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Divided
May 21, 2005 6:52:03 GMT -5
Post by Dante on May 21, 2005 6:52:03 GMT -5
---
Amber, Ennui and Akbar’s investigation went much the same way, only with no in-fighting and far more speed.
---
Robert pushed open the door to the n00bification chamber, BSam following behind.
“There it is,” the former said, grimly. “One of the greatest weapons of the n00bs. Just imagine the power.”
“yup,” agreed BSam.
“We need something like one of these, you know,” said Robert, standing before the really cool member Overmind. Its eye gazed down at him. “Something which turns n00bs into people like us.”
“or you could just make the n00bs obey you,” said BSam.
“Eh?” asked Robert.
“i mean,” continued BSam, “you could reprogarm it to make the n00bs obey you instd of the queen.”
“And why would you want to do that?” asked Robert.
“you’d have an army,” said BSam. “thnk about it.”
“So what you’re saying,” Robert repeated, slowly, “is that we shouldn’t destroy this – we should reprogram it to make the n00bs obey us, and then use it to raise an army against the Queen?”
“yup,” replied BSam.
Robert stared at BSam for a minute, and then shook his head.
“No,” Robert said. “No, that’s terrible. You saw what that surg30n did to that woman. This is evil.”
And with that, Robert brandished his clubs, knives out, and began to lay into the really cool member Overmind, tearing wires, smashing control panels. The eye frantically flicked from Robert to BSam. Robert continued to slash and beat away at the Overmind, working his way to its inner core, but BSam did nothing.
Finally, Robert had worked a sizeable hole into the Overmind, and could see its central computer banks, buried inside. With a ferocious yell, he smashed them to pieces, destroying all the files and systems, destroying the Overmind. The light of the eye turned to BSam, almost pleadingly, and then dimmed and went out.
“Right, that’s that done,” said Robert, tucking his knife-clubs into his pockets. “I’m going back to the room. You can stay here and keep looking at that thing, if you admire it so much, but I’m decent.”
Robert left, shutting the door behind him. BSam remained, gazing up at the dead eye almost longingly.
---
“This looks like the Coliseum kitchens,” said Antenora, peeking through a door.
Inside the room, there were dozens of tables set out in rows, with various ingredients scattered onto them. A frail old really cool member, dressed in the traditional white uniform of cooks, was hurrying around these tables at an amazing speed for one so old, chopping and stirring and baking over a hot fire. A well stood off at one side of the room – presumably the Coliseum’s water source – and near to that, an open door led off into what Dante and Antenora assumed was a pantry.
“They’re woefully understaffed,” said Dante, “and I imagine that that cook spends most of her time simply making Les Paul’s meals. He seems the sort to have a feast for every meal, even if he’s not particularly greedy.”
Dante and Antenora turned away from the kitchen doors, and continued to follow the corridor they’d been walking down. It suddenly sloped downwards in a flight of stairs, and a metal door with a strong lock on it. This door was what interested Dante and Antenora, as it was creaking open to reveal a group of three heavily-armoured really cool member guards, and a yet more powerful figure dressed in black.
Neither Dante nor Antenora needed to tell each other to run. They ran in the opposite direction.
“We can hide in the kitchens!” hissed Antenora. “They’ll see us if we just follow this corridor.”
Dante and Antenora darted into the kitchens, and flattened themselves to the wall near the well. The cook was busy at the opposite end of the room, working at one of the fires.
“C00k!” cried Les Paul’s booming voice. “I’m hungry, so you’d better have something prepared for me when I come into the kitchens!”
Dante and Antenora froze.
“Quick, into the pantry!” whispered Dante. “The c00k will see us if we stay here.”
They darted into the pantry, and quietly shut the door. It was indeed a pantry – the shelves were stocked with sacks of flour and other stores of ingredients, contained in a number of cupboards.
The door of the kitchen banged against the wall. Les Paul had entered.
“Give me some food, c00k!” he bellowed. “The knife still won’t obey me, and I’m frustrated – and frustration makes me hungry!”
“Alright, my lord,” said the weak voice of the c00k. “I’ve baked a cake especially for you. Let me just go and get it from the pantry.”
“Into this cupboard!” Antenora said, holding open the door of an empty one. “It’s our only hope!”
Dante and Antenora squashed themselves into the cupboard. They could hear the door of the pantry creaking open.
“Hurry along, c00k!” Les Paul shouted again. “I haven’t all day to wait for you, anymore than I have all day for that captured blade to listen to reason!”
“Give me time, my lord,” croaked the c00k. “I just have to get it from the top shelf of this otherwise-empty cupboard.”
Dante started scraping at the walls and floor of the cupboard, searching for secret exits. Antenora wondered if she could disguise herself as a sack of flour.
“The cake’s in a cupboard, did you say?” Les Paul said, somewhat more quietly. “It didn’t have “I <3 Spammers” written on it in pink icing, did it?”
“Why yes, it did,” replied the old cook. “How do you know that?”
Dante and Antenora heard Les Paul sighing.
“I’ve got a confession to make, c00k,” he said, quietly. “I snuck in here last night and ate it already.”
“Oh, honestly, my lord!” cried the c00k. “You must try not to be so greedy! I don’t have anything for you now!”
“Sorry, c00k,” mumbled Les Paul quietly.
“You’ll have to wait ‘til later if you want some food now! Off with you, off!” cried the c00k.
Dante and Antenora heard the kitchen door open, and then swing closed again. They breathed a sigh of relief, and climbed out of the cupboard..
“That was close,” said Dante. “N00bified or no, if he’d seen us, then he’d probably put us in a cage, or make us his jesters.”
“Did you hear what he said about a knife, though?” asked Antenora. “He spoke as though the knife was intelligent.”
“There are some intelligent knives, as we know,” Dante replied.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Antenora.
“Probably,” replied Dante, “and if I am, then I think I can guess who the purple and green fighters are. Let’s get back to the room, and see if everyone else has found anything out yet.”
Dante and Antenora strolled out of the pantry, and were just about to leave the kitchen when the c00k accosted them.
“Oh ho ho!” she cried. “You wouldn’t have been raiding my pantry, would you?”
“Er…” Dante started. “Yes. I suppose. That is to say; yes.”
“Sorry,” said Antenora.
“I won’t take folks raiding my pantry,” the c00k said. “But I’ll let you off if you come and help me wash these dishes.”
