Ingenuity Baby Swing Assembly

The evil Empire has fallen but Imperial warlords remain scattered throughout the galaxy. As the fledgling New Republic works to protect everything the Rebellion fought for, they enlist the help of legendary Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin and his young apprentice Grogu. Director: Jon Favreau Cast: Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, Martin Scorsese, Jeremy Allen White, Hemky Madera Rotten Tomatoes: 60% Metacritic: 54 / 100 Some Reviews (updating): Nerdist - Rotem Rusak - 4 / 5 Ultimately, to me, there’s just something that feels kind about this movie. Not kind in that it’s only sunshine and roses, but kind to its viewers, who are probably living hard, stressful lives, who just want to go the movie theater and enjoy a film that takes them on a sweeping space adventure. The good guys get good things, the bad guys get their due, and just the barest bit of the bittersweetness of life looms in the ether to give it all a bit of poignancy. Total Film - Fay Watson - 3 / 5 There are some cameos as Clone Wars and Rebels characters get woven into the narrative. But there's nothing radical for the franchise here. And while that's not a problem in itself, it means that The Mandalorian and Grogu isn't the Star Wars cinematic rebirth that Lucasfilm may have been hoping for. If you're happy to while away a few hours with Din Djarin and Grogu, you'll love it – just don't go in expecting much more. DiscussingFilm - Andrew J. Salazar - 3 / 5 Perhaps Disney just needed something to reignite people’s interest in Star Wars after years of recovering from disaster, and Baby Yoda was the safest bet. While that could be true, Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and company could have challenged themselves further. If nothing else, Star Wars fans have another incredible score from 3x Oscar-winner Ludwig Göransson to dive into. Consequence - Liz Shannon Miller - 'B' Without any new developments, what we’re left with is a collection of side quests largely connected by cameos, without any of the narrative momentum that has made past Star Wars projects into must-see events. It’s not the Star Wars anyone over the age of 25 grew up with, and the muted excitement for Mando and son’s return reflects that. At least Baby Yoda — sorry, Grogu — is still the cutest. AV Club - Jesse Hassenger - 'B' Indeed, The Mandalorian & Grogu is almost aggressively anti-thematic, preferring to keep even its most obvious parenting metaphors muted and largely unexplored. The movie wants to show you a good time, and it does. Some of its creatures even have some semblance of soul. The “why” of its pivot away from human expression, however, remains opaque, with sinister undertones: Is this mask-and-puppet show a preventative measure to insulate filmmakers (or parent companies) from the uncomfortable but inevitable situation of beloved actors aging (or dying) out of their signature roles? Did they cut that line about Din being outlived because Star Wars itself has become as frightened of death as Anakin? Then again, the series has always had a rich tradition of imbuing potentially lifeless objects with weird humanity, and Favreau and Filoni have extended that process with Grogu. They’re still just franchising within the lines. For now, this is the way. The Independent - Clarisse Loughrey - 2 / 5 While the first season of The Mandalorian did well to Star Wars-ise western genre tropes – with Ludwig Göransson’s synths, each cascading note sharpened to a blade’s edge, doing much of the heavy work there and here – The Mandalorian and Grogu feels comparatively bored by its own allusions to gangster cinema. A smooth-talking kingpin hides away in a luxury compound that looks like a big Tesco, while the later emergence of a deadly hitman is merely a CGI replica of a character from Filoni’s own animated Clone Wars stories (as is Rotta). IGN - Tom Jorgensen - 5 / 10 This is not the way. The Mandalorian and Grogu dutifully offers another two hours and change of watching Din Djarin and his adorable green son fly to some planets and clear out rooms of monsters or gangsters every 20 minutes or so. But this is a Star Wars movie missing the thrills, the surprises, the challenges, the addition of really anything of note to the franchise, not to mention a vested interest in seeing its characters grow and change. Next Best Picture - Giovanni Lago - 4 / 10 Now, the franchise is at a tipping point, and “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is debatably a coin toss between the remnants of the Kathleen Kennedy-era of Lucasfilm and the launch of Filoni’s creative reign. What’s present here is one of the most visually horrid and banal “Star Wars” creations to date. Is the allure of getting children in a theater to see Grogu enough to keep this franchise afloat and, more importantly, on the big screen? Who’s to say, but if it’s any indication of what the next decade of storytelling for the “Star Wars” universe will be, then we’re in deep trouble. ComingSoon - Jonathan Sim - 5 / 10 What we’re left with is a low-stakes Star Wars movie. There’s no planet-killing Death Star, no Starkiller Base, no big battles. Every other Star Wars film has at least one standout sequence. I felt more watching the Battle of Exegol in The Rise of Skywalker than I did during this film. Even other stand-alone movies like Solo: A Star Wars Story, which also didn’t concern itself with lightsabers or the Rebels, had moments like the Kessel Run set piece that really stood out. Nothing stands out here in The Mandalorian and Grogu, as it’s a generic, safe Star Wars movie. Inverse - Hoai-Tran Bui The Mandalorian and Grogu Is Barely A Movie. This is for Star Wars fans who have made the Cantina scene their entire personalities. It’s a CGI creatures extravaganza, offering distinct worlds — here, a cyberpunky crime planet, or a swamp planet filled with Henson puppet creatures — and action figures masquerading as characters, for you to imagine mashing together. Maybe that was the nature of The Mandalorian all along, but on the big screen, it’s all the more glaringly obvious. Silver Screen Riot - Matt Oakes - 'F' To come off (something like Andor) and watch The Mandalorian and Grogu feels like a slap in the face. While Andor reached for the stars, this scoops the fetid muck from the bottom of the bantha pen. It is offensive because it dares to be nothing. This depressing coup de grâce may have effectively killed my love of Star Wars going forward. This is not the way. Little White Lies - Kambole Campbell - 2 / 5 Beyond occasionally marvelling at the lively work of the puppeteers, there’s not a lot to hold on to in The Mandalorian & Grogu, not even the supposed father and son connection between its marquee characters. As the story returns things to status quo, it’s hard to think of what has even changed between the two, what they might have learned about each other, and if the filmmakers will ever be an interest in finding out. The Independent - Clarisse Loughrey - 2 / 5 While the first season of The Mandalorian did well to Star Wars-ise western genre tropes – with Ludwig Göransson’s synths, each cascading note sharpened to a blade’s edge, doing much of the heavy work there and here – The Mandalorian and Grogu feels comparatively bored by its own allusions to gangster cinema. A smooth-talking kingpin hides away in a luxury compound that looks like a big Tesco, while the later emergence of a deadly hitman is merely a CGI replica of a character from Filoni’s own animated Clone Wars stories (as is Rotta). The Telegraph - Robbie Collin - 2 / 5 It’s a curate’s egg of a film, and its utterly scrambled quality control may be best summed up by a second-act shot of Grogu, Pascal and Rotta lined up, spying over the crest of a sand dune. One alien looks alive and delightful, the other looks like a giant computer-generated bullfrog, and then there’s Pascal with a shiny bucket on his head. When Disney paid George Lucas $4bn for Star Wars in 2012, I’m not sure either side was dreaming of this. Associated Press - Mark Kennedy - 2 / 5 The “Star Wars” franchise once led the culture with its imagery, swagger and style. But this movie is a step back, formulaic and aping “Top Gun,” “Blade Runner,” “Transformers” and “Men in Black.” Even Ludwig Göransson’s score is off, marred by cheap-sounding ‘80s synthetic chirps along with what sounded like Yiddish folk ditties. The runtime saps energy and when it’s all done, the scrolling credits for all those special effects goes on a full five minutes. You used to leave a new “Star Wars” movie on a cloud. Here, that galaxy is far, far away. Digital Spy - Ian Sandwell - 2 / 5 There's nothing wrong with the idea of a standalone Star Wars adventure. It's blockbuster season, we just want to be entertained. The problem for The Mandalorian and Grogu is that it's just not that entertaining. IndieWire - Kate Erbland - 'C+' None of these problems are particularly new, not in a world in which franchise expansion requires both more more more and an entry point for even the most casual of fans. Still, there’s something that feels small about this particular story, charming enough in the moment and almost instantly forgettable the moment the credits roll. It feels disposable. It feels like, well, what most things feel like these days: content. It’s time to ask for more. That is The Way. IGN - Tom Jorgensen - 5 / 10 This is not the way. The Mandalorian and Grogu dutifully offers another two hours and change of watching Din Djarin and his adorable green son fly to some planets and clear out rooms of monsters or gangsters every 20 minutes or so. But this is a Star Wars movie missing the thrills, the surprises, the challenges, the addition of really anything of note to the franchise, not to mention a vested interest in seeing its characters grow and change. Next Best Picture - Giovanni Lago - 4 / 10 Now, the franchise is at a tipping point, and “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is debatably a coin toss between the remnants of the Kathleen Kennedy-era of Lucasfilm and the launch of Filoni’s creative reign. What’s present here is one of the most visually horrid and banal “Star Wars” creations to date. Is the allure of getting children in a theater to see Grogu enough to keep this franchise afloat and, more importantly, on the big screen? Who’s to say, but if it’s any indication of what the next decade of storytelling for the “Star Wars” universe will be, then we’re in deep trouble. Slash Film - Jeremy Mathai - 4 / 10 Is this really what "Star Wars" has become? Maybe that misbegotten Budweiser Super Bowl "trailer" was actually the film's most honest and accurate piece of marketing all along: a shallow, shamelessly corporate commercial to move some merch. There have been worse movies before and there will inevitably be worse ones to come. This sure feels like the most boring, though — one whose philosophy seems to be that you can't swing and miss if you never bother taking the bat off your shoulders. That might be its greatest sin of all. InSession Film - Benjamin Miller - 'D' The film is shiny and predictable, the score is familiar, the script is meaningless, and the performances are what they are. There is nothing to hang your hat on, besides it being a Star Wars film. If it didn’t have that franchise attached to it, there would be zero reason to keep your interest.The Mandalorian and Grogu is a major disappointment. Never before has Star Wars felt so pointless and skippable. For a franchise with such monumental highs, this is a staggering low. Collider - Aidan Kelly - 6 / 10 Is The Mandalorian and Grogu the worst Star Wars film ever made? Far from it, as there is much fun to be had here. Is it the best in the franchise? Also not the case, as it could very well be the most forgettable and inconsequential entry the franchise has produced yet. Andor, Maul - Shadow Lord, The Acolyte, Visions, and especially the earliest seasons of The Mandalorian proved that Star Wars can be so much more than a few gunfights and starship battles. In the right conditions, it can be a truly unforgettable cinematic experience, even when the movie isn't that good. The Mandalorian and Grogu are neither great nor awful, and that's what makes it one of the galaxy far, far away's most frustrating The Bulwark - Sonny Bunch The bottom line: Two things may be simultaneously true. I think my kids, for whom this picture is designed, are going to enjoy The Mandalorian and Grogu, and maybe quite a bit; and I think it plays like a couple of mid-tier episodes from the TV series. As such, I’m not sure it’s the rousing hit Disney needs to rekindle the moviegoing experience for the Star Wars franchise. But it’s probably good enough for a generation that has yet to experience the joy of Star Wars on the big screen. submitted by /u/ChiefLeef22 to r/StarWars [link] [comments]

