Post by Vi-Poi on Jun 26, 2015 2:24:28 GMT
It was an old machine. A pool of dried oil made a halo of crust on the rusted floor beneath it. Only two of its three tripod legs worked any longer, and the third was held up by a case of beer. A faded Capsule Corp logo was emblazoned across its grimy shell, but it had long ago been X’ed out by spray paint and replaced by the dubious moniker ‘Ol’ Stewball’. The name made him laugh, for some reason he couldn’t pinpoint.
“This whole planet is an old machine.” He said to the relic craft’s owner. Vi-Poi had him in his grasp, dangling like a worm on a hook from the iron-grip of his robotic fingers. “I’m tired of digging through its innards in hope of finding something novel and worthwhile. It’s time, time!” He punctuated this with a harder squeeze against the dangler’s throat. “Time for a change of scenery! I’m going to go dig elsewhere, and dig up lots of goodies. I’m going where the magic is.” He pulled his other arm apart, revealing the telescoping barrel of his ki conduit as he placed it against the frightened man’s forehead.
“This may sting. Heheheheuehue!” He let out a bullet of ki, and watched the blood spatter with interest, twisting himself in a full circle to view it from all the angles. As he hung upside down, stroking his chin, the poor dead owner’s brother started weeping again. Vi-Poi sighed and threw a ki ball over his shoulder, ending the distraction. He had to think! Thinking had become a chore, lately. Something odd had happened to him, something in the ocean. He had become a buried treasure, or a sunken treasure-ship, or something. Something like that. He’d come out changed, he knew. People were constantly sending him annoying mails about it.
The only thing weird he felt was a fiery little burr deep in his chest. It’d always been burning, and though he’d smashed it over and over, tried to grind it out of existence it was still there. It was like an itch he couldn’t scratch, and those were the worst. “The worst, are persistent little itches!” He gestured to a nearby cigar package and drew it towards him, drawing out one of the long and slender pipelettes of rolled tobacco. There was something soothing in its Earthy smell, something ancient and warm. It was a memory, wrapped in on itself. He bit the end of the cigar off and lit it with a snap of his fingers and a spark of ki, then slowly revolved around the spacecraft. He supposed the other mechanics cowering in the mom-and-pop shop thought it strange to see a person upside-down and smoking, but he equally supposed that they were all unfathomable idiots.
He blew a hole in the warehouse ceiling and clambered into the small pod, glazing it with an infusion of ki as he powered up its systems. The engines still worked, which was all that mattered. He found the star in question on the onboard constellation map, and with a great cough of smoke, the Ol’ Stewball chugged into the blue sky, leaving a grey smear across the clean air.
(Vi-Poi on his way to … somewhere, One-Use Pod used )
“This whole planet is an old machine.” He said to the relic craft’s owner. Vi-Poi had him in his grasp, dangling like a worm on a hook from the iron-grip of his robotic fingers. “I’m tired of digging through its innards in hope of finding something novel and worthwhile. It’s time, time!” He punctuated this with a harder squeeze against the dangler’s throat. “Time for a change of scenery! I’m going to go dig elsewhere, and dig up lots of goodies. I’m going where the magic is.” He pulled his other arm apart, revealing the telescoping barrel of his ki conduit as he placed it against the frightened man’s forehead.
“This may sting. Heheheheuehue!” He let out a bullet of ki, and watched the blood spatter with interest, twisting himself in a full circle to view it from all the angles. As he hung upside down, stroking his chin, the poor dead owner’s brother started weeping again. Vi-Poi sighed and threw a ki ball over his shoulder, ending the distraction. He had to think! Thinking had become a chore, lately. Something odd had happened to him, something in the ocean. He had become a buried treasure, or a sunken treasure-ship, or something. Something like that. He’d come out changed, he knew. People were constantly sending him annoying mails about it.
The only thing weird he felt was a fiery little burr deep in his chest. It’d always been burning, and though he’d smashed it over and over, tried to grind it out of existence it was still there. It was like an itch he couldn’t scratch, and those were the worst. “The worst, are persistent little itches!” He gestured to a nearby cigar package and drew it towards him, drawing out one of the long and slender pipelettes of rolled tobacco. There was something soothing in its Earthy smell, something ancient and warm. It was a memory, wrapped in on itself. He bit the end of the cigar off and lit it with a snap of his fingers and a spark of ki, then slowly revolved around the spacecraft. He supposed the other mechanics cowering in the mom-and-pop shop thought it strange to see a person upside-down and smoking, but he equally supposed that they were all unfathomable idiots.
He blew a hole in the warehouse ceiling and clambered into the small pod, glazing it with an infusion of ki as he powered up its systems. The engines still worked, which was all that mattered. He found the star in question on the onboard constellation map, and with a great cough of smoke, the Ol’ Stewball chugged into the blue sky, leaving a grey smear across the clean air.
(Vi-Poi on his way to … somewhere, One-Use Pod used )