Trying to discern themes in your prompts is always entertaining, though sometimes worrying. Today's together with the previous three, suggest something quite disturbing indeed, and seeing how you've added to Empires I think have to say: put the egg back in the cradle Marc, we clearly didn't understand what it was for :) I wasn't going to add today's bit until a bit later in the Derby story, but the prompt is far too appropriate to pass up the opportunity. So you might only get this one view of a certain person for now, and have to wait a while to return to them.
Shadows of tomorrow This Enclave was rocky and barren too, but here the temperature was far colder. Frozen waterfalls, seven in total, clung to the sides of ochre rock, sharp icicles jutting out from where turbulence had thrown the water up and out and the freezing air had trapped it in place. The sky outside was midnight black and the stars blazed brilliantly without twinkling, hinting at a thinness of atmosphere that was disquieting. Breath condensed in front of faces, and froze into sparkling frost on beards and moustaches. Ice crunched constantly underfoot and despite the freezing temperature the air felt constantly wet, pulling heat out of bodies like a pump. Someone had chiselled a hole in the rock at chest height, a roughly cylindrical thing that brought to mind old stories of gigantic worms that burrowed through bedrock causing earthquakes and volcanoes. It was a tight fit for a normal-sized man; if you were just a little chunky it was a claustrophobic panic, and fat or heavily-muscled people had to walk the long way round, which in these temperatures was a dicey proposition. Through the tunnel, which took ninety seconds of wriggling as there wasn't quite enough room to crawl, there was a sooty antechamber where black dust smudged on your clothes and coated the soles of your shoes. A heavily curtained doorway -- half the width of a standard door, so you needed to turn sideways to go through -- finally let you into a warm chamber. Three fireplaces provided heat and a yellow-orange light to the room, which was large enough to seat a full orchestra and their audience. The geometric planes of the walls hinted that this was a natural formation: at some point something had cracked and slipped and fallen and created this polyhedral bubble inside the quartz. The fireplaces had been roughly carved in afterwards and their chimneys took the shortest route out, oddly straight and direct in a cavern where angles and corners seemed ubiquitous. The centre of the room was a casting circle: floor smoothed icily perfect by the Power, and eight knee-high pewter pillars providing permanent anchors for spell-casting. White ceramic dishes were laid out, some holding crumb-sized crystals of rock and precious metals; others holding coloured powders, and yet more holding soot-speckled liquids. Against the walls of the room, fitted into the angles and corners were desks, bookcases, chairs and wardrobes. A shadowy archway led into a much smaller room where six bed were crammed together and piled with blankets. Another curtained half-doorway led to a long passage that finally led outside -- the long way round -- and stored firewood, coal, sacks of crystals and mining tools. Four women dressed in similar housedresses -- burgundy fabric patterned with flowers twisted into paisley -- were working in the room, moving things around, filling ceramic dishes, checking that the fires were stoked.
Their conversation was in Polish and was quiet but constant. "Anthracite, 7% nickel inclusion." "On the right, but not too close to the malachite." "Legrandite?" "No, there's not enough of it. Use limonite." "23 degrees celcius." "Good enough." Sat in a wheelchair, in the middle of all this, was a man waiting to perform a new spell, one he had chosen to call Shadows of tomorrow. While the Power could not foretell the future, it could be used, delicately, to show the possible futures from now. What he was attempting was to invert that process and cause the future to cast shadows back to the present that could be studied and interpreted, a means of prediction that could give a nation a significant advantage against opposition. He looked old and tired: his eyes were dull and his mouth was slack as though he'd had a stroke at some point. "Fourteen grams of Krohnkite," said a woman, and he stirred. As he moved the metal cage that surrounded his skull glinted in the firelight and became apparant. The lines of surgery that had robbed him of his hair crazed his skull and left it looking like a map of Europe. The cage's metal rods inserted into his head with red, inflamed points of entry like miniature volcanoes and they vibrated constantly as though trying to gently bore their way in deeper. A light emerged from the depths of his eyes and he seemed to come alive; the cage vibrated more violently as though containing something deep within his head. "Eighteen," he said, his voice deep and thick, like someone speaking with a mouthful of porridge. "Fourteen will not be enough." "Eighteen grams," said the woman who'd spoken first. She paused. "That will be all of it, Labdaris." "Send Krystof to get more. He said he knew a promising seam." Labdaris lifted his hands; his body was paralyzed now from the waist down and his muscles were steadily atrophying. The skin on his wrists was scarred as well, puckered around crystals of Neptunite and Boulder opal. He concentrated, pulling Power around these crystals and others embedded elsewhere in his damaged, dying body, and then mentally pressed inwards. The Power was forced through his flesh like molten aluminium into a mould and he shimmered and seemed to melt for a moment. Then his flesh ran like hot wax and reshaped itself back into the young man he'd been forty years ealier and he stood up from the wheelchair. "Five minutes," he said, his voice now hale and strong, dominating. "Bring the Recorder in."
Greg - me and that egg are doing just fine, thank you very much. The voices in my head are very confident in that regard.
