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Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The man ran away as fast as he could, hearing the giant monster crawling after him. The monster grabbed the creature, ripping it off the mechanics around it, and then threw it at the man with a flick of the elbow. The creature struck the floor and rolled over the man, still partly entwined with wires.

Roaring and flailing its limbs, the creature tried to free itself while the man picked himself up, giving the creature a good kick in the head before running down the hallway. The creature freed itself and ran after the man, with the monster squeezing itself into the hallway and sliding down it, its arms outstretched in front itself, causing flakes of ice and broken metal things to fly about as it moved.

The creature ran on all fours and dove at the man, but ended up receiving a big hook under the chin hanging from the ceiling, its body flipping about and then many other of the mechanical things nearby latched themselves onto the creature to keep him busy.

The man looked back, noticing that the monster could slid feaster than he could run, and there was not enough machinery he could control to hurt the monster. It had just slid passed the hooked creature, pushing it up against the ceiling, and that was when the monster began ripping things off the ceiling to toss at the man, which formed into spiraled and edged shapes.

The man had to summon the mechanics above into curves to hook into the thrown objects at him to hook them. He noticed that the monster could also command the machinery, and the closer it got, the more machinery from above was lashing out at him.

Seeing a passage in the wall, the man ran through the opening and escaped the hallway, the skull of the monster smashing into the opening that was too small for it to go through, but it did push its arm through, but by that time, the man was beyond its reach.

30-Jun-2013 21:42:57

Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The man was now in the open space of the realm, hearing all the machinery working as always. The skull reappeared, empty eye socket glaring at him, the man replying with a wave of the hand. The jaw opened and then a huge snake-like creature appeared, slithering out from within the skull and intestine. The snake was covered with silver metallic scales, smeared everywhere with blood. The snake’s eyes glowed so powerfully yellow that they cast beams over the man. The snake slithered farther out, beaming eyes locked on the man’s position wherever he ran.

Knowing he could not outrun the snake now, he had to fight it. There was machinery aplenty everywhere, but it would take at least a few seconds to summon them from the walls or above, and he heard them working by the snake’s will. Several lengths of machinery covered with blades, hooks, spikes and barbs whipped at the man, with the intent of wrapping around him, but they were stopped by the man summoning mechanical things to hook into them.

The snake lifted itself, towering over the man, and then flung its face at him, but reared back on the last moment; it saw a tiny coil of spinning wire, acting like piano wire and eager to be thrown into the snake’s mouth and kill it from the inside extremely slow. The snake’s eyes moved side to side, and had a hunch that similar tiny coils of sharp wire were here and there.

The snake beamed its eyes back to where the man stood, but he had summoned a giant conjunction ending in a claw to fall from above, its entire frame shaking and making much noise that frightened the snake for a moment, it even lowering itself down to the floor.

Instead of attacking the snake, the giant claw stopped before the man, who jumped into the claw and had it close around him, and within a second, the whole claw lifted and disappeared above the ceiling.

30-Jun-2013 21:43:21

Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The snake looked up stupidly, and titled its head, forcing the extension to reappear and close itself to fullest extent and then implode into grinding self-destruction.

The snake ordered the claw to open itself, but there was no blood; the man had escaped, and was probably summoning more mechanics to throw him farther to safety. Unable to see the man and having no idea where he was, the snake huffed and retracted back into its skull. A few moments later, the creature stepped out the hallway and stood where the man used to, looking around and wondering where to start.

Meanwhile, the man had escaped to the highest point of this world, standing atop an endless floor of see-through glass, giving him a good view of the world below. He looked up, seeing the blackness of space dotted with stars and galaxies, and then looked back down.

He decided to walk away, footsteps echoing, knowing that the strange world below homed hundreds more of those horrific monsters of giant metallic snakes living within fleshy exteriors, huge skulls and building limbs as to control a giant machine of flesh and metal.

