Well, I figured out the problem I'd been having, and mostly it was that the direction I was going in was a little off from the directin I wanted to be going in. So, I'm going to have to replace a it of what you've already read.
Also, since I just wrote this, I won't have the non-printing character translation error problem I'd had before. Might as well toss you the entire thing. It is also the case that since I just wrote this it hasn't been gone over nearly as much as the rest. Please bring any editorial stuff to my attention - especially if this doesn't flow well with the narrative before (or after).
So, after a short rewind...
------------------
"First of all, I thought you should know, it wasn't your fault. He came through Omega gate 5."
Omega gate 5? I've never heard of an Omega gate 5. I've never heard of an Omega gate anything. My confusion shows plainly on my face.
"It's a classified, and you've just gotten need-to-know. The Omega gates are gates that, for one reason or another, aren't connected to the Concourse. They're all classified for one reason or another, and you're not cleared for any of the others, so don't even ask. Omega 5 is our Hell-world gate. It's designed to attract the worst of the demonic incursions into kill-zones so that they don't overrun any of the friendly realms. It's also nice because we can deal with them in places that don't have any civilians."
"Sounds...pleasant. So how in the Kings Realms did this guy manage to sleaze the teleport wards? If this gate is really that ugly there's no way you'ld have anything less than the best."
"You're right. We had the best wards that magic could bind. They were strong enough to bounce demigods, and even slow mid-range godlings. We had wards that were more than sufficient."
"Boss? Boss. That was the past tense. Why were you speaking in the past tense, Boss?"
"We left the last team down there too long. They were too effective, too good at what they did, and we didn't want to pull them. It cost them too heavily in psychological damage, though, and there was no one there to see. Their lives were fraying around the edges, and the mage on the team was a Priest of the Kind Ones."
I bury my face in my hands. "Oh, no. Don't tell me. Let me guess..."
"He wove a fate-shield."
"Of course he did. And, of course, to make it strong enough to matter for a place like that...."
"He tied it into the wards."
"And the strain of denied fate built up until there were enough holes to teleport through."
"And now we need you to lance the boil."
"And now you need me to lance the boil. Of course you do. What's happening with the priest?"
"He betrayed his oath to the Force. He's out. He's also suffering some severe karmic backlash from the Divine for using his powers in a way that has harmed others. We're remanding him to his temple with a Lesser Dishonorable, with a review for cleansing upon request of the head of his order, for once the debt's been worked off. No further punishment."
Surprising, for something akin to high treason. "You're letting him off awful light."
"We never should have left them down there that long in the first place. It doesn't excuse, but it is extenuating."
I nod. I may not agree with them on this particular case, but it's good to have leadership that can accept responsibility every once in a while. He fills me in on the details.
This thing has to be done in cycles. For one thing, they know my limits, and know that there's no way I'll be able to run this little game without recovery time. For another, they want the opportunity to reinforce the wards in between draining sessions. I'll be on a steady team, specially selected for the purpose from various other teams in the Force. We'll come on as a team, we'll go off as a team, and we'll have light duty on the days we aren't in the pit. For pit days we'll have something close to a traditional eight-hour shift, with initial plan being twice a week. He'd like to pretend we're getting a luch break, but that would be silly. We're getting ration bars instead. My shift will be starting in half an hour, and the rest of the team will be there ten minutes prior. It's not like they'd want to show up *after* me, after all. My job is to keep going as long as I can, doing what I do, and theirs is to take advantage of the situation. He gives me a special code for the restricted teleporter, and a chit for the armorer and I'm on my way.
The armorer is a bit of a gun freak, and a little repressed. He has all of these beautiful *toys*, you see, and he never gets to let anyone *use* them. I pass my chit across the table, and his face lights up like it's Stone's Day.
What do you know? It *is* Stone's Day. He asks a few probing questions about my fighting style, digs around in the back a bit, and comes out with a thing of beauty. It's a short-barreled belt-fed automatic shotgun. He loads with hellstoppers. He takes a look at my paired Godhammers, and nods approvingly before handing me an infinity clip for each - one with awakened silver, the other with magebane steel. My eyebrows raise. That *can't* be cheap. He takes a look at my attuned fighting knife, and admits that he can't come up with anything better, but tries to make up for it by offering me grenades. I cough, and remind him that I'll mostly be fighting in melee, and he gives it up. Finally, he asks me if there's anything I can think of, anything at all, that I might want.
"Honestly? I'm a bit worried about the shotgun. It's a lovely peice of equipment and all, but I'll be spending most of my time in melee, or near-melee. What the heck am I supposed to do with it when I'm knife-fighting?"
