09-14-2017, 01:29 AM
They weren't going to make it.
The falling section of forest-floor was nearly vertical, and Kelly was fairly certain that only the increasingly unreliability of basic laws of force, distance and time had prevented the entire slab of firmament from breaking off already, plunging him and X into the void along with it. The two Liberators needed to clear the lip of the widening pit before this senescent, demented reality remembered they should be dead, and although they were making progress by literal leaps and bounds the psychic doubted they could cover the remaining distance in time.
A change of approach was needed.
We need to stop treating these trees like platforms - I doubt they're going to be intact enough to support our full weight for more than a couple more seconds anyway...
The traveler spared a critical half-second to study the arrangement of disintegrating trunks between him and his goal - and then he resumed his acrobatic ascent, but at a slightly altered angle - aiming not to alight upon a higher trunk, but rather to approach at an angle.
Kelly bent his knees, twisted his body in the air and kicked off the side of the tree he'd chosen, launching himself higher without pausing or settling.
"X!" he yelled, sinking to the ankles into sawdust and rot as he impacted the graying ruins of his next waypoint. He felt it crumble as pushed off, pinballing higher. "Jump reflexively! Don't pause!"
There wasn't time to look back. The traveler's hair streamed behind him in the wind of his passage, an unbound mess sticky with mud and gore. The pain, though abundant was merely academic, but the dry air felt cold against his wounds. For a couple of seconds, it was nearly peaceful - his goal was simple, the process was clear. All that was left to Kelly was the execution, moving a well-honed body with satisfying precision born of long-accustomed use as he blazed a rapid path to the edge.
One final leap barely carried the traveler up the black wall of a retreating cliff, criss-crossed by broken tree-roots. The toe of his boot caught the edge, and he pushed off, launching himself forward into a sprint across refreshingly flat ground.
Kelly frowned. The level terrain was the only thing reassuring about his surroundings. Behind him, as though from a great distance, he heard something crumble.
The forest was gone. The sky was unnervingly black - and seemed lower somehow, felt as though it lacked a sense of depth, descending as he watched. The ground was utterly flat as far as he could see, with no sign that a forest had ever stood there save for the twisted tree-roots beneath the traveler's pounding feet - and even those seemed squashed into a state of fading two-dimensionality.
A single point of green light gleamed on the horizon, flickering softly.
Kelly risked a look over his shoulder.
There was Nothing there.
It was chasing him.
There may have been another silhouette against the dark, a tiny Something against the void, but it was hard to judge at a glance.
I guess I'll just have to hope that's X back there. At this point, that's all I can do for him.
The traveler redoubled his efforts, ignoring the subtle numbness that was beginning to creep into his legs, and the odd stillness in the air. The only sound in the world was the hollow clack of his heels on what had become a non-surface which almost reminded him of the Nexus.
The portal was growing closer, a circle of withered vines with a welcoming picture in the center, the only source of light in a cancerous reality he'd helped to kill - was it only minutes ago? It felt like he'd been running for days.
Time flowed like half-congealed mollasses. Kelly ran in front of himself, and behind himself, jostling for position with phantoms. He could see X ahead of him, a shadow against the portal's light, but but also off to the side, cast by its brilliance in shades of green. The gate was close, but he could feel a tingle - an almost familiar lack as the last anchors of ontological certainty began to slip away.
The gate was in front of him. Kelly went through the gate.
He'd just arrived. He saw X go through the gate.
Plant Man Attacked, and Hornet-Man died.
Kelly alighted on a tree branch. It was a charging Moose. X fired his buster Cannon.
Kelly went through the gate.
Kelly lost his staff. He lost his staff again.
X ripped the lens out of his buster.
Plant Man caught on fire. X's blue armor steamed as caustic fluid ate its way in.
Kelly went through the gate.
Kelly got stabbed in the stomach.
Enough of this bullshit.
You've been here before.
Something happened then, a trick of perspective that Kelly couldn't quite articulate, and he chose to be the Kelly MacAryn that was going through the gate.
Natural light stung his eyes. The smell of chlorophyll, moss, and stone washed over him. Kelly stumbled and fell on the cool granite floor of the little stone temple at the center of Nebula's deserted base in the Tangled Green.
