Archer

"The Titanic!" one higher pitched voice of the dead squealed excitedly, a half-second out of sync with the others. "Oops! Sorry, can we do that again? I wasn't ready!"

Tion heard a sharp twang break the near silence of the night. He lips parted to let out a soft ‘oh’ of surprise, but it turned into a grunt as the barbed point of the arrow burrowed into his flesh. “Ohhh oh ohhhhh!” he groaned. The blow pushed him downwards. His stack of sticks fell haphazardly into the bushes, forgotten to the searing pain that had erupted around his right shoulder blade. Blood gushed from the entry wound, splattering on the bushes below as he spun uselessly to try to look at it with his red tinged vision. Ever movement was agonizing. He heard his heart pumping in his ears, beating faster in faster, sending pools of red dripping outwards, out and out and out. Above it all, searing pain. It was glorious. Falling to his knees, he threw his head back and screamed. “EN-TRO-PY!” For a moment, he wondered if she could hurt the others, but he discarded that notion. She was using a bow. That was a human weapon. “And human weapons… are stupid,” he mumbled deliriously, the pain close to overwhelming him. He used his Power to amplify it. Negation was close enough, no one would die this night. But he still wanted to see what death felt like. He watched the fireflies fly in circles in the sky in front of him, spinning faster and faster, or maybe those were the stars. Whatever they were, they were getting brighter. He smiled at the light and embraced it, falling unconscious to the ground.

Yes. So, most of them would probably be able to burn a hole in your bowling shoes, but not much else. Alternatively, they might be inclined to assist you in getting a strike, if your interests align, so there's that to consider. I could see Ruin trying to give you some hemalurgic upgrades with really, really tiny spikes, if he thought that it would help you trash Scadrial.

The Monastery of the Pebble. Nine years ago. Summer; early afternoon. “Perhaps she is hiding beneath this rock!” Tion mused loudly, dramatically shrugging his shoulders and pursing his lips comedically. With feigned effort, he flipped over a large stone that had been lying on the raked gravel that covered the ground. He was searching his way through an artistically arranged rock-garden courtyard, the central point of a ring of wooden lodges. In the heat of the afternoon, they offered some much-appreciated shade. “I do not believe she could have hidden under there,” commented Oldolf, an impressively well muscled monk who was walking on his hands nearer to one of the huts, slowly waddling around in a figure-eight. Tion flipped over another rock, gasping loudly when he found nothing under it. “I dunno. She might have dug a hole.” That elicited a slew of soft giggles from behind the space’s central tree (which was, coincidentally, the only viable hiding spot within the pre-established boundaries for their hide-and-seek game). Tion pretended not to hear them. “You are nearly out of rocks, Sensei Tion,” observed the monk. “Gadzooks!” Tion exclaimed as he pushed aside a boulder. “So I am.” He scratched his head expressively. Another peel of laughter from the tree’s direction graced his ears. “Oh dear,” he said cheerfully. “Perhaps she’s over here!” Walking overstatedly on his tip-toes, he ‘snuck’ towards the tree. As he neared its trunk, he peered upwards, into its sparse canopy. “She’s not up here,” he declared, then peered down at the plant’s roots. “Nor down here. Hmmm!” Moving quickly, he lunged over to the opposite side of the tree. “Ah-ha!” he cried. But his quarry was not there. “Wait, what?” the god of Sensation blurted out, rounding the tree again as he tried to figure out where she had gone. “My apologies, Sensei,” Oldolf called over. “The young lady asked me to assist her with my ventriloquism skills. You underestimate the woman.” The hairs on the back of Tion’s neck suddenly perked up. He spun to look over his shoulder as, having just leapt off the roof of a nearby hut, the small body of a girl passed in front of the sun as she flew directly at him, casting a rapidly expanding shadow over his body. “FOOOOOUND YOUUUU!” she screamed, smashing into his chest forcefully, bowling him over. Oldolf began walking towards them in his handstand. “You appear to have lost, Sensei,” he noted dryly. ****** The woods near to the open-secret meeting place. Modern day. Sometime after midnight. Tion felt his way through the forest, naturally navigating towards the areas where the moonlight slipped through the canopy in faint white beams. In his arms he carried a stack of large sticks which he had collected. As he passed through an especially well-lit spot, he looked at his load, trying to gauge how much more he could carry. A few more should do it, he decided. He could have altered his perception of the night to let him see better, but there was something alluringly tranquil about the landscape around him when it was lit like this that made him want to savour it as it was. Snap. His left foot crushed a dead branch underfoot, breaking it in two. He bent over to pick it up, a serene smile on his face. Time to head back. Tion straightened up, taking one last glance at the beautiful nightscape around him while his back was still to the fire. He watched a pair of fireflies as they flitted playfully about through the trees, ignoring his aching hand and the tingling feeling that slowly began around the top of his spine, raising the hairs around that area. The God of Sensation just wanted to drink in the view. He was pretty sure enjoying that sort of thing was in his job description anyway. Mmmm. Yeah, I have an excuse. One of the sticks poked against his chest, pressing the small, grey pebble he had nestled in his breast pocket into his ribs. That made him smile even wider.

