NationStates Jolt Archive

IC:

"Is this it?" the demon said. "You--the only person in that whole disgusting troop besides me who wasn't there by choice--you're just going to sit here and give up?!?!? After ALL THIS? Dammit, woman! What use is one more tear cried out on windswept grounds when no one has seen the stream, the river, the SEA?!?!

"Look--I'm HERE. I can fix this if you want. I can use MY magic to take all this away from them. I can pretend that I'm your enemy--you'll have plausible deniability and everything. But there's a MUCH BIGGER picture here, and, if I do that, you might be stuck in your little frame forever.

"Don't you know what you are??!? You're UNITY! Time! Space! Reality! Illusion! It all wraps around YOU! YOU can see that Magic and Technology are the SAME THING! You don't have to choose between them!"

The dragon began to brush against the outer limits of the gas bag.

"Oh, not YET," Marvel said. He closed his hand. Time froze again, except for him and Yelena. "I'm a pretty powerful mage in my own right, now," he said. "I could always feel magic. I was born that way. Your people would kill me if they could. They'd hunt me down. It's ironic," He continued with a graveyard laugh, "because it would be better for them if they did.

"My kind are born inside of other species. We lay eggs. The larvae eat their way out. To me, you should be food. I don't know why I like you--I don't know why I'm even telling you this. When you wake up, you should kill me before I get around to killing you--but I don't want to kill you...and I don't know why. You would be...delicious." He gently stroked her ear with his index finger.

"With all that I am, I should be telling you to get out of this mess and take over when they beat each other up enough. You're that powerful." He put his clawed hand against her cheek. "I don't know why I'm telling you that you can make peace. There's so much here I don't understand. Shades of darkness, I'm such a pathetic twit." He shook his head a little, and lowered his hand.

"Live, Yelena. Don't give up. Come back to me. We need to be together for a while. That's all I know."

(OOC: Not need to get so poetic about an ESP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra-sensory_perception))

There was clear expression of conflict in her face, as if there were two Yelenas wanting completely different things in the same body, her head still was facing down, with a few of her hairs hanging at the side of her face. Surprisingly she did not make any reaction to the way Marvel approached, instead being apparently too busy thinking to mind him and his gestures of what she refused to conceive to exist. It was just something too strange that such creature had feelings for her. However, if he was really going to assume the blame, perhaps it would be possible. With no doubt, her expression when he mentioned about the eggs was that of the fact she knew it already, and somehow, she was not afraid of him at all. After Marvel spoke his words, she tilted her head above and said:

"I don't want to die, but I am scared of what will happen if I continue ahead with this. I... have no choice, there is no afterlife Marvel, at least not for me. And... I prefer it such way, because... if there is any, I don't think people like me will have pleasantries ahead, where you came from... did you saw atheists who were there unjustly just because they didn't want to believe in a god of oppression, hatred and fear disguised as a good god and invented to maintain the interests of the rich and powerful of the ages? No, please don't tell me, I would rather not know, no... I can't run from truth, at least if I believe I have no soul, it'll lead to results and I won't go to Hell if that's actually happens. And I suppose I'll do it, I don't want to go to oblivion and nonexistence, much less to Hell if that tyrant nonexistent god is more than the invention of an smart ruler to keep his subjects obedient through religion... I... maybe... only maybe", she sighed, not mentioning further on her thoughts, and took a few steps forward closer to the bow of the airship where the dragon was about to collide, it seemed very difficult for her each of those steps, like if a battle against a will of stopping what now has come into her mind as the only choice. Holding herself into the railing of the airship upper deck, she muttered finally to him what has been getting into her mind:

"I don't want to ever die... it's a foolish, impossible dream, but if I could wish a single thing in life, I would wish for clinical immortality. No, not those fantastic tales of undeath, I mean as eternal life, which is the meaning of that, not the decadent unlife like in those legends. Yes, it's silly but, I am not giving up on life that easily. You are right".