Dante and Antenora groaned inwardly, and reluctantly joined the c00k next to a large and unstable pile of plates.
---
“So we’re all certain, then,” said Dante, presiding over a meeting in room 101 quite some time later. “The purple and green fighters are J. and M., Les Paul has put Captiosus and Endymion in cages in his spectator-box, and captured Walter.”
“And J. and M. are insane,” added Derik.
“Do I get any credit at all for destroying the really cool member Overmind?” grumbled Robert.
“There’ll be plenty of time for giving credit later,” said Dante. “For now, we need to have a plan. First things first: J. and M. Insane. Cure?”
“A guard said that they had a line of really cool member programming in their brains,” Amber said. “Removing that would probably cure them.”
“I don’t suspect that the surg30n is too adept at brain surgery,” said Derik. “Or any kind of surgery, for that matter. The code is probably planted just on the surface of their brains, not far below the skin.”
“So we need somebody fairly skilled at surgery, but not necessarily very skilled,” said Antenora. “I don’t suppose that anybody here…”
The 667ers collectively shook their heads. Antenora sighed.
“Perhaps we should have kept the surg30n alive,” she said. “We could certainly use his talents, dubious though they may be, right now.”
“He deserved death,” Dante said bluntly. “And we weren’t to know then that we needed him. What we need now is some substitute for surgery. A machine of some sort.”
“What about Walter?” asked Ennui. “The knife shares a bond with its creator, and it can shape-shift, can it not?”
“To a limited extent,” said Antenora, “it can change into anything sharp and knife-like.”
“Like a surgical instrument,” said Akbar.
“So is this your plan?” Char asked. “Find Walter, and hope that it’s intelligent enough to turn into a surgical instrument that will magically be able to remove lines of code from J. and M.’s brains?”
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Divided
May 21, 2005 6:52:42 GMT -5
Post by Dante on May 21, 2005 6:52:42 GMT -5
The group was silent for a moment.
“When you put it like that, it does sound rather unlikely,” admitted Dante. “But it’s not as though any of us have a better plan.”
“So who’s going to go and track down Walter?” asked Robert.
“Well, this is a mission which requires subtlety, intelligence, and incredible power,” said Dante. “So it’s me and Antenora again.”
“And what will the rest of us do, whilst you’re off adventuring?” asked a disgruntled PJ.
“Lie low,” Antenora advised. “If Les Paul finds out that any of us are here, he’ll probably do to us what he did to J. and M. And if he finds that so many of us are here, he’s not going to fall for any n00bification act. He’s a spammer, but he’s a clever spammer.”
“So we’ll just go and do that now,” said Dante. “Time is of the essence.”
Dante raised a hand in farewell, and he and Antenora left the room, leaving their bored associates behind. Derik had produced a pack of playing cards, and the group seemed to be preparing for a game. As Dante and Antenora started to walk off in the direction of the kitchens, though, Dante felt a hand on his shoulder. It was BSam.
“quick word?” he asked. Dante nodded.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” he promised Antenora, before BSam led him down a side corridor. BSam looked around to check that nobody was listening, and then started to whisper to Dante.
“this is the queen’s stronghold,” he muttered. “lots of n00bs about. how will you escape them?”
“Well, if they turn against us,” Dante said, “then I’ll just have to flame them all.”
BSam shook his head.
“too risky,” he said. “look what happened at 667. you were too tired to move.”
“Good point,” said Dante. “I guess we’ll just have to be extra-careful, then.”
BSam leant in close to Dante, and whispered even more quietly.
“what we need,” BSam said, “is to get all the n00bs out of our way.”
“There’s not really any way of doing that, though,” Dante said. “I’d love to destroy all these n00bs, but right now that’s just not possible.”
“yes it is,” BSam said. “you said there was a well in the kitchens. all the n00bs drink from it, mustn’t they?”
“Yes…” Dante replied, mystified.
“so if you were to put one of your flames in there,” BSam smiled, “then the n00bs would all drink it and get flamed without you having to do anything.”
Dante considered this for a moment, and then a grin spread over his face.
“Yes…” he whispered, laughing quietly. “Yes, that is a good idea. Poison their water supply, and destroy them all in an instant. That would teach them and their Queen a lesson about who is more powerful.”
“do it,” whispered BSam.
“I will!” laughed Dante. “Oh, you needn’t worry about that. Those n00bs are going to get quite the surprise!”
Cackling quietly, Dante departed from BSam, and re-joined Antenora. BSam watched him go, and then walked away quietly in the opposite direction.
---
“What did BSam want to talk to you about?” asked Antenora, as she and Dante hurried down the corridors of Coliseum.
“He’d had a very good idea,” Dante said, “which would help all of us a lot.”
“What was it?” asked Antenora, curious.
“Well, you’re about to find out,” said Dante, grinning as he saw the door to the kitchens coming up on his right. “We just have to go on a brief detour.”
Dante pushed open the door to the kitchens, Antenora following him. The c00k was nowhere to be seen. Dante strode over to the well.
“This is the water source for all of Coliseum,” he said, placing his hands on the edge. “If any really cool member has a drink at any time, it’s from here. But what if that water wasn’t so clean anymore?”
“Dante, what are you planning?” asked Antenora, looking worried at the fanatical grin that had spread across Dante’s face.
“All I have to do is add a flame to this water,” Dante said, still smiling wickedly, “and it will taint the entire water supply. Any really cool member who drinks from it will be instantly destroyed. All of our problems up in smoke. It would devastate the Queen’s army.”
“You’d just kill them all, without giving them a chance?” asked Antenora.
“They don’t deserve a chance,” said Dante, his smile turning into a scowl. “Look at everything they’ve done. I could plant this trap for them right now, and they’d be taken completely by surprise. Imagine the shock on their faces… it’d be wonderful.”
No,” said Antenora. “It’s cowardly. Even n00bs deserve a chance. If you do this, you’d be just as bad as them.”
“Fight fire with fire,” Dante replied, his scowl deepening.
“Not this time,” said Antenora. “If you win like this, it’s not really winning at all. It’s… It’s shameful.”
“I just want to hurt them!” shouted Dante. “I want them to suffer!”
And for a moment, it wasn’t Dante’s face shouting these words. His neck was tall and curved, his skin paper-white; his head pointed, bird-like, hairless, with a long orange beak and eyes shrouded in darkness. The Swan glared at Antenora with furious eyes for a second – and then it was Dante again. He clapped his hands over his face, and stumbled backwards.
