WrongEndoftheRainbow — Roleplayer Guild

On a small string, looped around Lazarus' neck, there was a small wooden ball. It was distinct from the journal box, for it was of mangrove wood. At a moment that seemed random, it began to smoulder, hissing faintly in black. Then it combusted, dropping to the floor as it burned away the string. 

Lazarus looked upon it. She stepped back, giving it room as she waited for Heartworm.

As if to spite her expectations, the spacial tear appeared behind her, a loose scratch quickly followed by a few more. Heartworm looked the same as it always did: visored in dark glass. "Glyph dispersion mechanisms en route," it said. Its feet tapped on the floor, one then two. "Initial volley of corrupted data delivered. A moment's worth of time."

It clicked its hoof. "Let us begin."

Lazarus simply watched Heartworm, nodding at its last sentence. "Very well, what do you need?"

Sharply waved set of scalpel-fingertips. "Specifications. Heartworm presumes a barren plane is not what Lazarus desires."

"As long as it is extensible, so that I may create many things in it, it is exactly what I wish for." Lazarus responded.

Good enough. Heartworm was in no position to overextend. It yanked at its still-gaping portal and the view changed, now displaying Lazarus's own inner sanctum. "Proceed," it said, stepping into the laboratory. "Make space. Solve these." It projected a film of dimensional calculus it intended to offload onto Lazarus. The Empress would get what she was given, but she could at least make herself useful. "Estimated time of completion: nine hours."

Lazarus was clearly displeased with the invasion of her lab yet again -- and indeed, this time the machines were in various stages of being cleared out, presumably to some new location. However, she dutifully went to work with some grumbling.

Heartworm adopted the lotus position, and dimmed its lights.

The nature of the Emaciator's interior is as such: an expansive, but not infinite, mass of dark mechanisms and tools on long limbs, tunnelled into a spacial vacuole hidden behind its teeth. Long spindle-arms wait here, hanging from every wall, densely packed and curiously arranged, with very little light; there are a few threadlike tentacles, many segmented limbs folded on themselves many times, and components archived in silent and lightless storage.

Beyond this, at one stage of its life, there was All-Beauty. And All-Beauty lay there still. An array of needle-thin portals connected to voids within the goddess, and siphoned power from her: exotic flesh, eldritch matter, pieces and fragments of god.

The first portal had been welded shut long ago. Would it be visible, anywhere but the far depths of All-Beauty, one could see the searing marks that Jvan had made on its surface, the ragged monitors and weapons she still had aimed at that door, to no avail- it was lost to her now, and led nowhere.

Heartworm had no intention of touching it. But it was about to take a risk.

Long arms set about scanning the array of microportals with miniscule eyes, and nodes twitched, rerouting their location. The portals scattered semi-randomly through Jvan, living in niches, finding a place that was just deep enough, just secret enough.

A knife-arm extricated the desired portal from the array and a dozen more plugged into its module. A warm light shone through it.

Time to go. Heartworm had come prepared.

A second vessel, much like its outer one but maybe a tenth the size, was hatched from a protective skin and positioned over the dot. A swarm of hair-thin control tendrils invaded it, and its fuel lines detached.

Where Heartworm's outer pod had two multi-purpose limbs, this slender thing had four long blades. It folded into a bullet-shape.

Go.

The projectile shot into Jvan.

Bright light. Bright grey. Long walls. Movement. Everything was collapsing.

The cutter zipped down under the weight of a falling wall a thousand times its size and out of a niche that was constantly closing. The flesh around was barely recognisable as meat. This was deep Jvan, iterating quickly. Heartworm's probe left a tail of plasma behind it as it sought shelter.

It found a stable space. It looked like a tiny room, scratched on all sides by esoteric graffiti in the hand of a woman named Tueda Nuul. Up from Strife, Close Beyond our Pockmarked Veil, yet Onwards Fights no Resonance, it read.

The excision probe scanned its surroundings and then fled, briefly.

It shot into the falling flesh, then across it, emerging behind a deep gouge. It repeated this four times. A section of fractal fell from the wall, severed from body and reality, its wound already iterating into a new, more delicate form. The cutter fed it back into the portal.