His eyes light up, and he scurries off into the back again, only to return with a pair of iron rings. One goes on my right hand, one goes on the shotgun, he places his hands on both, and invokes a bit of the Enchanter's Art. Following instructions, I grasp the pistol-grip with one hand, then will it away. The shotgun goes away. I will it back again. It comes back again. He offers to get me some armorweave, but I turn him down. Honestly, it'd just slow me down, and it'd burn off way to quick to be useful.
I giggle all the way over to the telepad, willing the shotgun out and back again. I'm practicing. It's important to practice new capabilities before you head into battle. It is.
The teleporter drops me off at a security desk, and the guard there wastes no time in directing me to a nearby vault lock. I guess they know I was coming. I pass through the first door and come to the second. There, I take my time on one last full check before I hit the pressure plate. There sure won't be time after. I almost... I almost feel it. Then the door cycles, and I'm through. Then I do feel it. There is a dam here - a holding back of fate, and my presence is making it fray. My fellows are watchfully waiting, each following their own techniques to stay more or less alert without growing bored. A few of them look up, sensing something. Then the dam springs a leak, and a quicklly-widening river of the stuff of fate starts pouring through my core. Half the room turns to look at me, ranging from mild confusion to near-awe. The other half doesn't even notice. I laugh.
"All right!" I holler. "Everybody up! Showtime!"
Ten seconds later, the breach alarms start going off, and portals start spawning at the far end of the room, pumping out hords of unknown uglies. I hear a startled voice from behind. "How the hell did he do that?"
I smile, and get ready to do my job.
It's ugly work. It's ugly, ugly work. I kill with the shotgun. I kill with my pistols. I kill with my knife and with my bare hands. Still, that's not the important bit. The important bit is that while I'm kiling I scream and threaten and ridicule and stand in the middle of the bloody room and light up on magesight like a phosphorus grenade and Momma Fate keeps pouring that dammed-up randomness through me and reality goes all pear-shaped where I'm at. It's just who I am. Every single magic-sensitive creature who walks, hops, slithers or crawls through those portals immediately identifies me as the biggest threat in the room, and does their damndest to take me out. Hundreds of hostile spells home in on my position, only to find at the last moment that they just don't care enough to stick to me, and they're a little too far from home to stick around. Hundreds of hostile warrior-types try to attack me and I dance the chaos dance. Do you know how to fight when the laws of probability turn into vague guidelines? I do. Momma Fate loves her baby boy, yes she does. I fight for hours, and I kill by the dozens, but while the enemy is focused on me, every one of my compatriates is killing by the hundreds. If we're lucky, we get five to ten minutes to breathe between assaults. It's glorious, and I'm running on the rush.
Then, finally, the rush isn't enough. I start to slip a little. I start to burn out. The flesh wounds I'm taking stop sealing up by themselves, and then I take a hit to the head, and then one of the clawed things punches a hole through my chest. That's going to leave a mark. I start to backpedal, coughing up blood. It's not a short distance back to the lines, but I've had to go further with worse injures before, and a few shots from the pistol - for cover, now, not effect - manage to slow up my closest pursuers just enough for the cannon crew to take them out. The medic catches me, and starts to call up a healing effect.
"No, dammit." I hiss. "Out of the room. Get me out of the room." She freezes for a moment and I fix her with the stare. Normally it doesn't work on other agents, but she's just seem me at my best, burning with chaos, and it works on her. Works well enough, anyway. I can hear the door hissing open as I black out.
I come to again just outside the security desk. I guess the medic took me seriously. The head wound is all fixed up, whatever it was. The hole in my chest has been healed, and yep, there's the scar. I'm actually feeling pretty good, for a guy who's just woken up from battle injuries. I start to sit up, and then the last of that rush fades, and I collapse back down again.
First, my body seizes up. Then every major muscle group in my body, and most of the minors burst into pain. It starts as a simple full-body ache, and quickly ascends to sheer agony. I make a little keening noise - all I can do with my mouth and vocal cords locked like they are. Then I hear footsteps - footsteps going away from me - and the sprinklers come on and drench me with cold, cold water, so as the pain starts to fade I have cold, wet, and shivering to take over for it. My keening subsides to a sort of pathetic whimper.
I... I don't *like* withdrawal.
Then that stage, the cold and wet and shivering and not as much but still quite a lot of pain stage, that takes a while to go away. I lie on the floor, cold and alone and miserable, and I wait. Half an hour or so after the sprinklers started going off, the outer door to the Bad Place opens up, and the medic comes out, and sees me. There are shocked and horrified apologies. For myself, I am not shocked and the apologies don't mean much, but I'm not in a state to actually communicate any of this, so I don't. I just lie there miserably until they manage to bring me a blanket and a warm drink and the medic starts to heal what's wrong with my body again. The occasional whimpers fade. The sobbing begins.