Chapter 5: Perspective Shift Viewing the keep’s stairwell, one might mistake the professor for a poltergeist. Indeed, his footfalls hardly seem to meet the steps. Peering a trifle closer, however, one realizes that, as with the rest of the residence, each stone stair is adorned with sensor-laden plastic film. This time, the film is transparent, aside from the areas where Professor Pandora’s feet land. There, brief footprints form—purple, then yellow, then blue—following him up to the lord’s hall, which has been converted into a living room, kitchen, and dining room. Scattered about the living room, animatronics reenact historical atrocities: Ward 22 chemical castrations, Mengele twin experiments, Dr. Albert Kligman’s “dermatological research,” and others. Perusing these, the professor grins. Ah, he thinks, a kindred spirit, one capable of culling inspiration from history’s true pioneers. In fact, were I capable of friendship, it seems that I might find it herein. Where is this ingenious toyman? Why hasn’t he arrived to greet me? To attract his attention, I’ll announce my presence. The professor’s lips peel back; his larynx widens. In a language older than humanity—a netherspace-spawned nightmare reminiscent of a buzz saw attempting backwards Latin—he shrieks. Resounding throughout the keep, the screech shatters wall-mounted LED screens and makes electrified tube lights explode into spark showers. The professor continues for several minutes, to no avail. Isolated, he remains, bereft of adversaries and victims. This won’t do, he thinks. Suddenly, in the ceiling’s epicenter, an oral cavity forms. Plastic lips open and close, birthing sonance in the toyman’s own eerie speech: “Curse that damnable racket, you insolent interloper. My bride and daughter were sleeping, and you’ve aborted their dreams. Are you ignorant of proper guest etiquette or just willfully malicious?” Aborting his demonic caterwauling, the professor complies. When a ceiling oculus opens, the wraithlike fellow stares up into it and answers, “I apologize profusely. On the other hand, your conduct as a host leaves much to be desired, so perhaps you might stifle your judgments for the nonce.” “To claim the guest privilege, one must first be invited. Still, your method of entry intrigues me, so you’ll be spared from an immediate execution.” To illustrate his benevolence, the toyman opens a trapdoor beside Professor Pandora’s boot. Peering into it, the professor sees an oubliette occupied by razor-mouthed monstrosities, piranha-toothed humanoids covered in slothlike fur. Bones litter the floor beneath them, some recognizable as human. Illuminated, the creatures glance up from their repast—wild goat, eaten raw—and yodel. Clawing their way up the oubliette’s walls, they teeth-gnash and slobber. Before the creatures can emerge, the trapdoor closes. “I have constructed many doorways,” the ceiling mouth utters, “but never one such as yours. It mimicked my own sensor skin, but seemed to be its own living entity. Tell me, good sir, whence did that entrance emerge from, and why do I no longer sense it?” “The floor door comes and goes,” the professor answers. “Tell me, am I speaking to the toyman?” “Amadeus Wilson, to be exact. And whom do I have the honor to reply to? “They call me Professor Pandora.” “And which Ph.D. program spawned you?” For the first time in his malignant life, the professor succumbs to self-consciousness. Having accumulated no higher education, and provided his purloined pupils with nothing beyond torment, he has no true claim to the title. Rather than admit this datum, he changes the subject. “This colloquy has parched me,” he says. “Perhaps I might quench my thirst in your kitchen.” His fingers curl and uncurl, symptomizing blossoming rage. “Spare yourself the effort. I’ll have the maid mix you a concoction,” the ceiling mouth speaks, before widening into a larger aperture. Through the hole, a woman descends—or at least the remains of one—attached to a filament which dissolves when she lands. Her grease-stained uniform contains breasts so grotesquely oversized that the woman can hardly stand upright. Four holes have been cut into the garment to accommodate four extra arms. Her lips are sewn speechless; subcutaneous implants make the maid’s skin glow multicolored. Continuous horror has rendered her hair white. Eyes downcast, she sets off for the kitchen. She returns with a goblet. Snatching it into his grip, the professor finds the glass empty. “Am I expected to guzzle down air?” he enquires. The woman shakes her head negative, and then tilts over the goblet. Traveling up her arms and torso, strange swellings reach her mouth. She swishes and spits, filling Professor Pandora’s glass with a curious substance. A filament sprouts from the top of her head and hauls the maid back into the ceiling. Studying the beverage, the professor sees swirling colors: cattleya and smalt, vermilion and puce. Sniffing, he smells a succession of scents: sandalwood and lavender, bergamot and bay laurel. Am I experiencing phantosmia? he wonders. Outside of the nightclub, I’ve never glimpsed such a libation. Bubbles surface, whistling like bottlenose dolphins as they pop. Finger-stirring the liquid, the professor finds it freezing, then scalding. Shrugging, he takes a sip. His head rocks back; his arms pinwheel. Swirling nebulae dance across his mindscape. Within his cortex, the professor feels his 5-HT2A receptors activating, a mind-bending coming on. I’ve been dosed, he realizes, with some new serotonergic psychedelic. This Amadeus fellow is a worthy foe. Before the drug can enslave him, the professor shunts it out of his system, into netherspace, wherein the liquid gains sentience and begins preying upon captive souls. Suddenly, from a shadowy recess, a hexacopter drone flies forth. Gazing through its thermal imaging camera, the toyman targets the professor with an electric laser. He fires a 100-kilowatt light ray, which the professor barely manages to duck. Reflexively, the professor removes his purple overcoat, and throws it over the drone before the device can fire another light ray. Pulling the drone to the floor, he then shatter-stomps it. Arm-sliding back into his coat sleeves, he voices mockery: “You’ll have to do better than that.” Perhaps his words might have been better chosen, because from fresh-born wall gaps, four modified canines emerge, buoyed by pneumatic artificial muscles. Baring teeth of wurtzite boron nitride, their muzzles festooned with phosphorescent foam, they growl like power leaf blowers. One dog has a mobile satellite sticking out of his skull. A canine leaps for the professor and he bats it aside. Another goes for his ankle. Leapfrogging the beast, Pandora nearly stumbles, but preternatural reflexes keep him from tumbling. With eyes like indigo light projected through rippled glass, they target him. Ducking and juking, the professor dodges darting canine faces. A realization strikes him: There’s nothing for me here. No victims await me; no delight can be had. Perhaps it would be best to recede, to let The Other return. First, I’ll bestow a gift upon The Other, and obliterate these technomongrels for him. Otherwise, that inelegant sap would be shredded in seconds. Backflipping over four modified canines attacking in unison, the professor removes his top hat. He thrusts his arm deep within it, up to the elbow. From netherspace, he pulls a blade: an ebon rapier built from the nightmares of dying children. Its sweeping hilt scalds his hand, but the professor grits his teeth through the pain. With a powerful thrust, he penetrates one canine’s flank. As the creature yelps and convulses, Pandora plunges the blade into the next canine’s skull, piercing the nanomolecular weave encasing its brain. Two left, he thinks, jabbing the rapier into the satellite-equipped canine’s eye. The dog shakes his head and sneezes, and then collapses with his faux appendages splayed. Sizing up his last slavering assailant, the professor decides to get up close and personal. After casting his sword back into netherspace, he leaps upon the dog’s back. With both hands, he grabs the canine’s muzzle and wrenches it leftward, snapping the creature’s neck. Even this violence proves less than satisfying, the professor thinks ruefully. The toyman’s tinkering has reduced every organism within these blasphemous confines to puppet-status. What’s the point of torturing marionettes? Why did the door bring me here? The professor pushes his overcoat into his top hat. Disembodied, he leaps in after it. With a puff of sickly smoke, the top hat vanishes. Having reclaimed his own body, the professor’s host organism regards the proximate butchery and shrieks. Chapter 6: Centauride Having recovered some semblance of composure, the traveller presses a palm to his brow. The professor’s memories are now his memories. Erroneously, he believes himself a canine slayer. Before the nightclub and castle, I was at a commune, he remembers. There were deformed folk and monsters, feasts and celebrants. I killed twelve women before leaving, but why? What was my motive? They were so beautiful, so ethereally fragile. Why did I axe-chop their heads off? The traveller’s physical features are dissimilar to the professor’s—gaunt, infinitely haunted—though the two somehow share the same body. Years ago, when the traveller was alone in his physicality, he stumbled from a slaughterhouse rave into an underground nightclub. Within the club, he received a drink of swirling fuchsia and aubergine. When placed to his lips, it entered his body as a vapor. The vapor had a name: Professor Pandora. Subsequent to that occasion, the professor has lived through the traveller, seizing his body for carnage, then receding. In and out of the nightclub they’ve passed, to thereafter emerge into unhallowed settings. Whensoever the traveller gains awareness of his parasite, the professor strikes it from his memory. Thus, the traveller believes himself to be instinct-driven, remembers committing terrible acts without forethought. Here we go again, the traveller thinks. Another fucked up situation. Will I ever get home? Do I even have a home anymore? Are my friends and relatives even alive? Obviously, I