Video Game Forums

On a planet. Yes... a planet.

The terrain was lush, utterly overrun with plantlife. Call it what you will, jungle, rainforest, sweltering tropics- they grew everywhere. Plateaus disguised as massive piles of vine dotted the terrain here and there across one large continent. The seas were crimson with plantlife.

Crimson?

...yes. Crimson. A dull, hazy red sun shone overhead, much larger than one might have expected, were one from Terra. The air was muggy and oppressive, but truly, that could not actually be said. After all, those are opinions- they need someone to feel them to make them worth noting.

And here.... here, there was nothing but jungle. Plants far and wide- but nary a trail, nary a footstep, not even the beat of a wing or the squirm of a protozoan.

Just.... plants.

Anyone coming to the planet, though, they would see the scar. A huge tunnel through the dirt, alarmingly neat and circular. It was almost as though someone had taken some kind of titanic drill, and worked at an angle- for though the tunnel was straight, the one end was over a thousand miles from the other. No, this was not natural. Not at all.

The dirt, the soil in the walls of the tunnel was so fused, so compressed into a solid rock that nothing grew within. The only place on the planet where nothing grew, nothing spread crimson or orange leaves to the light to gather nutrition. The walls of it were smooth and even, and completely undeniably solid. Even at its deepest, middle point, where the bottom of it began to glow faintly from magmatic heat.

At one end of that tunnel, at one end of that eye in the planet, the flora seemed to be almost... arrayed. Shaped, curiously, in a manner only an ordered mind should be able to achieve. One great triangle, equilateral and even across the rises and falls of the ground. One point opposite the entry of the odd, dead tunnel, which just kissed a single side of the shape- an almost beauteous array of nature.....

...but, pointing at what?

December's Foggy Freeze?

A field afire.

Twisted, smoldering- or in some cases outright flaming- wreckage littered the entire area. Here, a crater, there, a mass of half-molten, half-rusted metal. Over there, a series of frighteningly scorched, blasted spots in the deserted land, sandy rock blasted half to glass. It looked like a battlefield.

Probably had been.

Before that, it had been an oil field. Aging, giant derricks sat and pumped even now in some places. But not many. No, not many at all. Most of the wells, pumped nearly dry, burned now with a dire ferocity, painting the sky overhead a thick, greasy black with smog. Pits of flame in which sat pillars of flame and smoke, combusting ceaselessly, violently.

It had been a scar on the land, now it was rent wide. Slivers and shards of steel and stone marked two separate arcs- one in shining, glittery silver nearly two hundred feet long. The other rendered an unfathomably two-hundred-yard cone into a forest of tiny stone needles, a deathtrap on which a panicked animal could easily shred itself to death before understanding.

And then there was the -unclean- spot. A trail of seared ground, dirt and sand and rock in runny shapes that looked half-melted, ending in a foul stain on the ground. This one was not scorched, not dug, not afire. Just... stained. A deep, nearly blackish-red. The eye would veer away from it, deny its wrongness. Its somehow tangible putrescence, despite the total lack of an odor (except for the near-ubiquitous smoggy oppressiveness of an oil fire). But then, it was on the end of a line. The streak of incompletely-glassed ground was straight, terminating in that almost-triangular point of wrongness.....

....but pointing at what?

The Way it Used to Be?

The pit was unbelievably large- or perhaps it was more of a crater? A titanic hole, a horrific gouge out of the face of the continent near its Northern edge. Frost rimed the scar, an endless Fimbulwinter binding the land around it into eternal stasis. Not a thing moved near that frigiid depression, and still less within it. Even the air, there, held a sense of impermeable stillness.

On the Northmost edge of that hole, the remains of a massive plateau ran the distance from its crumbled precipice to the seawall cliffs. It had been nigh twice as large, one could estimate- but for this unbelievable pockmark.

Miles deep sank the pit, a wierdly ovoid tear out of the flesh of the continent. Light reached into its depths, but was tainted by a faint haze of airborne rock and dust. What could have caused this? Some unimaginable titan, striking down with a fist in wrath? A ridiculous creature, taking a small bite out of a passing world? Or... maybe something more foul.