I've just been in there killing people. For hours. I was killing actual, living, thinking people, and I was enjoying it. I was laughing. It was *fun*. It's even my job. I kill people for a living, and for no better reason than that their portal came out the wrong place. I killed them by the dozens, and by the thousands I helped them die. I killed them and I mocked them while I was doing it, and I stood in front of them and I dared them to kill me. I stood there on the razor's edge and danced with imminent death over and over and over again. I could have died in there, and I paid no attention to it whatsoever, and one day it's going to kill me. Heck, with the scedule we've got set up down in this hell-hole, there's a good chance that "one day" is going to be some time this month. My body is wracked by self-loathing and fear, and I cry like a broken man.
I really, *really* don't like withdrawal.
I cry until I'm exhausted, until I just lie there panting on the floor, and then I lie there for a while longer. When I finally manage to look up, the medic is beside me, just waiting. I cough.
"Sorry about that."
Wow, that hurt.
She puts a finger to my lips, and then runs a hand along my throat. I feel the tingle of her magic, and then the pain just goes away.
I love the healing arts.
She tries to apologize back. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left you like that. I..."
I cut her off with a gesture. "It's not what you think. It's the price of doing business. I took a little too much from the hand of fate, and she had to balance the scales. I knew something like this would happen. Don't worry about it. How did things go after I left?"
She told me. After I quit the field, the enemy turned to assault the rest of the team in force, but the team had been ready for it, and had beat them back. The medic herself had managed to make it back through the portals in time to account for a good number of the creatures - she was a devotee of the balancer, and drew the life that healed us out of them. I fiddled around a bit. My life-flows didn't *feel* any different, so it was probably okay. They had beaten back three waves before the enemy finally broke, and the three other mid/close combat specialists had all taken injuries that required her help. After that, though, the portals had stopped. They'd just stopped dead, and it had been calm for the last half-hour. Then the relief shift had come in, and our time was over, and wouldn't I like to head home?
------------------
So, Response? Thoughts? Criticisms" (I'd love to get concrit if anyone has any.) Simple confirmation that people are still reading this and would like to read more?
Also, since I just wrote this, I won't have the non-printing character translation error problem I'd had before. Might as well toss you the entire thing. It is also the case that since I just wrote this it hasn't been gone over nearly as much as the rest. Please bring any editorial stuff to my attention - especially if this doesn't flow well with the narrative before (or after).
So, after a short rewind...
------------------
"First of all, I thought you should know, it wasn't your fault. He came through Omega gate 5."
Omega gate 5? I've never heard of an Omega gate 5. I've never heard of an Omega gate anything. My confusion shows plainly on my face.
"It's a classified, and you've just gotten need-to-know. The Omega gates are gates that, for one reason or another, aren't connected to the Concourse. They're all classified for one reason or another, and you're not cleared for any of the others, so don't even ask. Omega 5 is our Hell-world gate. It's designed to attract the worst of the demonic incursions into kill-zones so that they don't overrun any of the friendly realms. It's also nice because we can deal with them in places that don't have any civilians."
"Sounds...pleasant. So how in the Kings Realms did this guy manage to sleaze the teleport wards? If this gate is really that ugly there's no way you'ld have anything less than the best."
"You're right. We had the best wards that magic could bind. They were strong enough to bounce demigods, and even slow mid-range godlings. We had wards that were more than sufficient."
"Boss? Boss. That was the past tense. Why were you speaking in the past tense, Boss?"
"We left the last team down there too long. They were too effective, too good at what they did, and we didn't want to pull them. It cost them too heavily in psychological damage, though, and there was no one there to see. Their lives were fraying around the edges, and the mage on the team was a Priest of the Kind Ones."
I bury my face in my hands. "Oh, no. Don't tell me. Let me guess..."
"He wove a fate-shield."
"Of course he did. And, of course, to make it strong enough to matter for a place like that...."
"He tied it into the wards."
"And the strain of denied fate built up until there were enough holes to teleport through."
"And now we need you to lance the boil."
"And now you need me to lance the boil. Of course you do. What's happening with the priest?"
"He betrayed his oath to the Force. He's out. He's also suffering some severe karmic backlash from the Divine for using his powers in a way that has harmed others. We're remanding him to his temple with a Lesser Dishonorable, with a review for cleansing upon request of the head of his order, for once the debt's been worked off. No further punishment."
