rollplay wk27

rollplay wk27: portal adventure and time traveling and of course death

The faint tremor felt under Vincent Longborn's feet moments ago still shook occasionally in memory, as if his body fought in denial only to be haunted by the shock each time he arrived at the truth. Billows of pale red sand glittered where they yet hung in the air, as the beat of monstrous wings began to fade above. For a fleeting moment, as the ancient beast's shadow past over, it was like the covering of a corpse. The closing of the eyes . . . .

No sooner had that thought cross Vincent's mind, had the shade departed. The beating Red Desert sun pierced through the clouds of sand, leaving discretion and discrepancy behind. Blood-splatter marred the land around like a madman given canvas. Broad smears of dark and crimson bloomed out across the once blush sand. Its pristine red glow tainted like soot-coated beauty.

As the puffs and plumes finally settled, a blanket of sand overlaid a mutilated frieze of man and woman. The crosswise pair laid quiescently in the middle of it all, the shattered ribcage of the woman underneath, opened up, as if a perfect frame for the gaunt man fitted in between. If one didn’t know better, almost an odd smile could be lifted off of the woman’s dying visage.  

Vincent Longborn was no stranger to death. But where the familiar pools of blood should have remained, was just but the red sand beneath if not a tinge darker. Its absence, a sick twist of reality, glared in Vincent’s mind. A mockery of their death. Nothing was plain nor commonplace today. If not for the organs and guts and shattered butts, they might as well have been resting, merely sleeping together. He would rather believe the unlikeliness of that than the reality of it all. As if Bregor never fell several hundred feet by his gall and Abigale never obliterated under his fall. Just resting, just peacefully restin--

“Aha!” Azril the dwarf suddenly piped up. “Good for nothing mages! I knew the desert was called Red for a reason!”

“You!” Vincent, snapping out of his mirage. “Of all the things to say, of all the things to do, you’re fussing about mages!?”

“Well,” Azril rubbed the back of his head as Vincent approached him, one drudging clank at a time, “I had asked the mages about the red in Red Desert and well ah,” the dwarf seemed at a lost for words as Vincent stood over him.

Vincent contemplated the stout Azril in front of him. This, this dwarf was in-part responsible for their death. Guilty of enabling their stupidity! The longer he eyed the braid-bearded dwarf and his receding hairline, the more irritated he grew. And to think, the first words out of his pouty lips were about the mages! Mages . . . .

Suddenly it hit Vincent. He parted an opening underneath his platemail and dug his hand inside, fumbling for a moment, only to jerk his hand out. A glimmer of anticipation in Vincent’s eyes competed against the brilliance of the glowing red sand as he eyed the special jewelry.

With one last parting glance of the corpses, Vincent takes off his glove and shoves the ring on his finger.

“I wish I can go back ten minutes.”

---

A whirl of energy thrusts Vincent into complete darkness. He stumbles forward, arms extended from his body. An instinctive pump of adrenaline coursed through his veins as he gathered his bearings, his hands feeling nothing quickly retracted reaching for his shield and sword. Complete silence and still no vision. Vincent recalled his training under the Sword of the Unseeing and sought a void in his mind, parallel to the void present. In his mind, he saw himself, a man slumped in his armor, clad in shield and sword. He swung out his sword in his mind as his real arm and sword mirrored the images within his mind, if only a bit dull. Vincent lunged back and forth in attempt to brush up his Sword of the Unseeing technique. If he was to survive here in the utter darkness, he would have to be able to conduct himself properly, on offense and defense. Vincent raised his shield-arm above and below in one fell swoop, retracting and bashing with his shield as well.

After a good hearty sweat, Vincent sheathed his sword and reached for a swig of apple juice. As the brim of the flask neared his lip, a thudding boom hollered throughout his mind, spilling the flask of apple juice.

“WHO DARES TO TRESPASS OLD FATHER TIME?” The booming voice echoed inside the mind.

“WHO DARES TO MAKE ME SPILL MY APPLE JUICE!” Vincent shouted back, almost as loud.

“STATE YOUR BUSINESS OR PERISH.”

Vincent brushed the spilled juice off his armor, “I come in peace, friend. Why don’t you show yourself to me, turn on the lights. Then we can talk as you like, man to man.”