“No, no!” he cried. “Get out!”
“Dante?” asked Antenora, shocked.
“Antenora…” said Dante, his hands still covering his face, feeling it all over for feathers, a beak… “I’m sorry that you had to see that. I’m so sorry…”
---
Meanwhile, back in room 101, seven 667ers were playing cards.
“Well, PJ?” asked Derik.
PJ’s eyes flitted from side-to-side.
“Go fish!” he pronounced.
The group groaned and threw their cards down in frustration.
“PJ, we’re playing Snap!” Ennui cried, exasperated.
At that moment, there was a heavy knock at the door. The group froze.
“…Come in?” called Amber.
The door burst open. Twenty really cool member guards filed in, and swooped on the 667ers. Moments later, they were all held, some struggling so much that two guards were required to restrain them. Moments later, the black-armoured figure of Les Paul strode in.
“Well, well, well…” he said, smiling. “I’ve waited a long time for you. But some of you are missing… Where are Dante and Antenora?”
The 667ers stayed silent.
“Ach, keep it to yourselves then,” growled Les Paul. “I’ll catch them eventually; I know that they’re here. I’ve got it from a trustworthy source. In the meantime, you’re going to provide me with some entertainment…”
---
“You know all about my myriad battles with the Swan, Antenora,” sighed Dante, as the two of them sat against the kitchen wall. “Her implementation of the Great Moat, my own plans with the Black Swan… But it was our final battle that damaged us the most. She wounded me deeply, then, and left a part of herself with me.”
“What is it that makes her show her face?” asked Antenora.
“When I’m planning something especially wicked,” Dante explained, in a tired voice. “Righteous anger, like when I was chained up, won’t summon her; but anger for a meaner cause, vicious hatred, or plain evil brings her out. I should have been more careful – I should have known that I’m especially vulnerable, in these Border Mountains where Morris Peak lies.”
Antenora said nothing, but there was a deep sorrow in her heart. Dante’s war against the Swan had hurt him more than she had realised, and his pain seemed incurable.
“I see now that you are right about this poison plot,” Dante said, “but it was BSam’s idea, not mine. He seems to have an evil streak himself.”
“It’s all this fighting,” said Antenora. “It brings out the worst in everyone.”
“I wouldn’t have expected such deep malice and cunning,” said Dante. “BSam exploited my hatred of the n00bs – in retrospect, he seemed to have something deeper on his mind. We may have to part ways with him.”
“We’ll deal with BSam later,” Antenora said. “Right now, we have to find Walter and rescue J. and M. We’ll take everything one step at a time.”
“Yes,” said Dante, “you’re right, as always. I’ll put BSam out of my mind, for now. Let’s get down into those dungeons.”
Dante and Antenora turned out of the kitchens and made their way to the metal door which led to the basement.
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Divided
May 21, 2005 6:53:18 GMT -5
Post by Dante on May 21, 2005 6:53:18 GMT -5
“It’s locked,” said Antenora, pulling at it.
“No door is barred to me,” said Dante, laying a hand on the lock. The metal lock began to glow red, and steam rose from it – Antenora could feel the heat coming from Dante’s hand. The lock grew hotter, turning white; it began to melt away, pooling on the floor, until there was no lock left, just a burnt and melted hole in the door. Dante pulled the door open.
“After you,” he said, holding the door open for Antenora.
The network of dungeons beneath Coliseum expands for miles, and is as wide as the Coliseum building itself. In the past, the dungeons were used to store extra food rations, or to lock up prisoners awaiting a trial by combat. The n00bs had consumed much of the food, though, and the prisoners executed or freed, depending on their allegiance. Many of the chambers that Dante and Antenora passed stood with their doors wide open, completely empty. A layer of dust covered the floors of many of the corridors, and it was by following the paths swept through the dust by many feet that Dante and Antenora found Walter’s chamber.
Two guards were posted outside it, standing alert. Dante and Antenora watched them from around a corner.
“Single combat with them will take far too long,” Dante whispered. “Here, let me open them up for you.”
Dante leapt out from behind his corner, and brandished his palms at the two really cool member guards. Two thin, concentrated beams of heat swept from Dante’s palms and into the guards’ armour, leaving a hole in the middle of their breastplate and giving them severe burns. Roaring, the two guards lunged wildly towards Dante with their swords drawn, intending to destroy him and then seek urgent medical attention. Antenora stabbed through the holes in their armour with her Blade of Banning, vanquishing them instantly.
The problem of the mighty door to Walter’s prison now confronted Dante and Antenora. Dante decided to employ a similar method as he’d used to enter the dungeons.
“Stand well back,” he advised Antenora, who stood well back.
Dante stood facing the door, and summoned the flames to assist him. He became a massive, towering inferno, reaching from the floor to the ceiling, and massive waves of heat flowed out of him. Dante moved into the door, and a terrible hissing noise spread through the corridors. Antenora stood further back.
“Alright,” cried Dante, a few moments after the hissing noise had stopped, “you can come back now.”
Dante had melted a massive hole in the door, and a large pool of metal, now solidified after having been melted, covered part of the corridor. Walter’s chamber was opened to the air, and inside, Dante and Antenora could see the knife Walter, held in place by two chains. Antenora shattered them in a trice with the Blade of Banning, and picked up Walter. The dim light from the corridors shone onto Walter’s shiny surface, and he reflected it menacingly.
---
Derik, PJ, Char, Ennui, Akbar, Amber and Robert stood in the central pit of Coliseum, having been escorted there by their guards. Les Paul looked down on them from his spectator box, a cruel smile playing on his face.
From the opposite end of the pit, a huge portcullis was being raised. In the chamber behind this gate, something stirred in the darkness, and came into the light.
It was a towering behemoth as tall as five people standing on each other’s shoulders, blue in colour, and vaguely resembling a giant hedgehog. It had no neck or face, though, simply an enormous mouth, filled with row after row after row of sharp, vicious teeth. The monster had four paws attached to stumpy legs, and these ended in sharp claws. Dozens of spines covered the monster’s back, and it walked in a clumsy way, almost rolling from side to side with each step, crashing into the sides of the pit.
“It’s so ugly!” cried Amber. “It fills up the entire stadium!”
“It’s got no eyes – how does it see?” asked Akbar.
“It doesn’t – it just thrashes wildly from side-to-side,” replied Derik.
