Post by ddhlee on May 31, 2006 22:02:44 GMT -5
Since long said he didn't care, fine. Here's goes nothing. And yes, I'm making this up within an hour:
Three days and two kills later can tell you when you've made a bad purchase. The blade in my main hand was world-renown. It may as well have been known as Caliburn, the legendary weapon of Arturius. Nations came and fell under this weapon's name. Or so I was told by the seller.
I purchased the weapon for five hundred and twenty dollars at an antique shop. That should have been the cue there. A weapon with a long hisorical significance would have been in the archives of a collector, or some swordmonger of a distinguished family or a rennaisance nutjob that wastes his days bragging about their kill count within his reenactment guild.
But I'm not part of that, if you can't tell. No, my story begins somewhere else, but I'm sure you hear this same load of bullshit from everyone else about special circumstances or godly gifts or whatever the hell else made them great or superhuman or an immortal emo. I'd tell you more, but you probably know as much about me as I do just as I tell this story.
What makes it worse was that two days ago I was bragging to myself about this piece of machined shit. It was light, had a good balance, and I could bite iron with it. Hell, even the Japanese had machined sabers that could behead a POW in WWII.
One day ago, I had the feeling. You know, the feeling. The same sort of feeling you get when something's wrong. Like everything people forget to notice, something ruptured a spacetime rift. You don't notice them? Well of course not, you won't because you're in the past and everything that happens here already did/will/has compensated for it. It's complicated, but let me tell you that your great-grandchildren will make a big stink on the theories before they even realize what the rest of us know.
At the time I was doing my laundry. You've got to separate whites with darks, and I learned this the hard way when I came to work dressed in a green work shirt thanks to a bogey pair of St. Patrick's socks and an emptying pile of wearable clothes. Of course, I thought I'd let this one go, because laundry is some tough shit. Getting quarters sucks, getting the machine to eat the quarters sucks, getting the clothes sorted sucks harder, and by the time you're done it's this black hole of petty bullshit that I'd rather keep out of. How you people do it is beyond me. Keeping spacetime intact, on the other hand, is easy. It's easy! Those guys at the dry cleaners? They're probably the toughest people on this entire planet.
Anyway, by the time I got the brights in the wash, I went out with my proud new purchase to look for the cause. The rift rip, it turns out, was a small enough one to have been a chupacabra. That's what we call entropy engines. No, they're kind of like robots, but not exactly cyborgs either. Look, you want me to explain everything? This is my story, not a goddamn lecture. In short, chupacabras are bad: you don't want one in your house because by the time they're done you'll tend to find your personal information will crap out, your house will need some sort of repair, and they might even be the reason why you're going bald. Did I mention they seem to like your time period a lot?
Of course, I wasn't afraid of them, though, oh no, not with my "precious weapon" from the past. Iron from Arturius time tend to be made from meteoric iron since mining wasn't as much of a big thing then, and meteoric is some of the best stuff you can use against an entropy engine. The other option is alkali metals but you don't want to use them. Trust me, you'll find out why.
Chupacabras are normally small things, and so was that hole break, so typical that I would find out that the thing I was hunting turned out to feast while I was doing the laundry, making it into something much bigger. It was worth it, though, because my shirts came out fluffy and nice smelling after that run.
Caliburn in hand, I give it the rules of conduct to leave this time zone. It doesn't listen. It never does. I try to strike it, but it escapes before I get the chance by latching onto a bus full of elderlies going to Vegas. The perfect sort of place for a disaster-causing entity to feast on others fortune.
I'd follow it, but I had to get back to the drier. Everything went in, sorted into careful presses to make sure that they cooled into the proper position so they didn't come out wrinkled, and then I went home and chased after the stupid thing.
Five minutes ago and one bus ride later next to someone that snored in bus rides, I made it to Vegas. The weapon was in my hand but the thing already did a number to the Vegas strip. I could tell you there were not a lot of happy customers at the MGM that night. By the time I caught up to it, it had already ruined three marriages within an hour in the blackjack table. I gave it the rules again. It didn't listen again. It never does.
Then I went at it. A blow to the neck would remove it instantly from existence. It reached at me, but I dodged under the poker table. The dealer got hit instead and he ended up drooling in front of people staring at him. The creature enjoyed this so much that I had enough time to catch it off guard. My arm went up, swung into it and then I saw the blade snap in two.
Crappy piece of HSN garbage, that's what all these swords are these days. I still had a mongwanga owned by a shaman's son from pre-colonial Botswana, but the stupid thing is only good for throwing. Considering it was all I had, though, I pulled it out, painfully, for obvious reasons and tried again. It went for my throat to probably make me cough, but I slashed it back with the many-bladed weapon. Then, I readied my thighs, turned, and then lobbed it at the air, missing the damn engine. The mongwanga ended up hitting a camera and I think the fire alarm. It might have been the entropy engine, but I definitely remember the sprinklers going on then.
There was no choice now. In my pocket was a sample of two ounces of liquid Gallium, sealed in glass. This time I buckled and tossed the thing and it broke straight onto the engine and engulfed it in flames, removing it from our existence.
Unfortunately, because these alkalis are so reactive, I ended up starting a fire. It wasn't like people could see me or anything since I was part of an existence they had yet to acknowledge, but it seemed that in the end, the mysterious "arson" that was reported on the news not only helped satisfy some potential new engines to come around this time period, but also to wet my clothes out.