The falling section of forest-floor was nearly vertical, and Kelly was fairly certain that only the increasingly unreliability of basic laws of force, distance and time had prevented the entire slab of firmament from breaking off already, plunging him and X into the void along with it. The two Liberators needed to clear the lip of the widening pit before this senescent, demented reality remembered they should be dead, and although they were making progress by literal leaps and bounds the psychic doubted they could cover the remaining distance in time.
A change of approach was needed.
We need to stop treating these trees like platforms - I doubt they're going to be intact enough to support our full weight for more than a couple more seconds anyway...
The traveler spared a critical half-second to study the arrangement of disintegrating trunks between him and his goal - and then he resumed his acrobatic ascent, but at a slightly altered angle - aiming not to alight upon a higher trunk, but rather to approach at an angle.
Kelly bent his knees, twisted his body in the air and kicked off the side of the tree he'd chosen, launching himself higher without pausing or settling.
"X!" he yelled, sinking to the ankles into sawdust and rot as he impacted the graying ruins of his next waypoint. He felt it crumble as pushed off, pinballing higher. "Jump reflexively! Don't pause!"
There wasn't time to look back. The traveler's hair streamed behind him in the wind of his passage, an unbound mess sticky with mud and gore. The pain, though abundant was merely academic, but the dry air felt cold against his wounds. For a couple of seconds, it was nearly peaceful - his goal was simple, the process was clear. All that was left to Kelly was the execution, moving a well-honed body with satisfying precision born of long-accustomed use as he blazed a rapid path to the edge.
One final leap barely carried the traveler up the black wall of a retreating cliff, criss-crossed by broken tree-roots. The toe of his boot caught the edge, and he pushed off, launching himself forward into a sprint across refreshingly flat ground.
Kelly frowned. The level terrain was the only thing reassuring about his surroundings. Behind him, as though from a great distance, he heard something crumble.
The forest was gone. The sky was unnervingly black - and seemed lower somehow, felt as though it lacked a sense of depth, descending as he watched. The ground was utterly flat as far as he could see, with no sign that a forest had ever stood there save for the twisted tree-roots beneath the traveler's pounding feet - and even those seemed squashed into a state of fading two-dimensionality.
A single point of green light gleamed on the horizon, flickering softly.
Kelly risked a look over his shoulder.
There was Nothing there.
It was chasing him.
There may have been another silhouette against the dark, a tiny Something against the void, but it was hard to judge at a glance.
I guess I'll just have to hope that's X back there. At this point, that's all I can do for him.
The traveler redoubled his efforts, ignoring the subtle numbness that was beginning to creep into his legs, and the odd stillness in the air. The only sound in the world was the hollow clack of his heels on what had become a non-surface which almost reminded him of the Nexus.
The portal was growing closer, a circle of withered vines with a welcoming picture in the center, the only source of light in a cancerous reality he'd helped to kill - was it only minutes ago? It felt like he'd been running for days.
Time flowed like half-congealed mollasses. Kelly ran in front of himself, and behind himself, jostling for position with phantoms. He could see X ahead of him, a shadow against the portal's light, but but also off to the side, cast by its brilliance in shades of green. The gate was close, but he could feel a tingle - an almost familiar lack as the last anchors of ontological certainty began to slip away.
The gate was in front of him. Kelly went through the gate.
He'd just arrived. He saw X go through the gate.
Plant Man Attacked, and Hornet-Man died.
Kelly alighted on a tree branch. It was a charging Moose. X fired his buster Cannon.
Kelly went through the gate.
Kelly lost his staff. He lost his staff again.
X ripped the lens out of his buster.
Plant Man caught on fire. X's blue armor steamed as caustic fluid ate its way in.
Kelly went through the gate.
Kelly got stabbed in the stomach.
Enough of this bullshit.
You've been here before.
Something happened then, a trick of perspective that Kelly couldn't quite articulate, and he chose to be the Kelly MacAryn that was going through the gate.
Natural light stung his eyes. The smell of chlorophyll, moss, and stone washed over him. Kelly stumbled and fell on the cool granite floor of the little stone temple at the center of Nebula's deserted base in the Tangled Green.
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