From Lothos' Campaign Trail to Tekvar's Store

 

The pulling from the tentacle started again, and the wave of pain struck as a new scene materialized and snapped into place. There was lots of noise and huge crowds. I was looking down into a mob scene. Lots of people were shouting what sounded like slogans of some sort, political perhaps, and cheering. In the front of the crowd was a platform on which stood a nondescript human. Everyone was dressed in a variety of clothing that seemed strange to me. The guy up on the platform was addressing the crowd, and seemed to be petitioning their support for leadership. Around us were lots of old buildings, and a tall thin white pillar rose in the distance, obviously some strange monolitic structure. I listened to the guy giving the speech.

"And if you elect me, I'll change taxes, bring reformations....blah, blah, blah" he droned on. Some sort of political posturing as far as I could tell, but by what he was saying I gathered in this place they cast votes and elected their rulers. Wierd. The guy didn't look familiar at all, so I started scanning the crowd.

Someone in the crowd was causing a bit of a stir, bullying and pushing his way toward the podium. He looked vaguely familiar at this distance, but there were so many people around him I just couldn't be sure of who he was.

The speech seemed to be wrapping up. "And, as a last note . . ." His face started to slag and droop like it was melting. A particularily messy bit of shapeshifting, I thought. The buildings around seemed to become more dingy and dirty, with parts beginning to fall off, like they were corroding. The guy's face and skin was now dripping and ragged. Nauseating.

The crowd was badly shaken, horrified, I noted looking at them. The guy's flesh looked stretched to the extreme now, and started to pull off. It kept pulling down and eventually revealed red hair and Lotho's face. I sighed.

The buildings erroded more and more, starting to fall and crumble. The semi-familiar person below continued to fight forward toward the podium, but the crowd was now panicking. Hmm, couldn't be Timtallegay. He'd have been shouting useless peace-inspiring things by now.

Lothos raised a hand and screamed, "Armies of Shadow, Arise." The entire crowd suddently hunched over, their hair getting scraggily and their clothes looking dirty and ratty.

The buildings groaned, collapsing. On the right a building collapsed and where it's center would have been was a symbol left hanging there. The same happened to a building on the left, but with a different symbol. I looked at them closely, trying to burn them into my memory. They matched the symbols that had been on each end of the wierd football/octopus I'd seen in Suhuy's scrying pool. They were strange, intricate symbols. The rest of the buildings fully collapsed now. The entire image began breaking up, and a feeling of being slingshot through shadow hit me, complete with colored lights and blurred images streaking by.

Then there was an image of a cave, with hundreds of thousands of Lothos hunched over shadow minions milling about. In dozens and dozens of different languages, scrawled all over the walls, were slogans. All of them seemed to be variations on a theme, 'Welcome to the New Beginning', 'Welcome in the New Beginning', 'The New Beginning is Here, Now' and so on. They were written in paint, chalk, crayon, in every imaginable medium.

This image broke up, and I felt that slingshot feeling again. The next stop was in what looked to be a futuristic city, carved crystalline quartz towers wrapped in blue mist dominated the horizen. I began looking around in wonder,

PING

"Yes?" I answered. There was a really sick spinning sensation that faded quickly. I swallowed my nausea, and resumed looking around.

There were strange people in this place, that I'd never seen before. Vehicles were flying around, off in the distance, and down near the city I could see some of Lothos' troops, ratty and disheveled.

Again, the scene broke up and I was flung through shadow. I found myself in a forest. There was an old cottage of wood, clay and thatch nearby. I saw human looking figures out working in a field. The cottage itself looked empty, and off in the distance were the ever-present Lothos minions.

The slingshot effect kicked in again, and I was standing in front of some kind of store. A flashing, lit sign screamed 'BUD'. Another sign announced they were open Sundays. Over the door, was a big sign proclaiming the place to be called 'Tekvars'. Oh, I see. I almost fell on the ground, laughing. When I recovered, I tried going inside the place, but it was all blackness inside. Suddenly, Tekvar phased into existance, looking around and ranting.

"Bud gives me gas! I really prefer other beer. In fact, almost ANY other beer. And I don't wanna own a convenience, because I don't wanna be forced to put that 5 cent stupid thing up. Well, it doesn't interest me. You ruined it! Dammit! Argh! I don't know if that's what he meant to do or not, but now I'm mad at him. I kinda liked him too, I mean, he didn't have real good choice of movies, but it was free, and he brought beer. You've ruined it, you're gonna force to to put 5 cent tax, 5 cent deposit on everybody's sodas! Argh!"

I tried walking up to the raving lunatic to lay an hand on his shoulder, but he was insubstantial. At least I knew who was here. I continued to watch and listen to Tekvar, almost giggling. He continued yelling.

"I don't want a convenience store! Not of my own! And I want 'em to have, uh, anything but Budweiser, the shit of beers!"

The store started dying, crumbling up and flaking off, and getting old and decrepit as he yelled. The lights that were on went out, inside and out. I supposed it was closing since he didn't want it.

Tekvar kept yelling at it, "Yeah, well I wouldn't put my name on a convenience store that was willing to put a Bud sign up! It should be destroyed". He looked around a bit, "Take the place down!" he yelled.

The store continued to die. I muttered to the unseen Lothos, "Yeah, and I bet he could beat you in a straight-out logic fight too, he he."

Tekvar stood watching the store, and looking around. He finally sat down, as if he were waiting. I noticed that he started to sink into the ground. It grew squishy under him, much like quicksand. It didn't look any different though, just behaved differently. Tekvar looked as if he were concentrating, but nothing really happened except that he continued to sink. His rear end sand in, and his feet started to follow. He didn't move, still seeming to be concentrating, and he just continued to sink until only his head and hands remained. The last I saw of Tekvar, he just shrugged.

Go on to Chapter Twenty, Part Five

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Lady Corvina I of the Courts of Chaos