Heartworm's many hands gripped it as it came, and in its clamps divided and bottled and sterilised it, pickled it in death. The preserved remains were unravelled, and put together in a new shape.

The cutter fled back to its hideaway. A new Heartland came into view. It scanned the bubble of unguarded space.

Repeat.

Lazarus continued on the math. It was not hard work, but it was not mindless work, either. She rapidly moved through it, impatiently, as she waited for Heartworm to uphold its end of the bargain. Allowing the symbols to flow freely in front of her, she worked away at assembling the answers.

Carry nine-to-the-ninety-eighth power. Assemble the moduli as so. Solve the parabolic curve. Calculate c in universe x. So many things needed to be done, and Lazarus worked diligently, still grumbling at the fact that she had to do such things to retrieve what Heartworm had promised.

The requests eventually slowed. For a while there was no movement at all. Lazarus eventually finished the work provided to her, and she turned to look for Heartworm.

"Construction complete."

"And where is it, exactly?" Lazarus asked in turn.

"Four hundred seconds. Final considerations," it said, and became unresponsive.

Lazarus crossed her arms, counting in her head as she waited for Heartworm to reveal whatever it had made.

"Done."

The hovering avatar uncrossed its limbs and folded back into a pod position. As it did so it drew a shining white slash across the ground, aimed itself towards the portal, and fell in. "Follow-" and then its voice was gone.

Lazarus moved into action, briskly walking towards the tear in reality. She tentatively stepped in. She fell.

It was a long, long drop down.

Below lay something that was all light and no colour. Flat white, everywhere, intersected only now and again by relative grey. Lazarus fell beside Heartworm towards the center of the newborn plane, the peak of what might have been a mountain, or maybe a tower.

They saw solid, all around, descending from the white surface. Nothing of the mountain was filled. It was a hefty skeleton, all of one piece and seamless,  supported on massive cylinder struts with empty platforms between. All was white and sunless except for the figure that stood in a dark flight suit on the center of the platform.

Heartworm unfolded and stalled its momentum to levitate. It touched down easily on one hoof. Lazarus passed a fluttering six-winged pedestal as she fell and the creature dove to catch her on its surface, matching speeds then slowing while Lazarus struggled to maintain her bearing.

The quiet disc descended onto the platform. Tauga rested her long hammer on her shoulder and turned to watch it come. Her tentacular aura sprawled far across the mountain, hanging from the platform; she was easily the largest of the three.

"This her?"

"Correct," said Heartworm.

Lazarus looked at Tauga carefully, judging her as she once again crossed her arms. "Are you the one I was told to expect?"

"I guess? Maybe." She shrugged. "Heartworm just fetched me. I won't fuck with your mountain."

Heartworm turned its eyes to the view of blank nothingness. "The components of this plane have been sterilised. All genes removed. Fractal superstructure still capable of further iteration. Lazarus alone controls its destiny." It didn't nod. "Once we leave, imprint on it deeply. You will have time."

"I will have time?" Lazarus simply asked, suspiciously glancing at Heartworm. "What, pray tell, does that mean?"

"This," said the Blowfly, and took out Lazarus's shins with a sweep of her staff.

Lazarus fell, rapidly catching herself with her arms before she hit the ground. However, she was still, at least briefly, out of action.

"Lazarus has been reckless," Heartworm's voice carried as Tauga sprang over to kick a dazed Lazarus in the chest. "Lazarus partook of ichor. Your reclusivity hides vulnerability."

Lazarus kicked Tauga in response, with both of her legs as Tauga jumped at her. Tauga pulled her move to avoid the clash, and the two flew past one another. Rolling over, Lazarus began to climb to her feet.

"Forces exist that could challenge you for any reason. The prerequisite to independence is power."

Tauga pressed her advantage. An adamant hammerhead swung at Lazarus from on high.

Lazarus dropped back to the floor, reaching out with her hands. Imprinting a rune of force onto the hammerhead, she imbued it with power and invoked it, launching the hammer off-course. Its leverage hit hard on the holder's end, and Tauga skidded back to a recovery stance.