Feeling eerily like a ghost, Tion swam through the darkness. The inky shades of the forest canopy were lost on his fire-dullened eyes. Before him he saw just blackness. Fortunately, he knew the woods around him well. To his left, lay a grove of ancient oak trees, tall and proud. Straight ahead, he soon remembered as he picked his way through the brambles, was a selection of hardy spruces. And a short ways beyond that, a single abies procera, what the nomad tribes called a Noble Fir. Despite being at least a hundred miles from the species’ traditional growing place, he knew that it was one of the most resilient and oldest plants in the forest. After all, Tion had been the one to plant it. His hands raked against a barbed vine. It failed to draw blood, but he paused his crawl into the violet abyss to savour the unexpected sensation. “Magnificent,” he whispered, seizing the weed and yanking it out of the ground. “MAGNIFICENT!” He bellowed, causing a flurry of tiny movements as the nearby creatures of the night scurried in terror at the sound. The still of the night shattered, Tion began to feel alive again. He hadn’t realized how draining interacting with all the other gods had been, but now that he was out of their presence, he felt refreshed and energized. With his free hand, he grabbed wildly at space in front of him. The god began to laugh as, again and again, his hand made little clapping noises as it caught only air. “What a time,” he whispered. “What a time to carpe noctem.”

The fire crackled softly. Tion's shadow was, like, really long. And super ominous looking.

If this competition requires a substitute if someone drops out unexpectedly feel free to ping me and I’ll do it. That said, I’ve participated in this competition more than my fair share of times, so I’d prefer if other people got first dibs at taking a crack at it (that includes any other pinch hitters who may choose to sign up as such, and, obviously, full participants). Still, in the spirit of being prepared for all eventualities, I figure it’s better to offer now then to have to work this stuff out mid-game. Best of luck to those of you who are going to write roasts, I'm sure you'll all do great.

Tion’s dark eyes flickered in the light of the fire. He was thankful that Luna had started it, for it gave him a chance to examine the other gods’ appearances in true detail for the first time in a while. It was always humorous to see how they had changed their appearances, to better reflect their current personalities, to experiment with disguises, and, he cringed, to reflect the fashion trends of the day. Gaiti though… they never seemed to change. Their face morphed and their clothes were inconsistent, but somehow, more than any of them, there was something about them that always seemed familiar to Tion. He watched as they tenderly spoke with the recently healed John. Like a mother coddling their child. “I’ll go get some more firewood,” Tion announced. Without waiting for anyone to respond, he turned his back on the light and headed towards the treeline, in search of branches to burn. His body cast a long, twisted shadow as he quietly slunk away.

