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7/7/2011 4:17:11 PM
98
The Floodyssey (no moar)
[b]You Have No Rights[/b]
I had sat there for maybe an hour or two a day.
The green banner had the lingering little parasites on it, their shadows dancing over the intricate Forerunner art. I had clicked on the blue text, looked at the ramblings, the declarations, the questions, the whinging and moaning, the stories, the rants and, scrolling below them for an infinity, the discussions, threads spanning hours, even days, the symbol besides several contained an evil face, bedevilled by flames. Of course, this was the Internet. And on the Internet, time passed with both speed immeasurable and sloth incomparable.
[Edited on 07.10.2011 5:05 AM PDT]
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-blam!- your rights! You will turn into a brony! [Edited on 07.07.2011 8:19 AM PDT]
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I just pooped a little
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So... Tacos?
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I call the role of Odysseus.
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Before me spread a vast plain. The land was a dark green, verdant but nevertheless undernourished, not as fertile as it perhaps had been in the past. But I was a ghost, a mere observer of the lights far below, the towns spread before over the plain as the winding river and its distributaries that were a mere series of tubes at this point. I was on a barren, rocky mountain, high above the land, on a ledge that was sloping downwards slightly. As I turned slightly, I saw a door not far ahead of me. Despite the darkness of the surrounding rock, it was a pure white door, with what appeared to be a small, dark blue booklet on it, an arrow from the white surrounding cutting across the booklet from the left to the right. I looked down at my body. Or rather, where my body should have been; there was nothing there. I urged myself forwards towards the door, and soon passed through the near-luminous portal. I felt a body materialise around my being, a head that turned, a torso that breathed, arms with hands that clenched and legs and feet that could walk. I looked down again, my pale, thin arms wrapped in tattered brown sleeves. I was a teenage boy. The sound of shouting from far below alerted me, though it was ultimately nothing to be alarmed about. The nearest town, a huge, ramshackle mass of huts spreading out from a murky stretch of river, some buildings built on top of others, was ablaze with lights in the gathering darkness. From what I could see, squinting down into the valley, a figure was being thrown out of a well-lit, crowded building, wooden like the rest of the town. The man who had thrown him out appeared to be tall, with short dark hair and dark skin. For an instant his armour glinted with a circular symbol, like an insect with legs protruding from the centre, before it flickered away again. The figure on the ground was a stunted creature. It rolled in the mud momentarily before throwing itself on its front and crawling away. I swallowed. Clearly these were some unpleasant times for the inhabitants, or at least one. Perhaps now was the time for me to join them. Bring peace and happiness to these unsettled inhabitants of the flood plain. The land stretched for as far as I could see, bordered to the left and right by mountains. I nodded and began my descent.
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What a story, Mark.
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[b]Firestorm[/b] Coming from inside the building I could hear a cacophony. The windows showed people shouting, standing up and throwing things at each other, and it was with a frown that I glanced around for an indication that I was not entering a hall of bedlam and insanity. Above my head, the crudely-written sign read 'reach vs black ops'. Biting my lip, I pushed the door open. What overwhelmed me immediately was not the sound, as it was what I had heard from the outside, only nearly ten thousand times louder, so it felt. The violence and acts of brutality were of little surprise either, as I had seen the projection of food, beer, orange juice and vomit, with the occasional shattering of glass, from without. No, the most disturbing sensation of that scene was the odour that beset me on my entrance: it was as though I had walked into a wall of warm, fetid corpse with its pores still in fully-functioning order. I gagged a little, holding my nose and knitting my brow, backing away in the nick of time as a couple of fairly obese boys slammed each other into the wooden wall beside me, one with a peculiar object in his hand. "Yeah I know why u guys mean but damn i just lost interest in halo since the major lag problems oh well we'll see what happens" I stared at the boy. He didn't seem to notice me, and continued bashing the other over the head with his weapon. Fire burst from the end, scorching the wall behind his enemy, who kicked him in the stomach and thrust him back into the maelstrom.