The air in the depths was putrid as well as hazy, the earth there blackened and powdery. It should not have held its shape, but something- some ineffable force- made it do so.

It was a stinking, rotten wound on the world- and would remain so. Still, the sense of lingering wrongness told of something far worse that had been, before.

And off to one side, far, far smaller- in a snowy field where, paradoxically, no snow fell at all- a staff. A simple, gnarled shaft of oakwood, scorched nearer to the narrow end. The thinner tip of it away from the crater, the broader towards it, like some kind of compass needle.

...but, pointing at what?

Fire and Ice

The mountain was...abbreviated.

That was the only way to put it. It was clear by the rubble and boulders littering below that the granite mountain had once borne a peak- but instead it was nearly flat-topped, remnants of what it had borne forcing the forest downslope to thin.

Nearly flat-topped.

Directly across the middle of it was a pair of gouges, looking like someone had taken an ice-cream scoop to the stone. Beyond it, on the face of a still-larger mountain, two startlingly small craters marked another granite face, just a short distance over a scree-covered ledge. One able to fly or levitate could have checked- the craters matched the grooves in the other mountain's otherwise flattened top, aligned perfectly. It begged many questions.

What could do that to a mountain? And why had it only left such a meager impression on the next one in line? When had it happened? And why?

What had dug the shallow valley that circled half the planet-or would have, had it not broken on oceans and lakes? What had left the massive crater in the arctic zone?

Nobody really seemed to be able to answer.

Once, lost, someone had found something very odd. It looked like it had once been a battle-axe, but the head of it was sheared off twice, rendering the nearly bat-winged form of its two-edged head into something more like a spear.

Or perhaps an arrow.

They claimed it was embedded in ice.... ice that was warm to the touch. Angled upwards, and away.

But..... pointed at what?

He took his sturdy, battle-scarred hand out of its gauntlet, and placed it against the warped, glassy surface. Condensation immediately greeted it, informing him that it was, indeed ice. But it was certainly no normal ice. Whereas at this altitude, his hand should, by all rights, have been stuck to the glacier almost immediately, Acradius Journeyman was brought to the realization that this material would not be good for cooling a man down. It radiated an artificial heat, somehow. Natural heating elements are very few and far between, limited essentially to stars and heat escaping from deep in the earth. Both of which wouldn't have merely warmed his outreached hand, but rather incinerated it.

The only remaining options were that this ice was something that was, in the traditional definition, not ice. Either that, or somehow, the crystalline substance was alive, which he doubted. Even the few animated Ice Golems he had met in his adventures had been cold to the touch; many times supernaturally so.

The most logical explanation was the weapon. Perhaps it was a magical artifact, giving off so much heat that it was able to seep out of the specially-created ice containing it. Perhaps, to fuel itself, the ice was literally absorbing the cold off its surroundings, to keep its prisoner right where it was. It was all theory, of course.

The blond man looked at the weapon. It, like many other things on this planet, seemed to be guiding someone somewhere. It wasn't a difficult thing to do, for a mind such as the Time Warrior's, to figure out the precise angle it was pointing at. With his eyes glowing white, he levitated, following the path laid out before him.

And as he flew... he couldn't shake the feeling. This entire planet gave it off. It was something tucked away, in the back of his mind. Memories called from long ago. So distant, it was like trying to remember a dream...

Nobody Knows

And so it went. The four arrows.... pointing. Pointing straight, unlike the curves of the orb they rested upon.

And so he went. Somehow, the Journeyman, to a distant place.

The sun was small.... quiet..... dying.

The planet where he found himself was cold- too cold, truly. Nothing lived here. Breathed here. Rubble, ruins, and dead rock cast unmovng silhouettes on dusty dry ground. Not the slightest breeze stirred the area, an eerie total silence hanging about. And the sky was a dull gray-red.

Chance, it was, that he found the place, chance or timing or perhaps that vague cosmic coincidence.