was brought here for a reason. This toyman, I’ll have to confront him. Passing into the dining room, the traveller spots a twelve-foot table, topped by a scratch-free LCD screen. Its 360-degree surface has hundreds of touch points, allowing diners to work and game as they grub. Aside from a blinking mannequin, nobody sits at the table. The mannequin moans, and so the traveller hurries onward. In the kitchen, there stands a refrigerator, flanked by two massive tanks. Within the tanks, two vagrants scream eternally, frozen in suspended animation, coated in cryoprotectants. Inside of the fridge, there are edible fungi, homemade soft drinks, and unidentifiable meats. At the sight of a modified mosquito, wingless and swollen, vomiting indigo cheese inside a Tupperware container, the traveller’s stomach surges and he slams the door. Suddenly, he hears flapping. From every room corner, birds converge upon him, their diamond talons scratching, their unfolding metal beaks pecking. Screaming, the traveller covers his eyes just in time to avert a gouging. Blindly, he flees, rebounding off of a human-sized industrial blender. Toward the stairwell, he retreats. The birds give pursuit. Slash: a razor-feathered eagle wing slices the traveller’s scalp. Sploosh: smacking a parrot away, the traveller’s fist becomes lodged within its gelid, gelatinous belly. With effort, he pulls his hand free, twisting the parrot’s squishy skull off in the process. Off balance, the traveller’s feet tangle, and he tumbles face-first, busting his lip. One pigeon has proboscises where its eyes should be, and seven arthropodal compound oculi ringing its neck. Another has human lips, which grin horribly as the creature claws the traveller’s arm. Tasting blood, the traveller screams, pinned prone by dozens of winged antagonists. There are too many of ’em, he realizes, as the back of his shirt becomes confetti and its underlying flesh is carved. Behind his eyes, pain flares crimson. With no weapons available, he has little choice but to await expiration. Suddenly, a shadow slides over the traveller, heralding a rescuer’s arrival. This liberator is bizarrely zoomorphic, a limbless young woman installed into a biomechatronic pony physique. With her vocal cords severed, Shanna Wilson cannot speak. Still, as is the case with all of Amadeus’ half-living kin, the toyman’s pets are programmed to leave her uninjured. Clip-clopping forward until her four hooves form compass points around the traveller, the toyman’s daughter sends the birds scattering. Rolling over, the traveller views an equine underside, and cautiously crawls out from beneath it. Standing, he comes face-to-face with a blonde, sallow-faced sufferer, with giant implanted incisors bursting through her peeled-back lips. “Thank you,” he says, and she nods an acknowledgement. When the birds resume pecking, he instinctively hops onto her back. Then comes sudden motion, a galloping that leaves the traveller desperately grasping Shanna’s waist, averting a calamitous tumble. Falling behind, the birds flap up into hidden passageways, the honeycombed veins of the keep. Yards before the stairwell, Shanna falls suddenly still, so abruptly that the traveller loses his grip and goes flying. He bruises his thigh and sprains his right wrist, minor injuries given the circumstances. From the closest wall, a mouth sprouts, uttering, “Shanna, Shanna, Shanna…I leave you a bit of autonomy and what do you do? Throw a spanner into the works, it seems. Darling, you cannot provide succor to Daddy’s new plaything. Now go join your brother in the arcade.” Shanna attempts to resist, until the toyman activates a cerebral override, which sends her clip-clopping down the stairs, out of the traveller’s vision range. Colorful, transitory hoofprints trail her down. “And what have we here?” the toyman asks with his wall mouth. “A shapeshifter? A masquerader? An enchanter? Your form is so altered; perhaps you’re a new you entirely. Did we just meet, or should I introduce myself?” “Huh?” the traveller gasps. “What do you mean? Didn’t we just speak in the living room?” “Well, I sure conversed with somebody, a Professor Pandora.” “Professor? Dude, I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but I don’t know any professors. I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades—when I’m working, that is. Now can we drop this cat and mouse shit already? Your creepy-ass castle is terrifying, sure, and what you’ve done to your family is truly grotesque. But guess what, pal, I’ve seen worse in my travels. Why don’t you come down here, and we can exchange terror tales until my floor door reappears?” “Hold on just a minute. You don’t know any professors? How can that be? Perhaps I should scan you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And what’s this I see? A flickering in your eye’s neural network. Somebody’s wearing you, boy, and you’re too doltish to see it. Unfortunately, we’re fresh out of exorcists.” The toyman’s words trouble the traveller, but not for long. Manipulating the traveller’s hippocampus from within his medial temporal lobe, Professor Pandora erases them before they can be consolidated into long-term memory. “At any rate,” the toyman continues, “you enter my private technopolis uninvited, and now attempt to dictate our palaver’s terms? This frigid fringeland has but one ruler, and I am he. Within these walls, every entity both living and inanimate becomes my plaything. You are my property now, best accept it.” “I’m no man’s slave,” the traveller responds. “I was brought here for a reason…perhaps to end your madness.” “Try, if you wish,” the wall mouth speaks, before sealing over. Perhaps as a warning, the stairwell’s walls belch transitory flame spouts, scorching the empty air. Undaunted, the traveller begins ascending, one step at a time, slowly. A herd of mechanized velociraptor skeletons rush past him, heading toward the video arcade. Inhuman revelry fills the air; poltergeists crowd the atmosphere. Briefly, an organism slides into the traveller’s peripheral vision: a polycephalic hybrid, one head feline, the other vulpine, propelling itself on cephalopodan tentacles. But turning his head, the traveller spots no such creature. Perhaps it was never really there. Leaving the staircase, the traveller enters a private chamber. Combining a boy’s bedroom with a family entertainment center, the large room resembles nothing that the traveller has ever seen. Climbing structures, quarter pipes, and an archery range ring its perimeter. There are trampolines, Velcro walls, ball pits, and miniature golf fixtures. The ceiling features looping, water-filled, transparent tubes, through which ferrets blast at supersonic speeds. The bed shifts and bubbles; drawers slide open and closed. Somewhere within the castle, the toyman cackles. “Hello?” the traveller shouts, but there are no architectural lips to answer. And then there are. Between the traveller’s feet, a floor mouth forms and opens. “What shall I do with you?” it ponders. “A nanobacteria torture cell? Or perhaps a new face sculpted of tactile sensors? Should I rebuild you as a merman or a Minotauresque butler? So many options, and only one man within one man.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, speak your nonsense all ya want, pal. I escaped from the Order of the Lunar Anthropophagi. I exited the House of Eternal October with all my limbs intact. You think you’re so fuckin’ original, but I’ve met a hundred madmen just like you. Sure, you’re easily the smartest monster, but at the end of the day, so what? You destroyed your own family, for cryin’ out loud.” Unable to acknowledge criticism, the toyman continues as if the traveller hadn’t spoken. “Or would you like to be a performer? I could make a gymnast of you, or a daredevil extreme athlete. Did you believe that this chamber’s apparatuses are just for show? See your possible future and applaud your host’s ingenuity.” The floor mouth disappears, as a ceiling portion swings downward, becoming an inclined plane for some new arrivals to roll down. And roll they do, on modified skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs and unicycles. Gymnasts follow behind them, back handspringing down the ramp. Before the traveller’s astonished eyes, the two-dozen fresh arrivals commence a synchronized routine, utilizing the quarter pipes, trampolines, and climbing structures with expert precision—flipping, grinding and whirling, errorless. These performers had been human once: vagrants, foster children, mail order brides, and the like. Now, they are something else entirely. Dyneema fibers coat their epidermises, rendering the performers impact resistant. They are bullet resistant as well, in case the toyman requires a small army at some later date. Observing their efforts, the traveller realizes that the riders do not push, pedal or hand-propel, their conveyances being entirely motorized. They are androgynous, these performers, with the males having received estrogen bombardments, and the females androgen hormones. Thus, they are equally mighty and graceful, and seem to possess extraterrestrial reflexes. Their natural eyes are empty, their faces slack. Their hair has been shaven away, with implanted bionic eyes ringing their craniums, providing omnidirectional vision. Whatever personalities they’d once possessed are absent. As with his creature captives, Amadeus used transcranial magnetic stimulation and sensory image bombardment to resculpt the mentalities of these unfortunates, yoking them to his will forevermore. Having finished their routine, the performers ascend the inclined plane and disappear back into the ceiling. As the traveller considers pursuing them, the ramp swings up on its hinges, leaving the ceiling unbroken. Shrugging, the traveller wonders, What the hell was that about? Chapter 7: Taking the Plunge Slipping into a one-button, single-breasted jacket, Amadeus smiles at the mirror. He pinches his black bow tie and gives his flat-front trousers a pat. His patent leather shoes are well polished. Perhaps I should wear a tuxedo everyday, he thinks to himself, to keep these claustrophobic confines classy. With the traveller’s arrival, he’d almost forgotten. Today, the toyman is to be married. Technically, he’d already wedded Midge—his children’s mother, now their maid. But as with many toys, Amadeus had grown tired of her, and thus had granted himself a divorce. Utilizing his backup brain, the toyman tracks the traveller, while his ordinary mind invokes Richard Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.” Returning to the garret, the toyman flicks a finger toward the ceiling. An aperture opens; a ladder descends. Climbing, Amadeus says, “Come along, Tango. We can’t start the ceremony without you.” And naturally, the hummingbird follows, emerging into open air milliseconds after Amadeus. Atop the keep’s circular shell, a single rollercoaster car awaits, resting upon a launch track, which tilts slightly upwards, but seems connected to no further railroading. Should one climb inside the car, a quick plunge into nihility seems inevitable. But when Amadeus whistles, molecular assemblers spring into action, and the track begins self-replicating, forming corkscrews and cobra rolls, dive loops and raven turns. Soon, the rollercoaster rings the castle’s inner perimeter, with its brake run situated at the property’s gatehouse. Settling into his seat, Amadeus sends a thought into the ether, causing an over-the-shoulder restraint to fall over him and settle into its locking