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I turned to my left slightly, blinking at the chaos. Just behind me, I saw the form of the doorman, dark against the well-lit walls but, oddly, barely perceptible. He had short, cropped hair and his eyes looked at me knowingly. For a second, his face flickered with the same symbol I had seen on his armour beforehand, which was now replaced with a blue top, before he blinked and turned his eyes back to the fight placidly. I wondered how he could simply stand back and watch such a catastrophe unfold before him. Then I saw something I had never seen before. In one corner, a blond-haired boy took a hearty draught of his drink, then, swinging his glass aside, leaned forwards and put his foot on a table, raising himself above the tussle. His mouth open wide, fire began to gout from between his lips, roaring through the room and causing those immediately in front of him to duck and fall over, rolling out of the way to avoid the flames and patting their clothes if they had been caught in the inferno. My eyes wide, I could barely react as a dark shape moved in front of me. I recognised the hardly visible figure, its movements through the crowd quick, decisive, though his long strides were silent as he edged between some of the larger boys present, before reaching up and pulling the blond boy off the table. I tried to stand on my tip-toes to see the humiliated boy, but both he and Foman had disappeared. A sharp wind suddenly blew the door open behind me, which then slammed itself shut as quickly again. I turned back to the room. The scene had calmed down somewhat, but there was still loud screeching from some of the shorter boys, one of whom stood by my side, making his point with a large grin on his face and vigorous gestures; clearly, he was enjoying himself, so I watched as his bright eyes darted around the room, as he animatedly argued his point. "armor lock has -blam!- up halo tho!" he argued. "balk ops has wagger matches and a cool theater mode and all these cool new things!!!" I nodded. The boy had a point: the latest in the blockbuster Call of Duty series had some interesting innovations. The wager matches were certainly intriguing when revealed, and Black Ops' replay mode, with its ingame editing suite, is arguably superior, in its feature set, to that of Halo: Reach. However, Black Ops' is limited to the multiplayer game, as I pointed out to the boy. "al is stil -blame!- tho!!!" he retorted.
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"Yeah, the guy's got a point," interjected Dropship Dude. "Armour Lock has severely screwed Halo up. Armour Abilities in general are just bollocks." More swiftly than I had ever seen, the boy reached out, his arms stretching to bizarre proportions over Dropship Dude's title bar, and reined the regal blue towards himself, his pearl-toothed maw agape as he attempted to consume the blue bar. Then he burped, saying: [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dropship dude Yeah, the guy's got a point. Armour Lock has severely screwed Halo up. Armour Abilities in general are just bollocks.[/quote] yeah see, he agrees with me." Making his way between the rowdy schoolchildren, was a tall, lithe, seemingly luminescent figure; certainly he had an aura about him, and, his graceful, calm, pale face had an implacable benevolence that spread to all as he spoke. "I actually preferred Reach to Halo 3," he said. "The Achievements can tell you that. Please stop stalking my Gamertag just to find that out, Tartan." "Really, anelf?" Dropship asked. "You're in a Reach vs. Black Ops thread?" "What? I was the first Mythic member higher than you that Tartan could find." "OMFG AN EXALTED MYTHIC MEMEBER!!" the boy at my side squealed. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] anelf I actually preferred Reach to Halo 3. The Achievements can tell you that. Please stop stalking my Gamertag just to find that out, Tartan.[/quote] I LITTRALY AGREE!" "You want Tartan to stop stalking you?" Dropship chuckled. [Edited on 07.07.2011 8:22 AM PDT]
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"[url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=56739103&postRepeater1-p=1]Eh, Reach was supposed to be the definitive Halo experience[/url]," piped up the shadowy, mysterious figure that coalesced just around edge of the circular crowd, a symbol of six radial columns, a seventh in the centre at the top, protruding more, emblazoned on his chest. "[url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=56739103&postRepeater1-p=1]CE certainly had much more magic for me. The bread and butter aspects will forever be dominated by Halo CE which executed them in an unrivalled manner.[/url]" The boy now stared at the newcomer with a mixture of indescribable awe, fear, and thw most open mouth I had ever seen. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Tom T Eh, Reach was supposed to be the definitive Halo experience. CE certainly had much more magic for me. The bread and butter aspects will forever be dominated by Halo CE which executed them in an unrivalled manner.[/quote] YEAH DEFINITELY. THE NNIJA IS RITE. EC IS THE BEST GAME EVER." [Edited on 07.07.2011 8:24 AM PDT]
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I chortled. Nice work, Tartan.