"Arcane magic boomed Dwarven society. Also taxed you heavily. Lazarus was willing to risk health dealing for her plane. Heartworm will not allow its assets to destroy themselves."

Tauga's tendrils whirled unseen as she advanced, hooking Lazarus in with the bill on her hammer and launching sharp jabs with her fist. Her gauntlets made heavy contact on steel and feather.

Something inside of Lazarus snapped as Tauga hit her. The demigod was picked up by the neck and thrown skywards in her daze, then caught in the grip of the Blowfly's tentacles. Their grasp was crushing.

"Recover," said Heartworm.

Lazarus began to scream as she struggled, her movements jagged and uncanny. At first it was subtle, but it rapidly became blinding as a pinkish-hued light emerged from her. Soon, neither Heartworm's visor nor Tauga's mask could protect their eyes.

There was a wave of divine energies from Lazarus, and once they could look again, what they saw was no longer Lazarus.

With a single motion, the Blowfly's tentacles were forced aside. A sound as though a thousand voices were speaking at once, yet unified, emerged from the being's mouth. "Suffer."

Tauga's voice sparked through Heartworm's vehicle. Heartworm-

Leaving.

Tauga's aura twisted together into a gale and slammed the winged entity away, out over the edge of the platform. She leapt, straight up, eight times her height to clutch Heartworm's trailing wrist.

"I won't fuck with your mountain," she promised as the thrusters ignited. "Dundee is safe with me."

The two were launched high into the blank air, and through a thin black slit into the roof of the world.

The winged being responded rapidly, speeding towards the gash in the world. A wordless cry of anger flooded the plane. But it was to no avail.

Heartworm and his protégé disappeared. The portal melted shut behind them.

Lazarus was trapped.

The  King of Kings created the demiplanes and Demimons. And thus the King of  Kings cried, worship me, ye who would betray me if thou were allowed heresy.

- Testament 1:1:1, King of Kings

In the beginning, there was nothing.

Creation was eternal silence, time did not exist, and no energy flowed.

Then,  the King of Kings breathed into Creation, filling it with energy. They  created the three Demiplanes of Creation, and then they created life to  fill the void. And thus, the Demimons breathed their first. 333,333,333  Demimons filled the void with chatter, confused and terrified. The King  of Kings cried out into the darkness, "Worship me, ye who would betray  me if thou were allowed heresy."

The many millions of Demimons thus began to worship, kneeling all at once  to behold their god. The King of Kings was their creator, and if they  could turn traitor, their destruction. But there was something missing.  No light flowed, no great revelations were made. Without the spark of  something greater, the land was empty.

The  three Demiplanes of Creation were naught without beauty, without  civilization, without lords. The King of Kings, in their eternal wisdom,  realized this before the subjects. And lo, behold the King of Kings,  with the power of Creation and Destruction, the eternal balance of  powers. Lo, behold! Behold and worship!

The  King of Kings stood forth, and thereon granted the power of thirds upon  the three. The CRAFTSGOD, AKKAIN, ruler of the demiplane of OMNINUS, he  who was given the power of lies and deception, BEAUTYGOD, JAAN, ruler  of the demiplane of THRIUS, she who was given the power of the circular  nature of VIOLENCE, LORDGOD, ANAMIN, ruler of the demiplane HEVAOS, he  who was given the power henceforth to rebel.

- Testament 1:1:3, King of Kings

The  Three were uplifted, the Three of Thirds that would be the great lords  of the land, the great innovators, the conquerors and the kings. And  thus, the first great conquering of the three Demiplanes of Creation  began. The pantheon of veritable gods dolled out their power to their  subjects, and plied their trade anew.

For  so it had always been, and for it will always be. The LORDGOD, ANAMIN  created the sun, and the CRAFTSGOD, AKKAIN, the moon. Light flowed  freely, and the BEAUTYGOD, JAAN, in all her might, created wonderous  epics and writ great knowledge upon the land. A golden age of  opportunity, a true utopia of philosopher-kings, enlightened despots,  and poet-warriors.

In  time, they would come to bind the Demimons, creating for them masks to  stave off death. The masks were the source of life, the source of  binding, the source of reincarnation. The most powerful among them  became the angels of the Thirds of Three, bound to the Law Which Binds,  and henceforth they took on new names.

