06-12-2017, 06:42 PM
“So if I head up to that way, and it changes, that should allow me to… no, that’s not right” I glowered at the “map” printed across my visor, trying to solve the various pieces in front of me with all the mental capacity a high school degree could provide. It had been a grueling slog since I entered the Void, rules I knew in reality were merely a passing joke here, and the technology that would have saved my ass from being lost even in the warped hellhole of Capital Dis was being pushed to its limit as well as mine. I’ve to unlearned a lot about, well, everything, and here I was standing around second guessing myself like a tool.
“Fuck it” I finally decided, and bursted across the catwalk. It seemed indistinguishable from the others I had crossed to get to this point, but I wasn’t exactly pressed on time and if this WAS the wrong way, I’d just cross it off the list.
The very, very long lists with a lot of crosses on it.
“Come on” I demanded to whatever fate or luck overlooking this place. Once I was centered in the middle of what I assumed was the center of the area, a long trapezoid (there’s a word I never thought I’d use when I graduated high school), with 6 paths connected to it including the one I entered through. I can’t even remember I was there just squeezing my eyes tight, chanting those two words over and over until something happened.
There was no whoosh of wind, no feel of dimensional travel, not a single change. I just closed my eyes and hoped for the best.
When I opened them, I did see a change. Rather than the previous shape, it was now shaped like a diamond. This was not at all like I had assumed, the platform had been cut in half when I though the divide was at the pathways. I zipped through the different map parts filled though my automapper’s cache and realized this fragmented the parts even smaller and increased the combinations to an almost infinite amount more, when the combinations were already a number higher than I could count..
And I haven’t gotten any closer to any gate, let alone to Omni.
Bubbling rage that I had held back as the frustration of walking alone in this miserable void had turned to boil, and without anyone to vent it on I ripped my helmet from my own head and spiked it into the white and unyielding surface, a piercing crack reverberated into the nothingness.
“FUCK, SHIT, DAMN, COCKSUCKER-” I cursed, I raged, I let out every bad word I knew even if there was no one here to be offended by it. Even getting this outraged was adding to the frustration. How many times had I gotten angry like this since I entered? Every little setback pissed me off more than it should have, this place had ground me down to my wit’s end and my temperament has only got worse.
“RIPPING YOUR FUCKING ARMS OFF, PIECE OF ASS, MOTHER RARGHING, BRAH, DORRGEN, AAAAGH!” As insults and swears turned into gibberish and primal yelling, I kicked the nearest object and sent it flying towards the edge.
And my heart nosed dived into the pit of my stomach and my eyes grew the size of dinner plates as I realized what I sent spinning across the "sky" was my helmet.
I kinda needed that.
I raced after it, a vague hope that the arc of the kick meant I could catch it on the way down before I lost all my progress and the thing that’s saved my ass (er, head) far too many times to count. I reached out, my hand outstretched so far it felt like my arm was going to pop out of its socket, and I leapt into the air with jet pack primed.
Not that there was a point to it, as the flying object suddenly stopped in mid fight before it was even in reach, and I’m sure the look of dumbfoundedness, along with the following crash back to terraferma, would have been funny had there been anyone here to watch. Instead I quietly got up and dusted myself in the lonely landscape of the void.
“Of course. Why was I expecting anything else?” I asked aloud as I examined the IFH (identified flying helmet) hovering out of reach, lazily spinning without any consideration for physics or my feelings. It was slightly degrading to have used my shotgun as a stick to grab the thing, but at least I retrieved it with minimal fuss “Sometimes I really got to assume the stupidest thing is going to happen, and when it doesn’t I’ll be less disappointed.”
“And I’m still just talking to myself, aren’t I?” I looked around, seeing that was the case, shook my head, and slipped my helmet back on. “People are going to think I’m crazy”
“Not that I’m crazy” I reassured myself.
Once the helmet was placed back on where it was supposed to be, I flipped through the HUD to see what damage I did from my field goal kick. Sure, it’s survived being dunked in lava, hammer blows from demons twice my size, bullets, rockets, and hellfire, but the dumbest shit has a tendency to knock out equipment.
What I found was a lot better than three points. It seemed in its maiden voyage it collected a LOT of data on the shape of the maze, and I was already dividing the parts into their smaller components. If this was like one giant jigsaw puzzle, then at the least I’ve found more of the pieces. In this expanse, that could mean less than a percent of all the pieces, but it was still more that I had before. And if there was one thing that I felt missing, it was progress.
