Soujiro Seta
SIN
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At the Gates of
Hell 3
Zeal had awakened alone in
the dungeon, her last memory was that of Yume effortlessly
wiping out the sea of demons that had pursued her at the
Summoner’s whim. Hours had certainly passed since she lost
consciousness, and she had been running behind. Yume’s words
rang fresh in her mind, advice not to confront the Summoner
alone. And certainly, Yume’s advice was well-grounded – if the
Summoner could call forth all manner of demons with a mere
gesture, he was no being to be trifled with….by the ordinary
human. Queen Zeal, however, was the most powerful mage of her
time, and unbeknownst to her, one of the strongest in her
planet’s history. Certainly I can do it Zeal had
thought, as if to convince herself that the deed should be
attempted straightaway.
However, that was all hours
ago, and on she trudged through the dark dungeon, toward mage
of unknown power who might have the power to destroy her. She
had finally started seeing others on her way; an intriguing
crimson wizard that she made a mental note to converse with
later, and she had stopped to chat with one Commander
Driscoll, a military man from the future, or so he explained.
She had healed some minor wounds of his before they parted
their own ways, and she was sure she would cross his path
again.
As she continued, she noted changes in the
architecture. The dusty, fallen pillars of several hours
before had been replaced by stately arches of marble, rooted
firmly in the floor. Along with this was in increase in the
presence of darkness, the feeling she had experienced earlier
when she heard the voice of the Summoner carried on the
whispering winds. There was an evil charge in the air, as if a
spark was threatening to jump from one point to another across
the gap of empty space that constituted this savage realm.
Zeal pondered whether she might calculate her distance from
the heart of the evil by the number of hairs which stood erect
upon the surface of her neck.
She trudged onward,
wishing foremostly that she had drug a tournament participant
down the dark road with her – it didn’t matter who – to face
the mighty foe that lay in wait, plotting ill deeds. To her
surprise, since she had awakened, she had seen few monsters,
and there had been even less the further on she had ventured.
It was almost as if…someone was preparing the way. Zeal leaned
against a great marble arch. Majestic-looking runes were
engraved upon it, but she could not decipher their meaning, or
their function. I wish I’d remembered to bring an
Ether….that’s what I get for jumping into this place before
stopping by home first. Yes, a nice ether tea to
rejuvenate the body and mind was what Zeal craved, but she
knew that this particular location offered no escape until
Yume opened it again – not even to Zeal’s own timegate, with
which she had followed the godlike girl there. She had
hypothesized that it was a dimensional singularity – a pocket
created outside of a natural dimension accessible only if one
knew the way. But dimensional singularities were only
hypothetical, and even had they not been, Zeal didn’t know how
to test if this place was one anyway.
Concentrate….concentrate on the task at hand! Zeal told
herself as she walked down the long path of archways. Her
footfalls seemed painfully loud in the relative silence of the
hall. She saw, almost out of sight but lying on the horizon,
an aberration in the path’s composition, as if it grew much
wider and contained more objects than pillars and arches of
stone.
“It is the heart of his kingdom” Zeal
shuddered. She did not know it to be true with a certainty,
but a sense of dread seemed to scream “Yes!” in her mind. The
chamber of the master of this place was close at hand, and
though Yume had advised her against it strongly, she had gone
alone. She could not shake the feeling that her power would be
insufficient. She ran the words of her best spells through her
mind, timed in cadence with her footsteps, as she came ever
closer. Concentrating her effort, she slowed her breathing to
a methodical pulse and attempted to relax, to open herself to
a sight greater than that of natural human senses. One could
usually find an answer if they looked beyond the gap of
limited logic and insufficient understanding. But what a gap
to cross! And time had run out. She had arrived. Queen Zeal
had gone alone, and cast herself into the Lion’s Den.
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Like I said
before, my character / story and my votes for this round are
completely separate things, for the most part. But it feels
more epic if you read it while listening to the Lord of the
Rings Soundtrack *shamelessplug*
---
Am I a
butterfly dreaming I'm a man, or a bowling ball dreaming I'm a
plate of sashimi?
"The Queen is peerless in both power and beauty"
FFOS6 :: Queen Zeal :: Sidekick :: Shadow
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02-01-2002 10:30
PM
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- Koren of Red Lotus - Scarlet Magician - Rurouni
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