talen felt a shiver of concern slide down his back as he looked at them.

”Oi! Down here!”

Talen’s eyes slid from to the statues to a small hairy creature, barely up to Talen’s calf and wearing a tiny metal helmet and holding a small spear.

”That’s better. Now, I am the mighty guardian of the gate! To enter you must answer two riddles! The first is as such!” Talen tried to speak, but the creature held up a hand to stop him, ”I am neither man nor animal, but I bare legs. I am not living or dead, but I move around. I am not patient or nervous but I wear thin!”

Around Talen’s waist dark shadows twisted into being and settled into two holstered pistols. The youth placed a hand on the handle of his gun as he wondered if he could just shoot the little guard.

[Itera]

"Eeeyaaaaa!" A squeal of delight escaped Itera. Her fan folded up with a slingshot-like noise and she bent down to look closely at the mighty guardian of the gate. There was a huge, vapid smile on her face; it was the same one that she had held ever since the abbreviated staring contest with her supposed partner. That smile had been long since disowned by the huge, sharp, internal grin that threatened to cut her head in half from the wrong side.

Grinning was an odd way to express the indignant rage that rose in Itera like the morning's fish in a brooding seagull. Little of it had to do with the inverted flashing; she's done plenty more before to other people. It had everything to do with the resulting response. She had expected embarrassment, admiration, and apology. What she had received was casual dismissal and outright belittling. All of the retorts had died when she looked into her eyes; they were bludgeoned out of the way by many interesting thoughts. The thoughts had come in two varieties: the first aborted any revelation in her own eyes of her own nature. The rest could be summed up as: What a cute little boy and with what strangely beautiful eyes. He'll probably do interesting things all on his own. I can always find him later to do interesting things together, like the trick with fire ants and beer. Arrogance like that deserves fire ants and beer.

She had smiled and answered with complete lack of personal introduction, "Yes, Great One."

Now, the mighty guardian was being subject to a related treatment, "You are so cute! Is it a chair? It's a chair, right?"

"No! It's not a- how the- Chairs don't move around!" The guardian sputtered a little at the proximity of an excited face as big as he was. Amber eyes the size of his head were threatening dress-up and tea parties.

"Aww. What's your name?"

"I am the Guardian of the Gate!" The aforementioned puffed himself up impressively, "Now, again, I am neither man nor an-"

"That's a really strange name, isn't it? It's like being named Door. Your parents must be not imaginative."

Itera was having fun. She was the Greater Fairy of Boundaries, native of Tenger Jerhal, realm of fantasy and concepts made pretty girls. Her essence had existed since there were two things to distinguish between. Chaos and Order, Existence and Non-existence, Here and There, Time and Outside Time, Reality and Illusion: they each had their own fey personifications but their boundaries were all Itera. It will be a snowy day in summer[1] before she was going to let some puffed-up mortal upset and upstage her.

[1] Not counting the Ice Boating Incident, when several fairies stole summer as part of a ploy to give themselves the advantage during a boat-racing contest. They returned summer after a thorough thrashing. Summer was somewhat displeased at being tied up and thrashed them again afterwards.

[Hysteria]

”W- wait a minute!” The little guardian scrunched up his face and pointed his spear towards the fairy, ”This is a very important station I’ll have you know! Now do you have another guess?”

“Is it a bullet?” The youth pulled out his pistol and turned it over slowly as he gazed at it.

”Wat-cha-sayn?! That’s even further away than the other guess! I mean I get chair, with legs and everything. But how does a bullet wear thin!” The gate guardian waved his hands widely to illustrate his point. ”It doesn’t have legs!”

Talen lifted his gun limply towards the little fur ball. The youth ignored how close Itera was to the guardian as he steadied his aim and looked down the pistol.

“Oh, I think my bullet is wearing thin. Don’t you agree twinkle toes?” Talen passed the fairly an arrogant grin.

”Don’t you go making a mistake boy!” the guardian waved his spear in defiance.

