|
|
Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 5:43:12 GMT -6
It’s still grinning, still laughing in a self-satisfying way. Observe the poor knight, caught between madness and disarray, defenceless and toothless to do anything about it. Mocked in beliefs, tormented in captivity. What poor creature to wander so deep into chaos’ hold.
The man’s head slowly tilts, eyes running across the field of battle before him. And then he moves.
He dashes two steps forward, dodging a stool and a cupboard splintering one another, side-stepping to the right in time to avoid another stool dashing past. The nightmare’s laughter fades, grin disappearing. It makes a similar movement, two forward, one to the side, narrowly avoiding a collision of stools behind it. There’s a gap in the melee, then, a path forward for the man, inviting. But he’s played enough king’s pawn to know where that leads, and he rushes into the thick of the opposite side instead, avoiding other pieces left and right until finding his spot.
The nightmare dashes after, still two forward, one aside, always towards him.
. 39 .
April: 39 Tiken Tekai
|
|
|
|
Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 5:43:45 GMT -6
Other white pieces dash past the nightmare knight, untouched, and the man gets a sinking understanding. There are a few regularities in King’s pawn that sharp players quickly learn. One is your knight can immediately be taken by a mirror knight. The other is a white knight never wins. Wherever he moves, the black knight will be put into a position to take him first, by simple virtue of turn order. And he has no hope of other white pieces coming in to interfere - the battle is between them two, the rest but a backdrop.
Them are the rules. (Hmm. Rules.)
The knight makes another movement back, pushed against the side of the grid. The nightmare follows, closing the gap. He moves again, around and past, until the very edge of the board meets his back. The grin on the nightmare returns, the path parts before it and the entity dashes towards him to take him.
The knight spins around, raises the glaive, and drives it through the face of the nightmare.
. 40 . (added)
April: 40 Tiken Tekai
|
|
|
|
Post by Renathan on Apr 26, 2020 6:08:22 GMT -6
  What is this object? It is so shiny! The round ball sits next to a vial of something, and it seems quite bright and happy. |
|
|
|
Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 8:21:32 GMT -6
The nightmare slugs to a halt, out stretched hand inches from clawing at the helmet. The glaive pierces through its head, keeping it just enough at arm’s length to be safe from harm. Strangely a look of surprise passes through what qualifies as the nightmare’s features, while the helmet hides a satisfied smirk from the man. He was born to order, true, and order he respects. But he was raised by chaos, the unpredictable, the everyday unknown. And rules, he’d long since learned, were rather.. pliable given circumstance.
What was true in one place was falsehood in another, right and wrong were rather nebulous concepts, and more often than not they all relied on the subjective perception of whichever beholder held the most power. And here, in this place of immense power, chaos presently reigned. The rules of the game were no different here than in the outside world - pliable.
The nightmare reforms itself enough to stare the man down with hollow eyes.. And chuckle.
. 41 .
April: 41 Tiken Tekai
|
|
|
|
Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 8:22:10 GMT -6
A laughter that starts slow, uneasy, but grows and increases into a dark laughter, equal parts satisfied and amused. The form of the entity begins to melt, the arm dropping, puddling at the base of the man’s feet as he pulls the glaive free and backs up. The form drops like liquid freed from a spell, something golden glinting at its core. With reflex, he reaches out and catches the strange sphere before it could clatter down onto the ground, but has no further time to inspect it as the puddle of darkness continues to drain, deeper and deeper into the floor.
All around, the pieces of the game along with the very floor itself, begin to melt and drain downward into a sudden pit. Faex.. He scrambles backwards, to what could be perceived as a wall, but the floor keeps sinking and the melting pit keeps growing wider, until it touches the very edges of the room. Suddenly finding himself on a slope that’s more phantasmal liquid than solid ground, he tries to dig a foothold into the surface with hand and glaive, only to feel it phase through nothingness.
The world spins as the pit swallowed everything up.
. 42 .
April: 42 Tiken Tekai
|
|
|
|
Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 8:22:42 GMT -6
Darkness and light play through the vision in equal measure, blinding in too much light and no light at all (even so much as to leave the darkness blind to him). He feels himself falling, faster and faster, but nothing below and nothing above.
The world comes to a sudden, but surprisingly soft stop. He feels himself laid flat against a surface (solid surface no less) though he never felt the impact of landing. The light in his vision gradually recedes, until colour drains into view once more, returning to normal (or what passes as normal here). He blinks, rapidly and repeatedly, trying to get himself to properly focus. Sitting up, he unclasps the faceplate so he can properly rub the eyes and get some sense of bearing again.
First things first - he’s alive and intact. Secondly, he seems to still have all his clothes, armour and gear (even the glaive is laid flat next to him).
. 43 .
April: 43 Tiken Tekai
|
|
|
|
Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 8:23:14 GMT -6
Thirdly, the room itself. The ground is soft grass, feeling more like plush carpet than any real plant-matter (in fact, it probably is carpet shaped like grass). As his vision clears the blurry surrounding slowly draws into focus - there’s more plants, bushes, small trees.. But also walls and different doorways (goddess be praised, he’d never been more glad to see something like it) though it wasn’t exactly a garden.. The walls and glass roof suggests an in-door garden, herbarium or some other form of fanciful plant-keeping within the walls of the manor itself.
Oh.. and the bear and bird at his side, no less. The bear still having the balloon attached to it. “A lot of help you were,” he grumbles tiredly, using the glaive to push himself up onto his feet. It’s a bit of a wobbly process, due aforementioned previous excitable circumstances, but eventually he shakes himself loose.