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A young man walking by turned to look at the gathering. On his shirt was emblazoned a paw-print. "How about we just ignore both ridiculously-milked franchises entirely?" I looked at the first boy again, curious as to how he would handle such a proposition; his face remained still for a moment, before screwing up, his brow knitting, his nose wrinkling, and his lip curling. "but witch 1 is bettr?" "Neither," the newcomer responded. "They are both as overrated and mediocre as each other." "u cud say cod or u cold say both but u cant say nither!" I pondered on this for a moment: was it possible that both could be better than the other? Or did this simply introduce more problems than it solved? How could both be the superior series? How could one be of greater quality than the other, while the other is simultaneously in the very same situation? I discarded the notion as absurd. "You can't say both are the best," I told my companion. "wat???" the boy cried, glaring at my with a mixture of incredulity and rage. "wat do yu mean they both cant be better of course theycan HALO AND COD ARE BOTH AWESOM" "Weren't you just arguing against Halo: Reach?" "HALO CE IS THE BEST GAME EVER AND BLACK OPS IS THE BEST GAME EVER, OK!!!" I jumped back from the snapping, frothing maw of the boy, my eyes wide with surprised terror, my hands up defensively. The boy with the paw-print shirt looked at me knowingly, before ambling over and grabbing my arm. "Come on," he murmured. "Let's get you to some sanity."
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[b]The Island of Furries[/b] We soared through the air, high above the valley down which I had descended earlier. Below, the damp, verdant, dark green grasses swayed in the breeze as we neared the wider tributaries of the river that ran through the land, and they spread out, ever broader, before opening into the sea on the horizon. "My name's DabilahroNinja, by the way," my guide told me. "Feel free to call me Dabi." "I like the paint on your face," I complimented. "A tribal design of the kingdom?" "Mm." Dabi lifted a corner of his mouth and shrugged. "Not exactly." Nearing the sea, we descended towards the grey rocks jutting out of the bedraggled land that bordered the water, swooping low towards the murky grey, before Dabi grabbed my arm a little tighter and we swept upwards, heading straight for a bank of dull grey clouds. My vision was soon obfuscated as we entered it, and I could only feel Dabi's arm still clenching my own, not even see his face, as we moved deeper into the densest vapour. I noticed, however, the cloud growing slowly whiter, less wispy and more solid, rounded and touchable; it felt like cotton wool to my fingers, and, before I could comprehend, we had burst out of the cloud and into a crystal clear blue sky, a turquoise ocean encircling the azure ceiling overhead. High above, almost invisible, a tiny black spot stood out amongst the pure blue gradients, and I frowned momentarily before Dabi's weight returned to my forearm, and we plunged down into the billowing clouds once again, this time engulfed only for a second before emerging above an island, a lush, bright green oasis in the glittering blue sea, flecked with grey rocks and crowned, in its centre, by a single pinnacle. "Tartan imagined it looking like Paradiso from Reach," Dabi explained. "I don't know why."
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Now I recognised the broad, rolling plains flanking the mountain, and the shallow, rocky inlets on the opposite side, and the deep, but small chasm cutting into the island's south side. As we descended further, I began to notice shapes moving around the vibrant pastures, figures bounding oddly on four legs, rolling around in the grass and stroking each other's hair. We landed on the yellow-brown beach, whereupon lapped glass-cool waves in a gentle rhythm, the serene sea breeze washing lazily but pleasantly over the fields of sweeping grasses. Before me, the figures I had seen from above, now clearly people, continued to trot about on all four limbs, some with their tongues out, panting like beasts, some sprawling, wriggling in the green shoots, their prostrate forms supine as they held their arms and legs aloft, limp at the joints. Eyes closed, they grinned as the sun beamed on them from above, a warm ocean from the skies complemented by the sea breeze. "What is this place?" I asked, bewildered. "Why are all the people acting as but beasts of the field? Is this a sanctuary for those unfit for the outer world?"
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This man is a God among men...
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Tartan 118 "Tartan imagined it looking like Paradiso from Reach," Dabi explained. "I don't know why." [/quote] So, wait, this isn't told from you perspective? Interesting... Also, thread flagged. Wait, I can't do that; thread saved.
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Dabi blinked at the scene for a second. Then he looked down at his waist, lifting his shirt slightly to look at his belt. On the leather was a protrusion shaped like the face of a cartoon monkey, grinning cheekily at the Internet. Dabi pressed it, then looked up. "Oh yeah, I see." He pressed it again. "Alright, we need to get you Coup." He turned around and looked up to the soft clouds above, then put his middle finger and thumb into his mouth and blasted a sharp, high-pitched whistle from between his teeth, making me start slightly. The whistle echoed fruitlessly around the island's cliff faces for a few moments, but after a short wait, the clouds above were blown about lazily but powerfully by a sudden, invisible force. Suddenly, from within, a magnificent creature burst through the white, a canine snout and teeth, fiery eyes and fur blazing in the high sun, its long, bushy tail a sweeping inferno across the sky as it swooped through the azure and descended towards us. "All aboard the Firefox!" Dabi grinned, climbing onto the beast's now-flaming pelt and wrapping the roaring strands of hair in bundles around his fists. "Come on!" He reached out and grabbed my arm as I gingerly clambered onto the Firefox's boiling hide. After getting comfortable in a seated position, I nodded to Dabi as he watched me, and he nodded in reply before kicking the Firefox in the temples. "Ow," it said. Somewhere back on the flood plain, Google Chrome gave a malicious grin.