“I think it’s kinda cute,” said Char.
Les Paul’s laughter echoed down at them from above.
“Let’s see how you match up against this, 667ers!” he cried. “My greatest pet – my most monstrous servant! Utterly unstoppable, completely unthinking, the most pointless of all the beings of the Internet! The ProBoards Version 4 Update Program!”
Seven hearts sank in the pit, as the 667ers prepared for battle.
---
The corridors were deserted as Dante and Antenora hurried to J.’s cage – there wasn’t a really cool member in sight.
“Where is everyone?” asked Dante.
“There’s probably another battle on,” replied Antenora, who was holding Walter in her left hand.
“Hopefully not another duel between J. and M., otherwise we’ll have to wait before repairing their minds,” said Dante, grimly.
They reached J.’s cage and found her inside, though, and not battling, although they could hear roars from the stadium. Antenora shattered the bars of J.’s cage with the Blade of Banning. J. had fallen asleep, for the time being, amid the shredded wreckage of the green punch-bag.
“Okay, Walter,” said Dante to the knife in Antenora’s hand, and suddenly reminding himself of Derik, “J. has a line of really cool member code in her brain, and we need you to remove it. We’ll ask that you do the same for M. In return, you can join us on our quest to slaughter all n00bs and their Queen. Deal?”
Walter did not speak, of course, but the light seemed to glint off him in a way that Dante interpreted as an affirmative.
“Okay,” said Antenora, breathing deeply, “I’ll just hold Walter to J.’s skull, and hope that he knows what to do…”
Nervously, Antenora held the point of Walter’s blade a fraction of a centimetre away from the back of J.’s skull. Instantly, the blade transformed – into a whirring surgical tool, with an extending hooked needle and an attached scalpel on one side. In the space of a mere second, the scalpel made a tiny, neat cut in J.’s skull, the hooked needle extended in and darted back out again, with a thin white line of code dangling from the end of the hook. The scalpel shifted again into another needle, which, with machine-like precision and speed, stitched the tiny cut in J.’s skull closed.
“Wow,” said Antenora, observing Walter, who had transformed once more back into his knife form, the tiny line of code still hanging from the edge. “That was even better than I’d hoped.”
“If you could copy the program, you could sell it to the Internet surgeries for – I don’t know how much,” Dante said, breathtaken. “Anyway, let me just deal with that code.”
Dante held a finger near to the end of the line of code. A tiny flame flashed out of the end of his finger, and the code burnt to a crisp.
J. was beginning to stir in her sleep. Her eyelids opened, and she sat up, and looked at Dante and Antenora in astonishment.
“What have I missed?” she asked. “I feel like I’ve slept for weeks.”
“Yes, it’s funny that you should say that,” Dante said, glancing around the cage, “because –”
He suddenly froze, his eyes looking through the portcullis that blocked J.’s cage off from the stadium pit. He could see seven of his associates, battling a monstrous blue creature. Antenora and J., following his gaze, were instantly struck by silence.
“It seems that our ruse is over,” murmured Dante. “We won’t be staying here much longer…”
He turned to Antenora.
“I need you and J.,” he said, “to go and free M., and then join the fight against – whatever that thing is. I’m going to confront Les Paul – and see if I can free Captiosus and Endymion, while I’m at it.”
“You’re going to face Les Paul on your own?” Antenora asked. “The unbannable Lord Spammer, head of all the Queen’s armies?”
“That’s precisely what I intend to do,” replied Dante. “I’ll see if I can make him listen to reason – and even if he won’t, which is what I suspect, then it’ll buy you time. Besides, I’ve faced him before, and he’s run away rather than stand and fight every time. I’m in no danger.”
“Go, then,” said J. “Antenora can explain everything to me. I don’t have a clue what’s happening, but we clearly have to act fast.”
“Right,” said Dante, turning to go, “I’ll meet up with you later. Goodbye!”
And with that, Dante ran off in one direction, Antenora and J. in another.
---
Dante arrived in Les Paul’s spectator box to find it empty, save for the cages of Captiosus and Endymion. Dante approached their cages slowly. From the spectator box, he could see J., M. and Antenora running out into the stadium whilst the other 667ers threw attacks at the v4 program.
“It’s a trap, you know,” said Captiosus.
“Yes, naturally,” said Dante. “I was just wondering what kind of trap. The kind where I’m ambushed, or the kind where I’m dropped into a pit full of alligators?”
“The former,” said Endymion, as Les Paul appeared behind Dante.
“Hello, Dante,” growled Les Paul. “It’s been quite some time since we met.”
“Les Paul,” replied Dante, nodding politely. “What do you hope to achieve here? What do you and the Queen want?”
“Oh, isn’t that obvious?” Les Paul replied. “Total dominion of the Internet. N00bs ruling over every city. The wastelands covering our entire world. And, of course, the defeat of our rivals, the viruses.”
“The defeat of the viruses I can understand, from both your point of view and my own,” said Dante, stalling. “But why the rest of it? Why would anyone want what you want?”
“Why do you not want it?” asked Les Paul in return. “Have you not considered that? Our ideal worlds are polar opposites. Neither of us can understand why the other would want anything else.”
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Divided
May 21, 2005 6:53:34 GMT -5
Post by Dante on May 21, 2005 6:53:34 GMT -5
“You’ve grown far smarter than the last time we met,” said Dante. “Been taking lessons from the Queen, have you? What is your connection?”
“The Queen and I met long ago,” replied Les Paul, “and she knew that I wanted the same things as her, and had the potential to achieve her goals.”
“But why go for 667 first?” asked Dante. “Why not the cities? Why go for somewhere so relatively insignificant?”
“That I can’t tell you,” said Les Paul, “although once you meet the Queen, you’ll realise why it was necessary. But enough of this talking – I grow weary of it.”
“As do I,” replied Dante, and reaching up, he used his burning hands to melt away the front bars of Captiosus and Endymion’s cages. The coyote and the cat jumped free.
“Captiosus, Endymion,” cried Dante, “J. and M. need you.”
“Yes, yes,” replied Captiosus, “we’re well aware.”
“You’ve no need to slow us down by forcing us to respond to your patronising commands,” said Endymion.
And with that, Captiosus leapt from the spectator box towards the pit, bounding from row to row of the seats. Endymion transformed into a bird and followed. Dante could see, down in the stadium, that one of the v4 monster’s legs had been cut off, and that the beast was thrashing about wildly and roaring deafeningly.
