The exercise:
Almost back in the first half of the month, we're returning to The Dream Kingdom today.
Work went fairly well today. Blue skies returned for another visit, which helped a lot. Kind of forgot how hot the sun is when it's not being filtered through a nice, dense layer of smoke though.
Better get this done before sleep wins yet again.
Mine:
Dylan woke to the sound of his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He opened his eyes slowly, feeling dirt and tree debris falling away from his eyelashes, and found himself flat on his back looking up at misshapen trees.
No, not misshapen, he realized. Broken. By me. By my fall.
He sat up carefully, groaning as pain shot up his arms when he pushed himself away from the ground. He looked down at his hands and saw that his fingers were still bleeding from where the flying carpet had punctured them.
Stop it, he thought firmly. Stop bleeding.
To his surprise, they did just that.
"Huh," he said. Or tried to. Mostly he just mumbled out bits of the terrain he had landed on. He spent a few moments spitting and wiping his mouth clean. "Bleh. What's that noise?"
The hammering of his heart was still loud in his head but he had finally noticed that there were other sounds nearby. A grinding cacophony was coming from his right, along with what sounded like a waterfall. As he got up to investigate a surge went through his body and he wondered if he was going to faint.
He remained conscious, though he swayed unsteadily for several seconds. Once he felt mostly confident that he could walk, he began to do so. The pounding in his head was unrelenting, and now it felt as though wild electricity was shooting through his veins.
When he reached the crest of the hill he looked down to see an escalator, of sorts. He shook his head to clear his vision but the severely out of place contraption remained. Shortly after that he realized that Olivia, Josh, and Nystor were riding up toward him. He raised his arm to wave to them but then one of the armed statues behind them came to life and began climbing after them. And then another. And another.
"Watch out behind you!"
The three turned and he could hear his friends scream. Maybe Nystor did too. Dylan knew he had to do something to help them, and fast. He looked down at his empty hands.
"Sword." He said it with a confidence that felt out of place in that strange landscape and he felt a tingling like electric shock in his fingertips. Nearly instantaneously a long, heavy sword flickered into existence in his right hand. "Lighter," he grunted and it became easier to hold. He looked toward his friends again to see there were now six armed statues pursuing them. "Another sword."
Armed with blades in both hands he took a deep breath. Just before he began to descend he remembered to imagine one more item into place.
"Armor."
Haha, so you now want pleasant smoke that lessens the effect of the sun without polluting the air, making it hard to breathe, or making it too cold? I think you can have that... they're called clouds :) You just need to get a pilot's licence, a small plane, and a stockpile of Silver Iodide and you can create them whenever you need. Or at least until the local authorities throw you in jail for stealing rain.
ReplyDeleteAh, you took the story back to Dylan, which I'm very happy about as I was a little worried that splitting the group up would make it difficult for us to rescue King Brekstan before the end of the year. There are some nice details in here with the bleeding fingers and the broken trees and the mouth full of mud; I really enjoyed reading this. I feel like I'm experiencing things right along with Dylan!
And bringing the statues to life... well, I wasn't expecting that! I wonder if it's accidental or if there's already some malevolent force at work here?
Mine:
The shock that ran through him was like all the wild electricity from earlier had surged through him at once, and he blinked, puzzled as to why the view had changed. Where the others had been, unaware of the danger of the living statues climbing towards them, was now just a blue emptiness. He squinted, trying to focus, and then realisation struck him. It was the sky, and he was lying flat on his back.
He tried to move and his body moved slightly inside the armor encasing him, but nothing else. Too heavy he thought, like the sword. "Lighter," he said, hoping that it worked just like last time. Nothing seemed to change, but now when he tried to move he could. He rolled over, got to his knees, and turned back around.