Surprising, for something akin to high treason. "You're letting him off awful light."
"We never should have left them down there that long in the first place. It doesn't excuse, but it is extenuating."
I nod. I may not agree with them on this particular case, but it's good to have leadership that can accept responsibility every once in a while. He fills me in on the details.
This thing has to be done in cycles. For one thing, they know my limits, and know that there's no way I'll be able to run this little game without recovery time. For another, they want the opportunity to reinforce the wards in between draining sessions. I'll be on a steady team, specially selected for the purpose from various other teams in the Force. We'll come on as a team, we'll go off as a team, and we'll have light duty on the days we aren't in the pit. For pit days we'll have something close to a traditional eight-hour shift, with initial plan being twice a week. He'd like to pretend we're getting a luch break, but that would be silly. We're getting ration bars instead. My shift will be starting in half an hour, and the rest of the team will be there ten minutes prior. It's not like they'd want to show up *after* me, after all. My job is to keep going as long as I can, doing what I do, and theirs is to take advantage of the situation. He gives me a special code for the restricted teleporter, and a chit for the armorer and I'm on my way.
The armorer is a bit of a gun freak, and a little repressed. He has all of these beautiful *toys*, you see, and he never gets to let anyone *use* them. I pass my chit across the table, and his face lights up like it's Stone's Day.
What do you know? It *is* Stone's Day. He asks a few probing questions about my fighting style, digs around in the back a bit, and comes out with a thing of beauty. It's a short-barreled belt-fed automatic shotgun. He loads with hellstoppers. He takes a look at my paired Godhammers, and nods approvingly before handing me an infinity clip for each - one with awakened silver, the other with magebane steel. My eyebrows raise. That *can't* be cheap. He takes a look at my attuned fighting knife, and admits that he can't come up with anything better, but tries to make up for it by offering me grenades. I cough, and remind him that I'll mostly be fighting in melee, and he gives it up. Finally, he asks me if there's anything I can think of, anything at all, that I might want.
"Honestly? I'm a bit worried about the shotgun. It's a lovely peice of equipment and all, but I'll be spending most of my time in melee, or near-melee. What the heck am I supposed to do with it when I'm knife-fighting?"
His eyes light up, and he scurries off into the back again, only to return with a pair of iron rings. One goes on my right hand, one goes on the shotgun, he places his hands on both, and invokes a bit of the Enchanter's Art. Following instructions, I grasp the pistol-grip with one hand, then will it away. The shotgun goes away. I will it back again. It comes back again. He offers to get me some armorweave, but I turn him down. Honestly, it'd just slow me down, and it'd burn off way to quick to be useful.
I giggle all the way over to the telepad, willing the shotgun out and back again. I'm practicing. It's important to practice new capabilities before you head into battle. It is.
The teleporter drops me off at a security desk, and the guard there wastes no time in directing me to a nearby vault lock. I guess they know I was coming. I pass through the first door and come to the second. There, I take my time on one last full check before I hit the pressure plate. There sure won't be time after. I almost... I almost feel it. Then the door cycles, and I'm through. Then I do feel it. There is a dam here - a holding back of fate, and my presence is making it fray. My fellows are watchfully waiting, each following their own techniques to stay more or less alert without growing bored. A few of them look up, sensing something. Then the dam springs a leak, and a quicklly-widening river of the stuff of fate starts pouring through my core. Half the room turns to look at me, ranging from mild confusion to near-awe. The other half doesn't even notice. I laugh.
"All right!" I holler. "Everybody up! Showtime!"
Ten seconds later, the breach alarms start going off, and portals start spawning at the far end of the room, pumping out hords of unknown uglies. I hear a startled voice from behind. "How the hell did he do that?"
I smile, and get ready to do my job.
It's ugly work. It's ugly, ugly work. I kill with the shotgun. I kill with my pistols. I kill with my knife and with my bare hands. Still, that's not the important bit. The important bit is that while I'm kiling I scream and threaten and ridicule and stand in the middle of the bloody room and light up on magesight like a phosphorus grenade and Momma Fate keeps pouring that dammed-up randomness through me and reality goes all pear-shaped where I'm at. It's just who I am. Every single magic-sensitive creature who walks, hops, slithers or crawls through those portals immediately identifies me as the biggest threat in the room, and does their damndest to take me out. Hundreds of hostile spells home in on my position, only to find at the last moment that they just don't care enough to stick to me, and they're a little too far from home to stick around. Hundreds of hostile warrior-types try to attack me and I dance the chaos dance. Do you know how to fight when the laws of probability turn into vague guidelines? I do. Momma Fate loves her baby boy, yes she does. I fight for hours, and I kill by the dozens, but while the enemy is focused on me, every one of my compatriates is killing by the hundreds. If we're lucky, we get five to ten minutes to breathe between assaults. It's glorious, and I'm running on the rush.