mechanism. Truthfully, with his augmented physiology, the toyman no longer requires restraints, being able to clutch with fourteen-jointed fingers and adhere his feet to anything solid. But every man has at least one fault, and Amadeus’ is nostalgia. During his much-cherished childhood years, Amadeus’ family had valued one tradition above all others: the yearly trip to Coney Island, which just so happened to coincide with his birthday. He remembers the Cyclone, the Tornado, the Wonder Wheel, and the Thunderbolt. He remembers standing at the edge of the shoreline, too timid to enter the sea, though his mother prodded and cooed. He remembers hot dogs and funnel cakes, custard and pizza. The remembrances are so vivid, he can practically step into them. In fact, should he desire to, Amadeus can mine his own amygdala, to refeel the precise feelings he’d felt on those occasions, bridging the gap between the toyman and his boy self. But why stop there? By bringing his striatum, mammillary bodies, and hippocampus into the equation, he can program those very same days into the arcade’s virtual reality booths, and relive them as his past form, or as another character entirely. But seeing his child self, Amadeus would only rebuild him, and so he drags himself back into the present. When he snaps his fingers, a miniature restraint materializes atop the next seat over. “You know what to do, Tango,” he says. And indeed, the hummingbird does, fluttering into position, entering into brief torpor after the harness secures him. And then the wheels are rolling, the car gaining momentum. Soon Amadeus is freefalling, inverting and rolling. Air buffets his grin. Weightless, his stomach sinks. He passes the keep again and again, viewing it from every angle. Just before he reaches the gatehouse, his artificial neural network alerts Amadeus to a factoid: the traveller is becoming too nosy. Exploring Junior’s closet, the intruder strews clothes across the floor. This will not do, Amadeus thinks, looping. And so a razor wire tumbleweed rolls out of the wall and chases the traveller about the chamber. When the car brakes, both restraints swing upward. Now Tango is fluttering, and Amadeus is standing, thinking to himself, Today is a wonderful day. Both of the gatehouse’s portcullises are up. Its adjoining barbican has been rendered temporarily defenseless: no boiling oil will splash down from its murder holes, no arrows will fly through the passageway’s slits. Under the gatehouse’s eroded battlements, rows of wrought iron seats lead toward a platinum altar. A makeshift aisle divides the rows: electrified tube lights spiraling around Orchidaceae. Lace curtains are hung; votive candles glow within suspended jars. Behind the altar, flowers, crystals, and pearls form an arched backdrop. When Amadeus nods at the rollercoaster, the car reverses. As it loops and rolls its way back up to the launch track, the car’s inbuilt disassemblers erase the rollercoaster behind it, breaking molecular bonds with enzyme bombardments. Within minutes, it is as if the rollercoaster had never existed. When next it materializes, the track will be altered, perhaps with a sustained inversion. The officiant is animatronic. Beneath its flexible plastic epidermis, motion actuators mimic human musculature. With three-dimensional sensors, it scans the crowd, studying facial contours, analyzing skin textures, identifying each attendee individually. Complex algorithms and sensors render it almost entirely autonomous, able to hold conversations, register emotions, and speak with pseudo-empathy. Should any unforeseen variable cause the animatronic to deviate from its ceremonial script, Amadeus will override it, and speak through the officiant via teleoperation. Leftward, the bride’s family and friends are gathered. Rightward, Amadeus’ guests sit. There are ex-hobos, lost hookers, kidnapped children, and a cornucopia of intellectual disabilities present. Everyone dresses in finery, smiling clownishly. None speak, save for preprogrammed verbalizations: “Perfect weather today,” “Love is a beautiful thing,” and, “That Amadeus sure is brilliant. His bride must be the luckiest gal on Earth.” Some stare past eternity. Others are built of awkward angles, their jagged, enhanced skeletal structures housing retractable armaments. The groom’s grandparents make an appearance, rolling to the front row in translucent caskets. Atop the caskets’ frosted glass exteriors, three-dimensional computer graphics depict the couple smiling and waving. Inside the boxes, two skeletons grin. Beside them, two seats await Amadeus’ mother and father. On the aisle’s opposite side, the bride’s grandparents claim chairs, leaving two for her mother and father. The bride has two grandfathers, it turns out, conjoined twins. One is Caucasian; the other is African. One’s a dwarf; one’s a giant. One appears middle-aged, the other an octogenarian. Attached at the waist, the giant appears to carry the dwarf in a side-slung baby pouch, but there is no pouch, only skin. Their suit is custom-tailored. Their lips spasm, attempting to frown, but unable to. The bride’s grandmother possesses physical features that would make even an anthropometrist scratch their head in puzzlement. Her eyelids possess the epicanthal folds of an Asiatic, but her head is dolichocephalic like an Australian Aborigine. Though her nose is long and narrow like an American Indian, her lips are as thick as a Sub-Saharan African’s. Within them, a Caucasian’s spatulate teeth nestle. As for the woman’s epidermis, it is quite zebraic. Horizontally striped, it displays shades of olive, peach, brown, red, black and yellow. Her irises resemble lapis lazuli. Viewing these bridal progenitors, one inevitably thinks, Holy Moses, such interesting individuals. Were they ever infants? Did they slide from live mothers, or were they gene-spliced into being, their recombinant DNA sculpted by the groom’s ghastly hands? What do their children resemble? And what is the bride? Is she human, or some technoblasphemy? If the latter, what would she be like in bed? Here comes the groom’s mother, Charlotte Wilson, and isn’t she grand? Silently, she squeezes her face in her hands. Her asymmetrical ruched mesh gown is navy blue and embellished with costume jewelry. Her chic blonde locks seem stolen from a mid-twenties strumpet. They were, in fact, donated by the bald looker seated in the back row. Her escort is none other than her husband, Herbert Wilson. Once, back in Amadeus’ human days, Herbert had attempted to disown his son. “You’re a monster!” he’d screamed. “The disappearances, and the…the blasphemous contraptions! I always knew you were sick! Even as a baby, you had an evil gleam in your eye! I could barely bring myself to touch you.” But seeing him now, you’d suspect no such acrimony. His smile is large; his eyes are wide. Resultant of a recent lobotomy, his previous personality is extinct. After helping Herbert into his chair, Charlotte sits demurely. For one brief instant, a complicated expression slides across her face, as if there is information that she wishes to impart to Herbert, but is too frightened to articulate. The show goes on, and into sight steps the bride’s mother, escorted by a Labrador usher. The canine wears a tuxedo and walks upright on his hind legs. Upon first glance, one suspects that something is off with the creature. Something about his face… Inevitably, understanding dawns: The Labrador’s lips and teeth are those of a human! Indeed, they are, as is the creature’s larynx, gifting him with the ability to speak English. Strangely, the dog speaks only in anacreontics, turning his every utterance into poetry, Later, for his reception toast, he’ll say: “Blinking, blanking, glasses fall, Red spills like a curtain call. Soothing, softly, comes the night, Lust encased in earthly blight. Drink up now and know for true, The toyman’s gaze follows you.” But for now, the dog remains silent. Seeing the bride’s mother, a question arises: What uncanny valley did this female emerge from? For a woman allegedly in her forties, she is remarkably well preserved. At her mouth and eye corners, no wrinkles can be discerned. Her demeanor is perky, her physique voluptuous. Still, the sight of the woman inspires unease. Her gait is too perfect, as if she is not walking at all, but rolling forward on ceramic ball bearings. Every word that she utters is exquisitely modulated, but when meeting her eyes, it seems that no intelligence lies behind them. Is she genuine flesh and blood, or a product of Amadeus’ workshop? one wonders. If she is custom-made, did the toyman somehow implant an operational reproductive system within her? Or is the gal’s motherhood strictly nonbiological? Claiming his position on the minister’s left, Amadeus faces the audience, smiling with diamond-tipped fangs. Beside him is Junior, his best man. Technically, Junior isn’t actually present, as his corporeal body remains tethered to a virtual reality booth. As detaching the young man would lead to his immediate demise, Junior attends through telepresence. Within a hovering videotelephony sphere, his beaming face can be glimpsed—not his current countenance, but the one he’d worn as a preschooler. When the true Junior tries to scream, the sphere’s Junior whistles. When the true Junior begs for death, the sphere’s Junior says, “I love you, Dad.” “I know you do,” Amadeus replies. Alongside them, chimpanzee groomsmen stand, wearing matching tuxedos. But these are no ordinary chimpanzees. Through genetic tweaking, Amadeus has amplified each’s intelligence to that of an average human, multiplying their neurons more than tenfold, up to eighty-six billion. He’d accomplished this feat while the chimps were still embryos, soaking their brains with stem cells. Because such neurogenesis requires greater head space, the chimpanzees’ craniums are oversized. Up the center aisle, bridesmaids step, followed by the maid of honor. The bridesmaids wear matching green dresses: strapless ruched chiffon. The maid of honor’s dress shares their length and color motif, but is one-shouldered to distinguish her. One and all, the bridesmaids are rod puppets, with hidden biomechatronic fingers manipulating their mobility. The maid of honor, on the other hand, is a biomorphic robot, with a biological system indiscernible from that of a human. Actuated by Amadeus-sent electromagnetic waves, the ladies smile, blink, and bat their eyes. Next, the ring bearer flutters down the aisle, beak-gripping a ring. Striding alongside Tango, the flower girl scatters petals. As she is a human-flower hybrid, the petals are castoffs from her own physicality. A song springs into being—Felix Mendelssohn's “Wedding March,” to be precise. And look, here comes the bride. submitted by /u/JeremytheTulpa to r/DrCreepensVault [link] [comments]