Well, this is a treat. I appreciate that it was unplanned but that just makes it all the more of a treat. The prompt was just a phrase that popped into my head and now I'm very glad that I chose to make use of it :)
3 comments:
Trying to discern themes in your prompts is always entertaining, though sometimes worrying. Today's together with the previous three, suggest something quite disturbing indeed, and seeing how you've added to Empires I think have to say: put the egg back in the cradle Marc, we clearly didn't understand what it was for :)
I wasn't going to add today's bit until a bit later in the Derby story, but the prompt is far too appropriate to pass up the opportunity. So you might only get this one view of a certain person for now, and have to wait a while to return to them.
Shadows of tomorrow
This Enclave was rocky and barren too, but here the temperature was far colder. Frozen waterfalls, seven in total, clung to the sides of ochre rock, sharp icicles jutting out from where turbulence had thrown the water up and out and the freezing air had trapped it in place. The sky outside was midnight black and the stars blazed brilliantly without twinkling, hinting at a thinness of atmosphere that was disquieting. Breath condensed in front of faces, and froze into sparkling frost on beards and moustaches. Ice crunched constantly underfoot and despite the freezing temperature the air felt constantly wet, pulling heat out of bodies like a pump.
Someone had chiselled a hole in the rock at chest height, a roughly cylindrical thing that brought to mind old stories of gigantic worms that burrowed through bedrock causing earthquakes and volcanoes. It was a tight fit for a normal-sized man; if you were just a little chunky it was a claustrophobic panic, and fat or heavily-muscled people had to walk the long way round, which in these temperatures was a dicey proposition. Through the tunnel, which took ninety seconds of wriggling as there wasn't quite enough room to crawl, there was a sooty antechamber where black dust smudged on your clothes and coated the soles of your shoes. A heavily curtained doorway -- half the width of a standard door, so you needed to turn sideways to go through -- finally let you into a warm chamber.
Three fireplaces provided heat and a yellow-orange light to the room, which was large enough to seat a full orchestra and their audience. The geometric planes of the walls hinted that this was a natural formation: at some point something had cracked and slipped and fallen and created this polyhedral bubble inside the quartz. The fireplaces had been roughly carved in afterwards and their chimneys took the shortest route out, oddly straight and direct in a cavern where angles and corners seemed ubiquitous.
The centre of the room was a casting circle: floor smoothed icily perfect by the Power, and eight knee-high pewter pillars providing permanent anchors for spell-casting. White ceramic dishes were laid out, some holding crumb-sized crystals of rock and precious metals; others holding coloured powders, and yet more holding soot-speckled liquids. Against the walls of the room, fitted into the angles and corners were desks, bookcases, chairs and wardrobes. A shadowy archway led into a much smaller room where six bed were crammed together and piled with blankets. Another curtained half-doorway led to a long passage that finally led outside -- the long way round -- and stored firewood, coal, sacks of crystals and mining tools.
Four women dressed in similar housedresses -- burgundy fabric patterned with flowers twisted into paisley -- were working in the room, moving things around, filling ceramic dishes, checking that the fires were stoked.
Their conversation was in Polish and was quiet but constant.
"Anthracite, 7% nickel inclusion."
"On the right, but not too close to the malachite."
"Legrandite?"
"No, there's not enough of it. Use limonite."
"23 degrees celcius."
"Good enough."
Sat in a wheelchair, in the middle of all this, was a man waiting to perform a new spell, one he had chosen to call Shadows of tomorrow. While the Power could not foretell the future, it could be used, delicately, to show the possible futures from now. What he was attempting was to invert that process and cause the future to cast shadows back to the present that could be studied and interpreted, a means of prediction that could give a nation a significant advantage against opposition. He looked old and tired: his eyes were dull and his mouth was slack as though he'd had a stroke at some point.
"Fourteen grams of Krohnkite," said a woman, and he stirred. As he moved the metal cage that surrounded his skull glinted in the firelight and became apparant. The lines of surgery that had robbed him of his hair crazed his skull and left it looking like a map of Europe. The cage's metal rods inserted into his head with red, inflamed points of entry like miniature volcanoes and they vibrated constantly as though trying to gently bore their way in deeper. A light emerged from the depths of his eyes and he seemed to come alive; the cage vibrated more violently as though containing something deep within his head.
"Eighteen," he said, his voice deep and thick, like someone speaking with a mouthful of porridge. "Fourteen will not be enough."
"Eighteen grams," said the woman who'd spoken first. She paused. "That will be all of it, Labdaris."
"Send Krystof to get more. He said he knew a promising seam."
Labdaris lifted his hands; his body was paralyzed now from the waist down and his muscles were steadily atrophying. The skin on his wrists was scarred as well, puckered around crystals of Neptunite and Boulder opal. He concentrated, pulling Power around these crystals and others embedded elsewhere in his damaged, dying body, and then mentally pressed inwards. The Power was forced through his flesh like molten aluminium into a mould and he shimmered and seemed to melt for a moment. Then his flesh ran like hot wax and reshaped itself back into the young man he'd been forty years ealier and he stood up from the wheelchair.
"Five minutes," he said, his voice now hale and strong, dominating. "Bring the Recorder in."
Greg - me and that egg are doing just fine, thank you very much. The voices in my head are very confident in that regard.
Well, this is a treat. I appreciate that it was unplanned but that just makes it all the more of a treat. The prompt was just a phrase that popped into my head and now I'm very glad that I chose to make use of it :)
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