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aumentouThis is a non-canonical Changeling story. Because I think I'm funny sometimes.
This place is strange and yet familiar.
The walls are green just like they should be, but here they're flat surfaces broken in places by metal and plastic projections of varying size and shape. Some of the projections are little metal lumps, some are cylinders attached on metal legs, some are little black boxes with dozens of legs. It seems familiar but I can't place it. Sparks randomly travel from one projection to another so the surface is hazardous. The walls slope slightly outwards so there is more space at floor level. It's not enough to be a serious restriction but it feels stifling. The path at my feet is a flat metal track, perfectly smooth but with occasional circular nodes, some of which mark junctions. The sky is obscured, somehow. It looks like smoke, but wrong. Like empty air then a flat layer of smoke, then... who knows? I can't fly up to look, so not me.
I start walking, trying to stay calm, trying not to be unnerved by the alienness of the place. There's no way back so the only way out is through. I wonder where that last thought came from, as it didn't seem like one of mine.
As I travel I find more variety, and all of it is strange. The first is a cat. A small aperture in the right hand wall contains a kitten. It looks at first like a perfectly normal kitten, except that it doesn't move. And yet as I move past it it continues to face me without apparently moving. After I've passed it meows, but the sound is wrong somehow. Not natural. But what is "natural" here? Certainly not the trees - I pass a recess containing one of them shortly after the first cat. A foot-thick cluster of cables rise perfectly vertically from the floor and vanish into the sky. On the way up it projects occasional perfectly horizontal cable branches into the walls on every side. Small glowing orbs rest on the branches, like tiny balls of lightning. Or perhaps "rest" is the wrong word. Perhaps I meant "nest"? I feel like they're watching me, so I stop looking at the tree and carry on walking.
I feel the wolves before I see them. Something moving, back and left, the other side of the walls. I draw my knives and turn to face them. They emerge about twenty yards back. Three of them come straight through the wall, fading through it like they're insubstantial. And when I can see them clearly it's even stranger! Their bodies are utterly static (and always facing me) even as they move. One seems to be standing still, another is hanging in the air mid-leap, and the third is just a snarling head, floating in space. And yet, all are clearly wolves. We have a full thirty seconds of stare-down, then they back off. Most wolves won't go for someone armed and ready unless they're very hungry, and for all all their strangeness these are no exception.
The next new oddity is a sign. It looks like someone bodged it together from spare wood, and then daubed "Watch out! You won't be able to leave!" on it. But from some angles it morphs slightly, seeming less wooden, smoother. The words seem to change too, saying "Warning! Over 18s only!". The thing it's protecting is... well, it's an orgy. A large number of humans are having sex. The women are thin, hairless, and have improbably large breasts. The men are muscled, relatively hairless, and remarkably well endowed. All of them are tanned and none of them seem to get tired. Yet, watching, I get the strange impression of desparation. As though they are compelled, somehow.
I have no idea how I could help them, so I move on. At the next junction I go left, and almost straight on at the one after. I'm not sure where I'm going, but there's a trick to it. Hold your mind on the thing you're after and your feet will lead you to it. I'm holding to the image of an exit, and I'm getting closer. I can feel it, somehow.
I hear a problem before I find the exit. A loud yawn, low pitched as though from a very large throat. I creep forward, trying to get a look while remaining unseen. And there I see a big wall with the word "Exit" on it. I can feel that it's not a decoy, though I have no idea where the actual door is. Unfortunately, between me and further investigation are three creatures from someone's nightmares. They're sitting down, but if they stood they'd be a head taller than any human I've met and are massively muscled with it. They have warty green skin and sharp tusklike teeth that make it obvious they're carnivores. As if that isn't bad enough, they're also cyborg horrors - two have robotic legs, and grafted-on armour plates protect every important part of them. Even the heads are armoured, and one has a robotic eye that constantly sweeps the area in front of it with red beams. One carries a stave mounting strange machinery, whose ends emit small sparks. Another has retractable blades built into its vambraces, which it is using to eat chunks of meat. The third is using a knife to eat, left-handed. It has to be left-handed, because its right hand and forearm have been replaced with a gigantic multi-barrelled gun that looks like it belongs on a helicopter.
I decide that tangling with three cyborg trolls isn't a good idea, and start creeping quietly away. But then a red light flickers across my vision, an alarm sounds, and suddenly there are no choices - just three angry creatures getting to their feet and bringing weapons up.