A vast dry lakebed sat near one of the poles of the planet, which had long since lost most of its spin. The spread was littered in chunks of metal... metal shaped by men. Used by men. Discarded by men. Tons upon tons of it, scattered so thinly that nary a piece was in arm's reach to another. Their own small shades littered the scape about them and made of the place a mess, shadows strewn about carelessly.

Near this, a crater, a gigantic, petrified cup-shape of what may once have been leather or paper, and, of all things, a modern American telephone pole. At one point, he would have sworn that a rock twitched at him.

But here it was. A ruined tower, in a shape like a gigantic six-story beehive with a seventh story making a near chimney shape. Or at least, so it would were not one side stove in. It mattered not.

The place was ransacked. Or what it held had rotted away long since. Except for this..... Except for this.

The skull was bleached to the sheerest white, its continued presence a mystery. Not so what had slain the owner, handle of a pistol still lodged into the braincase. From the barrel, however, protruded the end of a broad-tipped arrow.

The angle left it to point..... there. A further planet. A star in the sky from this point, twinkling a dulled blue tone.

But.... pointing at what?

What it's like to be the bad man

It was... a caricature, really.

All life had long since fled this world, but perhaps in this odd section of it, life had never truly had a foothold. At least, not organic life....

The castle was truly titanic, large enough to have been a subcontinental island on its own right were it unlucky enough to be dropped into an ocean. And yet, the closer one got to it, the more oddities they would notice. The entire thing seemed to be constructed out of bricks or blocks- but not of stone nor clay, not of plastic or of metal. Rather, blocks of color, curiously both flat and three-dimensional at once, glowing dimly beneath the staticky sky. Within this tremendous, superpalatial fortress lurked a horrifyingly complex and abstract maze of passages, often overlapping one another in Escheric and physics-defying manner. A tower labeled clearly 'SHINRA', an arena containing the bones of some dinosaurian mammal with an odd purple tint to the material, panels of mazedly-similar brick shape...

..and there, in the deepest part, far below most things, a chunk of thick, almost stemlike green hair with a thin piece of what may have once been scalp. The 'hair' itself was pinned beneath a wall, as if the wall had fallen into place.

The sky, though.... that was the most disturbing. Where in most places on the desolate, deserted planet had skies which still held the faintest traces of blue or cloud, the sky here flickered and shifted like a television with poor reception. Literally even, often dissolving into snow. As if that were not enough, however, what it shone forth onto the land below was even odder. In gigantic, friendly white letters a not so friendly message.

GAME OVER

And.... an arrow, pointing into the sky, to a distant planet only visible between the brief bursts and sprays of white static 'snow'.

But.... pointing at what?

Perhaps to cut down a silver tree?

Finally, a place without another arrow. Instead.... a small horde.

Clusters and small camps of men in light, gray-green armor littered the foothill path as it led past a massive granite spike, curling around the base of the landmark. Here and there, amongst them, a woman in far too little clothing, wielding a single-edged battleaxe. And there, at the end nearest the shore, a pair of titanic men, bald and mustachioed, each wielding a sledgehammer fit to treat a man like a rail-spike- both also clad in dusty gray-green.

The minor horde relaxed there, practically waiting for some dupe, some callow youth or revenge-blinded battler to wade in amongst them- and either make a mess of the whole situation, or perish ignominiously under spiked-bat clubs and maces like clusters of steel grapes.

Two creatures- mounts, to go by the saddles- lurked amongst the camps as well, whiplike tails swinging idly as beaky mouths munched on the local vegetation. For beasts of war, these pink, bird-legged things looked horribly awkwards, clearly no faster than those who would ride them- and why would one bother? Perhaps for a bit of reach from that thin tail, but even so....

Truly bizarre.

And it would be here that any who followed the path of arrows would find themselves, here they had been pointed at.... but why?

An oversight...

How did I miss this one?

Are you still there, oh nameless GM? Cause this looks like fun.

Please verify that you are still willing to run it.

Affirmation.

((Do come along then.))

.....WHAT IS GOING ON

^A mysterious "veteran" (as can be assumed by the tags) is returning in a very, very slow manner, mostly involving enigmantic arrows that, for many posts, were pointing...