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The bank of clouds washed over us a third time, and we ascended into the pristine blue, the apex of the dome darkening as we flew ever higher, the Firefox's fur ruffling in the breeze. Overhead, the black spot that I had seen before became near invisible as the air itself thinned, and the cerulean dissolved into inky blackness dotted with pinpricks of light here and there. Above us, the once far and distant form was now a looming platform of black floating on air. Above it, an indistinct mass roiled and bubbled, a black cloud writhing and sending forks of lightning down onto the structure below. As we grew closer, the material gleamed in the ambient but powerful light, beams and slabs of a smooth, glassy, impenetrably black rock or metal, gilded with angular silver veins, pale blue light flowing through them. The front of the construct was a low plaza as the rear, backed by massive walls, culminated in a flight of staircases up to the image of a blue-grey fist punching upwards and clenching a bundle of lightning bolts. Around the sides of the structure were dozens of banks of terminals of some kind, all made of the same black, smooth rock, veined with light, as the rest of the platform. People stood at them, looking thoughtfully at the screens and tapping and sliding over the surface with their fingers, presumably interacting with something.
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Dabi turned and leapt off the Firefox's neck, landing feet-first on the polished stone floor. I looked around, sliding myself off the monstrous creature, now level with the average-looking boys, almost exclusively, some obscenely obese, others dangerously underweight, long hair, short hair, big hair, curly hair, straight hair. Then, at the top of the stairs at the back, a bright white light caught my attention, a glowering gem embedded in the wall. Ushering me forwards, Dabi, his hand still grasping my arm, guided me up the smooth, thick black steps towards this wonder. As we reached the top, we discovered two men flanking the hole from which the light emanated. The nearest turned to look at me. He was a tall man with long, tangled, dark hair, and with a look reminiscent of a primitive cave-dweller. "You want the good -blam!-?" he asked in a deep and slightly amusing voice. "'Course he does," Dabi insisted. "Let us through, Snakie." Snakie winced. "You sure that's a good idea with you, Dabilahro?" "Look, I took him to our island and he wondered what the hell was going on," Dabi explained. "This way, he'll know about us all, and it'll be much cooler for him."
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"Ok, we're not actually going to deny it to anyone. I was just curious." Snakie turned to the other guardian, a medium-height fellow with short brown hair, a little goatee and bright blue eyes. Emblazoned on his front was the letter D with angular sides and a colour that changed from a light blue at the bottom to a darker one at the top, a metallic look with scratches and blemishes here and there: the Halo font. "Let's let him have it, Drew." Duardo nodded. Dabi's eyes flicked between the pair. "I'm surprised CAVX and Iggy aren't up here." "Cav's too busy with Whisper to be guarding Coup," Snakie explained. "We actually swap over every now and then, I go back to Whisper, work on my writing -blam!-. But he's -blam!- co-founder, his job's more important. Iggy's retired now, so Duardo's taken over, seeing as he's the lead moderator in the mains pushing it." "I see," Dabi nodded. Snakie looked at me. "Well, don't just stand there until your dick falls off," he laughed. "Stick your hand in there, man."
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The hell is this?