Welcome! If Cosmere planets were the size of bowling balls, which would you use to play a game of ten pin bowling? (Taking into account the effect your actions will have on the local inhabitants and the ability of the resident shard to stand up to you. )

A cave at the base of a mountain. Twelve years ago. Pre-dawn. “You are very good at this. I mean that quite sincerely. This is exactly how I’ve always imagined taking drugs would feel like.” The elderly lady reached a wizened hand out of the sleeve of her flowing, blood-red robe and threw some more sand from her satchel onto fire that Tion and she sat around. The knees of her crossed legs bounced irregularly. “The smoke’s a bit much, I think,” Tion continued. “I’d be fine with just the little that’s actually here. ‘Filling’ the cave is kind of overkill, don’t you think?” The old woman continued to throw grains of sand on the embers. They made harsh hissing noises whenever they landed. When she finally spoke, her voice was scratchy and barely audible. “Tell me, child, for how long have you sought the Oracle Under the Hill?” Tion flicked out his fingers, counting the years that had gone by since he had first taken an interest in the sage’s work. When he had only a thumb left touching his palm, he held them up for her to see. “About ninety years, give or take a season.” Her pale eyes studied him skeptically, but she did not challenge him on it. “Then why is it that now that you have found her, you seem solely intent on mockery?” she queried. “Because,” Tion replied with a giggle, “you’re not the Oracle.” Another handful of sand was thrown, more aggressively this time. “I have advised a thousand kings and generals,” she rasped. “You are the first to question my credentials.” Tion ignored her. “So where is she?” he asked. “Ancient lady, looks a bit like you with less hair? Penned the book about the bunny? Renowned among historians for receiving Truths that make absolutely no sense, but make for hilarious reading?” He pushed on some of her emotions a bit with his mind. “Barry’s Backyard Adventure was never meant to be published,” she grumbled. “Look,” Tion pressed, “It’s pretty obvious that you aren’t a Truth. Short of having a noose around your neck and an angry mod of villagers chasing you, you’re a textbook example of a gal with the Sensation instinct.” This time, she ignored him, instead choosing to groan dramatically. “Arghhh!” she screamed. “I am receiving a vision!” Tion was unimpressed. “Your grandmother was better at that,” he chided. She dropped the act. “Fine!” she hissed vehemently. “She’s been dead for eighty years. What are you going to do about it?” Tion was taken aback. “Do?” he said, easing up on the amount of Power he was channeling towards her. “Go ahead! Expose this order to the world!” she dared him. “See how the lords of this land react when you decry their favourite seer.” The god of Sensation furrowed his brows. “I can’t do that. There’s at least seven fiefdoms nearby where local rulers’ authority is largely based on your blessing. I’d be directly responsible for civil unrest at best, and civil wars at worst. This society runs on instincts. Bad things happen when they’re undermined.” ***** The most popular secret glade in the forest. Present Day. Nighttime. “Quite right!” Tion replied to Luna and Truth’s assertions regarding Creativity. “It takes all ten gods to make the world run as it should, including him.” He did not know whether fighting was considered an art, but he would not have been surprised if it was. Not the dirty, no-holds-barred desperation fighting that he had seen practiced on battlefields, but the showy, sword juggling, demonstration form of combat that most military elitists played at seemed right up the god’s alley. “Now, Truth,” he said, changing the subject while he waited for Negation to spill whatever clever plan they undoubtably had brewing, “you never did answer my question. Can you lie?” He was being blunt, but some knowledge was worth obtaining regardless of how other people felt about the tactics employed to get it. ***** “Then why?” screeched the current Oracle Under the Hill. “Why did you visit me?” Tion got up from his seat on the rock, shook his legs awake, and started heading towards the exit. “Because,” he called over his shoulder as he walked towards the threshold of the chamber, “your grandmother told me to.” The old lady screamed in frustration. Tion brushed some cave dust off of his coat as the light of the sunrise greeted his return to the open air. A half-emptied bag of sand hit him in the back of the head as he stepped outside.

Tion was feeling outsmarted. To conceal his woeful ignorance, he tapped his pursed lips with his index finger and made the occasional hmm sound to make it appear as if he was deep in thought. "Powers you shall lose yet retain,” Truth was saying. “I have been noticing some hiccups with my Power recently. Hmmm.” “Powers to get that you might be fain…” “Hmm.” “Powers upon you, these powers reviled…” “HMMM.” “Powers to prove you naught but a child." “Heh,” he whispered to himself. “We’ll probably all get Creativity’s Power or something. Talk about useless.” He looked around the glade. I wonder where that god is, anyway. Probably putting on another bad rendition of The Great Beast’s Brother or something.