They  were no longer Demimons. They were the angels of death, the angels of  law, the angels of the regime of the Thirds of Three. The land rejoiced.  Richness flowed, and light touched every subject in the Demiplanes of  Creation. With the ship of state headed by gods of immense wisdom, and  guided by the angels of the Law Which Binds, a Demimon could truly  flourish.

The  concept of TAM, a mountain the CRAFTSGOD AKKAIN ascended. The Thirds of  Three, if ye doubt the hunger, look ye to the LORDGOD, ANAMIN, the  greatest Third in Threes. Remember ye the eternal JEALOUSY of power.

- Psalm 3:3:9, Third of Thirds

It  was not to last. Within the center of the three Demiplanes of Creation,  was the mountain of TAM. Built out of time itself, infinitely-sized,  infintely-mazed, the mountain was the bastion of all that was wrong in  the three Demiplanes. Forces of selflessness, righteousness, and  generousity gathered in those wretched halls.

In  all his great wisdom, the CRAFTSGOD, AKKAIN, ascended the great  mountain of TAM. He wished to bring enlightenment to the worlds beyond.  The great forces of evil raged against his efforts, but they were in  vain against the great poet-tyrant. And lo, behold the King of Kings,  whose voice thundered through the vast lands of Creation.

"Ye who would disobey me, thou shalt suffer."

Thus,  struck down was the great Third. In an instant, there tumbled the body  of the liege. CRAFTSGOD, AKKAIN, the lifeless corpse of the hope of the  Demiplanes of Creation. And the Demimons did panic. They scrambled over  each other for his poiwer. How the mighty had fallen.

The  angels of the Law Which Binds watched silently, as jealousy is prized  above all. They did not threaten the balance, they did not take the  power for themselves. The BEAUTYGOD encouraged the struggle, but lo, did  the LORDGOD remain silent. The great age of philosopher-kings began to  yield to the darkness of bickering kingdoms.

Thus  the LORDGOD spoke, Thou art not worthy, for the insight of the  demiplanes of Creation hath not graced upon ye its beauty. Blessed art the ignorance of masses.

- The Testament of AMANIN, 9:3

Whenceforth  the LORDGOD spoke again, he spoke of blasphemy. His followers  faithfully plied his word, while the angels continued to look upon the  chaos, withdrawing to protect the mountain of TAM. The LORDGOD raged  against the King of Kings, denying the Law Which Binds, denying the  worship of the King of Kings.

"You who shalt not, thou art not my lord!" Cried the LORDGOD, AMANIN.

And  lo, the BEAUTYGOD was sturck down. The King of Kings had taken  vengeance for the terrible blasphemies of the LORDGOD, and yet, the  LORDGOD continued. The LORDGOD remained far from the mountain of  TAM. He spoke his words of heresies far from the center of the  Demiplanes, and the King of Kings thus hunted him.

The  Demimons questioned his rule. They questioned the greatness of the  LORDGOD, the weakest, yet now the strongest, of the Three Thirds. Thus,  he cried, "Thou art not worthy, for the insight of the demiplanes of  Creation hath not graced upon yue its beauty. Blessed art the ignorance  of masses."

They  rallied against the LORDGOD, breaking from the Law Which Binds. The  angels stopped them, for a time. But it was not to last. The millions of  Demimons overwhelmed the ranks of the angels, ascending the mountain of  TAM to see what CRAFTSGOD AKKAIN had seen.

Upon  the Demimon had ascended the mountain of TAM, plucked were they from  the land of the living. the Lord of Three, LORDGOD, AMINON, henceforth  forbade all from ascending where the CRAFTSGOD had failed, for the King  of Kings had slain him and the BEAUTYGOD, and with all their power,  hunted the LORDGOD.

- Testament of Deii, 3:15, Death of the Third

Plucked  were the Demimons from the mountain of TAM, by the weary LORDGOD. He  spoke to them, "Ye may not ascend TAM, for thou will meet only misery  there. Thy land is here." but the Demimons disobeyed. They no longer  trusted the philosopher-king.

