‘That wasn’t a rabbit or something in the bushes just now?’ Hector asked.
‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Garovel privately. ‘Not on the roof, either. Nor in the grass, right now.’
Hector hadn’t even noticed that last one yet, but sure enough, he turned just in time to see a patch of tall grass by the patio stop shaking.
‘The next house over,’ said Garovel. ‘Hurry. Now the people in that one have the aura, instead.’
Hector launched himself over the stone wall one more time, but before he even landed, Garovel was already amending his statement.
‘And now it’s gone...’
He kinda figured that might happen. ‘The hell is going on here, Garovel?’
‘I don’t know. Just be ready.’
“This is getting boring,” came an unfamiliar voice.
Hector looked around but saw no one. ‘Garovel?’
‘No, there’s no--’ The reaper cut himself short at the sound of muted whispering.
“No, just do something bigger,” said the same voice.
More whispers.
“Oh, what does it matter now? You’ve hardly been subtle. They clearly know something’s going on already. If you’re going to play with them, you might as well really play with them.”
“But we’re not supposed to,” came a new voice.
“Ha, look at him!” said still another. “He’s so confused!”
Hector’s eyes kept telling him that there was no one around, but he was beginning to get the picture. Garovel said it before he could, though.
‘They’re invisible. Even to me.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know.’
“Don’t worry, metal kid!” came yet another voice. “We’re not real! We’re all in your head! You’re going crazy, see?!”
“Pfft, he’ll never buy that now. Use your brain, you bloody idiot.”
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
Morgunovs.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if they have a person who's doing the concealing, if their souls are genuinely not present, or if they have servant-science that hides them from souldar. I seem to recall that Garovel didn't notice Geoffrey's fetchers losing their souls when he was observing him before taking Hector, so it's probably not Domination.
He kinda figured that might happen. ‘The hell is going on here, Garovel?I don’t know. Just be ready.’
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's something completel different after all...
ReplyDeleteGot it, thank you.
ReplyDeleteSo I was looking at the abilities page, and the chart there was looking a little pixely, so I decided to gussy it up a little. Nothing fancy, just a higher resolution and some ability grouping backgrounds. What think?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'd think that we're seeing a new abberation ability, except for the fact that I really don't see how invisibility could be used to consume souls.
ReplyDeleteI guess this probably removes my theory about aberration summoned monsters. Maybe an aberration that has invisibility and just needs to kill using it. Hopefully, there is a good reason why they don't feel comfortable just taking down the one low-level servant.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this has anything to do with Damien?
Um. I'll just hazard a guess that this is Not Good with a capital B, then. :/
ReplyDeleteNonsense. They're all in Hector's head, they said so themselves. Its good to see such good, upstanding hallucinations. most of them tend to be way less honest.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts on symbols:
ReplyDeleteAlteration: hand, clutching a lightning bolt (not my own idea, but it fits)
destruction: a sword
Mutation: a human figure wreathed in light
Integration: the image you have is good
Materialization: a hand with a tree growing out of it
Transfiguration: a flame
I'm thinking it's another pair of twin reapers and their servants.
ReplyDeleteHmm. An aberration ability that distorts light, making the user or targets invisible, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteNow, if Hector was smart he'd say something like "Aw, man the voices in my head are back again and this time there are three of them... Well, gotta go and find a phone to call my therapeut."
ReplyDeleteOR
"Ha, haha, the joke is on you my dear voices in my head. You can't drive me crazy because I already am crazy. HahahaHA. Seems like you're just going to have to let me go then."
Anyway, I'm a new reader here, having read the whole story so far in the past week when I really should have been studying for my finals (don't worry I didn't fail anything and to my surprise I got quite decent grades).
Hmm. I'd based the symbols on the groupings rather than the type, but those could work too.
ReplyDeleteI can see it raining iron filings pretty soon... Or lots of darts. It should be easy to make them visible.
ReplyDeleteNo that would only half work. We can assume they are wearing invisible clothes as well so coating them won't work. Need to spot the absence in the iron cloud.
Great for you!
ReplyDeleteWhy a tree? And a flame?
ReplyDeleteFlame probably because transfiguration is about chemical power. Not sure about the tree though. I'd have a hand for both, afire for transfig and with a cube or similar geometric shape just above it.
ReplyDeleteBut transfiguration is so much more than making flames sprout out of you body! Like Stoker's mist, or Helen's Calcium skin, or Cisco's acid cloud!
ReplyDeleteHow about a hand that is disintegrating into a amorphous smoke, with cracks running through it(the smoke)?
I almost wonder whether any of them would believe him. Probably whichever one didn't would convince the others.
ReplyDeleteYou are right about the flame. I would consider it to be the most famous type of chemical reaction and thus the one most reasonable to show, and the tree is because I couldn't think of anything else to represent the whole "ex nihilo" aspect of materialization. I know that a real tree requires other stuff, but nothing real can truly create something from nothing, and a tree growing is the closest I could think of. In case their was ambiguity, I meant a cupped hand with the implication dirt, not the tree just sprouting from the skin.
ReplyDeleteAs for the others (which I know nobody asked about)
Alteration: command of energy.
Destruction: a weapon, used to kill in a more primative version of the same way.
Mutation: transcendence, and the body.
Integration: causing two things to interact.
Maybe. I wasn't really as happy with the flame as my other ideas.
ReplyDeleteFor transfiguration, you could also have the corrosion-hazard warning (drops of liquid eating into a surface) with the drops coming off a hand rather than out of a test tube.
ReplyDeleteIt's really betting on the fact that there is a 50 % chance they're dumbest people in the world (see also: the time Voreese managed to land the plane)
ReplyDeleteAbout how I found this place, once upon a time I was sailing on the sea of TvTropes with a manageable amount of tabs open. I knew of the dangers, keep an eye on the tabs. However I was careless, I underestimated the sea, and the amount of tabs suddenly increased. They were like a huge tidal wave - I knew there was no escape from that. And yet I did not wish to leave my life there. So I made a one final gambit, a last gasp of breath - I clicked on a outgoing link. Where will it take me, I wondered as the page was loading? Will it be enough to bring me out from the bottom of the sea? Will it not lead me to an even worse place?
And so I arrived here. I was alive and slowly and carefully started sailing on, wondering about the new sea I was sailing in. At that time I did not know that this sea was no less dangerous than the one I escaped previously...
That's really spiffy!
ReplyDeleteYou did change the word "Mass" to "Particle," though. Which isn't a big difference, really, but kinda weird, haha.
I did? Huh, I did. I have no idea what was going on in my brain at the time (in my defence, I get sort of obsessive when working on stuff, and I finished that one at about three in the morning). Let me fix that up.
ReplyDeleteAlright, v2.0, now with updated symbols.
ReplyDeleteTypos:
ReplyDeleteHector launched himself over the stone wall one more time, but [by] the time he landed, Garovel was already amending his statement. [also nitpicking: "one more time, but by the time" sounds weird]
He kinda figured that might happen. ‘The hell is going on here, Garovel? [missing quotation mark at the end]
Got 'em, thank you.
ReplyDelete