“I wonder how they do it, control it all to that extent. Maybe I could make myself such a thing.” The man mumbled to himself, and pondered about the magic of controlling living machinery the serpents mastered long ago; his adventure was just one creation of the serpents’ out of many more.

30-Jun-2013 21:43:31

Chuk

Posts: 14,177 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I am becoming unsure of my ability to get this done this week. I got it started, but not close to done, and I work tomorrow night, on top of classes during the day. Tuesday I'm off, but I have homework due Wednesday morning that takes priority.

01-Jul-2013 07:56:55

Arkkataka

Posts: 4,327 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Xen, you looked with glee and hoped for good works from your assignment; meanwhile I looked with horror and hid under my blanket when I read the assignment. It's interesting, but extremely difficult in my opinion. The primary reason is that it would be trying to explain something you couldn't perceive, only your descriptions must be perceivable or else your reader is confused.

Can people comprehend infinity? Not truly, they can only comprehend the idea of it. Or so I think, anyways this isn't to say that it can't be done. However, if I were to present a new idea or way of thinking about magic I'd want a whole lot more than a few posts. You can get people close to comprehending infinity until they believe they understand it, and I would probably try to do the same with magic.

Or this is all a load of crappy excuses for why I didn't get the assignment done, what do you think about writing about something you can't really perceive?

03-Jul-2013 06:34:43

Chuk

Posts: 14,177 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna make it. Too much going on in my life right now. Though I am going to copy/paste the assignment, so later on I can finish the ~300 words I did get down. 'Cause I like it.

03-Jul-2013 12:16:44

Xereva

Posts: 7,589 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Writing about something you can't perceive is easy to do very badly, which is one of the reasons (I think) why there's so much awful fantasy writing out there. It's much easier to codify all of the rules and laws and build from there instead of keeping something vague and undefined, and trying to hint at a force which goes beyond what can be understood.

I think, for my part, that it's easier than you describe. The solution that's always seemed to work in truly excellent novels is not to describe the intangible force directly, but rather how it manifests in the physical world, with hints that direct the reader to the fact that there is some force begetting them. There can be something beyond comprehension, but once it has a physical effect, it can be guessed at, if not understood. And I am of the opinion that magic should never be able to be truly understood. If there is a discipline of magic, it is no longer magic; magic is wondrous and strange and uncontrollable, reached on instinct and a prayer and perhaps a few choice invocations. Magic is power, furious and joyous as a child, and as changeable, and to bind it is to fail at comprehending it.

In my view, anyhow.

Take The Lord of the Rings , for instance, the books and not the movie. Magic manifests in the very presence of things like ents and elves, the barrow-wights, the Nazgûl. But it is also in the many chance happenings that lead to a better end, such small moments as Frodo finding flowers on the stone likeness of a king of old, or Aragorn finding the long-lost sapling of an ancient tree on a weathered, blasted slope. Magic need not be spells and deeds of men. It need only be present in a world to have a role, whether a force for good or ill. And while one might not be able to lay out the particulars in only a few posts, that's not the point. It's a glimpse, nothing more—the passage of a shadow one is not sure is there, or a flash of light.

03-Jul-2013 17:43:41

Xereva

Posts: 7,589 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

This is too short to be a real response to my own assignment, but I thought I'd write something to try and attempt to get across what I'm talking about. It's nowhere near perfect, and is almost entirely unedited, but I figured I'd post it.

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Her breath blew the leaves back into the trees, a shower of red-gold-orange that Tramis looked up and wondered at. Hundreds of leaves, fluttering up instead of down.

Iraya looked at him and signed you too! with an exclamation at the end, and grinned. Tramis looked at her and then at the ground and put up his own hands in question: how?

Just try!

He blew, but it was a pathetic breath, not even all he could muster. Iraya laughed in her halting way and hid a smile behind her hand, and Tramis hung his head embarrassedly.

"I can't—" he bit his lip, thinking. "It doesn't come to me like it does to you."

She tilted her head questioningly. He gestured helplessly in response.