But let me tell you: if I didn't finish that laundry two days ago, then I wouldn't have had anything to look forward to.
Three days and two kills later can tell you when you've made a bad purchase. The blade in my main hand was world-renown. It may as well have been known as Caliburn, the legendary weapon of Arturius. Nations came and fell under this weapon's name. Or so I was told by the seller.
I purchased the weapon for five hundred and twenty dollars at an antique shop. That should have been the cue there. A weapon with a long hisorical significance would have been in the archives of a collector, or some swordmonger of a distinguished family or a rennaisance nutjob that wastes his days bragging about their kill count within his reenactment guild.
But I'm not part of that, if you can't tell. No, my story begins somewhere else, but I'm sure you hear this same load of bullshit from everyone else about special circumstances or godly gifts or whatever the hell else made them great or superhuman or an immortal emo. I'd tell you more, but you probably know as much about me as I do just as I tell this story.
What makes it worse was that two days ago I was bragging to myself about this piece of machined shit. It was light, had a good balance, and I could bite iron with it. Hell, even the Japanese had machined sabers that could behead a POW in WWII.
One day ago, I had the feeling. You know, the feeling. The same sort of feeling you get when something's wrong. Like everything people forget to notice, something ruptured a spacetime rift. You don't notice them? Well of course not, you won't because you're in the past and everything that happens here already did/will/has compensated for it. It's complicated, but let me tell you that your great-grandchildren will make a big stink on the theories before they even realize what the rest of us know.
At the time I was doing my laundry. You've got to separate whites with darks, and I learned this the hard way when I came to work dressed in a green work shirt thanks to a bogey pair of St. Patrick's socks and an emptying pile of wearable clothes. Of course, I thought I'd let this one go, because laundry is some tough shit. Getting quarters sucks, getting the machine to eat the quarters sucks, getting the clothes sorted sucks harder, and by the time you're done it's this black hole of petty bullshit that I'd rather keep out of. How you people do it is beyond me. Keeping spacetime intact, on the other hand, is easy. It's easy! Those guys at the dry cleaners? They're probably the toughest people on this entire planet.
Anyway, by the time I got the brights in the wash, I went out with my proud new purchase to look for the cause. The rift rip, it turns out, was a small enough one to have been a chupacabra. That's what we call entropy engines. No, they're kind of like robots, but not exactly cyborgs either. Look, you want me to explain everything? This is my story, not a goddamn lecture. In short, chupacabras are bad: you don't want one in your house because by the time they're done you'll tend to find your personal information will crap out, your house will need some sort of repair, and they might even be the reason why you're going bald. Did I mention they seem to like your time period a lot?
Of course, I wasn't afraid of them, though, oh no, not with my "precious weapon" from the past. Iron from Arturius time tend to be made from meteoric iron since mining wasn't as much of a big thing then, and meteoric is some of the best stuff you can use against an entropy engine. The other option is alkali metals but you don't want to use them. Trust me, you'll find out why.
Chupacabras are normally small things, and so was that hole break, so typical that I would find out that the thing I was hunting turned out to feast while I was doing the laundry, making it into something much bigger. It was worth it, though, because my shirts came out fluffy and nice smelling after that run.
Caliburn in hand, I give it the rules of conduct to leave this time zone. It doesn't listen. It never does. I try to strike it, but it escapes before I get the chance by latching onto a bus full of elderlies going to Vegas. The perfect sort of place for a disaster-causing entity to feast on others fortune.
I'd follow it, but I had to get back to the drier. Everything went in, sorted into careful presses to make sure that they cooled into the proper position so they didn't come out wrinkled, and then I went home and chased after the stupid thing.
Five minutes ago and one bus ride later next to someone that snored in bus rides, I made it to Vegas. The weapon was in my hand but the thing already did a number to the Vegas strip. I could tell you there were not a lot of happy customers at the MGM that night. By the time I caught up to it, it had already ruined three marriages within an hour in the blackjack table. I gave it the rules again. It didn't listen again. It never does.
Then I went at it. A blow to the neck would remove it instantly from existence. It reached at me, but I dodged under the poker table. The dealer got hit instead and he ended up drooling in front of people staring at him. The creature enjoyed this so much that I had enough time to catch it off guard. My arm went up, swung into it and then I saw the blade snap in two.
Crappy piece of HSN garbage, that's what all these swords are these days. I still had a mongwanga owned by a shaman's son from pre-colonial Botswana, but the stupid thing is only good for throwing. Considering it was all I had, though, I pulled it out, painfully, for obvious reasons and tried again. It went for my throat to probably make me cough, but I slashed it back with the many-bladed weapon. Then, I readied my thighs, turned, and then lobbed it at the air, missing the damn engine. The mongwanga ended up hitting a camera and I think the fire alarm. It might have been the entropy engine, but I definitely remember the sprinklers going on then.
There was no choice now. In my pocket was a sample of two ounces of liquid Gallium, sealed in glass. This time I buckled and tossed the thing and it broke straight onto the engine and engulfed it in flames, removing it from our existence.
Unfortunately, because these alkalis are so reactive, I ended up starting a fire. It wasn't like people could see me or anything since I was part of an existence they had yet to acknowledge, but it seemed that in the end, the mysterious "arson" that was reported on the news not only helped satisfy some potential new engines to come around this time period, but also to wet my clothes out.
But let me tell you: if I didn't finish that laundry two days ago, then I wouldn't have had anything to look forward to.