Tion shrugged, taking his flask back. She’s a weak feeemale! Her face is PALE! sang the stupid voice in his head that acted up whenever he was especially stressed. He was pretty sure that it was a corrupted form of his conscience that he had ignored for too long, forcing his subconscious to take extreme (lyrical) measures in order to get him to pay attention to it. He blinked, realizing that he had zoned out momentarily. His hand was still outstretched, holding the container of water awkwardly in the air. Thankfully, Truth had said something to draw the other’s attention. Tion nodded mindlessly, jumping in when he felt he had an opening. “Well said, ma'am,” he said quickly once Izzy had said her piece. “Now, if you would be so inclined, Negation, I believe some information about the Augury would be much appreciated by all of us. Perhaps you could tell us about how we could best move forward to address the ongoing situation as well?” He realized that he still had the flask in his hand, so he uncorked it and took a long sip to wet his parched mouth. His lips had suddenly became as dry as paper.

Izzy’s presence made Tion squirm. If you’re going to bring strangers into our midst, he thought spitefully, at least choose worthy ones. That girl’s never even seen combat before, much less fought anyone. He shook the vial in his pocket, confirming that it was still empty. His previous encounters with Negation had taught him that if they used their powers to target him specifically, there was never any trace unless they wanted there to be. But if they do a wide-scale reversal, maybe they’ll mess up for once? There was a chance that Negation might accidentally refill his bottle if she bungled a reset, albeit a small one. That was the only test that Tion could think of to see if he was being manipulated. Of course, if it did not work, he would never know. Still, it gave him comfort to have a strategy in place, even if it relied on luck. For the second time that night, he eyed Probability thoughtfully, before shooting a grin in the newcomers’ direction. “Negation!” he greeted them warmly. “This is an honour! I trust that you are well.” He dipped his head respectfully, winking at Izzy as he did so. “Salutations to your companion as well. I look forward to seeing what talents or insight they possess that inspired you to invite them to our humble gathering.” He nodded at her politely, his pleasant expression betraying none of the loathing he felt at her being among them. Rather, he produced a small flask of water from one of his many pockets and offered it to her comfortingly, praying that he had read Negation’s body language towards her correctly and that this girl was in fact a valued guest and not a prisoner or servant. No, no, no, came a sudden thought. Should have offered it to Neggie first. Fortunately, he managed to keep his agreeable persona going, even while inwardly, he was screaming. He tapped his vial with his free hand, thankful to find that it still contained just air, for he time being at least.

1. Thanks! That's good to know. That would prevent some of the more world-endingy implications of the power, if any mortals do in fact have it. Conveniently, Tion and I's understanding of Negation's powers are at about the same level, so I'll just keep any spitball worldbuilding like that to circumstances like storytelling where it's excusable if the characters (and I ) don't get everything exactly right. 2. If you like, I can change my head cannon to be that he subconsciously altered everyone's perception of the light that bounced off of him (on a case by case basis, to avoid making him too OP). However, when I wrote it, I was basing that power of his off of this post of yours: ...but if I misinterpreted or if you want to retract that, that's cool. That's my cue! The soon-to-be even less secret meeting place of the gods. Nighttime. “Coward,” Tion griped, his angry voice rising to shout at Entropy as she stalked off. “Yeah, walk away from your problems! That worked so well last time. Go hide with your mortals, you’re a good match for each other! Always disappointing.” He slammed his fist into his palm, which made a louder bang than he had expected. The surprising noise seemed to re-ground him. He quickly regained his composure, forcing his lips into a compelling smile. The god refocussed on the others in the glade, starting into a humorous story about the time his sailboat had been stolen by a cat burglar. He was just telling Truth how he reckoned “it was a feline-y offence,” when he happened to catch sight of some movement in the treeline over their shoulder. “They’re here,” he declared, surprised. Abandoning his anecdote, he withdrew a small vial of blue liquid from one of his trench coat’s pockets and downed it in one gulp. The hand pouring the drink shook as it did so, but he glared at it until it steadied. No one else could have noticed, but the moment he placed it into his pocket again to re-store the bottle, it began to tremble again, just slightly. He left it there, out of sight, but still on the nervous forefront of his mind. Rotten Reality! I'm not ready yet.