He was being hunted, the King of Kings scouring Creation for traces of him. He was soon struck down.

Lo,  behold the death of the Thirds of Three. The ascent of the Demimons upon the mountain of TAM. The rotting of the Thirds, sustains us. We split the Three Thirds into Thirds. The kingdoms of the Demiplanes, the  Domain of the Thirds of Three, split between the petty circularity of  the Demimons.

- Testament of Deii, 3:33, Death of Third

Heartworm collided with the roof of Lazarus's laboratory and left a scuff, but the damage to its vehicle was minor. Tauga skittered around the room like a ragdoll and crashed into something delicate-looking before coming to a halt in a pile of broken glass. She dusted herself off.

"Hell all was that?"

Heartworm unfolded, ran its scalpel fingertips over the ground. No sign of Lazarus. "Necessary. An intervention."

"Looked like a fuckin' coup."

"Tauga may do with the Citadel as she wishes," said Heartworm. "Leave it to established oligarchy. Take command. Remain clandestine. Her choice."

She shrugged. "I'll think about it later. Told you. I'm not gonna fuck with her mountain."

A dip. Maybe a nod.

"But, seriously. The coup. Did you make that thing just to catch her?"

"Part of a deal Lazarus could not afford," it said. "Upon her return, Lazarus will be stronger. Possibly wiser." Tauga scoffed. It wasn't amusement, just a raw bark of frustration.

"Yeah and she's gonna be blind pissed, am I gonna have to deal with that too?"

"Possibly."

"God damn it, Heartworm." Tauga crossed her arms."Will you even get anything out of this?"

"Possibly."

"Fuuuck." Tauga reeled a bit with her eyes shut, picked up a shiny something and pocketed it. "Let's go. Bad enough to keep Keriss waiting while she's looking for you. Still don't know why you're running her around like this."

Heartworm looked to the space where Lazarus had disappeared. It nodded.

Some might call me merciful.

The body of an Archon was that of a permanently bound Demimon. Approximately three-thousand of them remained in existence. The Burning Fist of Those Who are Fated to Obey the Laws of Philosopher-Kings was one of them. For how much longer, however, was the question.

The oldest of the Archon, the first to be bound to the masks forged by the Thirds of Three, those called the Lords of Three by the more blasphemous, had declared Burning Fist a heretic. She had not been enforcing the laws appropriately, they had accused. She had broken the tenet of LORDGOD, AMANIN, they had cried.

She had ascended the mountain in defiance of the Law which Binds. Their charge was heinous, and had justified an assemblage of the council of the oldest Archons. And now, they stood in judgement of Burning Fist.

Elsewhere, a small box was sealed shut by a lady with very long fur, and very long arms, and very long tails.

It was a black box, a painted black, and its like had not been seen this far north at any prior time. Its contents were unknown to all but the assembler, and would stay that way. That was, in fact, the purpose behind the assembly.

The one who spoke in tildes took out the box from the scorched Jvanic studio, and carried it with her out beyond the waterfalls. Once she had practiced terrible things within that bunker, for which she had been paid with treason-gold. That day was behind her now. She had done what she must and acquired the wealth she needed to move on to better things.

A wanderer greeted the one who spoke in tildes, to whom she had introduced herself as Monk (for she was a monk). He was greeted back with a wave and a small jangle of the rings of brass on the monk's tails. The one who spoke in tildes carried on. She found a place where none would come for days in the future, up on the mountains beside the rapid stream, and set down the box. She took out a chalk and began drawing sigils.

Inside the box was a █████, and ████ among other things. She had placed them there in the dead of night, far from anyone who could see or hear.

This she had learned from a long boy named Zyle, who lived outside the Citadel Dundee with a great wyrm and knew many things. Many would struggle to hear words from so far away, but the one who spoke in tildes was sensitive, and heard many things. She had heard, for example, that the power of the painted box lay in the maker's ability not only to discern its nature for oneself (for arcana loses its power if shared and is useless if received), but to devise a way to use ██████ such that no other being could ever wield a similar technique by pure chance. What mechanisms lay in the box was unique, and it was unknown, and it was strictly and solely hers. She had something no-one else had and no-one could imitate, and therefore she was powerful.

