P.P.C. Episode Zero: Industrialisation, the Black Man's Fantasy (Open)

[Woshington]

This thread is open to one person but first, just check out this (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=13197) thread for me please. Thanks.

Woshington, in his second life, had been a master of narcotics: dealing out escapism in pill form, serum form and powder form. Personally, however, he had avoided excessive consumption of the hardest dope imported from the darkest corners of the most unexplored continents. But now, failing to settle in his new world, even Woshington felt he needed the comforting relief of a familiar fantasy. His life in Althanas was not taking shape.

His personality was perpetually in conflict. A young man riddled with a desire to ruthlessly succeed and the determination to consolidate, this trait was combined with the absolute need to interlace audacity—it was his emotional release. A life on the periphery of a contemporary tropical metropolis brought Woshington his love of graffiti. Confabulating with monks was going to provide a sensory rush of the past.

“Take me home. It has to be like this… this day, like that.”

The lithe black man slowly dissolved into this new metaverse and descended majestically in the cushioned hands of the Citadel’s monks. As he lowered, he felt the relentless murmur of drizzle gradually soaking through his tropical wares. The water stole the spring from his bouncy ‘fro. His eyes widened and consumed all the familiar sights. This was a meticulous reconstruction of a particularly early morning for the ghetto superstar, trailing a night of blazing through the cargo wagons and railway carriages with boastful and beautiful tag work. Woshington remembered it well; it was the coolest morning he’d ever experienced in his tropical homeland.

He was on the Eastern Line, identified by the colour blue as part of the city’s easy to use map system. It was a subway station; one from the periphery of his home city… despite being part of the subway network, this structure was in fact above ground. Quite dramatically so. From Woshington’s elevated position he could appreciate how well the monks of the order of Ai'Brone had burrowed into his mind to extract such accurate information. The main station hall retained all its real-life grandeur, from the tall red brick walls to the sloping slate tiled roofs built at an unusually acute angle. Like any working day, the platform was abuzz with the diversity of city life: people of all walks of life—from hipster students to uptight businessmen, from dark skinned ghetto fiends to their lowly blue collar counterparts. They were all linked, they were all gripping their flimsy card tickets waiting for the electrified commuter train to grind alongside the platform.

The station consisted of two broad platforms: northbound and southbound. Between the two concrete walkways was a gravel filled lower level, lined with a pair of railway tracks. Their parallel lines were beautiful. Detailed with more than just a left rail and a right rail; running along the centre of each track was a third rail. It was electrified and coupled directly to the subway trains via a sliding connector. Furthermore, overhead hung a series of worryingly loose power cables. Some locomotives lacked the underbelly connector, and alternatively sourced their power from above.

As Woshington was gently set down on the corrugated iron roof sheltering the southbound platform, the 1308 screeched into view from the north, deftly navigating the bend under the suppression of its rails. Meanwhile, a freight train rumbled along the northbound track, like an endless slug furrowing along the landscape with its sheer bulk. It was emblazoned with an elaborately exaggerated "W" tag; it was a work of Woshington’s. He smiled to himself and shouted exuberantly, “That shit, man, that is mine,” finally his exotic accent was once again return to homeland. None of the stations punters batted an eyelid at his bellowing outburst. Woshington had specified that he and his foe be undetectable by the dummies populating his chosen Citadel hall. The locomotive hauling the everlasting tail of coal filled containers was a Rivers GK Class 37. Almost mammalian in its face, two shiny windows appeared as eyes above a protruding muzzle and a front bumper that bore the lateral smile of a mindless drone. As Woshington’s eyes devoured the magnificent proportions of the hulking machine he in an instance realised that he could be the one to bring such machines to Althanas.

Woshington had come here to escape Althanas, but realised instead, he could industrialise that world. Now, the black man was experiencing episode zero in his own grand saga.