“I guess I should abuse my equipment more often” I joked before I started down the next path.
“Fuck it” I finally decided, and bursted across the catwalk. It seemed indistinguishable from the others I had crossed to get to this point, but I wasn’t exactly pressed on time and if this WAS the wrong way, I’d just cross it off the list.
The very, very long lists with a lot of crosses on it.
“Come on” I demanded to whatever fate or luck overlooking this place. Once I was centered in the middle of what I assumed was the center of the area, a long trapezoid (there’s a word I never thought I’d use when I graduated high school), with 6 paths connected to it including the one I entered through. I can’t even remember I was there just squeezing my eyes tight, chanting those two words over and over until something happened.
There was no whoosh of wind, no feel of dimensional travel, not a single change. I just closed my eyes and hoped for the best.
When I opened them, I did see a change. Rather than the previous shape, it was now shaped like a diamond. This was not at all like I had assumed, the platform had been cut in half when I though the divide was at the pathways. I zipped through the different map parts filled though my automapper’s cache and realized this fragmented the parts even smaller and increased the combinations to an almost infinite amount more, when the combinations were already a number higher than I could count..
And I haven’t gotten any closer to any gate, let alone to Omni.
Bubbling rage that I had held back as the frustration of walking alone in this miserable void had turned to boil, and without anyone to vent it on I ripped my helmet from my own head and spiked it into the white and unyielding surface, a piercing crack reverberated into the nothingness.
“FUCK, SHIT, DAMN, COCKSUCKER-” I cursed, I raged, I let out every bad word I knew even if there was no one here to be offended by it. Even getting this outraged was adding to the frustration. How many times had I gotten angry like this since I entered? Every little setback pissed me off more than it should have, this place had ground me down to my wit’s end and my temperament has only got worse.
“RIPPING YOUR FUCKING ARMS OFF, PIECE OF ASS, MOTHER RARGHING, BRAH, DORRGEN, AAAAGH!” As insults and swears turned into gibberish and primal yelling, I kicked the nearest object and sent it flying towards the edge.
And my heart nosed dived into the pit of my stomach and my eyes grew the size of dinner plates as I realized what I sent spinning across the "sky" was my helmet.
I kinda needed that.
I raced after it, a vague hope that the arc of the kick meant I could catch it on the way down before I lost all my progress and the thing that’s saved my ass (er, head) far too many times to count. I reached out, my hand outstretched so far it felt like my arm was going to pop out of its socket, and I leapt into the air with jet pack primed.
Not that there was a point to it, as the flying object suddenly stopped in mid fight before it was even in reach, and I’m sure the look of dumbfoundedness, along with the following crash back to terraferma, would have been funny had there been anyone here to watch. Instead I quietly got up and dusted myself in the lonely landscape of the void.
“Of course. Why was I expecting anything else?” I asked aloud as I examined the IFH (identified flying helmet) hovering out of reach, lazily spinning without any consideration for physics or my feelings. It was slightly degrading to have used my shotgun as a stick to grab the thing, but at least I retrieved it with minimal fuss “Sometimes I really got to assume the stupidest thing is going to happen, and when it doesn’t I’ll be less disappointed.”
“And I’m still just talking to myself, aren’t I?” I looked around, seeing that was the case, shook my head, and slipped my helmet back on. “People are going to think I’m crazy”
“Not that I’m crazy” I reassured myself.
Once the helmet was placed back on where it was supposed to be, I flipped through the HUD to see what damage I did from my field goal kick. Sure, it’s survived being dunked in lava, hammer blows from demons twice my size, bullets, rockets, and hellfire, but the dumbest shit has a tendency to knock out equipment.
What I found was a lot better than three points. It seemed in its maiden voyage it collected a LOT of data on the shape of the maze, and I was already dividing the parts into their smaller components. If this was like one giant jigsaw puzzle, then at the least I’ve found more of the pieces. In this expanse, that could mean less than a percent of all the pieces, but it was still more that I had before. And if there was one thing that I felt missing, it was progress.
“I guess I should abuse my equipment more often” I joked before I started down the next path.
![[Image: oGzCtPC.png]](http://i.imgur.com/oGzCtPC.png)