“Eh, you going to gnaw my ankle off?” Talen pressed the trigger and a burst of black energy ripped out the end of his gun and struck the spot where the creature stood. The dry dirt created a small cloud of dust as the blast struck. The dust hung for a second before the wind dragged it out of the air and the little guardian became visible. His little legs waved in the air as he struggled to push himself to his feet.

”Aiieee! You nearly hit me you rapscallion!” The guardian got to his feet and pointed towards Talen, ”No more mister nice guardian!”

“tsk” The youth looked down at annoyance at the creature. Suspicion slowly rose as to the true nature of the thing that had dodged the attack without a scratch. Talen launched himself backwards as a blur of white slammed into the ground where he had been less than a second before. The youth skidded to a stop as one of the large white statues lifted its giant sword out of the ground.

”One question! One knight!” The little guardian yelled as he weaved out of the way of the giant warrior.

[Itera]

An extremely startled Itera found herself quite overbalanced and without the faintest recollection of how she had snapped backwards like a frilly rubber band. It was pure reflexes from a long life spent in a place where various painfully sharp, blunt, flaming, or biting things often pelt out of nowhere in ludicrous quantities. Her brain gingerly pulled itself off of the inside of her forehead and started piecing together the last few seconds.

The lunatic had shot at her.

She had not expected her homeland's tradition of greeting-by-shooting to have an adherent in foreign parts. Foreign parts being what they were, there was an important difference: the Great One had forgotten the important rule of first declaring the victory conditions. Since it was metaphysically impossible for her inner grin to spread any wider, Itera started inwardsly giggling. She loved anything-goes matches, in moderation.

The white statue stepped over the fresh, inch-wide kerf in the ground. Its carved boot landed with a low thud that was more felt through the bones than heard in the ears. Now that the collected dust had fair well blown away in the motion and wind, the statue's surface glittered with the light of countless mica flakes. The carved breastplate and armor-skirt were subtle works of art, carved such that the gneiss bands followed the contours of the idealized human form. There was even a round band around the overscale, decorative nipples. The bearded head turned to fix pupilless eyes on Itera. The sword raised up.

Itera's chiding finger shook gently, "Ah-ah! I'm still answering riddles. It's him who's decided to give up and fight. Isn't that right, Guardian of the Gate?"

"Well... yes... but-"

"Then that's all settled!" Itera said brightly, "The Great One can do all the fighting and I'll answer the riddle! Is... it a vampire woman?"

The statue thought about this, which was quite a feat considering that it technically lacked anything with which to think. The logic made perfect sense, in a way, and gave it something to do while the blonde squishy thing continued talking. The ground rumbled as it turned and accelerated into a loping charge towards Talen, sword held high.

"No. No. No. I said... well... it's not a man, but doesn't... doesn't wear thin. And technically she's still dead."

Itera tapped a finger on her chin, making thinky noises. She loved anything-goes matches.

[Hysteria]

Talen couldn’t really blame the fairy for shifting the giant onto him, but he still managed to feel a little insulted. As the giant stone warrior puzzled over the conundrum Talen holstered his pistol and crept forwards. The ornately carved stone sword was not as sharp as one crafted from metal. The sheer force behind its swings was what gave it the ability to cleave things with ease. Talen bent lower and scampered towards the creature as the fairy succeeded in her literary ploy.

The giant acted on auto pilot, lifting its giant sword into the air and charging towards Talen. At least, charging to where Talen had been. The youth was holding on tight to the giant blade as it rocked into the air. His cloths whipped as the roaring wind shot passed his ears. Compared to the sword Talen was an insect, a tiny bug that wasn’t even noticeable for the giant stone statue. At the peak of the swing Talen felt the sword slow down, but he didn’t. The youth had planned to push himself off the sword, but it was unnecessary as he continued to rocket into the sky and arched though the air like some sort of misshapen arrow. Talen reached the pinnacle of his skyward journey and for a second everything was still. He could see the top of the wall, now surprisingly far below him, the statue that somehow managed to look confused and the fairy.