“And now for our own battle, Les Paul,” said Dante, “a fair fight – one on one.”
“A fair fight?” asked Les Paul, sounding amused. “You are quite wrong. There is another, who has betrayed you and the 667ers, and who will fight you now. Come forth! BSam!”
But nobody came. Les Paul remained isolated.
“BSam! BSam?” called Les Paul.
“Well, well, well,” said Dante, mockingly. “He betrayed us, and now he’s betrayed you. I’m surprised that you didn’t see it coming.”
“Grr…” Les Paul muttered. “I’ll have his head if I see him again – although he has proven very useful, informing me of your plans to poison our water supply, and telling me what room you were staying in. But I’ll still have his head – and yours, when we meet again!”
Les Paul turned and fled down the back corridor. Dante took a last look at the stadium – the v4 monster was covered in wounds, and data was pouring away from its body – before following him.
Les Paul turned a corner in the corridors, and then another, Dante following. Finally, Les Paul reached a window, and leapt out of it. Dante peered out after him.
Les Paul had landed astride a huge, armoured war-hog, which was grunting and striking the ground with its trotters. Les Paul looked up at Dante and called out to him.
“Follow me, Dante!” he cried. “Follow me across the Spam River, and to the Queen – follow me to your end!”
And with that, the war-hog galloped away, making incredible progress over the mountainous terrain. N00bs began to flow out of Coliseum from the many doors, leaping from the windows, and followed him,
Dante turned away. He would follow Les Paul, soon – but there was one more enemy in Coliseum left to face.
---
BSam watched Les Paul ride away from Coliseum through a different window. His schemes, in this instance, had come to nothing – but there was always next time. For now, he had to focus on escape.
He ran quickly down the corridors, hoping to reach the entry hall. Dante burst out from a door behind him, cried out, and began to follow him. BSam had longer legs, though, and was able to keep ahead.
BSam entered the entrance hall. Freedom was mere moments away. But the way out was blocked – ten 667ers stood in his way. As BSam paused, wondering what to do, Dante barrelled into his back, knocking him flat. Then Robert knocked him over the head with a knife-club. The last thing BSam saw before he passed out was J. advancing on him, Walter in hand.
---
“So what was wrong with him this time?” asked a weary Ennui. The group had returned to room 101 following the defeat of the v4 program and BSam’s capture.
“Well, he had all this code in his brain,” answered J., depositing said code in a pile on the ground, where Dante was preparing to burn it. “It looks like it was copying itself all over his mind. It hadn’t spread too far, though.”
“I’ve had a look at it,” said Derik. “It looks like a virus-producing program. Once it had taken over BSam completely, it would have started automatically writing viruses and unleashing them on the Internet. It’s a good thing that we caught it this soon.”
“It was left there by Geoffrey, I expect,” said Akbar. “You were right, Ennui – these hackers are extremely clever.”
“BSam should get completely back to normal now,” said Derik. “Although I expect that beer would help.”
“There’s probably some in the kitchens,” Dante said. “Robert, why don’t you go and get –”
Suddenly, an image of a teetering, slurring Robert surrounded by dozens of empty cans appeared in Dante’s mind, saying “deep-rooted emotional problems? what you say?”
“Perhaps not, then,” said Dante, correcting himself. “Char, how about you –”
Another image presented itself to Dante’s mind. Char was looking distastefully at a stack of beer cans, and was saying, “Beer is totally out; I’m not touching it. We want wine instead.”
“PJ!” Dante cried. “PJ, will you do me a fav –”
A final image entered Dante’s head, of PJ balancing a large stack of beer cans on his shoulder, saying “Check it out guys! Look how much I can hold with one hand – uh-oh – aaaaahhh…”
“I’ll go!” cried Dante, furiously, and stormed out, leaving his associates very much confused.
---
Later, when BSam was sitting up straight and working his way through the beer that Dante had returned with, M. spoke up.
“We’re crossing the Spam River, right? How do we get across?”
“Well, according to Char’s map, there’s a bridge,” Dante said. “We’ll have to fight our way across through dozens of n00bs. It should be great fun.”
“I can’t see any bridge,” said Antenora, who was gazing through a window with her spyglass to one eye. “Just a large pile of rubble on our side of the river.”
“What? Let me see, please,” Dante said, astonished, and Antenora handed him the spyglass. After some seconds, Dante continued with, “Oh dash.”
“This is the result of all your awful planning,” complained Char. “You never think things through.”
“Wait, wait, all is not lost!” cried Dante. “Antenora, take a look over there with the spyglass, and tell me if you see what I see.”
Antenora took back her spyglass and looked out in the specified direction.
“It’s a ship,” she said. “A metal ship, and it’s docked on our side. The flag is… Well, it’s not the really cool member flag, but I don’t recognise it at all.”
“We’ll ask them to ship us across,” said Dante. “They’re bound to oblige, what with the promise of treasure backed up with the implied threat of violence.”
“We really are going to the Queen of Chaos, then?” asked Char. “You’re really serious? You’ve thought about it?”
“There’s no turning back now,” said PJ.
“Pack up your things, everyone!” roared Dante. “We’re going for a boat trip, and we’re leaving in five minutes!”
Twelve minutes later, twelve 667ers left the now-empty Coliseum, and continued their hike through the last quarter of the Border Mountains.
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Divided
May 21, 2005 7:24:22 GMT -5
Post by PJ on May 21, 2005 7:24:22 GMT -5
Nicely done. This one is another of those good ones. I'd elaborate on how skillful this is but my mum demands I go to bed this instant. It's great, keep doing more. Cya!
Edit: Good stuff. Nice twist with the Swans thing. The Beer thing was hilarious. So was the Dante-manipulative thing. Hehe.
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Antenora
Detriment Deleter
Fiendish Philologist
Put down that harpoon gun, in the name of these wonderful birds!
Posts: 15,891
Likes: 113
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Divided
May 21, 2005 7:30:14 GMT -5
Post by Antenora on May 21, 2005 7:30:14 GMT -5
I love the idea that n00bs are people controlled by an evil program that sort of drains their minds.
It's hard to describe how I imagine the woman's really cool member-speak. Sort of a semi-coherent babbling.
This Fragment was wonderful.
The Swan-posession bit was scary.
And I loved the fight with the V4 monster.