It's hard to explain to civilians what happened next. You have to remember, I'm a soldier. As soon as I saw them I'd assessed HOW to fight them, even while simultaneously deciding I really didn't want to. The first target has to be the one with the minigun, because there's no escaping while they've got that. If you can take that one out you can potentially run away from the others, but it's just not on the cards when they can shoot through the cover. So even before they knew I was there I knew if they spotted me my only option was to jump the minigun one before it got a shot off and then wing the next step if I survived that. Result: I didn't have to do any thinking. Just react.
The alarm sounds and I run straight at the minigun troll, drawing my knives on the way. The gun is coming up and I make a desparate leap, both arms in front of me, blades forward. The right glances of a plate on the chest, but the left strikes home in the beasts upper right arm, crucially pushing the gun off to the left of me as the first shots blaze out. I crash into it, too light to knock it over, and scrabble to my feet. I twist my left knife to further damage its arm, throwing myself to that side partly to increase the damage and partly to avoid a cumberome punch from its knife hand. I'm only partly successful and my vision blurs a little from the impact. A stinging sensation tells me I'm bleeding, but I've got more serious worries in that two armed trolls are now behind me, so I desparately try to duck under the minigun arm while stabbing up at the creatures throat with my right.
This approach is far more successful than it deserves to be. A wet crunching from my right blade and a warm sensation on my right hand, a step forward and left while ducking, another step forward and right, and I'm just starting to think this is going well when suddenly I get hit in the back by something immense and heavy. The shock drops me, but I manage to roll away from the action and even keep my knives. Then I somewhat blurrily look up from the floor, needing to assess even more urgently than standing up.
The troll with the arm blades is stood where the gun one was. It's stood like it just recovered from kicking someone, which explains what hit me - it must have kicked its minigun-wielding companion into me. Said companion is down and doesn't seem likely to get up, which is the first bit of good news. The third troll is also down, though I've no idea how.
It doesn't matter. Blade-monster is smiling as it advances on me. Huge, and hugely confident. I have no idea how or even if I can beat this thing. It's massive, ludicrously strong, armoured, and has a two-foot blade coming off each forearm. I'm pretty good, but I've got two kitchen knives and this isn't remotely fair. Still, I stand up, and the brute is too cocky or too slow to rush me before I can come to guard.
We circle and have a couple of exchanges. Its movements are surprisingly cumbersome, so I'm faster on my feet and with my hands. But it's strong enough that this could be decided by one hit, and it has more reach than me. I need to draw it into over-extending itself and then step in sharply to deliver a strike. This is precisely the kind of approach I hate - totally committed, totally fatal if it goes wrong. Still, it's the only chance here, and I have to take it quickly just in case either of the others gets up.
It attacks right then left so tis left leg is forward. I circle right to get on the outside of it, feinting at its leg to draw an attack at my own body. When it comes I go right and forward. It starts to spin to follow, left elbow coming up for a head strike that will hit like a train.
It doesn't connect. As it's starting to spin, I'm jumping. I land on its back, wrapping my legs around the metallic torso, and reverse my grip on the knives before plunging them both into the unarmoured parts of its neck, again and again and again until dark green blood spurts out several feet and the beast starts to drop.
Like I say, I'm pretty good.
I check on the staff wielder. It's got about a dozen minigun bullets in it. Seems I got REALLY lucky with that first strike. Then I make sure they're all really dead. The legends about trolls have them coming back to life, but these don't seem to be. All things considered I'm surprised that I survived, but maybe trolls just aren't as big a deal as they think they are. Then I clean my knives, put them away, and approach the "exit" sign.
There's a square door under the sign. Or at least, I think it's a door. It has no handles, locks, or hinges, and is only marked with an "X". I try to get purchase on the edge to pull it open, but fail. Then I push it. It doesn't swing - it just seems to slide inwards slightly. The "X" vanishes, to be replaced by the words "Are you sure you wish to exit? Press again to confirm." I stand there gaping for a couple of seconds, then press it again.
Just like that, I'm out. Stood in a deserted computer room back in the safety and sanity of the real world. I decide then and there, I am NEVER entering the hedge through a computer screen again.
This place is strange and yet familiar.