Chapter 5: Perspective Shift Viewing the keep’s stairwell, one might mistake the professor for a poltergeist. Indeed, his footfalls hardly seem to meet the steps. Peering a trifle closer, however, one realizes that, as with the rest of the residence, each stone stair is adorned with sensor-laden plastic film. This time, the film is transparent, aside from the areas where Professor Pandora’s feet land. There, brief footprints form—purple, then yellow, then blue—following him up to the lord’s hall, which has been converted into a living room, kitchen, and dining room. Scattered about the living room, animatronics reenact historical atrocities: Ward 22 chemical castrations, Mengele twin experiments, Dr. Albert Kligman’s “dermatological research,” and others. Perusing these, the professor grins. Ah, he thinks, a kindred spirit, one capable of culling inspiration from history’s true pioneers. In fact, were I capable of friendship, it seems that I might find it herein. Where is this ingenious toyman? Why hasn’t he arrived to greet me? To attract his attention, I’ll announce my presence. The professor’s lips peel back; his larynx widens. In a language older than humanity—a netherspace-spawned nightmare reminiscent of a buzz saw attempting backwards Latin—he shrieks. Resounding throughout the keep, the screech shatters wall-mounted LED screens and makes electrified tube lights explode into spark showers. The professor continues for several minutes, to no avail. Isolated, he remains, bereft of adversaries and victims. This won’t do, he thinks. Suddenly, in the ceiling’s epicenter, an oral cavity forms. Plastic lips open and close, birthing sonance in the toyman’s own eerie speech: “Curse that damnable racket, you insolent interloper. My bride and daughter were sleeping, and you’ve aborted their dreams. Are you ignorant of proper guest etiquette or just willfully malicious?” Aborting his demonic caterwauling, the professor complies. When a ceiling oculus opens, the wraithlike fellow stares up into it and answers, “I apologize profusely. On the other hand, your conduct as a host leaves much to be desired, so perhaps you might stifle your judgments for the nonce.” “To claim the guest privilege, one must first be invited. Still, your method of entry intrigues me, so you’ll be spared from an immediate execution.” To illustrate his benevolence, the toyman opens a trapdoor beside Professor Pandora’s boot. Peering into it, the professor sees an oubliette occupied by razor-mouthed monstrosities, piranha-toothed humanoids covered in slothlike fur. Bones litter the floor beneath them, some recognizable as human. Illuminated, the creatures glance up from their repast—wild goat, eaten raw—and yodel. Clawing their way up the oubliette’s walls, they teeth-gnash and slobber. Before the creatures can emerge, the trapdoor closes. “I have constructed many doorways,” the ceiling mouth utters, “but never one such as yours. It mimicked my own sensor skin, but seemed to be its own living entity. Tell me, good sir, whence did that entrance emerge from, and why do I no longer sense it?” “The floor door comes and goes,” the professor answers. “Tell me, am I speaking to the toyman?” “Amadeus Wilson, to be exact. And whom do I have the honor to reply to? “They call me Professor Pandora.” “And which Ph.D. program spawned you?” For the first time in his malignant life, the professor succumbs to self-consciousness. Having accumulated no higher education, and provided his purloined pupils with nothing beyond torment, he has no true claim to the title. Rather than admit this datum, he changes the subject. “This colloquy has parched me,” he says. “Perhaps I might quench my thirst in your kitchen.” His fingers curl and uncurl, symptomizing blossoming rage. “Spare yourself the effort. I’ll have the maid mix you a concoction,” the ceiling mouth speaks, before widening into a larger aperture. Through the hole, a woman descends—or at least the remains of one—attached to a filament which dissolves when she lands. Her grease-stained uniform contains breasts so grotesquely oversized that the woman can hardly stand upright. Four holes have been cut into the garment to accommodate four extra arms. Her lips are sewn speechless; subcutaneous implants make the maid’s skin glow multicolored. Continuous horror has rendered her hair white. Eyes downcast, she sets off for the kitchen. She returns with a goblet. Snatching it into his grip, the professor finds the glass empty. “Am I expected to guzzle down air?” he enquires. The woman shakes her head negative, and then tilts over the goblet. Traveling up her arms and torso, strange swellings reach her mouth. She swishes and spits, filling Professor Pandora’s glass with a curious substance. A filament sprouts from the top of her head and hauls the maid back into the ceiling. Studying the beverage, the professor sees swirling colors: cattleya and smalt, vermilion and puce. Sniffing, he smells a succession of scents: sandalwood and lavender, bergamot and bay laurel. Am I experiencing phantosmia? he wonders. Outside of the nightclub, I’ve never glimpsed such a libation. Bubbles surface, whistling like bottlenose dolphins as they pop. Finger-stirring the liquid, the professor finds it freezing, then scalding. Shrugging, he takes a sip. His head rocks back; his arms pinwheel. Swirling nebulae dance across his mindscape. Within his cortex, the professor feels his 5-HT2A receptors activating, a mind-bending coming on. I’ve been dosed, he realizes, with some new serotonergic psychedelic. This Amadeus fellow is a worthy foe. Before the drug can enslave him, the professor shunts it out of his system, into netherspace, wherein the liquid gains sentience and begins preying upon captive souls. Suddenly, from a shadowy recess, a hexacopter drone flies forth. Gazing through its thermal imaging camera, the toyman targets the professor with an electric laser. He fires a 100-kilowatt light ray, which the professor barely manages to duck. Reflexively, the professor removes his purple overcoat, and throws it over the drone before the device can fire another light ray. Pulling the drone to the floor, he then shatter-stomps it. Arm-sliding back into his coat sleeves, he voices mockery: “You’ll have to do better than that.” Perhaps his words might have been better chosen, because from fresh-born wall gaps, four modified canines emerge, buoyed by pneumatic artificial muscles. Baring teeth of wurtzite boron nitride, their muzzles festooned with phosphorescent foam, they growl like power leaf blowers. One dog has a mobile satellite sticking out of his skull. A canine leaps for the professor and he bats it aside. Another goes for his ankle. Leapfrogging the beast, Pandora nearly stumbles, but preternatural reflexes keep him from tumbling. With eyes like indigo light projected through rippled glass, they target him. Ducking and juking, the professor dodges darting canine faces. A realization strikes him: There’s nothing for me here. No victims await me; no delight can be had. Perhaps it would be best to recede, to let The Other return. First, I’ll bestow a gift upon The Other, and obliterate these technomongrels for him. Otherwise, that inelegant sap would be shredded in seconds. Backflipping over four modified canines attacking in unison, the professor removes his top hat. He thrusts his arm deep within it, up to the elbow. From netherspace, he pulls a blade: an ebon rapier built from the nightmares of dying children. Its sweeping hilt scalds his hand, but the professor grits his teeth through the pain. With a powerful thrust, he penetrates one canine’s flank. As the creature yelps and convulses, Pandora plunges the blade into the next canine’s skull, piercing the nanomolecular weave encasing its brain. Two left, he thinks, jabbing the rapier into the satellite-equipped canine’s eye. The dog shakes his head and sneezes, and then collapses with his faux appendages splayed. Sizing up his last slavering assailant, the professor decides to get up close and personal. After casting his sword back into netherspace, he leaps upon the dog’s back. With both hands, he grabs the canine’s muzzle and wrenches it leftward, snapping the creature’s neck. Even this violence proves less than satisfying, the professor thinks ruefully. The toyman’s tinkering has reduced every organism within these blasphemous confines to puppet-status. What’s the point of torturing marionettes? Why did the door bring me here? The professor pushes his overcoat into his top hat. Disembodied, he leaps in after it. With a puff of sickly smoke, the top hat vanishes. Having reclaimed his own body, the professor’s host organism regards the proximate butchery and shrieks. Chapter 6: Centauride Having recovered some semblance of composure, the traveller presses a palm to his brow. The professor’s memories are now his memories. Erroneously, he believes himself a canine slayer. Before the nightclub and castle, I was at a commune, he remembers. There were deformed folk and monsters, feasts and celebrants. I killed twelve women before leaving, but why? What was my motive? They were so beautiful, so ethereally fragile. Why did I axe-chop their heads off? The traveller’s physical features are dissimilar to the professor’s—gaunt, infinitely haunted—though the two somehow share the same body. Years ago, when the traveller was alone in his physicality, he stumbled from a slaughterhouse rave into an underground nightclub. Within the club, he received a drink of swirling fuchsia and aubergine. When placed to his lips, it entered his body as a vapor. The vapor had a name: Professor Pandora. Subsequent to that occasion, the professor has lived through the traveller, seizing his body for carnage, then receding. In and out of the nightclub they’ve passed, to thereafter emerge into unhallowed settings. Whensoever the traveller gains awareness of his parasite, the professor strikes it from his memory. Thus, the traveller believes himself to be instinct-driven, remembers committing terrible acts without forethought. Here we go again, the traveller thinks. Another fucked up situation. Will I ever get home? Do I even have a home anymore? Are my friends and relatives even alive? Obviously, I was brought here for a reason. This toyman, I’ll have to confront him. Passing into the dining room, the traveller spots a twelve-foot table, topped by a scratch-free LCD screen. Its 360-degree surface has hundreds of touch points, allowing diners to work and game as they grub. Aside from a blinking mannequin, nobody sits at the table. The mannequin moans, and so the traveller hurries onward. In the kitchen, there stands a refrigerator, flanked by two massive tanks. Within the tanks, two vagrants scream eternally, frozen in suspended animation, coated in cryoprotectants. Inside of the fridge, there are edible fungi, homemade soft drinks, and unidentifiable meats. At the sight of a modified mosquito, wingless and swollen, vomiting indigo cheese inside a Tupperware container, the traveller’s stomach surges and he slams the door. Suddenly, he hears flapping. From every room corner, birds converge upon him, their diamond talons scratching, their unfolding metal beaks pecking. Screaming, the traveller covers his eyes just in time to avert a gouging. Blindly, he flees, rebounding off of a human-sized industrial blender. Toward the stairwell, he retreats. The birds give pursuit. Slash: a razor-feathered eagle wing slices the traveller’s scalp. Sploosh: smacking a parrot away, the traveller’s fist becomes lodged within its gelid, gelatinous belly. With effort, he pulls his hand free, twisting the parrot’s squishy skull off in the process. Off balance, the traveller’s feet tangle, and he tumbles face-first, busting his lip. One pigeon has proboscises where its eyes should be, and seven arthropodal compound oculi ringing its neck. Another has human lips, which grin horribly as the creature claws the traveller’s arm. Tasting blood, the traveller screams, pinned prone by dozens of winged antagonists. There are too many of ’em, he realizes, as the back of his shirt becomes confetti and its underlying flesh is carved. Behind his eyes, pain flares crimson. With no weapons available, he has little choice but to await expiration. Suddenly, a shadow slides