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Divided
May 21, 2005 9:12:11 GMT -5
Post by odh on May 21, 2005 9:12:11 GMT -5
I was seriously freaked out a bit mid-end thinking about the real Les Paul, if he read this.
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Divided
May 21, 2005 13:10:18 GMT -5
Post by Amber on May 21, 2005 13:10:18 GMT -5
I really like this, it should get published or something. Then I'd say I'm a character in a book.
I love Walter, really *adjective*. (I forget the word, "cool", will do I think.)
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Divided
May 21, 2005 13:15:37 GMT -5
Post by odh on May 21, 2005 13:15:37 GMT -5
I suggested to him turning it into a movie, live action! He should consult a producer.
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Divided
May 22, 2005 10:16:12 GMT -5
Post by Dismay on May 22, 2005 10:16:12 GMT -5
Wow. Amazing. Long, but amazing. I immediatly thought of moon blinking process from Guardians of Ga'Hoole when you talked about n00bification. Awesome. I need more. Soon.
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Divided
May 22, 2005 12:05:13 GMT -5
Post by Ennui on May 22, 2005 12:05:13 GMT -5
Tremendous. I too admired the v4 beast. And your beer mission speculations...
Les Paul should have many doubles...
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Divided
May 22, 2005 18:00:24 GMT -5
Post by Celinra on May 22, 2005 18:00:24 GMT -5
Nice chapter, I especially liked the v4 monster. And the thoughts of what would happen if different people went for beer. And a ton of other stuff I don't feel like listing.
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Divided
May 23, 2005 4:54:43 GMT -5
Post by A. the Returned on May 23, 2005 4:54:43 GMT -5
I have too many favourite parts in this fragment to list, it was just wow. I agree a book or, even better, a movie would be great.
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Divided
May 24, 2005 4:16:27 GMT -5
Post by Dante on May 24, 2005 4:16:27 GMT -5
The Spam River runs from the far west of the Internet to the far south, walled away by the Border Mountains. The Internet is so vast that nobody has ever traced the river to its source, or to its end – although many failed expeditions have returned with tales of walking for months through the wastelands, and never getting close.
The waters of the river run black – they are pure poison; pure spam. It is said that the spam mutates anyone who touches it, driving them insane – the process is supposedly excruciatingly painful. The only substances strong enough to resist being affected by spam are strongly reinforced metals, especially Bannium. On rare occasions, though, human-like children are found washed up on the edge of the river – these grow up, consistently, to become spammers, no matter what their manner of upbringing. It is for this reason that the civilised Internet cities reject such children and forbid – for reasons of principle solely, as there are few who would practice such an art – experimentation with the spam water.
As for what lies across the Spam River, many of the great sages of the Internet agreed with Dante’s suspicions about the Queen of Chaos’s fortress, but nobody knew for sure. The only bridge across the vast waters of the Spam River was guarded by all manner of terrible beasts, from spammers to programs to horrific cross-breeds of the two, and these would attack all who approached. No boats were known to have been built that were capable of crossing the Spam River, not only because of the huge cost involved but for the simple reason – why?
But when the 667ers had looked out from Coliseum to the Spam River, that bridge had been destroyed – and a boat had appeared…
“That’s improbable,” said Derik. “There aren’t meant to be any boats on the Spam River.”
“Do you think it’s safe?” asked Akbar.
“Well, it’s not a really cool member ship,” repeated Antenora. “Although there are more enemies out there than the n00bs.”
The group had moved on from Coliseum, and was now looking down from half-way up a large hill. To their right was an enormous pile or rubble and boulders, crumbling into the Spam River, where the bridge had once stood. And ahead of them was the ship itself.
The ship docked at the edge of the river was about the size of one of those ancient ships which sailed the oceans in the middle times, but constructed entirely of metal – save for the sails, but the giant propellers just breaking the surface of the river demonstrated that those sails were purely for show. Cannon-holes and long poles which looked like oars lined the sides of the ship, which looked burnt and scarred to a moderate extent – whilst still seaworthy, the ship seemed to have been in some damaging battle. A gangplank, again metal, ran up from the ground and onto the deck of the ship.
“Do we risk it?” asked Amber.
“Why not?” asked J. “If they attack us, we attack back.”
“Sounds fair to me,” agreed Robert.
They descended the hill and approached the gangplank cautiously. There didn’t seem to be anyone waiting for them, and nobody stopped them from ascending to the deck. The deck was empty; the entire ship could have been abandoned.
However, the cabin door burst open, and a thin woman wearing a wig of waist-length, curly black hair, a katana sheathed at her waist, and a long blue coat strode out.
“What’s this?” she said, looking at the twelve 667ers in shock. “Have I finally found some new recruits for my ship?”
“Even better,” replied Ennui, “you’ve found some passengers.”
“Passengers are crew,” said the woman. “You think I can sail this thing on my own? It used to have a crew of forty. Now it has me.”
“Well, you can at least take us where we want to go,” said PJ.
“Oh, yeah, I suppose,” said the woman. “But only if you’re comin’ back.”
“Why only if we’re coming back?” asked Amber.
“This ship’s got a destination of its own,” replied the woman, “and I need a crew to help me get there. If I take you where you want to go, then here’s the cost: You have to help me sail this ship until we get there; once you’re there, you have to all return soon and alive; and then you have to serve on this ship until I finally get back to headquarters. You’ll be able to go free then.”
The 667ers considered this.
“Can we consult each other for a second?” asked Derik.
“Of course,” replied the woman, “but bear in mind that I can probably hear everything you say.
The 667ers gathered in a circle some way away from the woman, and put their heads together.
“Alright,” said Dante in a low voice, “this woman is seemingly our only chance for getting across and back over the Spam River. On the down-side, we don’t have a clue where her destination is, it may not even exist, and she may be a spy.”
“There’s certainly something suspicious about her,” replied Derik. “Her hair looks awfully familiar – her face and voice more so.”
“I used to work on a link-bus,” the woman called out, “so most people have probably met me at some point.”
“Well, here’s a plan,” said Robert, “if we reckon that she’s exploiting us, we mutiny.”
“Well, I suppose that we are making this entire deal on the grounds that it’s fair, and it’s fair on our side,” commented Antenora.
“So we’re all agreed then?” asked Dante. Eleven 667ers nodded at him, and then the group split up to face the woman.
“We agree to your terms,” said Dante, ceremoniously.
