Checkmate

 

I started to wake up, and realized that everything hurt. I felt little burning spots all over the place. Things began to swim into focus, and I coughed on hot ash. I saw people around me on the ground, all waking up, Timtallegay, 01, Tekvar, Injarda-o and Gwen. There were two I didn't recognize, already standing. One was over Injarda-o, apparently trying to wake him. He was stocky, about 5'9", with purple hair and a purple goatee, much like Injarda-o's hair. The goatee was braided, about three inches long. He had blue eyes, was wearing blue jeans, and oversized black tee-shirt and purple Converse sneakers. He also had a nice tan. My first thought was, 'I didn't know Random had more kids.' The other was another redhead, about 5'10", green eyes, black leather shirt, calf high black leather boots, puffy pants in black as well with a sash about the waist and a black cape. Looked like a bad cariacature of a pirate. Timtallegay woke and rolled over, covering his face with his sleeve. I looked at Tim, who seemed peaceful and calm, and it felt strangely good to look at him. Wierd. I sat up a little and looked around. We were in a small, rocky depression on a blasted plain. The ground was mostly smooth basalt rock, and the air was filled with volcanic ash. Nice place.

"Hello" Timtallegay said, predictably. 01 concentrated and grimaced, then shifted to a plasma form. I got a wierd sense of familiarity and looked down at my feet. Suddenly I realized were I was. This was THE battlefield. Shit. We seemed to be in the center of it, too. 01 pulled half a dozen trumps of me out, suddenly, and threw them to the ground looking very uncomfortable. Ah well. He then resumed his plasma form.

"01" I checked my assumption, "why are you throwing my trumps all over the ground?" "They hurt" he said simply. Ah, I understand.

"Oh, yeah, sorry" I apologized.

"They hurt?" Injarda-o asked, incredulously.

"I'll try to do something about that" I muttered.

"Hello?" Timtallegay repeated at the new folks. "I'm Timtallegay, who are you?"

"I am Vidal" said the redhead. "I am a hairdresser." He looked rather proud of that fact.

"I'm Bre'vt" claimed the other one, "are you the boss?"

"No" TimT replied mildly, "I'm Timtallegay." I noticed they had no large, unconcealable weaponry poking out anywhere. I felt a presence over my shoulder, and as I turned to look I noticed everyone else turning as well. They all looked around. I remembered my vision, and looked up. They all followed suit. There was a circle appearing in the sky, blue tinged, with traces of silver. The circle seemed to be descending slowly, though it was still far away.

"Timtallegay" Gwen called, "do you know where we are?"

"No" I heard TimT answer her, "I might guess though."

"Can we get out of the depression please?" I asked around. "Folks?" I glanced up at the circle again. "Move out of the depression in the ground!" I said as I started moving. This place scared me, and I was scared for all of them too. I didn't know if any of them recognized it or not, but I'd rather have them pissed at me and out of here quickly.

"Do you know where we are?" Gwen asked, following.

"Yes" I said, "we're on the battlefield, now move out of the depression please. I've got a bad feeling about this."

"That battlefield?" Injarda-o asked.

"Yeah, that battlefield!" I said back. We all moved out of the area, to my relief, and onto the flats. It was then we noticed the creatures approaching from across the field. My relief was short lived. They were blue, with three short legs. They looked like giant inverted ice-cream cones, more than anything else. They seemed to be advancing on us quickly, and there was a hum in the air that was coming from them. It almost seemed like a language, but it was nothing I could understand. Most of us milled about in confusion for a few moments, except Tekvar who was staring at them in apparent concentration. 01 started commenting about going to see Ghostwheel, to work things out with him. Noone thought this a very good idea, but 01 was getting stubborn. He started concentrating on something that made Gwen jumpy. We were all arguing about how to get out of there and where to go. In the middle of this conversation, Tekvar started shifting, growing another leg, turning blue and getting coneheaded.

Bre'vt looked a bit alarmed, "He's turning into one of those."
"He does that" I told him, as Gwen spoke up at the same time.
"He does that" she said, "don't worry about it."
Timtallegay nodded, "He's able to reform his body."
Bre'vt watched for a moment, "Is he trumping a contact somewhere or something?"
"No" TimT told him, "he's a shifter."

I turned to look back at 01, remembering a strange phrase I'd heard in the Courts, which I was told was a term used on shadow earth for insanity.

"Does cuckoo for cocoa puffs mean anything to you?" I asked him. "How about malfunctioning computer?" 01 frowned, looking unconvinced.
"01 . . ." Gwen started to say.
"Insane computer" I repeated to convince him. "Insane AI" I emphasized.
"01, shut it down so we can trump, please!" Gwen called. 01 was staring at me.
"Insane malfunctioning AI" I repeated slowly.
"That . . ." 01 started to say.
"Unstable AI, 01" I shouted, realized that he was opening a tunnel to Ghostwheel. "Shut the window, it's not stable!"
01 looked rather amused at this. Why wouldn't he listen to me, dammit? I really rathered he didn't go off and do something stupid and potentially fatal! But . . . I wasn't about to abandon Gwen either . . . Gwen ignored him and began shuffling through trumps again, concentrating. With a glance, I realized that Injarda-o was already concentrating on a trump, 01 gate or no. The coneheads were getting quite close by this time. I thought about reaching for a weapon, and felt myself instantaneously extend hundreds of tendrils in hundreds of directions. Almost in an instant response that left me gasping, there was a pile of some 50 or 60 various weapons at my feet. I gaped at them for a moment, then extracted a pulse laser cannon.

Several folks turned and just stared at me. "Neat trick" I heard 01 say.

Off in the distance, from the other side of the depression, we noticed a lot of humanoid figures approaching us. They appeared hunched over, ratty and ragged. Several of us groaned 'Oh no, Lothos, Scourge of Shadow' at about the same time. Lothos himself was there, being carried by his people, reclining and waving his hands about dramatically in waves.

"That would be Lothos, Scourge of Shadow" 01 agreed. I debated in my head for a moment the wisdom of opening fire on him, then decided not to. A glimpse at Tekvar showed that he'd completed the transformation into one of the coneheads. Interesting. Injarda-o and Gwen both started to get prismatic effects from their trumps. It was then that we all noticed a small bright circle of light appear about 10 feet away from us. Ghostwheel.

From the circle came a voice, "I've got you now, they'll never get you, you're mine!" Slowly, it started to expand.

"Jump, jump, go, get out!" I yelled at everyone, "That's Ghost!"
Unbelievingly, 01 actually jumped through his window. Good luck, 01.
Tekvar, Bre-vt and I grabbed Gwen's hand, and I saw Timtallegay, and Vidal grab Injarda-o.
"Corvina!" I heard 01's voice yell, "I'll call!" Yeah, I hope so, 01.

As we trumped out, we caught a last glimpse of Lothos. He jumped down and started stomping around, yelling and pointing at the circle in the sky,
"You cheated! You cheated! I shifted left, that move should have worked, you cheated!"
He was holding a strange device, pushing a lever about and clicking a button wildly. The circle in the sky moved over Lothos, shrank, and sunk down on top of him. Everything went to a trump rainbow, and we shifted to . . . Amber Castle.

Go on to Chapter TwentyOne

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