Olivia had reached the top and was walking towards him, her mouth set in her "I've got something to say" expression; behind her Josh was leaning on Nystor and something about him didn't look right. All eight statues were now moving and the first two had nearly reached the top of the escalator, so Dylan started running to get between them and Nystor. Olivia's expression went from set to confused, and she turned as he ran past her. He heard her curse, using her father's favourite string of swear-words and despite the predicament a smile curled his lips up. He ran past Nystor, who looked as though he was trying to say something, and then he was stood on the unpleasantly squishy ground near the top of the escalator and two unfeeling, steel-grey faces turned towards him. Two swords -- he suddenly realised that they were as long as he was tall, lifted effortlessly and sweat burst out all over his body. What the hell was he thinking of?
"Dylan!" He looked to his left. Olivia ran up. She was also holding two swords -- he was annoyed to see that hers were curved like katanas and wished he'd thought of that -- and was wearing armour like some kind of samurai outfit. "There's eight of them!"
Dylan nodded once, firmly. His throat was so tight he was sure he'd just squeak if he tried talking and his legs felt like he'd fall over if he tried walking. One of the statues swung its sword, but it was still too far away. He lifted both of his swords in what he hoped was a threatening posture, and was pleased to see Olivia copying him.
Five of the statues were now at the top of the hill and the first two stepped close enough to the children to strike at them.
"Vyechr," said Nystor somewhere behind them, and blue lightning spidered across the two leading statues, crawling slowly about before disappearing. The statues froze and Dylan leapt forward, his brain screaming that his legs were being idiots and smashed his swords against the statue's legs. He realised at last they were at least five metres tall as well. The swords sang like angels and quivered so hard in his hands that he thought he was going to drop them but the statue seemed unharmed.
ReplyDelete"Vorpal!" yelled Olivia. She ran up next to him, pale as death, and swung her swords at the same leg. Hers sliced through it like it was made of butter and the statue swayed. "You have to think the swords are really, really sharp. Vorpal!"
Dylan nodded. "Get back," he said, running back himself. "It's falling!"
As they got out of the way the statue fell over and an arm broke off, and Dylan felt a breath of relief. Then he looked around and realised that the other statues were forming a circle around them.
"Oh sugar," he said, and Olivia stared at him.
"Seriously?" she said. "We're going to die and you still can't swear?"
Blue lightning spidered over more of the statues but only reached four of them, so Olivia and Dylan raised their swords and tried to face the remaining three. The statues moved apart, making it impossible for the children to face more than one each.
Swords raised, huge grey bars of descending death and then the statues suddenly slipped downwards, slowly at first but then faster and faster. Underneath their feet sinkholes seemed to have opened and something red bubbled. A blast of heat hit Dylan's face and he sneezed.
"Lava?" he asked.
Olivia looked around. "They're all sinking," she said. "We can kill them now!"
She and Dylan quickly moved around the circle decapitating each statue with a single slice from their magically sharp swords. The heads stilled as they were separated from the bodies, and rolled into an untidy pile in the middle. When they were all done they rejoined Nystor and Josh.
"That was very brave of you," said Nystor. "Stupid beyond belief, but very brave."
"Is that supposed to be a thank-you?" said Olivia. She waved a katana at Nystor and then looked dismayed as he frowned and the blade turned to rubber. "We saved your life!"
"You got in the way of me dealing them in much the way Josh here did," said Nystor. "Simply burying them in the earth would have stopped them."
"You did that with the lava?" said Dylan. Josh nodded. "Only... it looked like there were arms in the lava reaching up and pulling the statues down."
Josh dipped his head, looking embarrassed.
"He did very well," said Nystor. "While I still wish we had time to train you all, I can see that I chose you well. You all have strong talents."
"Hey! I chose Josh and Liv!" Dylan tried to put his hands on his hips and realised he had them full of swords. "Where do you put a sword when you're not using it?"
"In a sword-pocket," said Nystor with a smile. "Also called a scabbard. You can imagine yourself some. By the way, what is the meaning of the crest on your armour?"
Dylan looked down at the breastplate where a cartoon figure, familiar from so much merchandise, smiled back at him.
"It's Hello Kitty," said Josh, laughing. "It suits you."
Greg - clouds sound nice...
ReplyDeleteThanks :)
Ah, that was a satisfying battle. Good work! And the Hello Kitty armor... definitely a nice touch :D
Now... where to next?