Posts tagged with "paracosmonaut" - Faerye Net

April Foolishness: Faerye Net Cage Match

2004-04-01T15:01:05+00:00

I don’t like lying very much, and I couldn’t think of anything plausible I wouldn’t feel bad for lying about — so instead I decided to celebrate the day with abject silliness. So, without further ado, I bring you… a completely contrived fight between a character from a silly world and a character from a serious one. Lihan Hawkhome vs. Captain Bessa Seford!

In Creation, there is a road. There are many roads, in fact, stretching across the expanses of that which is known and believed in. This one, however, is special — it is cut, straight and long, across a dusty, flat expanse, peppered with prairie-hog holes and the occasional patch of wildflowers. Once upon a time, Lihan Hawkhome walked along this road, scanning the horizon with a sense of comfort. He could see for miles. Nothing could approach him unseen, and his magics would allow him to flee long before they should reach him. He felt comfortable, and therefore, from the deep sleeve of his coat, he drew a battered volume and read as he walked.

In the distance, there was a humming sound, as of hornets gathering. Lihan read in absorption about the varying widths of chisels used for different inscriptions in the First Age. A pinpoint of light appeared in the distance, fractured the air around it, and poured a churning prism of chaos into the quiet afternoon. Lihan was fascinated to discover that chisels made of the Five Magical Metals were only used in inscriptions on Manses, because of the resonance patterns that could be set up by a less-than-careful hand in a less-than-Essence-reinforced structure. The kaleidoscoping rainbow emitted a sleek, golden car with fins higher than a man, and it careened down the straight road towards Lihan as the shimmering fracture closed in its wake.

Lihan looked up in alarm as a building roar approached, and with a look of abject terror threw himself off the road and out of the way of the gleaming juggernaut. The car also swerved at the last moment, and flipped up up into the air, coming down heavily on a prairie dog colony, on its side. A door rose like the wing of a wounded beetle, and a redhead in a scarlet jumpsuit leaped out, nostrils flared like a hunting cat. Spirits and Great Gods, thought Lihan, why are small redheaded females always trying to kill me?

Rapidly gathering up his fallen books and bags, Lihan started to walk briskly away from the wreck.

“You!” cried Captain Bessa, explorer of the unknown, “Are you a native of this land?”

“Bessa…” Araminta sighed, “you almost ran him over…”

“Nonsense,” muttered Bessa, “he tried to sabotage our vehicle. Now get out and help me in case we have to settle this the old-fashioned way.”

“My seat-belt got stuck in the crash, sir. Gerald’s, too.”

Bessa frowned, “Do not fear, Crewman Jones. As soon as I’ve dealt with this cowardly reprobate, I will return to free you.” With that, she paced towards Lihan. “Now, knave, why did you attempt to interfere in the affairs of the Paracosmonauts Expeditionary Company?”

Lihan blinked. “I’m very sorry, ma’am —”

“Sir! Address me as sir, please, my rank is Captain, the PEC has rules about proper forms of address.”

“Er, quite. Quite right, sir. As I was saying, I wasn’t aware that any… expedition was taking place on this road today, and was merely attempting to reach…”

Bessa scoffed. “I don’t believe it for a moment! Why are you so shifty, varlet?”

“Er, shifty, ma— er, sir?”

“Yes, shifty!” her eyes narrowed, then widened. “You’re a pirate! You belong to the Crossdimensional Elite Pirates! I can tell by your hair!”

Lihan stared in consternation at his hair, which was long, red-brown, and contained a few braids. “I’m sorry?”

“Defend yourself, foul minion of the CEP!” cried Bessa, and began to circle ominously, weaving a pattern of menace in the air with her hands.

“Halp!” cried Lihan, assuming a clumsy defensive stance.

“Why did you let her drive?” said Minta, more sorrowful than angry, hanging sideways like a forlorn fruit bat.

“Something about me being a pilot, and cars needing a driver, I think,” Gerald said. “Sorry, Minta, won’t happen again.”

Bessa dodged, feinted, and struck! “Ow!” cried Lihan, “I really don’t know, ‘sir’, why we have to – OW! – resort to these – ACK! – barbaric measures over a – My hair! – misunderstanding!”

Bessa drew back and narrowed her green eyes to feral slits. “We understand each other perfectly, fiend!” she growled, and sprang, hands together, to fall like a hammer of doom upon Hawkhome’s back!

Lihan fell to the ground – as all men do when struck in the back by the fists of a captain-explorer – and with a groan, wheezed, “That’s enough!”

Bessa, arms raised and rictus securely in place for another blow, looked crestfallen. “Are you giving up?” she said wistfully, “Wastrel?”

But Lihan Hawkhome, the Copper Spider, the Chosen of the Unconquered Sun, Seer of Truths and Knower of Hidden Ways, rose dusty and dishevelled from the prairie dirt, light boiling from his brow and his green-woven anima curdling from the air of Creation behind him. He spoke low words that Bessa did not understand, and she stepped back involuntarily.

“Dear…God…” she managed to say, before the winds gathered around the man and whisked him muttering from her sight.

Captain Bessa looked after the retreating cyclone for a moment in consternation, then smiled. “Another victory for the invincible Paracosmonauts!”

Seford, Spiggot, and Jones: Voyage the First

2004-02-05T15:01:33+00:00

“Will you hurry UP?” said Bessa, her hands on her hips, and Gerald stepped briskly aboard, snapping a salute as he went. She was the captain, after all. Minta looked uneasily at the solid ground under her feet, but jumped when Bessa bellowed, “Crewman Jones! Are you a sailor or a sea anchor?” and fingered a coil of robe expressively. Seaman Jones made haste, and the three crawled down into the cramped hull to man their controls.