The walls are green just like they should be, but here they're flat surfaces broken in places by metal and plastic projections of varying size and shape. Some of the projections are little metal lumps, some are cylinders attached on metal legs, some are little black boxes with dozens of legs. It seems familiar but I can't place it. Sparks randomly travel from one projection to another so the surface is hazardous. The walls slope slightly outwards so there is more space at floor level. It's not enough to be a serious restriction but it feels stifling. The path at my feet is a flat metal track, perfectly smooth but with occasional circular nodes, some of which mark junctions. The sky is obscured, somehow. It looks like smoke, but wrong. Like empty air then a flat layer of smoke, then... who knows? I can't fly up to look, so not me.
I start walking, trying to stay calm, trying not to be unnerved by the alienness of the place. There's no way back so the only way out is through. I wonder where that last thought came from, as it didn't seem like one of mine.
As I travel I find more variety, and all of it is strange. The first is a cat. A small aperture in the right hand wall contains a kitten. It looks at first like a perfectly normal kitten, except that it doesn't move. And yet as I move past it it continues to face me without apparently moving. After I've passed it meows, but the sound is wrong somehow. Not natural. But what is "natural" here? Certainly not the trees - I pass a recess containing one of them shortly after the first cat. A foot-thick cluster of cables rise perfectly vertically from the floor and vanish into the sky. On the way up it projects occasional perfectly horizontal cable branches into the walls on every side. Small glowing orbs rest on the branches, like tiny balls of lightning. Or perhaps "rest" is the wrong word. Perhaps I meant "nest"? I feel like they're watching me, so I stop looking at the tree and carry on walking.
I feel the wolves before I see them. Something moving, back and left, the other side of the walls. I draw my knives and turn to face them. They emerge about twenty yards back. Three of them come straight through the wall, fading through it like they're insubstantial. And when I can see them clearly it's even stranger! Their bodies are utterly static (and always facing me) even as they move. One seems to be standing still, another is hanging in the air mid-leap, and the third is just a snarling head, floating in space. And yet, all are clearly wolves. We have a full thirty seconds of stare-down, then they back off. Most wolves won't go for someone armed and ready unless they're very hungry, and for all all their strangeness these are no exception.
The next new oddity is a sign. It looks like someone bodged it together from spare wood, and then daubed "Watch out! You won't be able to leave!" on it. But from some angles it morphs slightly, seeming less wooden, smoother. The words seem to change too, saying "Warning! Over 18s only!". The thing it's protecting is... well, it's an orgy. A large number of humans are having sex. The women are thin, hairless, and have improbably large breasts. The men are muscled, relatively hairless, and remarkably well endowed. All of them are tanned and none of them seem to get tired. Yet, watching, I get the strange impression of desparation. As though they are compelled, somehow.
I have no idea how I could help them, so I move on. At the next junction I go left, and almost straight on at the one after. I'm not sure where I'm going, but there's a trick to it. Hold your mind on the thing you're after and your feet will lead you to it. I'm holding to the image of an exit, and I'm getting closer. I can feel it, somehow.
I hear a problem before I find the exit. A loud yawn, low pitched as though from a very large throat. I creep forward, trying to get a look while remaining unseen. And there I see a big wall with the word "Exit" on it. I can feel that it's not a decoy, though I have no idea where the actual door is. Unfortunately, between me and further investigation are three creatures from someone's nightmares. They're sitting down, but if they stood they'd be a head taller than any human I've met and are massively muscled with it. They have warty green skin and sharp tusklike teeth that make it obvious they're carnivores. As if that isn't bad enough, they're also cyborg horrors - two have robotic legs, and grafted-on armour plates protect every important part of them. Even the heads are armoured, and one has a robotic eye that constantly sweeps the area in front of it with red beams. One carries a stave mounting strange machinery, whose ends emit small sparks. Another has retractable blades built into its vambraces, which it is using to eat chunks of meat. The third is using a knife to eat, left-handed. It has to be left-handed, because its right hand and forearm have been replaced with a gigantic multi-barrelled gun that looks like it belongs on a helicopter.
I decide that tangling with three cyborg trolls isn't a good idea, and start creeping quietly away. But then a red light flickers across my vision, an alarm sounds, and suddenly there are no choices - just three angry creatures getting to their feet and bringing weapons up.
It's hard to explain to civilians what happened next. You have to remember, I'm a soldier. As soon as I saw them I'd assessed HOW to fight them, even while simultaneously deciding I really didn't want to. The first target has to be the one with the minigun, because there's no escaping while they've got that. If you can take that one out you can potentially run away from the others, but it's just not on the cards when they can shoot through the cover. So even before they knew I was there I knew if they spotted me my only option was to jump the minigun one before it got a shot off and then wing the next step if I survived that. Result: I didn't have to do any thinking. Just react.