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I nodded and moved my hand cautiously but eagerly towards the light, shaking slightly. Into the recess I fumbled before my hand was engulfed in an electrifying sensation that made my hair stand on end and my nerves tingle. A bolt of power coursed up my arm, arcs of lightning dancing over my pale skin as the sensation shifted to my shoulder before finally dissipating around my head. I felt an energy course through my eyeballs and blinked reflexively to clear the feeling. I looked around. People to-and-froing in the sky-bound citadel who had once appeared as ordinary teenage boys were now hulking monstrosities, powerful robots, iconic peoples from history and the world of gaming. My mouth dropped in awe and I turned to Snakie. He was still a towering Slavic Neanderthal, but now he was wearing a cloak made of a deep dark colour that wavered between green, blue and a very burnished yellow, a cloak of scales, iridescent snakeskin. His eyes, I saw as my gaze was drawn, almost mesmerised, towards them, were aflame, orange embers burning in his irises and his pupils consisting of an all-too-familiar symbol, that which I had seen on Tom T's chest earlier, a symbol of tru7h and carnage: the Septagon. Snakie grinned broadly. "Are we ready to go back to the island now?" Dabi asked at my side. I turned to look at him quickly, stunned by the blur of pink in my peripheral vision. Before me stood a fox-like creature, covered with pink fur, its green eyes sparkling and its bushy tail flicking lazily behind its back. "...Dabi?" "What?" I swallowed, thinking of myself. "What have [i]I[/i] turned into?" I looked quickly down at my own body. Still a peasant boy. [Edited on 07.07.2011 8:37 AM PDT]
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The first time in months I return to The Flood and I see this? Awesome.
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"You change your Coup settings yourself," Dabi explained. "Over at one of those terminals there. But first I'm gonna get you back down to the island, so you can see everyone in their beautiful glory." He took hold of my arm again and kicked off the ground. "Goodbye, -blam!-s!" Snakie called after us. Dabi's eyes looked to the right momentarily before returning ahead. We started to descend once again, the clouds ballooning as we approached them before swallowing my feet in cotton wool whisps. After a few seconds of pure white with patches of grey here and there, the cloud dissolved again and the glittering sea spread below us, the verdant, symmetrical island growing ever larger until it nearly filled my view as we landed on it. My eyes darted about nervously. Instead of teenage boys or young men scampering about on their hands and feet, I was confronted with the site of a multitude of animals, mostly wolves or foxes, though it would be a sin to omit the ponies at this point, which I nearly did, bounding around the plain, barking playfully with their tongues hanging out and fawning over each other, snouts nuzzled tenderly. Involuntarily, I recoiled. Dabi turned to look at me to his right, and I feared I had upset him. "....Hello, WyId," he grinned broadly. I turned. Approaching me was a bipedal fox with dark grey fur, his purple eyes twinkling as he approached us in a matching jacket uniform and a police-like flatcap. I swallowed, my eyes wobbling, as I spotted the sw@stika on the red band on his arm, and I looked up quickly to see the same symbol on the red band above the rim of his hat. "Hi," it replied cheerfully in a boy's voice, before turning its head slightly to look at me. "Who's this?" Dabi was about to answer before I interrupted. "...It's very nice to meet," I said, eyes accidently flicking to the -blam!-s, "but I will have to be going. Uh... goodbye." I turned to leave, to where I wasn't sure, just away from this alarming creature, but Dabi took hold of my arm again. "Are you alright?" he asked, concerned. I glanced at WyId and then back to the bright pink fox that was DabilahroNinja. "Whatever this Coup disease has done to me..." I stammered. "I... I'm sorry, I simply dislike your semblances... creatures walk and talk as men but are not... creatures that ...dress like [i]that[/i]..." WyId raised his eyebrows, then gave a small chuckle. "Clearly he doesn't get it," he laughed. "Just let the poor boy go."
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"Think he'll be ok back out there?" Dabi asked his fellow man-fox. "He's got Coup now, he should find it a bit more enjoyable," WyId winked. "Okay." Dabi took my hand and began to march me towards the rear of the island. "Where are we going?" I asked. "Seeing as Tartan imagined this place like Paradiso, there's only one way off this island." We continued up the slope towards Concussion Rifle spawn. "But Hemorrhage is on the other side," I insisted. "Not there," Dabi explained, guiding me up a metal walkway. At the end stood the doorway in which was a shimmering vertical blue light. "Here." He pushed me into the teleporter, and I blinked, expecting to come out at Laser spawn building. Instead, I was back on the flood plain of before. There was nothing visible anywhere around me except for a cluster of buildings in the distance. The sky was darkening, so I hastened my way towards them. Dabi watched as WyId approached him, and blinked. "Weren't you wearing that a while back?" "Well, yeah, actually, but that was when Tartan was making the plan for this, so he used it to scare that kid back to The Flood." "You still look hot as -blam!- in it," Dabi purred, before pouncing on his BFFurever.
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moar latar Thanks for the praise so far. Anyone expecting a Flood-version of Homer's Odyssey can go look elsewhere (rac...). Or maybe the same place next year, we'll see. Don't hold your breath.