over the traveller, heralding a rescuer’s arrival. This liberator is bizarrely zoomorphic, a limbless young woman installed into a biomechatronic pony physique. With her vocal cords severed, Shanna Wilson cannot speak. Still, as is the case with all of Amadeus’ half-living kin, the toyman’s pets are programmed to leave her uninjured. Clip-clopping forward until her four hooves form compass points around the traveller, the toyman’s daughter sends the birds scattering. Rolling over, the traveller views an equine underside, and cautiously crawls out from beneath it. Standing, he comes face-to-face with a blonde, sallow-faced sufferer, with giant implanted incisors bursting through her peeled-back lips. “Thank you,” he says, and she nods an acknowledgement. When the birds resume pecking, he instinctively hops onto her back. Then comes sudden motion, a galloping that leaves the traveller desperately grasping Shanna’s waist, averting a calamitous tumble. Falling behind, the birds flap up into hidden passageways, the honeycombed veins of the keep. Yards before the stairwell, Shanna falls suddenly still, so abruptly that the traveller loses his grip and goes flying. He bruises his thigh and sprains his right wrist, minor injuries given the circumstances. From the closest wall, a mouth sprouts, uttering, “Shanna, Shanna, Shanna…I leave you a bit of autonomy and what do you do? Throw a spanner into the works, it seems. Darling, you cannot provide succor to Daddy’s new plaything. Now go join your brother in the arcade.” Shanna attempts to resist, until the toyman activates a cerebral override, which sends her clip-clopping down the stairs, out of the traveller’s vision range. Colorful, transitory hoofprints trail her down. “And what have we here?” the toyman asks with his wall mouth. “A shapeshifter? A masquerader? An enchanter? Your form is so altered; perhaps you’re a new you entirely. Did we just meet, or should I introduce myself?” “Huh?” the traveller gasps. “What do you mean? Didn’t we just speak in the living room?” “Well, I sure conversed with somebody, a Professor Pandora.” “Professor? Dude, I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but I don’t know any professors. I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades—when I’m working, that is. Now can we drop this cat and mouse shit already? Your creepy-ass castle is terrifying, sure, and what you’ve done to your family is truly grotesque. But guess what, pal, I’ve seen worse in my travels. Why don’t you come down here, and we can exchange terror tales until my floor door reappears?” “Hold on just a minute. You don’t know any professors? How can that be? Perhaps I should scan you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And what’s this I see? A flickering in your eye’s neural network. Somebody’s wearing you, boy, and you’re too doltish to see it. Unfortunately, we’re fresh out of exorcists.” The toyman’s words trouble the traveller, but not for long. Manipulating the traveller’s hippocampus from within his medial temporal lobe, Professor Pandora erases them before they can be consolidated into long-term memory. “At any rate,” the toyman continues, “you enter my private technopolis uninvited, and now attempt to dictate our palaver’s terms? This frigid fringeland has but one ruler, and I am he. Within these walls, every entity both living and inanimate becomes my plaything. You are my property now, best accept it.” “I’m no man’s slave,” the traveller responds. “I was brought here for a reason…perhaps to end your madness.” “Try, if you wish,” the wall mouth speaks, before sealing over. Perhaps as a warning, the stairwell’s walls belch transitory flame spouts, scorching the empty air. Undaunted, the traveller begins ascending, one step at a time, slowly. A herd of mechanized velociraptor skeletons rush past him, heading toward the video arcade. Inhuman revelry fills the air; poltergeists crowd the atmosphere. Briefly, an organism slides into the traveller’s peripheral vision: a polycephalic hybrid, one head feline, the other vulpine, propelling itself on cephalopodan tentacles. But turning his head, the traveller spots no such creature. Perhaps it was never really there. Leaving the staircase, the traveller enters a private chamber. Combining a boy’s bedroom with a family entertainment center, the large room resembles nothing that the traveller has ever seen. Climbing structures, quarter pipes, and an archery range ring its perimeter. There are trampolines, Velcro walls, ball pits, and miniature golf fixtures. The ceiling features looping, water-filled, transparent tubes, through which ferrets blast at supersonic speeds. The bed shifts and bubbles; drawers slide open and closed. Somewhere within the castle, the toyman cackles. “Hello?” the traveller shouts, but there are no architectural lips to answer. And then there are. Between the traveller’s feet, a floor mouth forms and opens. “What shall I do with you?” it ponders. “A nanobacteria torture cell? Or perhaps a new face sculpted of tactile sensors? Should I rebuild you as a merman or a Minotauresque butler? So many options, and only one man within one man.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, speak your nonsense all ya want, pal. I escaped from the Order of the Lunar Anthropophagi. I exited the House of Eternal October with all my limbs intact. You think you’re so fuckin’ original, but I’ve met a hundred madmen just like you. Sure, you’re easily the smartest monster, but at the end of the day, so what? You destroyed your own family, for cryin’ out loud.” Unable to acknowledge criticism, the toyman continues as if the traveller hadn’t spoken. “Or would you like to be a performer? I could make a gymnast of you, or a daredevil extreme athlete. Did you believe that this chamber’s apparatuses are just for show? See your possible future and applaud your host’s ingenuity.” The floor mouth disappears, as a ceiling portion swings downward, becoming an inclined plane for some new arrivals to roll down. And roll they do, on modified skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs and unicycles. Gymnasts follow behind them, back handspringing down the ramp. Before the traveller’s astonished eyes, the two-dozen fresh arrivals commence a synchronized routine, utilizing the quarter pipes, trampolines, and climbing structures with expert precision—flipping, grinding and whirling, errorless. These performers had been human once: vagrants, foster children, mail order brides, and the like. Now, they are something else entirely. Dyneema fibers coat their epidermises, rendering the performers impact resistant. They are bullet resistant as well, in case the toyman requires a small army at some later date. Observing their efforts, the traveller realizes that the riders do not push, pedal or hand-propel, their conveyances being entirely motorized. They are androgynous, these performers, with the males having received estrogen bombardments, and the females androgen hormones. Thus, they are equally mighty and graceful, and seem to possess extraterrestrial reflexes. Their natural eyes are empty, their faces slack. Their hair has been shaven away, with implanted bionic eyes ringing their craniums, providing omnidirectional vision. Whatever personalities they’d once possessed are absent. As with his creature captives, Amadeus used transcranial magnetic stimulation and sensory image bombardment to resculpt the mentalities of these unfortunates, yoking them to his will forevermore. Having finished their routine, the performers ascend the inclined plane and disappear back into the ceiling. As the traveller considers pursuing them, the ramp swings up on its hinges, leaving the ceiling unbroken. Shrugging, the traveller wonders, What the hell was that about? Chapter 7: Taking the Plunge Slipping into a one-button, single-breasted jacket, Amadeus smiles at the mirror. He pinches his black bow tie and gives his flat-front trousers a pat. His patent leather shoes are well polished. Perhaps I should wear a tuxedo everyday, he thinks to himself, to keep these claustrophobic confines classy. With the traveller’s arrival, he’d almost forgotten. Today, the toyman is to be married. Technically, he’d already wedded Midge—his children’s mother, now their maid. But as with many toys, Amadeus had grown tired of her, and thus had granted himself a divorce. Utilizing his backup brain, the toyman tracks the traveller, while his ordinary mind invokes Richard Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.” Returning to the garret, the toyman flicks a finger toward the ceiling. An aperture opens; a ladder descends. Climbing, Amadeus says, “Come along, Tango. We can’t start the ceremony without you.” And naturally, the hummingbird follows, emerging into open air milliseconds after Amadeus. Atop the keep’s circular shell, a single rollercoaster car awaits, resting upon a launch track, which tilts slightly upwards, but seems connected to no further railroading. Should one climb inside the car, a quick plunge into nihility seems inevitable. But when Amadeus whistles, molecular assemblers spring into action, and the track begins self-replicating, forming corkscrews and cobra rolls, dive loops and raven turns. Soon, the rollercoaster rings the castle’s inner perimeter, with its brake run situated at the property’s gatehouse. Settling into his seat, Amadeus sends a thought into the ether, causing an over-the-shoulder restraint to fall over him and settle into its locking mechanism. Truthfully, with his augmented physiology, the toyman no longer requires restraints, being able to clutch with fourteen-jointed fingers and adhere his feet to anything solid. But every man has at least one fault, and Amadeus’ is nostalgia. During his much-cherished childhood years, Amadeus’ family had valued one tradition above all others: the yearly trip to Coney Island, which just so happened to coincide with his birthday. He remembers the Cyclone, the Tornado, the Wonder Wheel, and the Thunderbolt. He remembers standing at the edge of the shoreline, too timid to enter the sea, though his mother prodded and cooed. He remembers hot dogs and funnel cakes, custard and pizza. The remembrances are so vivid, he can practically step into them. In fact, should he desire to, Amadeus can mine his own amygdala, to refeel the precise feelings he’d felt on those occasions, bridging the gap between the toyman and his boy self. But why stop there? By bringing his striatum, mammillary bodies, and hippocampus into the equation, he can program those very same days into the arcade’s virtual reality booths, and relive them as his past form, or as another character entirely. But seeing his child self, Amadeus would only rebuild him, and so he drags himself back into the present. When he snaps his fingers, a miniature restraint materializes atop the next seat over. “You know what to do, Tango,” he says. And indeed, the hummingbird does, fluttering into position, entering into brief torpor after the harness secures him. And then the wheels are rolling, the car gaining momentum. Soon Amadeus is freefalling, inverting and rolling. Air buffets his grin. Weightless, his stomach sinks. He passes the keep again and again, viewing it from every angle. Just before he reaches the gatehouse, his artificial neural network alerts Amadeus to a factoid: the traveller is becoming too nosy. Exploring Junior’s closet, the intruder strews clothes across the floor. This will not do, Amadeus thinks, looping. And so a razor wire tumbleweed rolls out of the wall and chases the