She retrieved her proof of work from the ropes on her back: a young goat, and several fruit, and fine oil. These she burned.

A distant galley rowed its way through the night sky above, not even a mote of dust among the stars.

The one who spoke in tildes was no mystic, nor a psyker of dwarves. But she was a telepath, as she watched the pyre blaze, she placed her hands upon the box's keys, and called into the void.

The vague smoke of incense wound about the dark, claustrophobic room. They were perched in a construction built from the grand corpse of the BEAUTYGOD, JAAN, in their eternal irony. This angered Burning Fist. What had they become, fallen to? To house themselves in the very lords whom they recieved laws from, or at least did.

"You stand accused of blasphemy of the highest order, Archon The Burning Fist of Those Who are Fated to Obey the Laws of Philosopher-Kings. What say you in your defense?" Came the lofty decree of the prime Archon, The Original Binding of the Demonic Forces Which Inhabit the Demiplanes of Our Undying Thirds. The crowd of Prime Archons broke into murmurs.

"You are an old fool, Original Binding. You will see, under your leadership, the death of the Law of Thirds. You will be the death of all we hold dear," Burning Fist spat out. The crowd's murmurs rose into a crescendo of threats and accusations. Some of them began to step forward.

"Enough! This court will remain in order!" Original Binding simply cried, lifting one of his hands to signal restraint. The court gradually died down, as silence once again asserted its dominion. The Prime Archon's mask had no eyeslits, and indeed covered his entire face. There was no way to judge what he was thinking.

"You have admitted your own guilt -- We shall see your mask ripped from you, we shall see you broken. We have many poorly-forged masks, and it will be a --" The Prime Archon was interrupted. Burning Fist headbutted him. He stumbled back, and with a single, well-practiced martial technique, forced Burning Fist to the floor.

"You dare strike a--a.." His voice slowly petered out, as he looked at the composure of Burning Fist. Was her skin.. Beginning to boil? If so, that was a sign of the summoning process. He shot out his hand, but Burning Fist leaped to her feet, backing away with haste.

"You dare..?" Came the half-question, half-utterance from Original Binding.

Then, everything burst into unholy fire.

"YOU DARE!" Original Binding cried, shielding himself from the flames, as the room erupted into chaos. Burning Fist was gone.

The summoning circle flared up, the burning items consumed all at once. The fire obscured the center of the circle, taking on a pinkish hue. The one who spoke in tildes flicked her tail back and drew her long knife, laying it across her knees behind the box. She observed. The fire gradually began to die down, slowly revealing the ]Archon that had been summoned.

They watched one another. The one who spoke in tildes picked up the box and set it to one side. She circled the archon, holding her knife in her tails such that it would not seem a threat.

~welcome

Was the thought she dreamed.

The masked figure simply looked down on the one who spoke in tildes, not responding to the welcome. They seemed rather forboding. Stepping out of the circle, they examined their hand, before surveying the dark landscape.

~you are unresponsive?

The monk whispered, then gestured to the view. ~a city lies beyond, said the voice in the figure's head. ~it lies on a coast. do you know what coasts are

"Yes," came a voice from the mask, "We had coasts. A long time ago." the figure jerked its head to look at the one who spoke in tildes, the eyeholes in their mask blackened. The effect was eerie.

The one who spoke in tildes, fortunately, was more than comfortable putting on an eerie grin of her own. ~you may have a name, she signalled. ~or an identity. maybe a past even

She waved her hand, shrugged. ~it would be very interesting to record it

"A past, yes. I am The Burning Fist of Those Who are Fated to Obey the Laws of Philosopher-Kings." Burning Fist responded, equally unperturbed. "You have summoned me."

~well, apparently was the reply. ~i had very little idea where that passage leads to. you understand, she said, ~i'm sure.

"And what would you have me do?" Burning Fist asked, continuing to stare down the Sculptor.

~...do? A moment's feigned ignorance, then laughter. It was vocal laughter, coming from her throat, and it sounded strange and low. ~i'm just a scientist, friend. what you do is up to you She flipped the knife on its blade, tossed it, caught, flipped again. The metal glinted. ~i'll take notes

Burning Fist crossed her arms, watching tildes juggle. "And what is the catch?" she asked.