Following that she mumbled a few comments about air density and all sorts of technicalities, things like "barometric coefficient" and "kinetic displacement" and words that were irrelevant to Marvel. Finally she sketched a small smile and said in a well-humored manner:

"And to think that I use principles of Physics to optimize magic. Heat is actually movement in a certain way, agitation of matter, if I use conveyance to agitate the air inside the gasbag in this stopped frame, it will start to float above. In fact, I never tried it, but that elemental wash is unscientific. However, a strong enough movement at a very small spot can start a fire through friction, like primitives using flint stones, but through magical means, not that I would fancy doing it, I'm just trying to find some way to relax a bit because... I am still afraid a bit, but now that I am almost at it..."

Yelena simply looked at the gasbag and raised her right arm towards it, closing her eyes, probably to concentrate better. Suddenly the wind started blowing again, but that was irrelevant for the situation, probably a side effect of whatever she was going to do. There were no majestic beams of light, balls of light or fireworks, although any magically attuned being could sense the energy flow coming from her towards the core of the airship gasbag. After a few seconds, the airship simply started to climb at a decreasing velocity, until finally stopping in a height from where the trajectory of the dragon's fall would not hit it. However, just as it happened, Yelena collapsed in the floor of the airship and an horrible headache came to her, to the point she had the impression her head was about to burn. She putted her hands over her head and groaned, while laying down in the floor of the airship, perhaps she whispered something about being sorry, on how she was sorry for something that she did to him, but Marvel couldn't be sure about. Then time returned again. The dragon felt from the skies and the airship continue intact, flying, the same private who begged her to use magic to save their lives ran towards her while others were surrounding Marvel at gunpoint

"Comrade Praskovya! What happened? Are you fine? Did you... know?", he asked.

"The flying abomination fell from the might of our guns and technology before it could collide with the Kunetzov, Comrade Brokovsky, then... help me. That other flying beast! Stop it!... it is using magic... to drain my life away, my head is burning comrade, it is... sucking away my life force, I don't know what it is... it is not from the Yagans or Perunians... just... he might be more useful alive than dead... do not kill it unless if utterly necessa...", and she passed down unconscious in the dream, managing to pretend that Marvel was the responsible rather than the fact she used magic to the limit of her capabilities, while in truth now she got even deeper, in a dream inside her own dream, while the soldiers shouted at Marvel with their strange language:

"Stop your spell now or you'll die beast! I would kill now you but comrade Yelena knows more about things like you than all of us together. You better cooperate if you want to live."

(OOC: Hope I'm not making it insanely complex to recover Yelena's consciousness, I like to once bring such surprises ;P)

OOC: I don't mind, I'm enjoying this side-story into Yelena's mind. Don't give away too much now though, the first temple was the temple of Warped Reality, a gentle temple. The second is The Temple of Fear, it changes itself to expose what yor greatest fears, and Traumatic memories. I guess what I'm getting at is that it is basically a massive horror movie. Each character in turn gets their own section, with the boss of this temple being the central figure in each section. It's like going through a Friday the 13th and fighting Jason. I hope you all understand what I'm driving at here.

Marvel suppressed a grin. Plausible deniability was something that he knew all about. She had made her choice--and he could only hold on for the ride.

With her not casting any more spells, it would seem as though he had heeded their command. Still, even in the context of the dream, he couldn't let them capture him. If they killed him, he might not come back from this dream.

"Curses!" he said, really getting into character--he even gave himself a low, villainous voice just for the affect! "You dullards have foiled my crafty scheme!
But never shall I allow pawns such as you to hold me! Continue your foolish wars. When you have beaten each other to the brink of extinction, I will be there, just waiting!" With that, he used a flattening affect to disappear. If he was lucky, the others in this strange divination/dream would not even realize that he was still there.

This new phase caused him some concern. He dared not follow her into the dream within her dream. The deeper in you got, the harder it got to get back out. Still, he did not leave her entirely. Instead, he watched, invisible to all, and waited.