“Excellent!” cried the woman. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Captain Petra Pan, and this ship is the Unsinkable XXVI, the very last of its fleet. Now, come with me below-decks, and I’ll assign you your jobs and show you around.”
The captain led them through the door to the cabin, which turned out to be a navigation room, filled with grey computer screens showing sensor read-outs, radar and sonar displays. There was also a telephone, a fax machine, an e-mail inbox, and a speaker tube.
“This is the navigation and communications room,” the captain explained. “These screens show constantly updating sensor read-outs. I need two people to monitor these screens at all times, and tell me through the speaker tube if anything unusual shows up. That’s you two, weird-clothes and glasses.”
This description could have applied to most of the 667ers.
“You two,” the captain sighed, pointing at Dante and Antenora. “If anything unusual shows up, just alert me through the speaker tube. Also tell me if any communications come in. My bosses haven’t sent me any instructions for a long time, so I’m expecting them to send something anytime now. But first, follow me through the rest of the boat.”
The captain walked down a spiral staircase in the corner of the navigation and communications room, and the thirteen of them found themselves in a room that comprised this entire deck of the boat. This was where the cannons and oar-like poles poked out from their respective holes. Monitors faced down from the sides of the ceiling.
“Attack room,” explained the captain. “If the reports from the navigation and communication room sound bad to me, I’ll sound the alarm, which will activate the monitors and show you what’s coming at you, and from where. The cannons all have their own cannonball baskets next to them, and if you face a closely-ranged threat, just poke them using the spikes.”
The captain demonstrated by seizing the end of a pole, each of which were fixed to the sides of their attack point by chains, and jabbed viciously at a hypothetical threat.
“You’ll soon get used to it,” the captain explained. “Or at least, so I’m told; I wasn’t here when the fleet went down. Anyway, I’ll need eight here – that’s to make up four on each side. Two people are needed to operate a cannon and one person for a spike. I’ll take the short girl, the purple-haired girl, the curly-haired youth, the purple and green fighters, the blue and grey swordsmen, and the one with the towel.”
Char, Amber, Robert, J., M., Ennui, Akbar and Derik nodded in affirmative.
“And now for the most important job on the ship,” said the captain, leading them down one more flight of stairs. “Manning the galley!”
The lowest floor thus far was a kitchen, of sorts, filled with dozens of cabinets and a single stove. A large sack of potatoes sat in one corner.
“The remaining two will be making our meals here,” explained the woman. “That’s the drunk one and the one with a crossbow for an arm.”
“im not drunk,” pleaded BSam, before falling over. PJ merely groaned loudly.
“Right, that’s everything,” the captain said. “Everyone to their posts! I’m heading above-decks to steer! Make sure you all know what you’re doing! We sail today!”
---
The boat had set off in a somewhat alarming way – listing over to the left and making an appalling grinding noise against the rocks. However, both propellers were soon functioning perfectly, and the ship set off.
The Spam River is incredibly wide – as wide as a small sea. As such, crossing takes a long time. During this time, Dante and Antenora constantly checked the monitors and communications systems – but nothing unusual appeared, and no messages arrived. The eight 667ers in the attack room patrolled the room and anxiously gazed out of their portholes – but there was nothing for them to attack, save for the odd pile of rubble. In the galley, PJ and BSam spent hours peeling potatoes, chopping vegetables and preparing meat and fish – but they achieved nothing save to produce a delectable meal that the entire crew feasted on above-deck, during which the Unsinkable XXVI set down its anchors and turned off its propellers.
“This is the best meal that I’ve had in a long time,” commented the captain, eating her own portion. “I can see that it was a good idea of mine to put you down in the kitchens. You can stay there.”
PJ and BSam inwardly groaned.
“Whilst we’re pausing from our duties, would you mind if we asked you a few questions?” Ennui asked the captain.
“Certainly,” replied the captain, “if they don’t break the secrecy rules that I’m subject to and am obliged to tell you about but warn you not to press me about.”
“Have you seen a black knight,” asked Dante, “riding a war-hog, approaching the Spam River?”
“Oh, I have,” replied the captain. “He cast such a foul look at this ship – swore that when his forces were gathered again, he’d see to it that the Unsinkable XXVI would be sent to the bottom of the Spam River like the rest of its fleet. Then he and his hog galloped right across the waters of the Spam River, as if it were solid! It was very biblical.”
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Divided
May 24, 2005 4:17:13 GMT -5
Post by Dante on May 24, 2005 4:17:13 GMT -5
“Whatever happened to the bridge?” asked Antenora. “Clearly it was destroyed, but how, and why?”
“That’s getting awfully close to what I’m allowed to tell you,” answered the captain, “but I can tell you most of the story. The fleet which the Unsinkable XXVI belonged to attacked the bridge, with the intention of preventing the flow of n00bs from the other side and destroying the foul beasts which lurked there. They fought back, though – oh, the reports I heard. Acid cannons, barrages of shot, aerial attacks by unimaginable creatures from the sky. But the fleet won, crushing the bridge and sending all the programs and spammers down to their fates in the depths of the Spam River. Most of the fleet was irreparably damaged, though – this one was the only ship that managed to return this far. The rest were sunk, I know not how – they probably sunk on their own; they were that badly damaged.”
“Why did the fleet attack the bridge?” asked Akbar, but he was cut off by the captain.
“Classified,” she said. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Alright,” replied Akbar, “but then perhaps you can tell us how you came to become captain of this ship?”
“That’s simple enough,” said the captain. “My bosses contacted me – told me that I was to take command of the sole remaining ship of the fleet, and return it to headquarters. When I got here, I was alone – the ship had no crew, and I couldn’t sail it on my own. I’ve been stuck, docked against the safer side of the Spam River for some time now. I don’t know what happened to the previous crew, or how the ship came to be here, or what hand my own bosses have played in this. I’ve just been waiting for a crew to be sent. I assumed that my bosses would send one, but nothing’s arrived, and this ship was designed to be a receiver ship, not a sender ship.”
“You’re being awfully candid, for somebody who’s clearly a member of a secret organisation,” said Ennui.
“Well, that’s not a question,” said the captain, “but I suppose that perhaps I can explain. For one thing, the rules that my bosses set down are full of holes – somebody should really overhaul them sometime. Maybe they have, but they just forgot to send me a copy. The second thing is that I’m obliged to help you.”
“You’re obliged to help us?” asked M. “What does that mean? Why?”