Everything had been going mostly to plan, right up until the plan ended and Talen realised he hadn’t taken into account coming down. The youth waved his arms wildly as he started his decent.

“FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK”

The youth regained a moment of composure and jutted his hands towards the ground. Lines of shadows exploded out from his palms and extended out into a large net of darkness. What was incorporeal shadow manifested into thick metal bars. Both the youth and his half spherical cage crashed into the top of the wall with a large crack and Talen let out a groan as the wind was knocked from his chest. Like a bad of potatoes he slid from the cage and onto the white coloured stone of the wall. The cage tilted over the edge of the wall for a moment before succumbing to gravity and fell towards the stone giant. Talen for the moment lay silent as he tried to regain his breath.

[Itera]

"Toast Rack."

The giant statue staggered a step as a few hundred pounds of metal bars smashed it in an upraised, shielding arm, shattering it. Luckily for Talen, that was the arm waving the sword around. Unluckily for Talen, the giant bent down and picked up its right hand, which still had a death-grip on the sword, in its left. Then it looked back up at the white wall and the man draped across the top of it, trying to figure out just how, exactly, to attack something that was so vertically out of reach. Horizontal it could do; that's what legs were for. Vertical, on the other hand...

"No, not at all. It doesn't wear thin and it doesn't move."

"Yes it does!" Itera pouted at the Guardian, slowly flicking off the chips of stone that had landed on her from background activities. "I have got a toast rack that spins and lets you pick which piece you want."

"No, no. I said that it moves around. Around. Around is important." The Guardian emphasized his meaning by pacing back and forth vigorously. "It can't be just a... a... a hinge!"

"Trousers."

An immensely loud smashing noise made Itera flinch and the Guardian jump a step. The giant was smashing its fist into the wall directly beneath Talen, in an attempt to either shake him loose like a ripe apple or remove the wall entirely. It doesn't seem to be working, as its fist and the wall were made of similar stuff and neither were quite yielding under the force of punches capable of spreading a man into a thin layer fifteen feet across.

In its excitement over finally having some progress on the riddles portion of the entrance exam, the Guardian didn't seem to be paying much attention to the demonstration vis-a-vis immobile object and unstoppable force. "RIGHT! Thank you! Was that so hard? Okay, next rid-"

BOOM

"-e. I have a shaft, a head, and an eye."

Itera briefly debated the idea of asking the Guardian to make the giant statue stop being violent at the wall, since the noise was rather affecting her concentration on the problem. She decided against it; the lunatic deserved a pounding much more richly. Besides, the question was...

"That's a little obscene for a tournament, isn't it?"

[Hysteria]

Talen rolled onto his side and gingerly pushed himself up onto his feet. He felt sore and shaken, but he was strong enough to take the hit and his pride was enough to carry him on. The youth felt the wall shake slightly beneath his feet and peered over the edge. The cracking boom of the beast striking the wall caused Talen to smile with a morbid delight. He could see the fairy down below, but he was free to continue on.

If I can get down…

Talen’s head whipped around and he walked towards the tall spire and the land beyond the wall opened up before him. The whole space glowered with a thick lush green. Nearly the entire space inside the wall was filled with plants of all shapes and sizes, with massive flowers and trees higher than he would have thought possible on the barren mountain. The trees lifted up towards the wall and nearly reached the top. It was then that Talen’s ad lib plan reached the next stage.

Talen focused on the nearest tree and without the hint of remorse on leaving his companion, Talen ran to the edge of the wall and leapt off. The boy felt the air rush past him again, but far slower than before. With ease he grabbed onto the first branch in reach and jolted to a stop. The boy moved arm over arm like a monkey through the branches, easily swinging his light form towards the tree trunk. The bark was rough under his hands, easy to grip onto and somewhat reassuring. All around him the thick scent of earth and plant. Evn from high in the tree the speckle of flowers shone up towards him. Talen reached the trunk and slowly started making his way down to the jungle floor.