BUT AT WHAT

At this point, it's safe to assume that our mystery man is now open to accepting players for the game. So, uh... play it. :p

The Visitor

Come take a looksee at this here post on Monday, mystery author. I will *really* try to make sure it is up by then. Also, if you have an email address or some way I can send you some info, that would be great. (Your PMs do not seem to work)

tap-tap-tap-tap-tap

OOC: I'm still waiting here....

I don't care if it's the best in the world. Just give what you can.

Also, what happened to Acradius? :OOC

Oh yeah... about that...

My apologies.

While I was looking forward to this tremendously, the demands of my senior year in college plus multiple jobs has proven to be quite time-consuming, making my writing hobby somewhat difficult.

I would still like to participate, but the length and quality of my posts as seen in Oceansford, though not significant, will drop decidedly.

If you do not mind a much more abbreviated narrative, I will happily write one.

Landfall

The queen stared at the humble knight in front of her. He waited there atop his horse, seeming to mock her. He neither moved, nor said anything, but his cold metallic eyes bored back into hers, as if daring her to make a move. The air hung still as they sized each other up; the clash was imminent. Soon, one would strike, absolutely and fatally, leaving the other a forgotten remnant of this battlefield.

A massive pair of gray fingers descended the sky, seizing the queen by her head and dragging her forward, using her own body to knock the horse and its rider to the ground. A second set of massive fingers swooped in from above, wedging its index finger against its thumb. After a brief moment of friction, the finger fired forward from the thumb, literally flicking the armored man off the battlefield. He said nothing as both he and his horse sailed through the air, tumbling end over end as he passed over the heads of numerous foot soldiers.

Klkstrd Kdfksrtlgmdnw's clawed hand caught the knight in mid-air, placing the chess piece upright next to the board alongside three pawns and one bishop. Lexar Hawthorne's pale green eyes watched the pieces intently as Klkstrd silently set his captives in order. A huge grin spread over Lexar's face at this moment of victory, and his thick gray lips slowly pulled apart while his oversized teeth became visible.

“Your move, Click,” he growled. Or perhaps just spoke. His impossibly deep and gravelly voice made even the most innocent conversation sound impossibly hostile, despite his apparent smile. Clickster did not smile in the slightest as his scaly green fingers enveloped a bishop sitting casually on the corner of the board. A grating sound reverberated through the room as he slowly, deliberated pushed the piece along the checker-patterned board and came to a stop next to Lexar's king. Puzzlement spread across Lexar's face as he processed the ramifications of this move.

Checkmate.


“RAAHH!”


Chess pieces scattered everywhere as Lexar rose, overturning the table in the process. His eight and a half foot frame filled the room as he towered over his scaly green opponent. He pointed a gray finger the size of a Hebrew National at Clickster's face.

“You put that knight out there just so I would kill it!” he accused.

A single gray claw slowly rose until it was alongside the half-gloved sausage, and pushed it aside. The reptile now rose, standing a mere five and a half feet. He would perhaps amount to more, if not for the odd angle he stood at. His spine curved back alongside itself, running parallel to the ground for a few inches. It gave the dark green creature the appearance of a living spring, ready to bounce away instantly if needed. The voice that came from the reptile, surprisingly, was exactly identical to Lexar's.

“Use your brain and think ahead for a change.”

One simple statement as he turned, and then his clawed feet made a clicking sound on the steel floor as he left the room and left Lexar with his game pieces. The larger soldier sighed in frustration. It came as no surprise to him that Klkstrd's first and only sentence this week had been an insult.

“WHY ME?! Rafael is MIA and up to who knows what, Zanfei is on a bonafide retrieval mission, and I'm stuck on board the ship with a FREAKING MUTE LIZARD!!”

Clickster ignored Lexar's bellowing voice as he wordlessly left, saving his elusive words for a more important occasion while the rhinoceros man vented his frustration. They had only been traveling for a day now, heading to the location of Rafael's last transmission. Somewhere, he was fighting for his life on a medieval planet, but his comrades knew nothing of his whereabouts or his activities.