Teeth beamed out from his open smile, as an entire process punctuated with glory and power occurred to him with the pleasure of a fantasy. But he shook his head in a moment. He was here to fight, and controlling this fracas was the only way he could extend his stay in this world, it was the only way he could stimulate his mind further. That, and Woshington was generally driven to win.

Crawling to the edge of the flimsy shelter, Woshington leaned out over the trains below and scanned the arena for the arrival of a combatant.

[Erirag the Poet]

"Staz gajup kalus." Eri spat as she looked down the darkened corridor. "Zanbauri, marr lataum!"

Her words merely echoed back at her, repeating her last syllables as if it were mocking her. To say that the orcish bard was amused would have been an outright lie. When she'd first came into Radasanth, her intentions nothing but good, she'd been attacked. The orc's powerful green hands had been strangling a dog who'd come sniffing at her heels when an arrow bit deep into her hand near the wrist. She didn't understand, why would she be stopped? The rage was more than the pain, and she'd turned and chased after her assailant.

Even when he'd torn up the steps of the ziggurat, disappearing into the foreboding entryway of the Palace of Pain, she gave chase. People and animals had flown by, but she didn't care. Despite the fact that her stomach was rumbling loudly, justice would be served. After all, why had the little dogs been running around in the streets in the first place if not to make a snack for the weary traveler? It didn't make any sense, and senseless violence wasn't going to be something she put up with. If anyone was going to smash and crash thing around here, it would be her.

Thinking she'd seen her prey race through an open doorway, Erirag stumbled in, nearly losing her footing when she saw where she was. Grey brick and glinting, often painted steel was everywhere. People mulled about even thicker than they had in the streets she'd followed into the city. What was more was that they all looked somehow wrong. She turned, her hulking form nearly quashing a few people who merely stepped around her as if she were supposed to be there. Though she was sure she'd only just stepped inside, the doorway was gone.

A great meaty hand was raised to scratch at the scalp beneath her muddy hair, and she frowned around the tusky incisors of her mouth as she tried to wrap her mind around what was going on. A pair of dark eyes looked wildly around, until she saw someone peering at the crowd from the top of a steel awning. She pointed at him, her voice as gruff and panicked as it could be.

"Amal katu?"

Beast hunt archer. Elfsons, give fight!

Where here?

[Woshington]

Erirag stepped through a door penetrating the environment and phased conveniently into Woshington’s line of sight. And what a sight she was. Woshington’s dark eyes stretched to engulf the more than seven feet that was all at once towering over the mindless drones populating the arena. In his second life, the beachside gangster had been in some unfavourable positions, but the majestic bulk was enough to force him to expand his lungs for the morning’s damp air. Erirag almost intimidated Woshington. As he pulled back from the very edge of the overhang he couldn’t help but be captivated by his foe’s animalistic form; charismatic by the very majesty of its presence.

“Ha, ha,” he boomed, before reacting to the animal’s glance, “you fuck with Mr. Woshington…” his words seeped out of his stout lips, “…you fucking with a real beast.” Who was Woshington speaking to? He wasn’t squandering his words on the unintelligible hulk. He was answering the fates that had dared to oppose him with such a monstrous adversary.

Filtering his expectations through the eyes of others, driven certainly by his consuming vanity, he envisioned a prize fight. He imagined what was to come; Woshington wanted to make this an exhibition match… he was going to be the daring bull fighter and she was going to be put down by his flamboyant conduct.

Gracefully, he rose from his knees to his feet and perched himself precariously towards the edge of the roof. Both of his pale-palmed hands beckoned Erirag the Poet towards him with a charming motion. Woshington’s bare chest glistened in the misty rain as it continued to coat him in the slightest of reflective films. Meanwhile, the thin material of his tropical shirt clung to his skin. He undoubtedly cut a striking outline against the murky sky; his wiry body was closed inside a thin layer of well toned muscle. He was feeling increasingly damp, but far from uncomfortable. In fact, Woshington was rather refreshed in the atypical morning chill of a typically oppressively hot country.