Sixth of the Dusk spoiler:

*Metaphorical as she was literally blind. The local grammar bylaw enforcement officer randomly entered the story to remind everyone that "a metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things using the words like or as, and it would be really nice if people would stop misusing it to talk about the clearly different sneers, grins, smirks, and other types of similes."

Tion flinched at the other god's rebuke. Coming from Truth, that comment genuinely hurt his feelings. He realigned his perception of the situation using his Power to soften the blow. “Yeah, whatever,” he said, backing away disappointedly, suddenly intent on finding where he had dropped his phone. “The magic’s messed up. I got that.” He finally found it in a small patch of weeds. It seemed to still be transmitting fine. “We need to find Neggie. They’d know what to do.” He looked around the group. “Facet, Truth, you two are the best at finding people. Victoria’s about as useful as a sack of highhorse tails, so she’s out, but if you two work together, do you think you could figure out where they're at? Otherwise, one of us is going to have to actually come up with a plan. Unless you’ve got some power preservation tricks up your sleeve, Truth.” He kicked his boot through the weeds, wondering if Entropy's soldiers could do anything to serve them, but he intentionally refrained from acknowledging their usefulness.

Tion dropped his phone, stunned. He made no move to retrieve it. The god’s face paled, and his lips began moving almost imperceptibly, but no sound came out. After what seemed like an eternity to him of unadulterated shock, he finally pulled himself together. “You can’t be serious,” he said, his voice cracking on the last word. “No, no, no. It can’t be true. It can’t be. I’m never so fortunate.” He glanced in Probability’s direction, considering the implications of their presence. When he spoke again, he had regained his unflappable persona. “Hey, Truth, can you do me a favour?” he said, moving to stand in front of the other god, placing his hands on the other man's shoulders so that their faces were mere inches apart. “I’m going to need to know everything you know,” he said, his voice deadly serious. “But first, I need you to tell me something. Three little words. But you have to mean them, okay? Real quick, I just want you to say to me ‘I can lie’.” He watched Truth’s expression attentively, taking note of every twitch and colour change. Nothing had ever seemed more important to him than Truth’s response did to him now. He had to know.

Tion grumbled something under his breath, the words impossible to hear, but his tone unmistakably condescending. He narrowed his eyes at Entropy, shaking his head. He paused for a moment, choosing his next words carefully. “You could have been a paragon, General Victoria,” he said, spitting out her title mockingly. “But relying on others? Humans? That’s a low, even for you. A god is nothing if they lose their independence. You could have been the most powerful among us, but now I see that you’re just a... lame bureaucrat. It’s repulsive.” He threw up his hands to underscore his disbelief. “Tell us why we’re here, please, Truth,” he asked, his voice softening as he pointedly turned his body away from Entropy dismissively. He pulled his flip phone from his pocket and clicked some of its buttons awkwardly. The pale light of the screen illuminated his slightly confused expression as he tried to operate it. “There,” he declared happily once he got the device to do what he wanted it to do. “I think everyone that’s gonna be here has already arrived. I’ve group-called the others, they can listen in if they want. We've all come a long way to be here, I think you owe us an explanation.” He held the phone in his hand at his side, pointing it in Truth's general direction, and cocked his head attentively to listen to what she had to say.

Tion’s soldier drooped as he saw the auras of the soldiers retreat. To his dismay, their leader, Entropy, seemed unreceptive to his emotional manipulation. As an experiment, he mentally sent some small probes of Power in John’s direction, hoping to make the pain of the arrow wound dullen. In the back of his mind, he starting keeping tabs on the other god’s aura, watching for changes. He dropped his invisibility, trading stealth for unfounded confidence. He strode toward Victoria, his hands balling into fists. “You’re late,” he accused coldly. “You'd better have a good excuse for all this. This is too important for your petty games.”