“Do not condescend, child.” A woman’s voice from behind.

“Who goes there?” Vincent spins around, surprisingly agile for his bulk.

“Not who but what.” The soft voice replied.

“Look would you just turn on the lights in this place? I’m sorry if you were offended.” Vincent lifted his shield-arm as he felt a sudden unbearable itch in his armpit--clang!

A numbing sensation jolted up from the fingertips of his shield-hand to the cliffs of his shoulder, stunning his entire arm for a good moment.

“Incredible luck,” the voice soothed. “You must have a Saint of Jexel watching over you to have deflected that blow. You never expected it.”

“So what if I do. You no-good dirty cheeser. Show yourself! I won’t be fooled twice.”

“Good, good. For your sake, be prepared in both voids.”

Vincent quickly assumed guard in his mind, his body following. His senses painting a ring in his mind, a circum-fence! Vincent let out a small sigh as no one was around to appreciate his joke. He waited and waited, not a single strike came in flight. Moments more, minutes, hours past as Vincent remained on guard.

“Are you afraid? Come at me!” Vincent jeered in exhaustion.

“I could fight you now, or I could fight you later. It is all the same to me. My blade never dulls, my game never throws and my senses never lull.”

“I am done playing games! You want to know my business here? Best me!”

A single strike entered his ring of awareness. Two o’clock. Speed within parry range. Vincent deflected the strike with his sword. A clanging ring of cold metal echoed through the void, cutting into his sense of hearing.

Nine o’clock, three o’clock, six o’clock, the aggression followed one after another. Though manageable at first, blow after blow, Vincent’s void began to blur. His void overwhelmed with senses, filled with thoughts, he began to lose control.

“What seems to be the problem?” The female voice plainly asked. “Is it possible, your already dulled skills could reach an even higher or lower level of bluntness?

Vincent was seething inside. He couldn’t see his damn target, he couldn’t attack and now the voice was openingly mocking him! All he could do was defend, defend, defend! Not to mention, sometimes the next attack would come minutes, hours from the last!

“You see Vincent Longborn,” the voice plainly began, “You can obtain the strength of a hundred--no, a thousand men, the wisdom and insight of transcendent ancient beings you don’t even know exist, the agility of great elven-lords and still you will never best me.”

Vincent swung out wildly. His void no longer the calm and empty presence it should be but a rapt and bitter existence.

“You lack the most important trait of a warrior, of a being. Patience.”

A strike pierced through Vincent’s guard and punctured flesh, penetrating deep into his shield-arm, he could all but seethe back tears as the cold blade rattled his bone as it exited the wound. He dropped his shield immediately and collapsed on one knee. Was he to die here? Vincent Longborn, die--here? Bested by some unseen, unknown voice? Prince Vincent Longborn? What was he doing here?! What was his purpose? To fulfill his life. To live adventures, to do good. To one day become King. No! What was his purpose here!? To . . .  Vincent sought his void, he needed to remove the bitterness, he couldn’t think. He didn’t want to think because the motionless corpses rested on his mind. The blood gone, as if their deaths never occurred, as if their lives never existed.

No! They did exist. Bregor could never be forgotten, his floundering and bow-dropping will forever haunt Vincent’s mind! Abigale and her damned ferret, her indecisiveness could never be extinguished! They could never be forgotten. They were his friends. They are his friends! And by all that is in this world, in his world he will not let another friend die! He dug his sword into the ground and propped himself up.

Vincent stood in the bleak darkness, once again seeking the void. He closed his eyes, he thought of friends, future, present and past then wiped them clean from his mind. He thought of his kingdom, of his lost love, then cleared his mind once again. He saw nothing for the longest of time until a glimmer. A shine of black armor. His armor. He raised his sword, mind and body as one and slowly enlarged his ring of influence. He stretched his gain, able to extend it one feet wider than last. The remnant of a smirk faded on Vincent’s face. He saw himself standing in his mind, although one arm less, he saw a great man, one his companions would be proud to call friend. He waited.

Sweat perfused down Vincent’s temples as blood coincided down his arm. He would not go down without a fight. A whisper to his left, a slight disturbance in the air. It was coming. His acuity was so fierce that he could have felt it from dimensions away. One single strike to his left. He envisioned the flight of the blade and his response. Right foot pivot, left foot back, right body forward. He was to meet this blade head on, he was done playing.