----------------

OOC: Part of the post actually is a paraphrase of part of a poem written by a man named Thomas Childs. Decades ago, he was my high school buddy. Unfortunately, our paths have diverged.

I still have his poetry, though. And I still sometimes cry as I contemplate the line,

What use is one more tear cried out on windswept grounds
When no one has seen
The stream, the river, the sea?

Wish I could help you with your mechanics, SS. Even though it is obvious that English is your second language, you're still quite a writer.

(OOC: This is the "dream inside the dream", just to clarify)

´It was a gloomy place. A black marble floor decorated a massive, lifeless hall covered by blocks of large stones. A wooden ceiling had only a few electric lights hanging from it, giving a very dim illumination to the large place, leaving many shadows at its corners, augmented by sets of spiraled pillars which seemed to twist into themselves, shadows which would inspire fear and paranoia, shadows which were even more frightening by a simple fact. There was nothing, strangely, the large hall was almost entirely empty. An slope was visible at its far end, where an elevated floor was located, with the silhouette of an strange, large and cubic object on such floor.

Yelena's eyes noticed soon she was still wearing her uniform, that she wasn't much different than before, and her steps echoed through the hall, she was approaching the elevated floor, trying to get a shape from the strange silhouette. However, the more she approached, more dim the silhouette became, she wasn't sure on what to do, but instead of fearing, she took further steps ahead, ignoring her imagination creating strange apparitions near the shadows of such room. Still, she drew her revolver, because there was something strange, dangerous about that place, and when she finally was about to touch the strange, cubic object, which now seemed nothing but a translucent and distorted image of something unidentifiable, it simply vanished, and her hands could pass through the space where it was before easily. It was not a natural phenomena, there was no plausible explanation for that. Yelena sighed and turned around with her revolver, knowing that it was probably a trap of some kind, they fooled her after all, the story of such artifact was a complete fraud for maybe some criminal, thug or perhaps worse, but now, at this small moment, she would perceive whether she made the biggest mistake of her life or not.

When Yelena turned back, she found nothing different or suspicious in that hall to her eyes, and due to its floor, nothing could walk on it without making noise. Frustrated, at what probably was a prank from a mage with a sense of humor, she began to walk away from the strange place. But before leaving, she turned back once, only to notice that the artifact was right there again as she backed away from its location. Yelena pondered about such magic, and, putting her gun back in place, knowing that it was a sort of self-sufficient trick that existed there. A quick thought came into her mind:

"It seems to react to presence... now does it react to all types of presence or not? There is perhaps only one way to verify", and drawing her revolver again, she unloaded a single bullet from its chamber, and holding it with her thumb and index fingers, she twisted her arm and threw it towards the unidentifiable object. It did not disappear or become blurred in her eyes, thus there was only one logical conclusion to draw, that a solution existed, and it was very simple, if not for one issue, she did not bring an automaton in such expedition, and the fact it wasn't exactly sanctioned by the Party meant she could not just go there and ask for one. "Yet again! Why do I always end in circumstances where I have no choice but to do it?", she sighed, looking at the object, and pondering "is this really worth?", and after a few seconds, Yelena focused her entire attention on the object, which began to move towards her direction, without this time disappearing. The distant object was finally becoming clearly visible, it was rectangular actually, with a pretty familiar shape. During half of its way towards her, it finally became clear it was a sort of tomb, built of obsidian and with no features, engravings or anything at all. Yelena stopped right there with the conveyance magic, assured it left the field area of the enchant which led it to disappear.