Woshington was ready to begin. Dextrously, he detached his crossbow from its home, hanging loosely at his right flank. His elongated digits curled around the preloaded weapon, right hand only. While the left limb came to rest laterally before his chest, he used that left forearm as a steady bar to lay his right wrist on for a sure aim.

An accompanying semi-grimace matched Woshington’s squinting left eye as he used only his right to target. In his focus was the orc’s left thigh, he wanted to pin a single bolt in a spot that would be far from fatal. His imaginary audience would certainly ooh and ahhhh at such an impact. Plus, he wanted to stay in his arena as long as it took to glean information and formulate ideas.

So he squeezed. The trigger’s depression was punctuated by a barely audible hum. The sound was the flight of the bolt, gathering drops of drizzle on its iron point as it parted the watery atmosphere…

Woshington was already considering his next manoeuvre; he wanted to slowly increase the grandeur of his attacks. Inherently, a showman.

[Erirag the Poet]

She'd started to push her way into the crowds, looking in confusion as the humans merely stepped around her as if she were a wall. They went about their business, chatting with each other about the weather, friends, family and plans. Against one of the walls, a metal box was holding a peculiar interest for a man. As she wrapped a hand around his head, pulling him away, a kidney shaped blue object fell from his hands and swung to hit with a crack against the wall. She could hear a faint voice coming from holes that were poked on one part of it, furthering to the confusion. Erirag had just gotten the man to eye level, his distant gaze infuriating her when she heard the crossbow discharge.

She'd turned, looking wildly for an attacker when she finally felt the pain. With a roar, she hunkered down, smashing the man she still held against the sidewalk. His skull was crushed against the cement, and flinging his broken body onto the tracks, she began to rush across the platform. A trail of drops of blood on the darkening cement followed her. She was getting closer and closer to the awnings, the rain falling in her eyes as she swung out into the open.

Even with her sight blurred, she could see the form of the dark-skinned man she'd questioned. He'd never given her an answer that she had heard, but she was sure that unlike everyone else, even the man she'd already killed, he could see her. Her confusion had her in a panic. She'd never been in a position where she didn't know where she was. She was a poet and a traveler, but she'd always had a name for the places she had been. Somehow now she was in Radasanth, and yet, she wasn't.

It was disturbing, and one way or another, she'd find a way to put this all to peace. Breaking the stem from the bolt, leaving the tip buried deep in her left shoulder, Erirag grabbed a woman. She'd been pushing some sort of basket on wheels. Throwing her aside, Erirag grabbed for the basket, upending it in the process. From the fabric cave, a child fell. The impact, as small as it was, sent the little one to crying. While the mother looked over in shock and sympathy, getting up to go to her daughter, Erirag was only hungry. She was under fire, and no orc could fight on an empty stomach.

Pushing the mother away, taking the child in hand, she forced a tiny, flailing arm into her mouth and bit down. Her eyes were going wild, looking all around for someone who held the crossbow, even as she began to chew and suck on ripped flesh and broken bones.

"Vrasubatburuk ug butharubatgruiuk" she muttered, spitting the hand she'd severed with her teeth away.

We will kill all the men and sodomize all the women/Cheers

[Woshington]

Woshington’s pink tongue protruded dirtily from his fleshy lips as he observed Erirag’s rampage with interest. Ninety-nine point nine percent of humans would recoil in disgust at a profusely bloody infant mortality, feeling riddled with primordial shock at the visual of violence and emotionally ripped by the tragedy of mother and child. But not the Big W, Woshington actively refused to be cast as the hero in this epic.

“Shit needs to happen,” he assured himself, but didn't really need such assurances.

Woshington was ready to drop down from his vantage point. After dexterously re-clipping his crossbow to his graffiti belt the lithe black man gripped the guttering that edged the corrugated iron and lowered his limber frame to the ground with more than an ounce of tribal grace.