Then, finally, the rush isn't enough. I start to slip a little. I start to burn out. The flesh wounds I'm taking stop sealing up by themselves, and then I take a hit to the head, and then one of the clawed things punches a hole through my chest. That's going to leave a mark. I start to backpedal, coughing up blood. It's not a short distance back to the lines, but I've had to go further with worse injures before, and a few shots from the pistol - for cover, now, not effect - manage to slow up my closest pursuers just enough for the cannon crew to take them out. The medic catches me, and starts to call up a healing effect.
"No, dammit." I hiss. "Out of the room. Get me out of the room." She freezes for a moment and I fix her with the stare. Normally it doesn't work on other agents, but she's just seem me at my best, burning with chaos, and it works on her. Works well enough, anyway. I can hear the door hissing open as I black out.
I come to again just outside the security desk. I guess the medic took me seriously. The head wound is all fixed up, whatever it was. The hole in my chest has been healed, and yep, there's the scar. I'm actually feeling pretty good, for a guy who's just woken up from battle injuries. I start to sit up, and then the last of that rush fades, and I collapse back down again.
First, my body seizes up. Then every major muscle group in my body, and most of the minors burst into pain. It starts as a simple full-body ache, and quickly ascends to sheer agony. I make a little keening noise - all I can do with my mouth and vocal cords locked like they are. Then I hear footsteps - footsteps going away from me - and the sprinklers come on and drench me with cold, cold water, so as the pain starts to fade I have cold, wet, and shivering to take over for it. My keening subsides to a sort of pathetic whimper.
I... I don't *like* withdrawal.
Then that stage, the cold and wet and shivering and not as much but still quite a lot of pain stage, that takes a while to go away. I lie on the floor, cold and alone and miserable, and I wait. Half an hour or so after the sprinklers started going off, the outer door to the Bad Place opens up, and the medic comes out, and sees me. There are shocked and horrified apologies. For myself, I am not shocked and the apologies don't mean much, but I'm not in a state to actually communicate any of this, so I don't. I just lie there miserably until they manage to bring me a blanket and a warm drink and the medic starts to heal what's wrong with my body again. The occasional whimpers fade. The sobbing begins.
I've just been in there killing people. For hours. I was killing actual, living, thinking people, and I was enjoying it. I was laughing. It was *fun*. It's even my job. I kill people for a living, and for no better reason than that their portal came out the wrong place. I killed them by the dozens, and by the thousands I helped them die. I killed them and I mocked them while I was doing it, and I stood in front of them and I dared them to kill me. I stood there on the razor's edge and danced with imminent death over and over and over again. I could have died in there, and I paid no attention to it whatsoever, and one day it's going to kill me. Heck, with the scedule we've got set up down in this hell-hole, there's a good chance that "one day" is going to be some time this month. My body is wracked by self-loathing and fear, and I cry like a broken man.
I really, *really* don't like withdrawal.
I cry until I'm exhausted, until I just lie there panting on the floor, and then I lie there for a while longer. When I finally manage to look up, the medic is beside me, just waiting. I cough.
"Sorry about that."
Wow, that hurt.
She puts a finger to my lips, and then runs a hand along my throat. I feel the tingle of her magic, and then the pain just goes away.
I love the healing arts.
She tries to apologize back. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left you like that. I..."
I cut her off with a gesture. "It's not what you think. It's the price of doing business. I took a little too much from the hand of fate, and she had to balance the scales. I knew something like this would happen. Don't worry about it. How did things go after I left?"
She told me. After I quit the field, the enemy turned to assault the rest of the team in force, but the team had been ready for it, and had beat them back. The medic herself had managed to make it back through the portals in time to account for a good number of the creatures - she was a devotee of the balancer, and drew the life that healed us out of them. I fiddled around a bit. My life-flows didn't *feel* any different, so it was probably okay. They had beaten back three waves before the enemy finally broke, and the three other mid/close combat specialists had all taken injuries that required her help. After that, though, the portals had stopped. They'd just stopped dead, and it had been calm for the last half-hour. Then the relief shift had come in, and our time was over, and wouldn't I like to head home?
------------------
So, Response? Thoughts? Criticisms" (I'd love to get concrit if anyone has any.) Simple confirmation that people are still reading this and would like to read more?