Approaching carefully it, she keep her eyes open, probably for the possibility of its lid starting to slide, and indeed, more probably as a prank to scare her than anything serious, something like that could happen. There was a bit of tension, a cold sweat near her brown brows, but for a change, nothing really happened. There was one last thing to do, and with her hands she pressed against the lid, to no avail. Either it was too heavy, or she was too weak for that. "Next time I'll bring an automaton!", she thought, sighing as, with a gesture of swinging her arm to the right, the lid opened quickly, revealing inside it an equally blank place, storing nothing but a plain dagger which white hilt had some engravings in cyrillic alphabet. Reaching to grab the dagger, Yelena read the engravings on its hilt, they looked written like if in a telegram, but she had a sensation it was more than a joke there, and what it had written did not help, and her eyes were widely open as she understood its meaning. "Eternal life and youth through eternal death. Pure of heart into the heart of stone". She couldn't imagine it. It was truth, but not in the way she expected it to be. The suggestion, it seemed abhorrent, disgusting, inhuman, to sacrifice an innocent. There must be another way, she tried to put, whoever, it was a long travel, and there was no other possibility for that, except for something she was not looking for. Her eyes focused on the simple dagger, if it was a joke, that was a very bad one, and somehow she felt it wasn't one. A whirlwind of thoughts came, finally leading to a single conclusion, of a disturbingly extreme utilitarianism or hypocrisy: "One innocent, but... I can save many! Help infinite quantities of people if I want, should I live forever, potentially infinite lives saved, happiness and dignity, at the cost of a single life. How could it be wrong?", she thought, and headed out from that strange place.

Memory became blurred and distorted, and before she could figure what happened, she was dragging a rucksack with something heavy inside it, cries could be heard coming from its inside. She was saying many times "Don't be scared, this is just a new play, it's like it, but more fun than hide and seek!", trying to comfort the poor soul. She gently used her capabilities to let a small girl, probably with about five or six years old, out of the sack and inside the tomb, the brown eyes of the girl were filled with tears and despair, and Yelena intentionally hid the dagger, trying to smile to the girl: "I'm sorry Natasha, next time I'll choose a more happy place, but this place is great! Do you see how many places to hide it has?", she said, closing to the girl to caress her. Yelena was feeling a constant burden, there was always something tingling into her mind suggesting that it was not right to do it, no matter how she could "compensate it helping the people", but she ignored such fears, and her resolve and calm stance soon served to soothe the girl while Yelena comforted her. When the girl was apparently calm, she asked her: "Now, I am going to hide, close your eyes and count ten, Natasha"

"Yes, Yelena, but you are weird", the girl said, closing her eyes and starting counting it.

"Ten", the dagger finally came at her right hand, with a firm grip, Yelena motioned it towards the small girl's head for a quick, painless kill, clearly shaken with the prospect as her hand trembled

"Nine", Yelena reminded on how she was taught magic corrupted people into doing terrible things, and now she feared that that could be just the beginning, letting yet a few seconds of indecision. The countdown went up to "Three", when finally Yelena started to move her arm upwards for the strike. "Two", was the second, the precious last second where she could give up from doing such thing, however, the selfish fear of nonexistence continued speaking louder. "One"... in a quick thrust, before the girl could open her eyes, the dagger landed brutally into the middle of her head. There was no scream, moan of agony or alike, for at least it was indeed, an instant and painless death. Yelena looked at the dead girl, and pulled the dagger out of her head, revealing a deep cut wound only. There was something in her consciousness, a burden getting worse, and weakly, she managed to close the lid of that tomb.

Yelena noticed soon the small wrinkles in her hands disappearing, and with a mirror, checked as the few grey hairs were again fully brown. She looked, and felt a decade younger, and somehow, it did not comfort her in any way. The tomb lid opened by itself, scaring her pretty much out of her regret, when nothing was visible inside it, not even a single stain of blood, the body was gone from there. Her memory blanked again and now several pieces of visions came. Quick glimpses of her aging and getting younger cyclically, and countless children, dying... by her hands. Finally a last vision, she was laying herself into the tomb, with the same cursed dagger pointed towards her heart. It flew straight towards it, by her own will. There were only a few seconds of agonizing consciousness, and then, the tranquility of nothingness came.´

For a change, she could not remember anything of what she dreamed of during her unconsciousness. Her senses were suddenly shocked, more literally than ever, as a biting sharp pain came into her body from her back and she had a few spasms, and even felt a bit of drooling, with no choice into stopping these reactions. When it stopped, she was sweating, and Brokovsky was right there, looking at her eyes with his amber ones, and he offered her a hand to get up, glad she was back. There was something peculiar besides the fact her hair were wet and there was a cold water in her face. Marvel was right there, but neither of them could see him, but first, an angered reaction came from her:

