The Great Game

If you’re new to the Great Game, please have a quick look at the blurb to your left, where you’ll find a short catch-up introduction!

“Hold on,” says Alice. “Didn’t that Valis guy say that I got sent here in the first place because I tripped a bunch of wards back home?”

“Um, yes.”

“Peachy. Do you genuinely think it’s worth the risk?”

“On the whole, I’m inclined to just give banishing a go. How hard can it be?”

Alice and Massinisa both turn to stare at me.

I summon up a confident smile. “Look, I got lucky ditching the bokor. Who knows if we’ll be able to get this room clear again? Plus Eadidia’s hand may be able to guide us a bit once we get going, and I’m getting better at seeing energy flows… We don’t know how much time we have for this. It’s got to be worth a try.”

Alice shrugs, clearly uncomfortable. “I don’t know, it sounds kinda hair-brained. Then again, this whole thing is a nightmare. Maybe you’re right. What the hell, huh?”

“If you wish to try this Alice, then I will support you,” says Massinisa uncomfortably.

She looks over to me, and I nod, gravely. “Alright,” she says. “Let’s do it.”

“Right,” I say. “The creature is being drawn to you Alice, so you should be inside the design somewhere, at a focus. I reckon Massinisa should be with you, because of the hand. Hang on a moment.”

I close my eyes, and let myself relax. My consciousness seems to get heavier, sinking into a feeling that makes me think of fluffy pink clouds. I turn my attention to my eyes, and try to recall the sparkling sensation of seeing energy patterns. It takes a few seconds, but I manage to get it, an odd impression of fizzing in the back of my eyeballs. The middle of my face starts to feel flushed, and a wave of nausea strikes me, hard and fast. I groan and stagger slightly, opening my eyes as I do so, and both Alice and Massinisa gasp.

It’s as if I’ve never actually been awake before. The design on the floor is a shimmering labyrinth of energies, golds and reds and greens. It’s beautiful. There are several cells within the pattern, symmetrically laid out. I glance up, and see the cocoon of energies surrounding Alice, shimmering and changing. It’s totally enchanting. Massinisa is the same, apart from the deep black pit surrounding the hand. Occasional spikes of violent neon colour shoot through the darkness like lightning, and I wonder how he can bear it. It must hurt like hell.

“Your eyes,” says Alice.

I nod. They’ll be glowing brightly enough for even normal sight to perceive. I can feel the slowly energy draining out of me through them, but it’s such a small price to pay for glory.

I direct Alice to an empty cell on the left, and Massinisa to a  corresponding one on the right. The physical pattern has stars at that point, so it’s easy to explain. I can see where the design was originally damaged, too — a line was cracked, the energy damming around it. It’s the work of an instant to smudge the design slightly, enough to let the energy flow again. The lines flare for a moment, and Massinisa shudders. Interesting.

Now for the moment of truth. I take my place at the heart of the design. I don’t know any of the niceties of the ways the bokor deal with their patrons, so I can’t even guess at a banishing that compliments the original summoning. I do know the name of this morosos though, and I think I can coax the pattern to at least react to me. A shred of some dimly-remembered horror movie will have to serve as a template.

I take a deep breath. “In the name of Lord God the Almighty, his son Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Ghost, by the powers invested in me, I bind and abjure the unclean spirit Kharos to my will. Kharos, you are cast from this place, your bones split, your flesh torn asunder. Kharos, …”

The temperature leaps twenty degrees and a horrible buzzing whine fills my head, making my spine crawl. Just inside the doorway, a hideous flaring void wavers and burns. Reality is melting around it, energy turning brittle and crumbling away to be sucked inwards, falling into it and falling and falling… My vision flares and the world swims, and when I can see again, I’m on my knees, screaming. My eyes feel like boiling lead in my skull, and my stomach is trying to crawl up my throat and escape. All I can see is normality, but that is a blessing, because now the morosos is just a whisper of dark, roiling air.

I can hear Alice screaming as well, but I can’t wrench my eyes from the thing. Somewhere nearby, doors are slamming.

A tentacle of shadow licks out from the morosos, and I watch it caress Eadida’s hand and flow up Massinisa’s arm. Where it touches, the flesh bubbles and froths, and is sucked away. He doesn’t even manage to scream, just stares in total horror. Within seconds, it has consumed his arm, his right shoulder, part of his face. Gouts of blood vomit from the hole in his chest. There are worlds of anguish in his eyes as he collapses, a broken, greying marionette. Wildly, I hope his soul somehow escaped.

Alice screams again, a horrible sound blending terror, loss and flowering madness.

The tendril retracts.

The door to the room slams open, and several people are suddenly scrabbling to keep back. I hear one of them swear.

Maybe the morosos is distracted.

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NOTE: Sorry this is so late today. I’ve not been near a computer since this morning, so I haven’t had a chance to update until now. Last installment’s choice was definitely, ah, ‘courageous’, to use political double-speak. It’ll be interesting to see what direction you choose this time.

Today’s photo is Severed Doll Parts by Max Sparber