~if you touch me in any way untoward, i will murder you with my bare hands

"And you presume you can stop an Archon of the Thirds?" came the response, Burning Fist still unmoving. "I have practiced for eternities. I have banished many more dangerous than you could ever be."

The monk clasped her hands. ~then you have many stories also. it would be my honour to record them. and then you may go your way

"So that's the catch. What do you wish to know?" Burning Fist said, her arms still crossed.

~start from the beginning. from where i drew you out

"Well, at first, there was darkness. Then, we came into existence. We were unbound then, nothing more than mere beasts thrashing in the darkness. But, even as beasts, there was one law we still followed, the law of the King of Kings. When the King of Kings said, 'worship me, ye who would betray me if thou were allowed heresy', even as beasts we obeyed." Burning Fist recounted.

The one who spoke in tildes blinked. The information was inscribed on her abundant grey matter for eternity. ~and who was the King of Kings?

"Our highest lord." she responded simply.

~its name?

"The closest guarded secret of the Demiplanes." Came the answer.

~demiplanes, thought the one who spoke in tildes, and looked once more to the ██████ box.

Wooden platform. Dead of night. No one lived here and the armory was elsewhere, and so very few guarded the drill floor. Burning Fist evaded them easily. The Monk was waiting on a wall. No lanterns, no torches: moonlight would be their guide. Periditus was full. The war moon.

Burning Fist moved almost ethereally, a ghost in the winding tunnels. Sentries and guards were avoided with ease, and soon enough she too was standing on the wooden platform. She looked up at the moon, almost awed by the light it produced. The moon of the Demiplanes was in a state of constant wane without the Thirds, and produced little light.

They faced each other across dirt and salt sweat, Monk reclining, then smirking her way up to her haunches. ~they invite me here from time to time, she thought, ~to repair their marionettes. i've established a baseline for hand-to-hand combat. tonight i intend to test you against that baseline

She picked up a wrought-iron ball, a throwing-hammer, and threw it forwards at Burning Fist. Burning Fist dodged the ball, grabbing the throwing-hammer midair by the handle. The Marionettes arranged at the side of the square limbered up at her signal and, taking up staves, arranged themselves in a broad circle. ~sixty seconds. are you ready

"May the Thirds guide my hands," Burning Fist whispered, before saying, "ready."

Three Marionettes came at her with their staves held long: one struck high, the others low. Burning Fist reacted quickly, smacking away the high stave with an open palm, before jumping up, slamming her feet down on the two low staves. She then closed the distance before they could react further, giving a wide sideways motion with the throwing hammer to take out all three Marionettes.

The rusting ball struck one wooden skull, clacked off another, and the third had time enough to step back from the motion. A long staff swept sidewards from the edge of her reach with the hammer, the third Marionette lunging back in as it passed it to jab at Burning Fist's chest as the fourth performed her sweep and the fifth squared up behind.

She threw the hammer at the boxer, before ducking low and grabbing the staff of the sweeper before it could sweep her off her feet. She then wrenched the staff from its hand, rapidly grabbing the staff like a spear and jabbing at the one squaring up.

The bend had cost her time. Her blow was met by wood and twisted down, the disarmed sweeper lacing its fists together and bringing them down at Burning Fists's head. The sixth fighter mimicked her move, lunging at the Archon's back.

She began a backflip, letting go of the staff and kicking the top so that it slammed into the fifth one's face. She then grabbed hold of, mid backflip, the one trying to slam her in the head, kicking off of its own head to continue her acrobatics. Flying into the one lunging at her, she extended her legs to give it a good kick as well.

Her boots made a heavy sound. She landed.

The first and second Marionettes had snapped strings, and had so yielded. The third and fourth had not. Standing as they staggered, they fell back, changing tactics at Monk's cue. Re-arming themselves, they adopted a guard stance alongside the seventh.

Maintaining leverage on the poles, they gave brief lunges towards Burning Fist, a short succession of strikes from all three angles.