"Who used my prod against me?", a question that, for her surprise, was quickly replied by the same man who begged for her to use magic, but now believed they never had to do it. "I am sorry comrade Yelena, but we couldn't let you into deep comatose, because you could even die then, magic is very dangerous, and you know that comrade. We tried everything, then the last resort was a shock", he said, and was quickly replied to: "I understand, dismissed comrade". Soon she looked at Marvel, pretending to just be looking at the horizon, and made a very discreet smile, the last thing when everything went black.

--------

A close of her fist was the visible sign that she was back. For her, it was almost like if never passing out, she could not feel or remember what she dreamed of, like usual, but the hunger, thirst and tiredness were still too strong for her to try to get up, while a dryness on her throat was effectively stopping her from speaking. She needed help, and soon, or she might pass out again soon.

(OOC: I'll leave it to you Marionetonia, on whether Marvel managed to see her "dream inside the dream" or not. It's actually possible for Marvel to have witnessed it, it's like I said, up to you to define it, not a problem if you claim he did, in fact that might make things more... interesting in character interaction)

"Ohh sh--!" Whap!

Marvel landed flat on his backside. The jolt of Yelena awakening was so strong that it snapped their bond. Gone was the dream/divination; gone was the whole mess of a world that Yelena lived in.

Blinking, he stood and opened his hand. This was space magic, and it was easy. In a moment, he had opened a portal. In another, he had stepped through and taken his surroundings into account. Before Yelena could rise, he had used matter magic to transform some of the body of the dead spider into a large canteen of fresh water.

"Don't worry," he said, holding it to her lips, "it's drinkable."

He pondered whether to tell her about her dreams. He had seen them all, but wasn't sure the subject was worth breeching. He decided to talk about it later, and hope that she would still see him as a friend.

With no movement, Yelena simply allowed the water to pour through her dry throat. It was refreshing at the beginning, and indeed it gave her some hope, although she could not bring any words due to her weakness. But after a few seconds she gasped and became paler, and much of the water came back, splashing to the ground. The dehydration was so severe that it interfered in her capability of absorbing liquids, and despite her agony, there was still some water which managed to get into her. Better than nothing, maybe. She rose her right arm, and began to struggle against hunger and sleepiness to attempt getting up. Proudly she refused to ask for help, it was futile, for Yelena knew she needed a medic, and a real one, not a superstitious witchdoctor or charlatan. After raising her torso a few inches from the floor with her trembling arms, she felt again. The pain was almost unnoticeable due to the way her body was slowly dying. Persistently, with a many difficulties, she attempted again, getting slowly in a sit position, and at last, managing to stand, or perhaps hang on foot. She used Marvel's body to not fall again, and said in a raspy voice:

"I need a doctor... a real doctor and a real hospital with real medicine, I must return home, no matter what they think about me my physical energies are over. But I can still do it... Marvel, would you like to leave this place? This time it is going to work the portal, I don't want to die here, can you come with me? If it goes wrong again, I have no... *cough* forces to face not even a normal sized ant", he legs were trembling and slowly sliding on the ground due to weakness and she braced on him, but her grasp was weakening. At least she managed to survive for long enough, and besides the weakness and pain, Yelena knew that she could again open a portal to Soviet Steam. Against the circumstances of her physical condition, she focused her mind fully on the hospital of Blanquigradd she was before. There were no pleasant memories from there, but there was not much choice for her besides attempting it or dying, and her appearance was incredibly unhealthy in accordance to her condition. Suddenly, with no preceding phenomena, a mirror-like surface with no visible thickness emerged right into the middle of that dank prison cell, and Yelena finally said to Marvel:

"All you have to do... is to help me get into there. And then if you want, go too with me, I can't survive much longer without dedicated medical care, and as you see, I will find none in this place. I don't want to be healed with magic... it... only harmed me thus far, I am just leaving. My presence here is irrelevant, and I do not believe it's worth to try... helping these people... to win nothing but death. Now, could you push me nearer to it? It will... last for seconds after I enter into it... enough for you... you can run to... Badlands or the tranquil lifelessness of the Wastelands, but if... you help Yaga Kingdom or Perun Theocrats my people... will kill you.", and with no further notice, she felt into deep silence, with her weary eyes focused at the portal.