Once on the cold grey paving slabs of the platform Woshington himself plucked a dampened female from the monotony of the morning crowd. Mid-thirties, slim, short brown haired and almost facelessly mundane—this one was so boring she almost seemed real. The former drug lord quickly wrapped his left arm around her gullet while his right hand pawed at his utility belt, those bony figures eventually found a rusty iron bolt. His trademark beaming smile shone through his gaping mouth as he crudely stabbed the oxidised point into her throat. Her breathing apparatus was injured, but nothing more. This woman would take some time to expire. With a sexual swing of his body he shoved the dying female into the path of the poet; there was a taunting charisma in his smarmy mannerisms. The woman slipped on brainy remnants smeared on the platform, it was the residual mess of Erirag victim number one. And as she did, she hacked violently in the absence of a functioning windpipe. Eventually, Miss Average fell to her hands and knees before the colossal orc.

“You fucking aniiiiimaaaaal,” his tropical accent had him overemphasising each vowel sound, “eat it…” He spat his words at Erirag with a leering aggression—it was the pot calling the kettle black. There were two animals in the arena.

As he spoke, Woshington began to strafe sideways, keeping his beady eyes on her, “ha, ha,” he continued, repeating himself antagonistically, “eat it, eat it, fucking animaal, fucking animal, eat it!” Woshington was gradually moving towards the doors of the #1308 commuter train that had stationed neatly against the platform.

Beneath his bravado, Woshington was increasingly anxious that he get on that train. And he knew if he wanted to stay in this re-creation of his home turf he had to bring the animal with him. The ghetto superstar was desperate to bring something back with him, and if it wasn’t going to be a tangible technology, then as many ideas as possible…

[Erirag the Poet]

While the sweet marrow of the infant slid down her throat, another bolt was discharged. This time Erirag was quick. Her free hand had been ready, wrapping around the neck of a balding businessman. His umbrella fell to the wayside as she pulled him in front of her, to shield her naked breast from the crossbow. The rain was darkening his indigo suit, his mind encased in a trance even as he was choking. Erirag saw a woman fall, the bolt buried in the back of her neck, and looked beyond, to the man she knew could see her.

Were they both ghosts? Spirits and phantasms had always played their role in stories, usually guides. Alerar, however, had been home to different kinds of stories, where ethereal visages did more than just appear and say their piece. They came with a vengeance, using the memories of the weapons they'd been slain holding. The shadows in the shape of dark elves coming for you when you'd crossed the line between purpose and folly was one of the most awful ideas that men could think of. Now, she was here, facing down a dark-skinned man who couldn't have been Drow. His features weren't delicate enough, his hate was louder and less focused. And yet, the dark thing that wasn't a Drow was as unseen as she was.

The sides of his face were pulled in, but his lips and nose were plump and pronounced. Perhaps he had drowned, she thought, tearing another bite from the child as she walked to the murdered woman. The man, she kept like a tower shield, always before her, looking over the last wispy strands of his salt and peppered side-combed hair. Finally, she walked by the woman who had slumped over to die quietly. Her bare feet padded through pooling blood, leaving behind a story in red told in the shape of her feet and the sworl of her toeprints.

"Vadokan Orratzan, Erirag flas lat, 'Erirag agh lat kordataren. Erirag agh lat gurz frumen. Erirag agh lat vras udh shun kamen gurz!'"

Dropping the child, long dead and now growing so quickly cold, behind her, she reached out to Woshington. Her meaty fist closed for a moment before opening again as if she wanted him to take her hand over such a distance. Her voice, like the rumbling of the trains moving by, rang out low and gritty.

"Mabaj bot ob armauk! Erirag marr lat vadok, marr shon!"

With a heft of her thick arm, she sent the businessman, his tie flapping in the wind, one polished leather shoe dangling off the edge of his dark-socked foot, over the heads of the oblivious population. He flew like a fat, floppy bolt, right to the ex-dealer's lap. Never let it be said that an orc came without bearing a proper gift.


Dead dark elf, Erirag tell you, 'We kin here. We death spirits. We kill as twin daggers kill.'
World of enemies! Erirag give you death, give luck!