"When I do this, I don't..."

He drew in as large a breath as he could muster and blew out. And the wind answered him, seized his breath, and the force of the air in him turned the forest clearing into a thrashing, roaring mess of broken branches and scattered leaves. Iraya's eyes widened, and Tramis collapsed backward, feeling at the base of his throat with a hand, stunned. He could still sense it, the suddennesss of the pull in his throat that had drained all the air from him and sent the gale roaring into life, only to die again.

Iraya jumped and clapped, and a high sound of excitement was in her throat. She gestured at him furiously and tried to speak: "You—again! Again!" The words weren't whole, but she rarely spoke, and Tramis smiled.

"Okay. I'll do it if I can."

03-Jul-2013 20:54:51

Xereva

Posts: 7,589 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

He drew another breath, and this time he could feel the wind as he sucked in, and the trees bent toward him. It was like something had caught in his throat, the way feelings sometimes caught. And when he blew out this time he did it slowly, and the breeze made his shirt billow and Iraya's skirt flare up into the air, and the leaves rubbed against each other like they did on other nights in summer, just enough to rustle. Bushtails chittered in the branches as the trees swayed, and birds, displaced by the last breath, rode in on the breeze to return.

Tramis shook his head, smiling wide enough that his teeth showed and he let out a laugh. "I don't... how? What is that?"

Kids' magic. My dad told me. She nodded with authority. He says that we won't have it for long, and that people in the city get angry when you do it, because it makes things move around. But he wanted to make sure I knew how to do it, because it's fun. Her hands paused in signing, and then continued, hesitant. I don't want it to go away.

We'll hold onto it. We will. Tramis walked to where she was standing and on a whim blew a short breath at her, felt it catch, and then felt the brief gust that followed. She screamed in play and swatted at him, but he caught her, and looked at her.

"We'll make it stay." He said it deliberately, to make sure that she could see his words. She hesitated for a moment before responding, and then threw her arms around him instead.

"I hope so."

For once there was no trace of her deafness in the words, no slur or softness. She sounded like any seven-year-old, and Tramis hugged her back. They stayed there for a while, their breaths moving the wind, listening to the sounds of the birds, until they decided to test their newfound magic again.

03-Jul-2013 20:56:41

song book

Posts: 90 Iron Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Harry Potter spoilers below!

Henry threw the book on the ground, yawned profusely, and lay down under his covers. As his mind wandered, he thought to himself.
What would have happened if the Death Eaters hadn’t gone to go help Draco?
Would Malfoy have killed Dumbledore?

And, as with an itch, he irked to pick up the book beside him on the floor. He tried telling himself he needed the sleep, for although it was summer, he was taking an online writing course and he hadn’t started the assignment due in a fortnight.
He lay in bed for a few minutes until the urge to read on became overwhelming and he wasn’t comfortable in bed.
He sighed, and pulled up his covers. At once he found his arms swinging down, snatching the book, and propping it on his knees. He flipped through the pages getting to the one he was up to, and then falling down on his bed happily, the book held out before him by his arms.

Through the pages he flew, landing in a hut that was covered by fire. He ran out of it and saw a bearded man and a teenager putting the fire out with their wands. He looked at each of them and could make out the little scars and scratches that were imposed upon their features. He could see the way the fire was reflected in each’s eyes and could smell the odor of wood burning.

He stood there mulling about it for a while until he was yanked into thoughts about the pensieve, and he flew towards the pensieve and he looked into it and he fell into darkness and he was consumed.

Henry woke up the next day to find it was already noon and the book still rested on his lap opened to the page. He yawned and pushed the book off of him, rubbing his eyes. He walked over to the curtain and yanked it open, letting light stream into the room. He blinked fast, and looked out. He saw rows of cars parked near the curb, and people milling about. Sadly none of them were wizards, he thought. It must be awesome to be in a world where wizards exist.

04-Jul-2013 23:07:11 - Last edited on 07-Jul-2013 06:34:35 by song book

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