(OOC: I'll TG Warhaven about the portal too)

"Ohhh, Yelena," Marvel said. "There is so much I need to tell you."

He scooped her up in his arms as she started to fall.

"You're not strong enough to go through that portal," he said. "You won't make it to the other side. Please, please let me take you to the others. We may not be able to heal you, but we should be able to get you to the point where you're strong enough to go through a portal and survive. Then, you can get the medical care you crave."

"And, while they're doing it, I have some things to tell you that you have to hear."

Even if she wanted to continue further towards the portal, she would not be able to. It would be another waste of her entire magic-controlling capabilities for yet another entire day, and without Marvel's aid, she would not be able to get into the portal in her crippling condition. With a deep sigh, Yelena then explained what was required to allow her to open such a portal, while letting herself fall on his shoulders, having no strength to continue standing, she spoke is a somewhat desperate way:

"Marvel... I just spent all my capabilities in this gateway... I don't want to waste it... I don't want to stay here... please, help me to get through it. It's the only way... I am sick... not only frail... and... I must get into the portal... I don't want to remain is this place much longer... it's dangerous... I'll be dead soon... because I can't even get up... please, just push me there... I can't stand this place... I want to leave!*cough*... I need... medical aid... water and food directly into... my bloodstream, is the only way... and I have to sleep"

And suddenly, she became as immobile as if unconscious on his shoulders, despite the fact this time she simply let herself loose because of lacking strength for even sustaining her own body in a rigid manner. Her eyes were still open, but she was clearly very exhausted. Sighing slightly, she asked him with a whisper, disappointed he wasn't going to attend her request:

"What do you need to tell me? Do it quickly... I can't hold the need to sleep much longer. I don't want either to see how... you will bypass that mass of flesh in the left exit... nor what you'll face to the right downstairs... at least I won't feel pain if I die... sleeping on your shoulders". With an effort, Yelena has not yet fallen asleep, but that would soon change. And again, she muttered for a last time.

"But after you tell me... please... throw me into the gateway... that's what I want... I can manage it with a push"

OOC: Don't worry, I know where the Portal will take her, since it was given to me to decide where it goes. It is a place she can only go to once, and once she leaves, can never return to again, at least not without a great deal of effort.

"Ohhhh, Alright," the demon said, taking a step forward. "I was in your dreams with you. They're not dreams. They're divinations. With you, I saw what you can become. I helped you." He took another step. "You're unity, Yelena,, the balancing point of science, technology, good and evil. If you want to, you can play the techs and the mags off against each other and rule that crazy little world. If you want to, you can bring them together and make peace. And there's more."

As he finished, he stepped through the portal, carrying her with him.

"I only hope they won't try to hunt me down now," he said, his eyes turned steely.

In a moment, his visage had changed. Gone was the winged demon. In its place stood a man with the same face, but human features.

Fortunately, he already knew most of the jargon of the techs. He could pass--for a short time.

"Life forms detected, one injured human woman, and one male Red Demon in disguise. Medical personnel have been alerted and dispatched. Welcome to Tartarmos." a computer voice said.
It came from a wall. They were in a small room, which was part of a larger building. Tartarmos was a land in which Magic and Technology co-existed peacefully. The inhabitants wished to remain isolated from Intergalactic society, and so sealed themselves off from the Galaxy, but were not much further advanced then Yelena's homeland. Infact, the two could be nearly identicle, but at the same time, vastly diffrent.