Burning Fist moved into action again, this time simply ducking at the last moment, allowing two of the marionettes to slam their staffs into each other. The third simply hit air, upon which she grabbed the staff and held it away from her as she travelled rapidly up towards the marionette. Its fist flew at her mask as she approached.

She parried the fist with her free hand, before liberally headbutting the Marionette. A sound like steel on wood rang out as she received prompt blows from the foes she had turned her back on.

She used her closeness to the marionette she headbutted to grab its staff, and she rapidly spun around, sweeping at leg level, dragging its torso down with it. She was trying to force the Marionettes to either give up the counterattack and defend or be swept off their feet. Her tactic was familiar to them: the closer one wedged its staff into the dirt as she moved, forcing the momentum upwards and using the catch to throw her grip high. The other gave a sharp blow to the chest.

She leaned back as her grip was thrown high, falling into a backwards roll using the momentum of the grip catch. As she moved into the roll, she also threw the staff forwards, hoping to hit one of the marionettes with the marionette that still gripped her staff. It let go, and, skidding, both were thrown momentarily off guard.

~time, thought the one who spoke in tildes. The Marionettes stood down.

Monk’s hand scritched letters on a board with a quill. ~strength, at least forty graves lifting power one handed. mobility, jaguar class. resilience… you’re not wounded, are you? She looked up and smiled. ~you score an eight

If the Archon was winded, she did not show it. She simply straightened up, looking at the one who spoke in tildes. “I will assume that’s good. What next?”
~you go your own way, and maybe i follow, said the one who spoke in tildes. ~or maybe i stay here. The marionettes moved to reassemble one another at her gesture. ~you will survive easily in this world, Burning Fist. i wish you well

She shrugged, chuckled slightly, her mood visibly light. ~maybe you’ll settle down in a strange city, far from home, and do strange things there. there was another jaguar class who did that, once, thought the one who spoke in tildes. She disappeared into the Marionette warehouse. ~but then, what do i know? good night.

Shit man I don’t even recall what was in this thing at this point uh

Heartworm signals that it’s ready to make Lazarus’s plane while its glyphs are being dispersed through the labyrinth. It pops up, with some announcement this time, requests some specifications on the plane, and settles for ‘it has to be adaptable to my purposes’. It hands off some calculations to Lazarus to make things easier and begins plane-making.

We see the interior of the Heartworm worm, which formerly held a portal to the interior of Jvan, and now contains an array of rapidly moving microportals instead, the better to steal flesh and power unnoticed. Using these, HW sends a probe into Jvan to collect rapidly iterating fractal matter from her, with curious spacial properties. These samples it alters and forges into an entirely new plane, with a similar self-repeating nature. The pattern it will be repeating is left to Lazarus. It costs an Migt.

Upon being airdropped into the new dimension, which seems to take the form of a mountain of stacked white platforms growing smaller with each layer, Lazarus finds that Tauga is already there. Heartworm informs Laz of the nature of the plane before Tauga starts whacking her with a hammer, while being sternly reprimanded on the reckless nature of her experiments. Heartworm has no friends and not a lot of allies, and can’t afford to lose them to suicidally mad science.

Lazarus explodes under the pressure, sheds her old form and transforms into a monstrous demigod. Heartworm, having come off really badly from its fight with Ventus, decides to get the fuck out of there with Tauga. They rocket jump up out of the plane’s sky and leave Lazarus to get well. 

She’ll stay there until whenever Wrongend thinks is appropriate.

Within the plane, some stuff goes down.

We meet with Archon The Burning Fist of Those Who are Fated to Obey the Laws of Philosopher-Kings, the angel-incarnate with a mouthful of a name. She’s gone where she wasn’t supposed to, and is getting put in angel court for it.

Then, suddenly, she’s summoned by anime person, the tildes fucker, who is all like “do what you want”

They go practice some fighting, and it turns out Burning Fist is halfway decent at that shit. Yipee.

More to come? In another post jesus fuck stop yelling at me termite

Lazarus
-1 Might
Lots of worshippers i don’t feel like remembering
Level 3????? Can’t remember idk

Jvan
14 Might Ambient
0 Might in Ovaedis
2 Free Points
2C / 0D
Level Six
WrongEndoftheRainbow Member

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