ic Puzzle Box: A Grave Matter

[Exaccus]

Yelling in pain facsimile stumbled ever so slightly backwards as the marble of his leg cracked and crumbled ever so slightly "haaa...thats a neat trick i confess but i won't help you...i just need to hit all seven at once!" he boomed as he reached out with a massive hand and uprooted one of the crunbling pillars of stone that surrounded him and swung at the mass of enemies with it like a baseball bat, rather cliumsy with his mounting exhaustion and damage.

 

In the back of his mind he worried about the damage done to his leg carrying overt to his human form...but he had gained additional mass....he did with most transformations...maybe it would fall away and leave only a phantom ache when he relinquished his transformation?

 

He would find out soon enough, though after gravedigger and pixie.

 

He felt his vision blurr and blacken and his body starting to go limp, stone knees crashing into the ground as he felt himself keeling over, using the very last embers of his strength he drove the pillar into the ground ensuring it wouldnt fall on anyone and then felt his hold on conciousness fade and darkness take him.

 

His transformation evaporated immediately, stone once again flesh fell forwards with a dull thud leaving him unconcious face down in mud.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Exaccus

[Supercape]

GM

 

And so...

 

Everything hurt of course, but he was still alive. The Gravedigger had promised that. 

 

He was lying in the same silk bed, on a dream like corridor of mist. 

 

Pixie was wringing her hands next to him. She had obviously been crying. 

 

"Oh thank goodness!" she gasped as Fascimile woke up. "The Puzzle Box has been trying to close. Its like...we won. Sort of. Whatever needed to be resolved, got resolved...."

 

She burst into tears. 

 

"The Gravedigger cut his head off! Barely blinked an eye. And...I think maybe Ludwig wasn't so angry about that. He just sighed. He was just full of sorrow. Grief. Loss...." she moaned. 

 

"We didn't win really did we? I mean, it came to an end. The dead aren't walking. But...I think we lost...."

[Exaccus]

Alex's head span a little as he tried to sit up, he enjoyed lounging around as much as the next young adult but not whilst people were in distress.

 

"Yeah...we did...but maybe luddwig won?" He offered "he's with his beloved now right...like one of them crooks whos really just trying to commit suicide by cop..." he was unsure if that was a better or worse way to think about it.

 

"You had a really rough time huh penny?" He said softer as he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her "draggin my stone cold butt back here and having to watch that whole gruesome thing."

[Supercape]

GM

 

Pixie cheered up fractionally, wiping away tears. "I didn't drag you here. Its like this place collapsed..." she said. "We are inside the Puzzle Box. Like the Box captured something stuck. Something wrong. And when Ludwig died, the puzzle was solved..."

 

She paused a moment. "I guess there is more than one way to solve a puzzle. This wasn't the way I would have chose. But its solved anyway..."

 

She forced herself to a more serene mood. "At least, I hope its solved. I am not sure how real this place is at all. I don't know where the Gravedigger went. Or where Ludwig's body is. And his dead ghost wife, well I have no idea...."

 

"I still don't understand the Puzzle Box. But I have a feeling it is a lot more powerful than I thought..."

[Exaccus]

It had been a long day, full of lessons he was sure he'd missed, but he'd learned a few things, he was not a one man army for example, he'd felt where his limits laid in this ordeal his transformations, whilst quick still took a good while whilst things happened around him and he could be exhausted by serial combats and encounters...there was definately something to do with timing here as well as a few philosophical things about the nature of humanity he was sure.

 

"Well...whats say we blow this Popsicle puzzle box?....this puzzly popsicle stand?" he tried trying to inject a bit of light humor as he hopped out of the bed and looked around "fly you to the moon?" he offered pointing to what he assumed was the way out ontop of the too near to be real satelite.

[Supercape]

GM

 

"You got it..."

 

Whooomf! nothing happened. And everything happened. Or maybe both. 

 

And then they were standing in the graveyard where they had trounced the mistress of bones. Time had passed, but who knew how much? Night it was, and the moon shone through the clouds. But this was a regular moon, not bloated or fat. Just a lump of rock thousands of miles away. 

 

And in her hand, the Puzzle Pixie held the Puzzle box thoughtfully. 

 

"Back in the boring old world. Still boring" she sighed, although she turned the puzzle box gently. "At least, until the next puzzle appears" she said, more brightly. "I feel like it is stuffed full of things that need endings. But how things end, well, that's not so simple I guess..."

 

~ Fin? ~

 

Edited August 29, 2018 by Supercape