The formerly secret meeting place of the gods. Nighttime. As arrows started flying, Tion briefly wondered if Luna’s comment about summoning the military had been more truthful than he had thought. He blinked, switching his vision to see the attackers’ auras. The dim light suddenly lit up to his eyes with the glow of at least a dozen souls radiating fierce beams of red, violet, and green. He recognized their positioning as a modified version of the full-cover ambush formation that was popular with both of the major militaries in the region. Unfortunately, none of the swiftly moving humans with swords seemed to be headed in his direction. “C’mon,” he complained quietly, “why couldn’t you have shot at me?” He heard John grunt then stumble as a projectile hit him in the shoulder. Immediately curious, Tion began slipping forwards into the more open section of the glade, eager to get a look at how the wound would affect the man’s body. As he sneaked forward, he happened to glance at his legs. They were invisible. He held his hands in front of his face. It was hard to see, but it was pretty obvious that they, and the rest of his body, had become unseeable. Traitorous thing, he thought angrily to himself. In front of him, John slew an assailant with practiced ease. Tion stared at the gushing blood for a moment, enthralled. No, came a voice from his subconscious. No. Heeding it, Tion broke off his gaze, turning instead to focus on the red-tinted aura that he had seen in the middle of the soldiers’ formation. It glowed especially bright, compared to the others, the unmistakable visual signature of the God Entropy. Concentrating on her position, Tion reached out with his Power. He imagined the feelings radiating from his fingertips like lightning, flying through the air to strike their target. When he first pushed on her aura, he mentally encountered some resistance, as he did whenever he manipulated any of the gods, but, given the circumstances, her defenses were weak, so he swiftly pushed through them. “More,” he mumbled, gritting his teeth. “More.” He channeled his godly Power into Victoria, hoping to change her perception of the situation subtly: making her angrier. More aggressive. More willing to kill. The time was nigh for a massacre.