It was apparent that whatever game the manor had played, he won.. Question was, what was the prize?
. 44 .
April: 44 Tiken Tekai
|
|
|
|
Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 8:23:48 GMT -6
His life? Obviously, and preferably. Another of those dream bottles? Likewise, he finds one at his feet. No, there was something else as well. He looks back down, at the golden orb among the grass-carpet and picks it up.
The glow it radiates is only matched by some strange sense of emotion attached to it. It’s pleasant, but he’s not entirely sure if he trusts it.. The mannerism of the design is too much akin to some arcane puzzles the wizards of home liked to play with, and when wizards play with something needing to be unlocked, you better be very careful about messing with it - either you end up incinerated for protection, or you unleash something which was intended to be imprisoned in order to prevent incineration (in which case, the end result is largely the same).
Though he often prefers the darkness for scouting, the darkness of this place has hardly been reliable in that sense, so he keeps the ball around as a faint light source, raising it up to have better look at the room itself.
. 45 .
April: 45 Tiken Tekai
|
|
|
|
Post by Renathan on Apr 26, 2020 9:26:43 GMT -6
  A lovely mask obscures the view of a swirling something in a vial. |
|
|
|
Post by Èdan on Apr 30, 2020 0:11:17 GMT -6
Firstly and foremost, the place is fake. Yes, in the sense of it being all a magical figment of the manor own construction, but even more so than that - the ‘grass’ of the carpet isn’t the only thing seemingly organic, only to turn out completely synthetic. The walls seem normal, but the plants and trees are made largely from cast metal, the pots or garden fencing from glass and the soil itself has a strange sweet scent to it. He reaches into a pot and pulls out a handful, crumbling it between fingers before bringing the hand up for a closer smell.
He blinks, staring for a moment, then dusts the hand off. Chocolate. Alright, then.
It’s the first encounter of food within the mansion, aside the dinner table set all the way back when they were still exploring with the leopard (and he was likely still somewhere within the house as well. Of course, he could have also left, but the mammalian didn’t strike him as someone who easily abandoned their acquaintances).
. 46 .
April: 46 Tiken Tekai
|
|
|
|
Post by Èdan on Apr 30, 2020 0:11:47 GMT -6
(Which wasn’t at all having any reflection on himself - he was chased by a tar shadow, perfectly reasonable reason to vacate the area. In fact, any insistence to remain within the area could have been considered a crude breach of trust). This wasn’t to say the soil made for anything resembling appetizing.. To a child, perhaps, but he has long since left that manner of indulgence behind. Now, if there was a fountain in the garden spewing a finely aged red grape wine with a spicy twist, that would have been another story.
The glaive taps against the plants, resounding with metallic ‘tink tink’s as he confirmed they are likewise, indeed, metal, and not some metal-painted chocolate as some confectioneries here in the City like to do. In a way, it made sense - given the chaotic nature and tormentor qualities of the house who was to say it wasn’t the result of childish figment made real?
. 47 .
April: 47 Tiken Tekai
|
|
|
|
Post by Èdan on Apr 30, 2020 0:12:12 GMT -6
In so far he has been assuming the house was made by some ages old wizard gone mad, but a young warlock with unlimited power and a sense of cruel objectivity can fill the role just as well. Lure people to it with promises (and shows, for promises alone rarely work for the mob) of treasure, then confine them to run their mazes for fun and entertainment. It rather put everything into a rat-like perspective, if thought that way.
But rat or no, he needs to find a way out (and unlike a rat, he likes to think he’s be a fair bit more clever at figuring out how).
With the orb leading the way in hazy golden light, the man walks along the plush grass carpet and enters the other section of the garden. Things appear to be much the same as the other room, though the types of plants are different. A tap against one with the glaive proves they are still metal, however.
. 48 .
April: 48 Tiken Tekai
|
|
|
|
Post by Èdan on Apr 30, 2020 0:12:41 GMT -6
Interestingly, the there are plants more akin to trees in this room, and not shockingly, the trees are less akin to trees in that they seem to be twisted by some force or effect when they had been made - the shape is still there, the essence of the tree exists.. But its all been twisted into spiralling forms and shapes, as if some fire-storm had hit the metallic sculptures to heat them up and bend them out of shape.
It could also be an art exhibit, he wasn’t about to rule that out.
The stranger part were the colours - everything was still coloured like it was real, save for some nicks and scratches on the metallic pieces. Just the texture was.. All wrong. You could look upon it from afar and never know the difference. But something was different among the colours, and as he approaches, the light of the orb draws the object into focus - a mask.
. 49 .
April: 49 Tiken Tekai
|
|
|
|
Post by Èdan on Apr 30, 2020 0:13:14 GMT -6
The man’s head slowly tilts as he inspects it - the craftsmanship is quite good, it’s a common carnival style and seems to be timeless regardless of the era (or continent) it’s in. He doesn’t see himself frequent any balls or carnivals any time soon (it didn’t seem as though the City folk here had such habits at all), but out of all the things encountered so far, this one could, perhaps, be the most useful.
Of course it could also be the manor simply messing with him (he hasn’t forgotten about the cards and their snubbed meaning), but this one is the manor’s loss. He picks it up, tying to the belt at the back for now, seeing as there’s no real bag or sack to carry anything of that size. The bottle can still fit into a pouch just fine
Now, then, back to the matter at hand - an exit (or a better source of light than the dull sphere).
. 50 .
April: 50 Tiken Tekai
|
|
|
|
Post by Renathan on Apr 30, 2020 0:56:37 GMT -6
|
|
