Post by SYREN IS BEST on Feb 25, 2014 0:15:54 GMT -5
There are dark places, unseen places, and then there are the places between places; rips in the fabric of everything where men may slip and fall and come to be enveloped in a mass of writhing tentacles, devoured by creatures so horrible they must dwell in the cracks between dimensions, for they cannot even exist in the most depraved reality. Or, perhaps, to simply disintegrate to dust and blow away on a dark wind, scattered to the corners of emptiness in the voids between the voids between universes.
Or, they may slip so far through the cracks that they come out the other side in another place.
A gleaming black tower rises up from the edge of a vast and restless ocean. Fog rolls thick off the water, obscuring the shapes of the myriad ruins scattered along the beach below, lending a soft, ghostly quality to the mounds of abandoned brick and half-fallen walls.
The black tower is the only structure that remains standing.
Yet it is also the oldest. It predates these ten thousand year old ruins by still another ten thousand years, and twice over again. It was built to endure... much like the man who stands atop it.
Scott Syren is wearing his gleaming armor. He carries the helmet in the crook of his arm. A second man sits in an unremarkable wooden chair, bound there by daggers through his hands, and by powerful spells. The seated man wears an oversized hood, concealing all of his facial features.
As we enter their world, we sense immediately that Scott Syren is losing his patience with his mystic colleague.
“Enough riddles, man. You sent me into that strange world so that I could see some greasy barbarian mock me by wearing a replica of my armor at some sort of gladiatorial spectacle? What does it all mean? I'm tired of traveling back and forth into that world, attacking the targets you give me, never having any clue what it means.”
The hooded man seems taken aback. “Still, you do not recognize your home world? Still you do not remember your purpose? That greasy barbarian is a man who was once well known to you.”
Syren pouts. “That loud, obnoxious world cannot be my home.”
“You've been too long away is all. In this world, you've lived a thousand lifetimes, seen a thousand adventures. In your own world, you've been gone only a few years. Do you still not understand your purpose? You're a wrestler, Scott.”
“A wrestler?! One of those foolish bastards I've been attacking? You'd send me back into that world to act as their equal?!”
The robed man is getting angry. He tenses his body and leans forward, as though he would lunge out of his chair were he not pinned to it. “That world?! It's not that world, Scott, it's your world! Cunts of the Goddess, man, why won't you believe me?! It's long past time for you to return and accept your destiny. The more time you spend back there, the faster the memories and skills of your previous life will return to you. You have done many great deeds in this realm, many are indebted to you--but it was never your right to interfere in the affairs of the L'Ardanthian people. This world must be left to its own devices now. And you... you must reclaim what is yours.”
Syren considers this. “How do you know so much about all of this?” he demands of the robed man.
The little man cackles wickedly. “Because the world you came from... it's my world too!”
Using a powerful spell, the man calls up the winds to blow back the hood of his robe. Underneath is a skullish head, brown-skinned, bald, and completely insane looking. Dried blood cakes the little wizard's lips and chin. He continues cackling.
Syren's eyes go wide like oooooohhhhhhh fuuuuuuuccccck! “I know you!”
“Yes!” shrieks the wizard.
“Your name... you're...” Syren struggles to recall the man he knew a thousand lifetimes ago.
“Name me!!!” the wizard demands. “Name me, and in so doing, free me!”
“Lord... no... Lieutenant... Lilian?”
“Do I look like a fucking Lilian?!”
“No,” Syren admits, “you look like a little... like a Little Jungle Man!!!”
LilJungleMan's laughter reaches a feverish pace and volume. The enchanted daggers that bind him to his chair begin to glow, then smoke, then disintegrate. The dirty little wizard/wrestler howls with the combination of pain and euphoria. The daggers turn to ash and blow away on the sea breeze.
For the first time in seven thousand years, LilJungleMan stands up. He picks up the wooden chair and tosses it over the side of the tower, then he does a weird jig, dancing circles around Scott Syren, stringing together an impressive string of curses and exclamations in languages known to no living thing.
The familiar portal appears in front of the men. Perhaps it is only a trick of the late-afternoon light, but it seems brighter than ever before.
LilJungleMan does a shitty, half-assed somersault towards the portal. He gets up and bows low in an over-dramatic, sarcastic gesture. “Shall we, oh Great and Mighty Scott Syren, Lord of the Nine Maces, beloved of Xenaga, Savior of Cryntis, Bringer of Storms, and Murderer of Demons?”
Syren steps forward. “Think you that we have room to add one more title to my name?”
LilJungleMan scratches his filthy head. “Heh?”
Syren smirks at him. “I was thinking... perhaps I'd do well to add 'World Fucking Champion' to the list.”
LilJungleMan hoots with unrestrained joy. “Yes! Yessss! Already he begins to remember his true purpose!”
* * * * *
Meanwhile, in a shitty efficiency apartment in Ishpeming, Michigan, two people stand on a layer of years-old Burger King wrappers and badly-used porno magazines. The first is a dumpy woman—she is the landlord of this squalor. The second person is a doctor who she has called over to look at her tenant.
The tenant is the motionless body of Scott Syren. The body sits in a shitty old no-name chair of Chinese make. The eyes are open, but there is no life behind them.
“See?” whines the woman. “He's been like this for a few years, ever since the last time OCW shut down... he thought he was finally going to get the title back, and then President Dean just bails on everyone. It really fucked with his head.”
“Yes,” agrees the doctor. He shines a light into Syren's dead eyes. “It certainly seems that way. And yet his muscles haven't atrophied... you say he never gets out of this chair? Ever?”
The woman shuffles uncomfortably. “Every once in a while—only lately mind you—he'll come out. And when he does he's always wearing armor.”
“Armor?!”
“Yeah, like knight shit and shit.”
“I know what armor is. That just doesn't make any fucking sense. If what you're saying is true, this man shouldn't even be alive... much less in this good of shape, or good enough shape to jump up and go out for a night on the town wearing armor once or twice a week.”
The woman shrugs. “Every other day I come in and pour a warm Busch Light down his throat to keep him alive.”
“Oh, terrific.”
“Yes,” agrees the woman. She's too dumb for sarcasm, but then again so are you, so let's not judge.
The doctor continues prodding Syren's body.
“You think maybe you could learn anything by looking at his... you know...”
“No, I don't know.”
“I mean... what if we take his dick out... just to look at it for a bit. We can put it back right away.”
The doctor stares at the woman, horrified by the suggestion.
Their awkward stare-down is interrupted when Syren's body starts to convulse and shake. His eyes are no longer dead. Instead, they now reflect the swirling red miasma that has been associated with the armored man's portal. As Syren's spirit returns to this world, his enchanted armor begins to materialize on his muscly-as-fuck body.
The doctor screams like a bitch and runs out the door.
With a mighty yell, Scott Syren returns fully to his corporeal form and stands up.
A cloud of smoke explodes in a far corner of the apartment, and LilJungleMan materializes.
“Syren!” exclaims the landlord. “You're awake! And you made a little Mexican guy appear in your apartment!”
“Who are you calling Mexican, you hillbilly cunt?! Wait... am I Mexican?”
“I don't even remember what Mexican means,” Syren admits. “I still remember almost nothing about this world. I do remember what it means to be a champion though.”
The landlady smiles slyly. “Do you remember how to show me your dick?”
Syren is all like, “Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...” and then everything cuts away to a commercial for car batteries because maybe this was all on TV or something.