OOC: I leave it to you to expand on Tartarmos and its inhabitants, and where it is. it has Steampunk like you have, only twenty years more advanced. I leave it to stench to figure out how the computers knew exactly what he was. I do it this way, because you know Steampunk better than I, and what you want, better than I, SS.
This could very well be it's own RP. Tartarmos is an NPC nation, in Andromeda. It covers an entire world.
If you do choose to make it it's own RP, then write out an Exit from this thread, and make your own.
The only rule I have for Tartarmos, is once you leave, you cannot return, ever.

"That's male Red Gargoyle demon, thank you," Marvel said, a mischievous grin playing across his face. "Nice to meet you, too."

Even now, he could feel the magic just bulging out of this place. To most, it looked like a sterile room with boring, white walls. But to Marvel, it was a place where there was magic in huge abundance. It pulsed, it flowed, it exuded through the walls!

There was no use in keeping up the illusion of humanity, so Marvel returned to his original form. As he did, Yelena's scent wafted to his nostrils. Her smell, the feeling of the muscles and tendons of her body, so translucent to the touch, awakened a hunger within him--a hunger...for her blood.

He bit it back. He hadn't done all the things he'd done for her to merely devour her...yet.

So he spread his wings as wide as he could and let the pores of his skin just drink in all the mojo that they could take. If nothing else, it would give him something to use in his own defense when the "medics" arrived. Somehow, he just didn't feel like making a donation to Dr. Acula tonight.

A series of punch cards was lined in a large table, where a 2 meters tall device with a gramophone and with a large scope attached to it was present, it had countless sets of gears and cogs lined, and made a humming noise which was somewhat loud, looking like a sort of very specialized electric automaton. Automatons couldn't talk, or at least that was what Yelena knew, however, this one could, and in the room they were, Marvel could notice from an window that there were countless of automatons like this one, which apparently were keeping a constant watch of everything that happened, everywhere. Several tesla powered and steam powered cars passed through the streets below and a few up to 10-store tall buildings were visible in the cityscape, yet strangely, the passerby individuals seemed incredibly oblivious to everything around them, almost like if they were automatons themselves rather than humans. Soon a couple of two doctors dressed in elegant white smocks and with machined monocles in their eyes came. One of them looked at the demon and said, while the other was coming with an wheeled gunny and yet another also came to help them load her inside it. He was looking at a sort of textbook in a very... bureaucratic way, in a very simplified English:

"By order: protocol 191052-TarSoc, you give this wounded woman to public service 02717-335, you duty to ensure doubleplusgood of Party under juris as announce amendment 72, Charter Goodthink. By routine 78162, as visibly goodthinker, this unman is aught into the Upper Party for potential membership following medical procedures and belongs to the Party. According to the charter of revised truth in non-human dealings, in its article number 079, you as a non-human are advised to leave the domain of TarSoc"

Yelena shrugged as she noticed such people speaking in a language she particularly did not know, but she noticed how these two doctors seemed like automatons, it seemed much like how Soviet Steam was before the Soviet Grassroots reform which curtailed much of the bureaucracy and totalitarian tendencies growing on it. However before anything, she simply whispered to Marvel:

"Don't be a fool, allow them to take me, I will be teleporting back to Soviet Steam tomorrow, this time I am not going to miss it again, and they can't stop me on that"

OOC: How they went from being in a room with plain white walls to being on a street with all kinds of traffic going on around them I do not know--perhaps it had something to do with SOMEONE NOT READING A POST--but I suppose I can go along with things the way they are.

---------------------------

Marvel was amused, not confused. He was going to straighten a few things out. And he was going to be ornery about it.

"First, you have no authority over me. I give this woman to you of her choice and my own free will. Doing so does not imply that I take orders from you or anyone else on this plane of existence.

"Second, if you're going to hit me with a pile of jargon, the least you can do is use proper grammar. That's YOUR duty, announceD IN amendment and the sentence ends in a PERIOD."

OOC: Sorry. Can't resist.