“Where are we going?” breathed Minta, when the hatch was closed and further discussion of sea anchors in vain.

“There is only one way,” said Bessa firmly, “to find out.”

“I hope it will be dry,” said Minta, stroking the blue-cast gunmetal with a nervous hand.

Bessa gave a corrosive stare. “Minta, you idiot! It’s a submarine! What did you go and say THAT for?”

Minta started to bubble forth an excuse, but Gerald cut them both off. “Captain Seford, we’re going under now!” The gauges danced in whirligig uncertainty, and the porthole showed a kaleidoscope of nothings.

Bessa spared one last glare at Minta, and turned her attention to the controls. "Wet, she said through clenched teeth, “wet!” But the rushing roar of their journey was already fading, and with a barely audible plink the three-man sub emerged inside a mosaic sea.

The light streamed in through the porthole, tinting Bessa’s green, Gerald’s hazel, and Minta’s brown eyes an identical, vibrant blue.

“Look!” cried Minta, and they all saw a violet eel making his labored way through the seascape. “but…” she faltered, “doesn’t he look…peculiar?”

“Of course he does,” Bessa barked, “we’re in another world!”

“Not himself,” Minta pressed on quietly, “but how we see him.”

They all looked out the portal, and saw how the light travelled mazedly through the blue, and peered at the outer surface of the porthole, where irregular crystals pushed and shoved with a faint grating they could hear through the glass.

“It’s a dry ocean,” Bessa said flatly.

“A tremendous discovery!” urged Gerald, as the crystal shapes outside shifted and blurred the slowly-moving fauna.

“All Minta’s fault!” Bessa countered with a jut of her chin. “We might as well look about, though. Engines forward.”

Gerald twisted at the controls, and the cabin shook slightly as the engine woke behind it. They shuddered forward with a sound of grinding teeth, and Bessa grabbed wildly at a nearby strap to avoid pitching over Gerald and into the porthole.

“What’s the matter, man!” she hollered, as Gerald’s pianist fingers played over the flashing, squawking console.

“It’s the solid water!” he yelled back, “the screws aren’t working!”

“Then turn them off before something blows!” said Bessa, her face frightened in the strobing red light of warnings and alarms.

Gerald twisted, switched, and pressed, and the engine subsided gratefully into silence. He looked up at his captain with concern in his face. “How will we get anywhere?” Bessa pressed her curly head against the cool skin of the boat and closed her eyes.

“We can use the claws,” Minta offered into the silence. The others looked at her. “Remember, I added manipulator arms? I thought we might need to dig, so I made them stronger…” she wormed between Gerald and Bessa and depressed an unassuming button. With a stentorian klang, the sub thrust viciously pointed spades into the teeming beads of the dry ocean, and with a sound like a vast godfather clock preparing to strike, it tunneled forward through the shimmering deeps.

“Bless you, Minta!” said Captain Seford, “I thought we’d die in this crazy place!” From Bessa’s fierce bear hug, Minta exchanged droll looks with Helmsman Spiggot.

“Onward, then!” cried Captain Seford, releasing Minta and leaning forward to examine the shifting world without with a keen eye. “Let us see what awaits us in this pelagic paradox!”

Onward they pressed, until the shifting view the crystals yielded through the glass was no more curious than a summer’s haze. The captain raised the periscope, and reported the sky was brightest azure, and marked by flocks of drifting yellow birds. “Land ahoy!” she cried at last, “claw speed to half, there may be rocks!”

It was not a rock that loomed ahead, however, but a shifting burgundy shape that proved to be a small child, swimming through the blue with wiry arms. In surprise, he stopped and stared at the slowing submarine, his face obscured by a clam-shell mask.

“That child will drown!” cried Captain Seford, “Gerald, man the manipulator arms! Minta, find a life vest!”

Minta blinked. “But he’s perfectly fine, Bessa sir. He can breathe the air between the water.”

Bessa looked at Minta, then at the child waving at them happily through the glass.

She looked again. “AHA!” she shouted, “but will he be fine in a moment?” She pointed, and Gerald gaped at the nightmare vision forcing its way up from the depths below the unseeing child. Minta shrieked, and Bessa sprang into action with a zeal that was almost smug.

Minta pointed, “Look! It has scoops instead of fins!”

“Indeed,” said Bessa without looking away from the controls, “and more teeth than a voracious darkwyrm.” The sub’s digging spades klanged into position like a rapier and main gauche. “Soon we will discover how many colors of blood it has!”

Gerald turned on the engine, heedless of the alarms now adding noise and color to the fight, and the sub darted and swirled in a deadly sigil beneath the shifting crystal waves. First a feint, then a thrust – the digging claws drove at the nameless thing, and its staring chartreuse eyes grew wide with pain and fear. At last in defeat it labored slowly away, trailing its brown ichor in a spiral on the grains of water. The frightened child clung to the outside of the submarine, and pointed it towards his home harbor.

The people of the world were as strange as its waters, burgundy, maroon, magenta people with freckles in canary yellow making curious patterns on their dark skin. They were grateful to the heroic crew of the little sub, and especially to Captain Seford. They had never seen hair before, let alone red curly hair, and they insisted that all three of the visitors from a land beyond their sea stay to a lavish feast thrown in their honor. “Of course,” Bessa accepted with a twinkling smile. “If it’s not too much trouble, though, could we have some water while we are waiting for dinner? It is thirsty work, exploring.”

“Of course!” smiled the matriarch, and the villagers soon brought ornate fluted glasses full to the brim of the rough cubes of water. Bessa looked at Gerald, and Gerald looked at Minta. “Maybe,” said Crewman Jones softly, “we could go somewhere where water is wet.”