A peculiar sight distracted Klkstrd as he headed for the library, and he paused as he sized up the... thing that they were passing.

A bright red planet, covered in vegetation. Nothing that far out of the ordinary, for certain, but the tunnel drilled through the center of it seemed rather unusual. The reptilian soldier slinked from his position by the window and made his way to the cockpit, a process that should have taken longer.

He casually pulled the throttle level all the back.

The ship's engines screeched as the reverse thrust engaged, bringing the ship to a halt almost instantly. A loud crash resounded from the opposite end of the ship as Lexar was catapulted from his feet by the sudden halt. The coffee table he had just uprighted broke his fall as he landed on it, re-scattering the chess pieces. Klkstrd merely stood still, apparently unaffected by gravity as the ship rocked to a stop. Lexar's angry tones soon echoed down the hall.

“WHAT'S YOUR FREAKIN' PROBLEM?!”

Click did not look up as Lexar stormed into the cockpit, a large welt forming under his left eye where he had impacted the corner of the table.

“Why did you stop the ship?” he demanded.

The reptile did not answer, aside from raising a single finger and pointing out the window towards the odd planet. Lexar's green irises traced a path from Click's finger out to where the planet hung in space. His dull vision, however, prevented him from seeing the gaping hole in the center of the planet.

“So it's red. Big deal.”

Click pressed three buttons on the control panel, bringing up a zoomed in view of the planet's surface. The tunnel through the planet now became apparent to him, and his mind began ticking as he thought of various causes for a planetary tunnel. He sized it up carefully, determining that it was an arrow. Or at least, it appeared like one to him.

“Hmph,” was Lexar's elegant conclusion. “So whad'dya think, Click? Keep lookin for Raf or stop and check this out?”

Click looked back at Lexar with a blank expression as he folded his arms across his midsection in contemplation. His grayish lips pulled back, revealing demonic looking teeth and a forked tongue as a loud hiss erupted from inside him.

“That's what I thought,” Lexar approved as he turned the ship around, and they both soon zipped along in the direction the arrow pointed.



















“I count at least eleven or twelve groups of four or more,” Lexar informed the rock next to him as he shrank back down below the boulder. He was hidden from view, nearly a full mile from the mysterious encampment. Lexar turned and continued speaking to thin air.

“There's two big guys near the water, a couple of bird things tied up like horses, and a woman who looks like she calls the shots.”

The pair of binoculars slid back into the folds of Lexar's leather jacket, and a silenced H-12 handgun came out in its stead. The standard issue firearm had been modified heavily, primarily to accommodate Lexar's incredible hand size. It boasted a twelve round magazine and .50 caliber rounds, more than enough to kill just about anything that breathed. An identical gun sat inside Lexar's jacket lining on the other side; switching guns was always faster than reloading.

“I'm gonna go in for a closer look,” Lexar audibly decided, and began maneuvering himself away from the boulder and into the underbrush. The rock he had been speaking to became oddly distorted as Clickster stepped away from it, and his chameleon ability had already began adjusting to match the vegetation they were now in. Click raised an eyebrow at Lexar.

“Yeah yeah, I know, they'll catch me. But I don't think that's a huge problem. If they didn't want us here, they wouldn't put up a giant freakin arrow to point us here.” He tapped on his jacket, which made a clunking sound as he spoke. “Besides, I've brought a little friend along in case things get out of hand. Stay close, but stay out of sight. If these primitives turn out to be hostile, you have my full permission to raise all the hell you've got.”

For the first time since they had started searching for Rafael, Clickster seemed to smile. He wore no clothing, save for belts used to secure his implements, and Lexar could plainly see the clawed finger that was playing with a six inch steel spike. The reptilian was no doubt eager to jam that spike into some more throats today, but that would have to wait. In an instant, Click vanished into the brush, making absolutely zero sound in the process. His skin immediately adapted, and he was gone.

Lexar turned back to the encampment now, knowing full well that his massive size and frontal-assault personality made sneaking rather difficult. Nonetheless, he bent down low to the ground as he followed the dirt path towards their encampment. Time to get some answers.