IC:

"Third," he continued, handing Yelena over to them, "don't you DARE presume upon my thoughts. They are MY thoughts, and, if you try to read or control them, I'll take it as an act of warful aggression against me.

"And fourth and FINALLY," he said, "I'll be COMPLETELY HAPPY to get YOU the heck out of my sight just as soon as somebody can open up a portal to the place where I came from. I am NOT here for my health, thank you very much."

What they did not know was that he found them particularly interesting--and frightening. The doctor with the monacled eyes was actually as hollow as a balloon. He was a magical construct--and he seemed to be capable of independent thought. This was something that the demon had never seen before.

Still, he was going to stick to his guns and see if he could use his indignation to keep their bureaucracy from rolling over him.

Yelena, it appeared, was safe enough. It was best for her that he not stay too close--he never knew when he might get a little bit too hungry. And, though she didn't use it often, she had enough magical power to survive.

"I've got more to tell you, honey," he said softly. "If you want to hear it, come back to me. I'll be where this all started."

(OOC: Oh noes! Lack of attention strike back. I retconned that post, don't worry. Also, I hope my take on Tartamos isn't... heh, too much. Something like 1984, Brave New World and Mechanus altogether)

The doctor looked at Marvel, and with said in a cold, emotionless manner while Yelena was being carried away. He seemed a bit too organic to be an automaton, but perhaps he was indeed one, there was no way to be sure about anything, only that the man continued skewing through paperwork.

"Oldspeak is ungoodthink unperson speaks. Newspeak is goodthink, Party finds newspeak doubleplusgood. Goodthink Charter 09-445 says non-human uncans ungoodthink, non-human uncan be unperson. Protocol 08803-228 says non-human unstay. Addendum 9 says 'Open gate for non-human'"

The man, almost like an empty shell walking under the orders of a piece of paper than under his own will, approached from the large device and inserted a punch card in it from the pile lined in a table nearby it. The machine then, apparently with a better vocabulary than all of them, spoke in a manner that seemed to hint several small and old discs with different persons saying different words were being selected in its interior, as the erratic voice came from the gramophone:

"Red Gargoyle, by the laws of TarSoc: either return to where you came from or accept our highly ordered standards. Reopening portal... Portal Opened... you have 15 seconds to choose. Portal will close permanently after time expires"

Yelena was being administered with a serum to recover her strength, she was laying in a mattress and disturbingly being constantly watched by one of those machines and its complex lenses, but soon her fears started to cease. There was something else they inserted as a chemical with that serum, something which was slowly inhibiting her feelings and making her feel numb. She couldn't fight against it, she was too weak for that, however she couldn't ask Marvel to help her either, it was beyond her grasp.

Newspeak! That's the language of...the Corruption Brigade! This place has been taken over! They're going to find out I survived being fed to Slaboflab! I'm COOKED!

And, in that case, I might just as well spread the heat.

As he was thinking these things, Marvel also felt the ensorceled brew that they were pouring into Honey. Whatever it was, it was backed up with a mind control spell.

Negotiating with the golemns was out of the question. They weren't capable of reacting outside the narrow confines of their protocols. He could only fight--or evade.

Marvel decided not to waste any energy trying to destroy a whole world. Instead, he just doubled the rate at which time passed for him--eight times. Now, at 128 times normal time stream, he could cram over five hours of activity into the 15 seconds that they had given him.

At that speed, he had to move slowly, because the friction of the air would burn him if he wasn't careful. He also had to keep moving, because the air didn't move in fast enough to replenish itself when he drew a breath. Still, it was easy enough for him to get to Yelena, remove the needles and bring her up to his speed.

"The underworld has taken over this dimension," he said. "They're using somekind of mind control juice on you. I'm taking you out of here."

He picked her up again, and, this time, hoped that the folks back in wherever it was that he had landed the first time could finish what these people had started--and give Honey her mind back.

It wouldn't be easy.

He took a step through the portal.

Briefly, he stopped. At the speed he was going, moving too fast would feel like a

bump.