The High Path. West of the Border. Afternoon. “The lost city of Thalinore?” “Heard it.” “The Great Beast’s Brother?” “Saw that one in a play just last month.” “How about Negation’s Curse?” Tion stopped mid-stride, his boots kicking up a tiny cloud of dust from the well-used trail. “Now that,” he murmured, “is a story I haven’t heard in a long time.” His travelling companion, a short, elderly man with a flowing beard, grinning toothlessly. “An enlightened choice,” he said, his rich voice giving his words a subtle rhythm as he talked. “Not many wish to dwell on that tale.” Tion jogged forward a few steps to catch up with the man, then matched his stride as they continued forward. “Let’s just say I take a professional interest in it.” His companion hmmed at that. “Perhaps. If you are so educated, perhaps you already know where this story starts. With the Old Gods, in the heavens, at-” “The beginning of time?” “Or thereabouts.” He stroked the tip of his beard thoughtfully. “Back when the Ten first took notice of man. The deities gathered to discuss the curiosity, gazing at our planet from above like gamemasters examining a Skidboard.” “At first it was chaos,” Tion added. “Each wanted to remake the realm in their own image. Truth demanded an innovative world of candor and free communication. Probability wanted a chaotic realm of chance and glorious uncertainty. Arguments broke out. Threats were made. Everyone went for the jugular, save Negation, who just sat on the sidelines, bidding their time.” The god of Sensation trailed off, staring at something indistinct in the distance. The old man furrowed his brow at his unexpected interruption, but he smoothly picked up the story where it had been left off. “Yes, that is one interpretation. I believe in that version, the God Negation talked them all down. Quite persuasive, that one. If they ever get tired of godhood, they might find politics suits them nicely.” He paused to laugh at his own joke, but promptly picked it up again when he saw that Tion did not. “At Negation’s suggestion, it was agreed that the souls that walked the world below would be shared. Each of them could claim a tenth, ten percent of the population to take under their influence.” “Doesn’t explain the Suitability Conundrum,” Tion interjected softly. “Random selection explains the even distribution, but not why most powers pair well with their recipients.” That prompted another hmm. “You prefer Dominance Theory? I have always thought that one unlikely. If we have within us a portion blessing from all of the gods, then develop instincts based on the share we lean most strongly towards, why do they never change? I am not the man I was at twenty, and yet, I remain a practitioner of Sensation.” Tion did not have an answer to that. The two of them continued their journey in silence for a few minutes. After about a kilometer, the storyteller decided to carry on. “Whatever the reason,” he said, “near the Beginning, a tenth of Hopearaa’s populace was gifted with Negation’s trait. At will, they could undo events. Like Infinity, but more refined, more useful. The most powerful of the powers, or it would have been, if their skillset had not been incomplete.” “They didn’t know.” The man nodded enthusiastically. “Right! Instincts are but a diluted form of the powers they are patterned after. If they were complete, we’d be living in a world of gods. So, we get a taste of the magic, nothing more. In Negators’ cases, they didn’t know when they had used their powers! Imagine, a girl with the power is standing in a field, minding her own business, when suddenly, a snake leaps out of the grass and bites her. Instinctively, she reverses time to before the attack. Instantly, all of space goes back in time by, say, two seconds.” He gestured at the land beneath their feet. “Once again, she is standing in a field, unharmed. But here’s the thing: she does not remember the threat, nor that she used her power. And the snake is poised to strike again. It leaps at her! She screams, uses her instinct, and…” “The cycle repeats itself.” “Exactly! They would lock the planet in a loop. The same sequence would repeat, everyone in the world starting to move, only to be blasted back to where they were after just a step, again and again and again. A perfect deadlock, and no one even knew it was happening.” Tion frowned, knowing where this was headed. He decided to ask the inevitable question that the story begged anyways. “So, how did they get out? Shouldn’t the first one to freeze the world have doomed us all? How are we here, moving, today?” The man let out a light sigh, then shrugged his shoulders. “It is unknown. Perhaps the God Negation intervened somehow? Or maybe the Negators ran out of power? Or, it is possible that the problem persisted. We could trapped in a loop at this very moment, ignorant of our predicament, and woefully unable to escape it.” He smiled. The man liked seeing people’s reactions when he ended the story like that. Unfortunately for him, Tion had given this prospect some considerable thought, and was concentrating too deeply to fall prey to any sensationalism. “You’re wrong,” Tion said softly, turning to look at the man. “It is escapable. Having the same thoughts, being in the same circumstances, moving in the same ways, none of those mean that every time you repeat a sliver of time, you will do the same thing.” “Destiny is inevitable.” The man was stroking his beard with both hands now, but still grinning. “So? What if you trained yourself to act randomly? Not all the time, but every once and a while. The first few times you were stuck in the loop, you would repeat the same choreography. But eventually you’d do something completely random and new, allowing you to alter the equation.” The man shook his head dismissively at that. “You forget that even if you could change your sequence, the Negator at the center of it all would be unaffected. You have neither the time nor the knowledge to get to and stop her.” “I don’t need to. Change one thing, change everything. My actions affect those of the people close to me, which affect their neighbours, and so on. The butterfly effect kicks in, altering everyone’s sequence. With luck, the girl’s does too.” The man nodded sagely at that logic. “That sounds like an excuse to act out.” Tion laughed at that. “You’ve got me there, Emaldson,” he said, slapping the other man’s back. “If I could make a living out of acting randomly, would. But alas, I can’t, so I’m stuck making trips with you. Sweet Sensation, I’m going to miss these.” The elderly man nodded his agreement. Tion’s comments confused him sometimes, but he knew better than to pry. He was just happy that his travelling companion had not asked him where the Negators had gone after their flaws had been revealed, for that was a question he had no good answer to. Some things were better left unpondered. Three hours later, the two of them parted ways. Emaldson took the main road north towards his hometown; Tion took a lesser known track east in the direction of the Earn'Lamath Forest. After another three hours, around sunset, he arrived. As the daylight faded, he slipped in among the trees, his footsteps sure as he slunk like a wraith towards a concealed glade known only to him and nine others. Within in fifteen minutes he would arrive, prepared to participate in what might be the most important meeting of the millennium.

(The obligatory) Stick Sex: I am a stick. Age: I am a stick. Height: I am a stick. Passions: I am a stick. But I can be fire. Special notes: I am a stick? I am a stick. I am... a stick. I am a stick! PS I am a stick.