traveller about the chamber. When the car brakes, both restraints swing upward. Now Tango is fluttering, and Amadeus is standing, thinking to himself, Today is a wonderful day. Both of the gatehouse’s portcullises are up. Its adjoining barbican has been rendered temporarily defenseless: no boiling oil will splash down from its murder holes, no arrows will fly through the passageway’s slits. Under the gatehouse’s eroded battlements, rows of wrought iron seats lead toward a platinum altar. A makeshift aisle divides the rows: electrified tube lights spiraling around Orchidaceae. Lace curtains are hung; votive candles glow within suspended jars. Behind the altar, flowers, crystals, and pearls form an arched backdrop. When Amadeus nods at the rollercoaster, the car reverses. As it loops and rolls its way back up to the launch track, the car’s inbuilt disassemblers erase the rollercoaster behind it, breaking molecular bonds with enzyme bombardments. Within minutes, it is as if the rollercoaster had never existed. When next it materializes, the track will be altered, perhaps with a sustained inversion. The officiant is animatronic. Beneath its flexible plastic epidermis, motion actuators mimic human musculature. With three-dimensional sensors, it scans the crowd, studying facial contours, analyzing skin textures, identifying each attendee individually. Complex algorithms and sensors render it almost entirely autonomous, able to hold conversations, register emotions, and speak with pseudo-empathy. Should any unforeseen variable cause the animatronic to deviate from its ceremonial script, Amadeus will override it, and speak through the officiant via teleoperation. Leftward, the bride’s family and friends are gathered. Rightward, Amadeus’ guests sit. There are ex-hobos, lost hookers, kidnapped children, and a cornucopia of intellectual disabilities present. Everyone dresses in finery, smiling clownishly. None speak, save for preprogrammed verbalizations: “Perfect weather today,” “Love is a beautiful thing,” and, “That Amadeus sure is brilliant. His bride must be the luckiest gal on Earth.” Some stare past eternity. Others are built of awkward angles, their jagged, enhanced skeletal structures housing retractable armaments. The groom’s grandparents make an appearance, rolling to the front row in translucent caskets. Atop the caskets’ frosted glass exteriors, three-dimensional computer graphics depict the couple smiling and waving. Inside the boxes, two skeletons grin. Beside them, two seats await Amadeus’ mother and father. On the aisle’s opposite side, the bride’s grandparents claim chairs, leaving two for her mother and father. The bride has two grandfathers, it turns out, conjoined twins. One is Caucasian; the other is African. One’s a dwarf; one’s a giant. One appears middle-aged, the other an octogenarian. Attached at the waist, the giant appears to carry the dwarf in a side-slung baby pouch, but there is no pouch, only skin. Their suit is custom-tailored. Their lips spasm, attempting to frown, but unable to. The bride’s grandmother possesses physical features that would make even an anthropometrist scratch their head in puzzlement. Her eyelids possess the epicanthal folds of an Asiatic, but her head is dolichocephalic like an Australian Aborigine. Though her nose is long and narrow like an American Indian, her lips are as thick as a Sub-Saharan African’s. Within them, a Caucasian’s spatulate teeth nestle. As for the woman’s epidermis, it is quite zebraic. Horizontally striped, it displays shades of olive, peach, brown, red, black and yellow. Her irises resemble lapis lazuli. Viewing these bridal progenitors, one inevitably thinks, Holy Moses, such interesting individuals. Were they ever infants? Did they slide from live mothers, or were they gene-spliced into being, their recombinant DNA sculpted by the groom’s ghastly hands? What do their children resemble? And what is the bride? Is she human, or some technoblasphemy? If the latter, what would she be like in bed? Here comes the groom’s mother, Charlotte Wilson, and isn’t she grand? Silently, she squeezes her face in her hands. Her asymmetrical ruched mesh gown is navy blue and embellished with costume jewelry. Her chic blonde locks seem stolen from a mid-twenties strumpet. They were, in fact, donated by the bald looker seated in the back row. Her escort is none other than her husband, Herbert Wilson. Once, back in Amadeus’ human days, Herbert had attempted to disown his son. “You’re a monster!” he’d screamed. “The disappearances, and the…the blasphemous contraptions! I always knew you were sick! Even as a baby, you had an evil gleam in your eye! I could barely bring myself to touch you.” But seeing him now, you’d suspect no such acrimony. His smile is large; his eyes are wide. Resultant of a recent lobotomy, his previous personality is extinct. After helping Herbert into his chair, Charlotte sits demurely. For one brief instant, a complicated expression slides across her face, as if there is information that she wishes to impart to Herbert, but is too frightened to articulate. The show goes on, and into sight steps the bride’s mother, escorted by a Labrador usher. The canine wears a tuxedo and walks upright on his hind legs. Upon first glance, one suspects that something is off with the creature. Something about his face… Inevitably, understanding dawns: The Labrador’s lips and teeth are those of a human! Indeed, they are, as is the creature’s larynx, gifting him with the ability to speak English. Strangely, the dog speaks only in anacreontics, turning his every utterance into poetry, Later, for his reception toast, he’ll say: “Blinking, blanking, glasses fall, Red spills like a curtain call. Soothing, softly, comes the night, Lust encased in earthly blight. Drink up now and know for true, The toyman’s gaze follows you.” But for now, the dog remains silent. Seeing the bride’s mother, a question arises: What uncanny valley did this female emerge from? For a woman allegedly in her forties, she is remarkably well preserved. At her mouth and eye corners, no wrinkles can be discerned. Her demeanor is perky, her physique voluptuous. Still, the sight of the woman inspires unease. Her gait is too perfect, as if she is not walking at all, but rolling forward on ceramic ball bearings. Every word that she utters is exquisitely modulated, but when meeting her eyes, it seems that no intelligence lies behind them. Is she genuine flesh and blood, or a product of Amadeus’ workshop? one wonders. If she is custom-made, did the toyman somehow implant an operational reproductive system within her? Or is the gal’s motherhood strictly nonbiological? Claiming his position on the minister’s left, Amadeus faces the audience, smiling with diamond-tipped fangs. Beside him is Junior, his best man. Technically, Junior isn’t actually present, as his corporeal body remains tethered to a virtual reality booth. As detaching the young man would lead to his immediate demise, Junior attends through telepresence. Within a hovering videotelephony sphere, his beaming face can be glimpsed—not his current countenance, but the one he’d worn as a preschooler. When the true Junior tries to scream, the sphere’s Junior whistles. When the true Junior begs for death, the sphere’s Junior says, “I love you, Dad.” “I know you do,” Amadeus replies. Alongside them, chimpanzee groomsmen stand, wearing matching tuxedos. But these are no ordinary chimpanzees. Through genetic tweaking, Amadeus has amplified each’s intelligence to that of an average human, multiplying their neurons more than tenfold, up to eighty-six billion. He’d accomplished this feat while the chimps were still embryos, soaking their brains with stem cells. Because such neurogenesis requires greater head space, the chimpanzees’ craniums are oversized. Up the center aisle, bridesmaids step, followed by the maid of honor. The bridesmaids wear matching green dresses: strapless ruched chiffon. The maid of honor’s dress shares their length and color motif, but is one-shouldered to distinguish her. One and all, the bridesmaids are rod puppets, with hidden biomechatronic fingers manipulating their mobility. The maid of honor, on the other hand, is a biomorphic robot, with a biological system indiscernible from that of a human. Actuated by Amadeus-sent electromagnetic waves, the ladies smile, blink, and bat their eyes. Next, the ring bearer flutters down the aisle, beak-gripping a ring. Striding alongside Tango, the flower girl scatters petals. As she is a human-flower hybrid, the petals are castoffs from her own physicality. A song springs into being—Felix Mendelssohn's “Wedding March,” to be precise. And look, here comes the bride. submitted by /u/JeremytheTulpa to r/TalesFromTheCreeps [link] [comments]

“Tower says they have lit fires, they are setting up camp,” Unkai called out. In the halls it was pandemonium. Supplies, weapons, and equipment had all been brought to their final positions, even as valuables were moved to more secure parts of the keep. The dragons had been geared up for an intercept before the enemy had seemingly taken to ground some distance out from the keep as the gloom approached. Dakota was on spotting duty for now, using the goggles of night alongside her own magics to glean what information they could get their hands on. “They are gathering their strength. It was a long flight. Even darklings need to rest… They will strike under cover of darkness,” Rachuck relayed, Tom nodding his agreement. He looked to Unkai. “Bring the fuzes! Once you got them, don’t run. Drop them, you’re dead. Bolinda, clear a path for him. No one knocks that chest out of his hands.” “Yes Tom. Right away,” Unkai shouted in reply, turning to make for the armory, Bolinda dropping what she was doing and running after him. “How long will they need?” Tom questioned in a lower tone, looking to the captain. “However long that bastard gives them,” Rachuck replied, keeping his voice low as well. “My gold says they will wait for pitch black. Rashan is known for being a coward and a sneaky one at that… We are sure it is him, yes?” “Do you know any other red shadowdrakes who like to keep witches for company?” Jarix retorted indignantly, the dragon's ears catching the conversation without issue. “Then we carry on. Load Yldril for bombing run, Jarix shall strafe them in the chaos,” Tom said, settling on the chosen plan of attack. “You heard the man, quick release knots girls. One tug and the chest falls away. Where is Ray!?” Rachuck shouted out as he went to help with preparations. “I am here, I am here!” she called out, emerging from the stairs below, hauling a sack over her shoulder. “Coal is here. Quickly, quickly!” For but a moment the commotion stopped as all heads turned to look at the cripple and her cargo. Dread was evident on the faces of those who were going. “Fuck me, I’m glad I only have to die later,” Balethon chuckled darkly as he carried one of the hopefully explosive charges to Yldril’s side where it was hoisted up by a silent Fengi. They would only be armed once secured. The dragon stood unmoving as she was worked on, staring blankly at the wall. “Now you may feel what it is like to be me.” “Only on the outside,” Sapphire spoke up as she trotted up to Ray, the pair of them starting to dust each other in coal dust. The swipe of a wet rag helped it stick nicely. The others who were going with the raid lined up for their turn. Once they were finished it would be Jarix’s turn. But once Yldril was loaded and armed they would be off, so they would just be focusing