The captain looked down at the table for a moment rather than at her fellow diners, and sighed, looking self-doubtful.
“I suppose,” she began at last, “you could say that –”
But she never got the chance to say what she supposed one could say. At that moment, some way off in the distance, there was a terrible whining noise to the ship’s right, like a higher, more screeching variant of the noise a whale makes. The captain rushed to the edge of the deck and looked out into the river – but she could see nothing, for a deep fog had fallen.
“Get to your posts,” she hissed. “Especially you two, Dante, Antenora.”
The crew obeyed, and Dante and Antenora were soon back watching sensor read-outs, radar and sonar. The speaking tube crackled into life.
“Give me an update,” said the voice of the captain. “What can you see?”
“There are some odd sounds being picked up by the sonar,” said Dante, “and they’ve identified a large object off to the ship’s starboard side.”
“There should be a sound-wave receiver somewhere in there,” the captain said. “Go check it.”
Antenora got there first.
“Whatever that noise is,” Antenora said, “it’s coming through in a fairly regular pattern. There are some short sounds, and some longer, more drawn-out sounds.”
The captain muttered something unintelligible.
“Sorry?” asked Dante.
“Morse code,” the captain said, and she had begun to sound frightened. “There’s a Morse decoder chart on the wall.”
Dante rushed to the chart, and Antenora began to read off the pattern.
“It has three parts,” she said. “The first section is – dot, dash, dot, dot.”
“L,” read off Dante.
“The next part is dash, dash, dash.”
“O…” said Dante, and his heart plunged into his stomach.
“And the last part is the first part again…” Antenora said, her voice trailing off.
“L,” said Dante, in a shaking voice. “That’s what the sounds come out as. L-O-L.”
“Oh no,” said Antenora. “I don’t know what this means, but it must be bad. Very, very bad.”
“It is,” crackled the voice of the captain, and suddenly the ship’s alarm went off, blaring throughout the floors. On the attack floor, the eight guards looked up at the monitors and saw a huge shape moving towards the ship on the starboard side.
“The LOL…” the voice of the captain said. “The stuff of legends – of nightmares. It’s here. Spam.”
The sound of an explosion reached their ears, and the entire ship tilted to the left slightly.
“We fired a cannonball at it!” cried the distant voice of Ennui, on the next deck. “I’m not sure if we hit it or not – if we did, it doesn’t seem to have affected it.”
“Keep firing at it!” cried the captain’s desperate voice. “I’ve increased the engine power – if you can slow it down with cannonballs, then we might be able to out-run it!”
All eight of the attack room crew were manning the cannons now, and a moment later, the force of four cannons knocked the ship to the left somewhat. The mysterious shape on the sonar, though, continued to advance towards the ship.
“For a moment, it almost seemed as though it might…,” mumbled the captain, as the ship put on another burst of speed. “Fire again!”
“It’s nearly too close!” called out Derik, although they fired the cannons anyway. The shape remained unstoppable, and it was mere moments away from the ship…
“Don’t use the spikes!” cried out the captain, just as Char had been reaching for one. “It will –”
But the captain did not have time to give her full warning, as the poles were at that moment ripped from their chains and pulled from the side of the ship – each one at the same time.
“It’s about to board!” cried the voice of the captain. “All hands on deck! We have to fight it there!”
The crew rushed to the deck, where Captain Petra Pan was waiting, and looked on in horror at the monstrosity that was heaving itself up onto the ship.
It resembled, more than anything else, a giant squid, pink-ish and cone-shaped, with eight thick tentacles emerging from its lower end, which were mostly wrapped around the ship or its masts, surrounding a round mouth filled with teeth. Where a squid might have eyes, though, it had only gaping holes, and two further tentacles curved upwards from its far end and back on itself, ending in sharp, poison-tainted claws. The tip of the creature’s head transformed into a tentacle which curved back in much the same way, and ended in a single, unblinking eye. But the monster had other terrifying appendages. Two pincer-like claws, long and jagged like the jaws of a crocodile, emerged from the creature’s sides, and the main body of the creature was supported by six lobster-like legs. The creature roared and slavered from its enormous central mouth.
Dante thought fast.
“Char, you’re small and helpless,” he cried, “so stand at the back and attack the eye. Everyone else, ignore the tentacles and claws and just try to eliminate those stingers. They’re the most dan –”
It was at that moment that a tentacle coiled itself around Dante and lifted him off the ground, bringing him towards the mouth of the creature. Antenora struck with the Blade of Banning, but the creature she faced was too powerful to be completely affected – a chunk of its tentacle dissolved and vanished, but not enough. Dante sent a jet of flame at the same spot, and the tentacle was eaten away, almost detaching – it dropped Dante, who fell heavily to the deck.
“I’ll hold off the tentacles, then!” he cried. “Everyone else go for the stingers, where practical!”
The captain had already leapt into action, drawing her katana and swinging it again and again at one of the stingers, which thrashed about and struck down at the deck. It missed every time – the captain was quite agile – but left large dents in the metal surface. Ennui and Akbar joined her; PJ shot a few bolts at the eye whilst Char hurled her knives, before rushing to the other stinger. The eye seemed unfazed by the knives and bolts sticking in it – it continued to stare about, almost lazily.
Dante started sending wide arcs of flame at the tentacles. The creature clearly was severely hurt by the flames, which burnt its flesh and caused it to flail wildly, knocking down Derik. J. seized this opportunity to unleash Walter upon the tentacle, which was carved and diced heavily, actually disconnecting it from the monster’s body. Derik heaved it overboard. Whilst he did this, Petra, Ennui and Akbar succeeded in removing one of the stingers, and immediately rushed around the creature’s back to get to the other, which was being savaged by Antenora, M., PJ, Amber BSam and Robert. This stinger, too, was soon toppled, and crashed into the river.
This left seven tentacles and two claws. Dante changed his tactics and unleashed a powerful flame upon one of the claws – the entire appendage was instantly cooked, and the creature shod it like a false tail. The other claw’s supporting limb was being pierced repeatedly by half of the group, the other half of which were battling tentacles, attacking the eye and delivering devastating blows to the weak legs of the creature.
The creature then unleashed its master defence – from the eye-sockets, a thick black substance began to leak from the creature – spam. It sizzled slightly as it ran onto the deck, but clearly the creature was resistant – living in spam as it did.
“Careful!” cried the captain. “If that spam touches you, I’ll be forced to cut you down myself!”
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