As the cold blade entered Vincent’s realm of influence, he could feel, taste the blade. The blade’s path continued just as he predicted. He swerved to meet the blade, head on just as he planned but as he turned in his mind, he saw for the first time the wielder. It was truly a female behind the voice. Vincent froze inside his void, his mind staring at the female lunging for his life. Shock, fear and regret flooded his mind as each passing moment further clarified the female’s appearance. Why hadn’t he recognized her voice earlier?

Vincent trapped in his inundated void could only watch as the woman’s blade grew ever closer and closer. He was to die. Vincent had gambled his life and lost. A cruel sadness overcame him as he watched his lost love about to end his life.

He failed his friends. He failed himself. Vincent closed himself in, one last time never to be opened again. He shut his mind’s eye, granting himself a moment for his friends. “Sorry elves. Sorry Tuglebutt.”

Silence.

A clash of blades.

Vincent opened his mind’s eye, standing over his lost love with his blade to her throat. “My business is to save my friends.”

“Noble enough,” the female responded as a smirk aroused in her face.

Unexpectedly and inexplicably Vincent was now the one on his back with a blade at his throat. An old being with hair and beard past his chest smiled and lifted the blade.

---

Another whirl of energy thrusted Vincent along sending him forward. Staggering into this world Vincent is immediately greeted by blinding daylight. As he surveyed his surroundings, his body panted in exhaustion but he did not feel tired. Radiant midday sun, glowing red sand, guide in headdress, Lisa, Azril, Lisa--Vincent shook his head, refocusing. Sun, sand, Lisa, Azril, Bregor, Abigale. Abigale looking suspiciously at Bregor, Bregor oblivious, Bregor . . . Abigale. Abigale . . . Bregor.

A rush of euphoria and adrenaline came over Vincent as he saw his friends once again. Whole, well and alive. Vincent thought of a joke when suddenly his attention centered on Azril, as the dwarf twisted and turned in his saddle, seemingly in thought.

Like never before, Vincent takes off both his glove under the same proficiency he would to unsheathe his sword. And wasting no time, he goes over to the dwarf. Vincent, standing face to face with Azril atop his pony, eyes the dwarf for a moment, I’m going to backhand him so f*****g hard off his horse, he’s never seen something like this before.

Vincent reels back his hand and swings it across. The reverberations, loosening tuffs of beard, stretching wrinkles, rippled across the dwarf’s face.

“Don’t ever open up a portal--ever, until you ask me first, please!”

“What are you talk--how do you even know I can do that?” Azril stammered.

Vincent grabs hold of Azril’s shoulder, “Just trust me, just trust me. Don’t do it.”

---

Suddenly, in an alternate time, the crosswise corpses lay silently until the disfigured and skinny male corpse, plops up with a smile across his face, “So we’re alive, are we alive?” The female corpse squirms in unison in an incessant laughter.

---

Vincent takes the ring off his finger, then looking at Bregor and Abigale, drops it on the ground.

Abigale tears her eyes away from Bregor for a moment in complete shock, “What happened?”

“Let me just tell you. Ten minutes from now you idiots killed yourselves,” a grin escaping Vincent, “I had to use the ring to save us, It’s done. The ring is gone!”

“What happened?” Bregor having alluded death seemed less anorexic.

“The ring . . . ?” Azril butts in. “What? First, you tell me . . . .”

---

The voices of these men and women below, born from the heated discussion of life, of death, of friendship, of adventure, fell faint as it was lifted up by the gossipping winds of the Red Desert. Above and past the scintillating clouds, where no mere mortals are allowed, up it soared beyond the horizon, a final ring into the ears of a Wizened.  

“Are you sure it was correct? Inducing a mere mortal to test time?” A growl in the recess of an ancient mind.

“It was necessary. A great danger will soon present itself over the human land.” A grumble replied into yet an even more ancient mind, one that made the first feel like a child.

“Brass-child! Don’t let your follies with the humans be the demise of you.” A roar trembled and severed the connection.

---

Vincent looks Abigale and Bregor dead in the eye and c***s his head, “Aren’t you glad that I didn’t desert you two?” Snicker, snicker snicker.