01-08-2017, 03:24 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-26-2018, 09:56 PM by Jade Harley.)
The warble of my own laughter is still ringing in my ears when I step out of the echoing emptiness of that hellish alabaster expanse and into the piercing glow of a glorious noonday sun, shining in a cloudless sky. I'm standing on a high hill, upon moist, rich soil. A forest is nearby, with some rock outcroppings poking above the treetops. I only recognize the bizarrely enlarged plants because of my elevation, which gives me something closer to my accustomed perspective - walking through such places, surrounded by trees that are many times my size, is an experience I don't look forward to at all.
Setting them alight is another matter. I've always liked the smell of burning vegetation. Or burning living things in general, really.
On the horizon, I see a snow-capped mountain-range, hazy from distance. Between here and there are lakes, streams, rivers, forests, and vast fields of grass (The fact that there's a word for grass is astonishing. It's so small, thinking about it in my former incarnation would have been less than pointless). This world is so rich that it practically gleams like a jewel in the sun. When I've regained my proper form, ruining it will be a joy.
What really grabs my attention, though, is much closer to hand.
Arranged all around me are enormous, rectangular gray rocks, almost twice my height. They're piled on top of one another in sets of three, two stones standing on-end and a third laid across the top, forming mock-gateways of sorts, facing the real one. Spaced evenly, all together they form a circle of monoliths about a dozen meters across.
Someone clearly put a great deal of time and effort into this strange monument. It was probably expected to last for centuries.
Such a ridiculous, pointless ambition. It demands a delicious demonstration.
I bathe the stones in golden lightning, bolts of heat and force arcing from my fingertips and crackling from my jaws, laughing at the mad folly that put this absurd construction here in the first place. My power rips furrows in the soil, reducing tiny, green growing things to ashes. It strikes sparks from the monoliths, blasting red-hot shrapnel high into the air. Stray bolts hit the forest far below, cracking tree-trunks and setting undergrowth alight.
About a minute later, amidst air thick with dust and smoke, I stop blasting, and I stare, red-eyed and dumbfounded.
The stones are still standing. The're scarred and pitted, yes, blackened and ravaged by the force of my peerless astral charge. They glow red-hot, clicking as they cool, but they've barely moved. Only one of them is even cracked!
At my proper size I could have obliterated this place with a single stray bolt!
Shaking with fury at my own impotence, I stalk over to the nearest monolith, and I strike it as hard as I can with my palm. Other than a loud, meaty sound, this accomplishes nothing, so I curl my fingers around my thumb, making my first ever fist (such a lovely, functional word), and I do it again. Stone chips fly, and I bare my teeth in glee.
It takes me almost ten minutes of constant two-handed pounding to crack the accursed thing, and by the time it falls my hands are numb, but the apocalyptic snap! as it breaks may be one of the sweetest sounds I've ever heard. The grinding rumble as the pieces topple, taking the enormous stone the target of my anger was supporting with them, is even sweeter. I'm so entranced that I nearly fail to step out of the way.
When the capstone hits the ground, the entire hillside jumps, knocking me off my feet. In the ensuing stillness I feel something I've only felt once before: the horrible thrill of Fear. If I'd stepped back just a little bit slower, I know instinctively that I would have been seriously hurt.
A loathesome idea, but one I absolutely cannot ignore takes hold.
I'm vulnerable in this new form. I'm going to have to be more careful.
Setting them alight is another matter. I've always liked the smell of burning vegetation. Or burning living things in general, really.
On the horizon, I see a snow-capped mountain-range, hazy from distance. Between here and there are lakes, streams, rivers, forests, and vast fields of grass (The fact that there's a word for grass is astonishing. It's so small, thinking about it in my former incarnation would have been less than pointless). This world is so rich that it practically gleams like a jewel in the sun. When I've regained my proper form, ruining it will be a joy.
What really grabs my attention, though, is much closer to hand.
Arranged all around me are enormous, rectangular gray rocks, almost twice my height. They're piled on top of one another in sets of three, two stones standing on-end and a third laid across the top, forming mock-gateways of sorts, facing the real one. Spaced evenly, all together they form a circle of monoliths about a dozen meters across.
Someone clearly put a great deal of time and effort into this strange monument. It was probably expected to last for centuries.
Such a ridiculous, pointless ambition. It demands a delicious demonstration.
I bathe the stones in golden lightning, bolts of heat and force arcing from my fingertips and crackling from my jaws, laughing at the mad folly that put this absurd construction here in the first place. My power rips furrows in the soil, reducing tiny, green growing things to ashes. It strikes sparks from the monoliths, blasting red-hot shrapnel high into the air. Stray bolts hit the forest far below, cracking tree-trunks and setting undergrowth alight.
About a minute later, amidst air thick with dust and smoke, I stop blasting, and I stare, red-eyed and dumbfounded.
The stones are still standing. The're scarred and pitted, yes, blackened and ravaged by the force of my peerless astral charge. They glow red-hot, clicking as they cool, but they've barely moved. Only one of them is even cracked!
At my proper size I could have obliterated this place with a single stray bolt!
Shaking with fury at my own impotence, I stalk over to the nearest monolith, and I strike it as hard as I can with my palm. Other than a loud, meaty sound, this accomplishes nothing, so I curl my fingers around my thumb, making my first ever fist (such a lovely, functional word), and I do it again. Stone chips fly, and I bare my teeth in glee.
It takes me almost ten minutes of constant two-handed pounding to crack the accursed thing, and by the time it falls my hands are numb, but the apocalyptic snap! as it breaks may be one of the sweetest sounds I've ever heard. The grinding rumble as the pieces topple, taking the enormous stone the target of my anger was supporting with them, is even sweeter. I'm so entranced that I nearly fail to step out of the way.
When the capstone hits the ground, the entire hillside jumps, knocking me off my feet. In the ensuing stillness I feel something I've only felt once before: the horrible thrill of Fear. If I'd stepped back just a little bit slower, I know instinctively that I would have been seriously hurt.
A loathesome idea, but one I absolutely cannot ignore takes hold.
I'm vulnerable in this new form. I'm going to have to be more careful.