The alarm sounds and I run straight at the minigun troll, drawing my knives on the way. The gun is coming up and I make a desparate leap, both arms in front of me, blades forward. The right glances of a plate on the chest, but the left strikes home in the beasts upper right arm, crucially pushing the gun off to the left of me as the first shots blaze out. I crash into it, too light to knock it over, and scrabble to my feet. I twist my left knife to further damage its arm, throwing myself to that side partly to increase the damage and partly to avoid a cumberome punch from its knife hand. I'm only partly successful and my vision blurs a little from the impact. A stinging sensation tells me I'm bleeding, but I've got more serious worries in that two armed trolls are now behind me, so I desparately try to duck under the minigun arm while stabbing up at the creatures throat with my right.
This approach is far more successful than it deserves to be. A wet crunching from my right blade and a warm sensation on my right hand, a step forward and left while ducking, another step forward and right, and I'm just starting to think this is going well when suddenly I get hit in the back by something immense and heavy. The shock drops me, but I manage to roll away from the action and even keep my knives. Then I somewhat blurrily look up from the floor, needing to assess even more urgently than standing up.
The troll with the arm blades is stood where the gun one was. It's stood like it just recovered from kicking someone, which explains what hit me - it must have kicked its minigun-wielding companion into me. Said companion is down and doesn't seem likely to get up, which is the first bit of good news. The third troll is also down, though I've no idea how.
It doesn't matter. Blade-monster is smiling as it advances on me. Huge, and hugely confident. I have no idea how or even if I can beat this thing. It's massive, ludicrously strong, armoured, and has a two-foot blade coming off each forearm. I'm pretty good, but I've got two kitchen knives and this isn't remotely fair. Still, I stand up, and the brute is too cocky or too slow to rush me before I can come to guard.
We circle and have a couple of exchanges. Its movements are surprisingly cumbersome, so I'm faster on my feet and with my hands. But it's strong enough that this could be decided by one hit, and it has more reach than me. I need to draw it into over-extending itself and then step in sharply to deliver a strike. This is precisely the kind of approach I hate - totally committed, totally fatal if it goes wrong. Still, it's the only chance here, and I have to take it quickly just in case either of the others gets up.
It attacks right then left so tis left leg is forward. I circle right to get on the outside of it, feinting at its leg to draw an attack at my own body. When it comes I go right and forward. It starts to spin to follow, left elbow coming up for a head strike that will hit like a train.
It doesn't connect. As it's starting to spin, I'm jumping. I land on its back, wrapping my legs around the metallic torso, and reverse my grip on the knives before plunging them both into the unarmoured parts of its neck, again and again and again until dark green blood spurts out several feet and the beast starts to drop.
Like I say, I'm pretty good.
I check on the staff wielder. It's got about a dozen minigun bullets in it. Seems I got REALLY lucky with that first strike. Then I make sure they're all really dead. The legends about trolls have them coming back to life, but these don't seem to be. All things considered I'm surprised that I survived, but maybe trolls just aren't as big a deal as they think they are. Then I clean my knives, put them away, and approach the "exit" sign.
There's a square door under the sign. Or at least, I think it's a door. It has no handles, locks, or hinges, and is only marked with an "X". I try to get purchase on the edge to pull it open, but fail. Then I push it. It doesn't swing - it just seems to slide inwards slightly. The "X" vanishes, to be replaced by the words "Are you sure you wish to exit? Press again to confirm." I stand there gaping for a couple of seconds, then press it again.
Just like that, I'm out. Stood in a deserted computer room back in the safety and sanity of the real world. I decide then and there, I am NEVER entering the hedge through a computer screen again.
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no subject
Date: 2013-03-03 05:08 pm (UTC)I'm not sure when the story is "supposed" to click, but I figured out the setting was The Internet at the orgy. Not sure what the wolves represent though?
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Date: 2013-03-04 10:07 pm (UTC)The wolves are a bit tenuous, I'll admit. Wolves in the Hedge (the changeling location) are a big part of the setting. They're kind of the default monster in the game, and actually quite a nasty hazard if the ST just uses them as wolves (engage, realise this will cost too much blood, get out). Looking for an internet equivalent I got Insanity Wolf and some pictures, and I figured that an image search for a given word is probably the internets collective view of the material, which makes stills the thing.