on getting as much as possible of his dorsal side blackened. All part of the plan. Even if it was a part they were certainly not happy about. Some had even sought Paulin in the hope she would declare the practice heretical or some such. But the inquisitorial agent had given her approval for the plan. Supposedly she had even heard of it being done before by some desperate lunatics. Tom guessed that was more likely to help someone run away in the night, but here they were. Basins would be ready to wash them off when they returned. They could not risk the friendly fire of coal-covered dragonettes running around the corridors in the middle of a battle, and no one would want to be covered in the stuff for a moment longer than necessary. Tom did not need any coal to help him, though he did remember to concentrate and change the shade of his cape to a pitch black. He would ride with Yldril and be her eyes in the night. Ray would be with Jarix to guide him. The enemy fires may illuminate their targets quite well, but to see what hid in the night sky they would need darkvision. Yldril may see better than most at night, but Tom’s goggles were better. As preparations were completed and bombs armed, Linkosta and Apuma arrived. They would be ready to help Yldril in the main hall once they returned from the bombing run. The keep was ready; all positions were manned. Ammunition and supplies were distributed and the children were locked in the library with those too wounded, young, or old to fight. And with that the dragons were boarded, and the torches snuffed out. Tom felt his heart in his throat as the doors were quietly cranked open. Silence reigned. They were only supposed to use bows until the signal was given, but not even an arrow whistled in the night. Would they be seen coming? Was the dragon arrogant enough to not post scouts near the keep? Would any scouts see them? Hopefully he didn’t know they had a black dragon, or that they were willing to use coal dust. His mind harkened back to the last time he tried fighting on dragonback in the darkness. He pulled on the strap tying him to Yldril. He wouldn’t be falling off this time. But if the dragon was shot down, he was likely going with her. “Go go go,” Rachuck called out in a hushed voice as the dragons stepped forward. Yldril moved first, wings spreading, dragonettes lining her sides with bows and shotguns, just waiting to let loose the bombs on the signal. Leaping from the edge and letting her wings catch, she turned south, away from the enemy camp to the east. She flew low, only beating her wings as gently and rarely as possible, sliding quietly through the night. She quickly put hills between herself and the enemy camp. The glow of fires barely visible over the ridges on the horizon. Jarix slotted in behind her as the pair cut through the night. Not a sound was heard over the billowing of the wind. No screeching. No shooting. No signal of attack from the keep. Was it going well? Was it a trap? Would they be able to tell the difference before it sprung? Tom kept his head on a swivel, checking that his gun was loaded one last time. They had to break up the enemy and cull their numbers before they attacked the keep. They only got one shot. They had to take it. _________________________________________________________________________________ “Scouts high,” Ray said in a raised voice, looking up at the dim moon. “Very high.” Zarko strained her eyes as Jarix held his course. She was blind to the night, but hopefully the darklings would be as well. Darklings had no innate magic, which meant no darkvision. Unless of course one of the scouts was a dark knight. And the night terrors could see with sound: they were the true threat. Tom believed flying low would help, the ground blinding their echoes. They had trained for night fighting, and they had the benefit of Ray and a blacked out dorsal. She could only bless her stars it wasn’t a snob like Sisu, Grevi’s lieutenant, who had ended up part of Jarix’s crew. This night they would be fighting dirty in every sense of the word. No one would catch them in the night. Not even the terrors. But she worried for Yldril. She had no gun and no armor. She was also far more heavily laden for the bombing run, not to mention the weapons’ temperamental nature. If they caught her she might be in trouble, and she would have no hope but Jarix. “They aren’t doing anything,” Ray informed them, eyes fixed on the invisible enemy. “Keep an eye on them,” Zarko said, receiving a shush from Jarix as they slid quietly through the night. “You shush, eyes front.” The camp wasn’t far. They only had to slip by unnoticed for a little longer. “Eyes front,” the dragon all but whispered as they approached. The glow of the fires started to become visible over the ridgeline ahead of them. The enemy had built their camp sheltered in a crevasse, shielded from the wind. A poor decision in this situation. Ray scouted the skies for them, and soon pointed into the nothingness. “Night terror, front up, uhm uhm.” “Where?” Jarix snarled at her, understandably so. “Uh, fifteen, I think. Degrees. Sorry,” she stammered out in reply as they heard the screech from above the enemy camp. “It’s coming!” she called out as Jarix shot forward, wings hammering away trying to make battle speed, the pretense of stealth abandoned. Ahead of them Yldril too strained to gain speed, Zarko instinctively counting the beats. She could hear Yldril groan as Jarix swung left, the few glinting bits of metal and dashes of white dragonette skin giving away that they were passing the black dragon as they crested the hill. Zarko and Ray braced their crossbows just as Jarix started his dive on the camp. It was similar to the one described by Sapphire, large fires with lying darklings arrayed around them in circles. “Archers! Lots!” Ray called out as she looked into the shadows outside the range of the fires. Zarko loosed her bolt where she could see as the whistle of missiles flew past them, Jarix throwing himself sideways through the air with a powerful beat of his wings. Yldril roared out in pain as “RELEASE!” was shouted from her back. Bolts and arrows caught in her underside. The scaly plates deflected many, but what damage was done was unknowable. Jarix hesitated on his shot after recovering from his maneuver. He was supposed to go for Rashan, but there was no sign of him. And Ray provided no sighting either. The blue dragon fired, head twisted to the side, blowing away a smattering of dimly lit archers by the camp’s edge. The enemy had been ready for them. Hundreds of shafts had been fired. This was a trap. He banked away. Zarko’s eyes were locked on the camp as, one by one, the chests hit. The blitz charges went off with a crackle of electricity. The fine powder dispersed into the air like big red clouds. Then the glow of fire emerged from the center and the corners, catching alight on the bonfires. The blanket of powder went up in a massive fireball that engulfed most of the camp. The whole night was illuminated for a brief moment as the roar pushed Jarix off course, forcing the dragon to turn into the new wind. He hollered a cheer as Zarko stared at the smoke cloud. Just as quickly as it had begun, the flames ceased. Darkness took over once more as Jarix made to circle back for his second pass to cover Yldril’s retreat. Zarko commenced the reload on her crossbow and looked to the sky above them, seeing nothing. “Ray, where are they?” “I-... I…” “RAY!” “Sorry! Uhm uh… five a’clock high, terror, uh. Seven a’clock, terror, diving uhm. Uhm. Five a’clock, going for Yldril. Seven is coming for us. Shit! There he is. Dragon! Above us! He is coming down! He is going for Yldril!” “Jarix, tighten turn!” _________________________________________________________________________________ “Bit long, good effect on target!” Tom called out as he put the goggles back on again, Yldril speeding away into the night. He had feared they would not work at all. Spread the powder too thin and the explosion would not propagate, too thick and it would be a slow, incomplete burn. There was no explosion, so it was still too thick, but anything in there was bound to have been burned good. “One didn’t go!” a panicked voice called out from behind Tom along Yldril’s side. It was Herron, sounding more awake than Tom had ever heard the man. “Careful! It’s gonna blow up!” “Cut it Herron!” Sapphire shouted, Tom only able to guess how much jostling one of those things could take. If it smacked against Yldril’s side he was very confident it was going to go off. Dropping the goggles, they had other issues, too. They had been seen on the way in, and while the explosion had startled their pursuer, it had not dissuaded them. “Incoming, six o’clock. All speed possible, cut that thing away!” Tom called out as he shouldered the rifle. If the choice was show their hand or have Yldril mauled by a night terror, they would play their hand. “I hate you!” Yldril roared out as she cleared the far side ridgeline and turned for home, flying low and fast, any pretense of stealth long forgotten. “Steady does it. You did so well, we have time,” Fengi countermanded as Tom scouted behind them, his old goggles struggling to make out the black creature in the gloom. It was better than what anyone else onboard had, though. “They are gaining, alright. Three hundred meters,” he guessed, clicking the safety off. “Make ready.” Turning to his left he saw Jarix coming around in the gloom. He was supposed to cover them. Hopefully he would deal with their pursuer. But he was turning too sharply. Right for them instead of the terror, and pulling into a climb. “What the?” Realizing what might be happening, Tom snapped his gaze straight upward. “Above! Rashan!” he called out, raising the gun. He guessed the shot as best he could, but Yldril rolled before he pulled the trigger. “Shit! No!” His foot slipped and he slid down her side as she pulled up into a sharp turn. The strap tying him to the harness was all that kept him from falling to his doom. “Yldril!” Fengi called out in the confusion, but she gave no order. Above them blue light streaked across the sky. It found no mark, but no torrent of fire came either. Tom had no idea what happened as he tried desperately to get his footing back, clutching his rifle. A pair of hands grabbed his shoulders and dragged him back up. He clung to the harness as Yldril leveled out again, then reversed her turn. Looking around the darkness he saw nothing, just a whirl of terrain and a sky full of movement. “Thank you, Jarix,” Tom heard Fengi say to herself. Apparently she knew what had happened. “Where is he?” “Overshoot, he must be out there.” She sounded sure of herself, pointing towards two o’clock. “Jarix forced him off us.” Tom twisted around, trying to see. There indeed was the enemy dragon pulling hard right and climbing, coming around for another go. Then the crack of an explosion came from behind him and Tom's world turned white. He flipped his goggles back up just in time to see the target lit up beautifully, along with the whole night as the last bomb detonated off to Yldril’s right. The dragon’s armor shone bright, the crew silhouetted against his back: they were definitely armored as well. As the light faded Tom lowered his goggles once more, trying to blink away the spots in his vision. “That was the last one!” Herron shouted, sounding a lot less panicked despite everything. “It was flung off!” “Good job Herron!” Fengi called out as Yldril maneuvered to turn inside of the enemy dragon. They couldn’t get locked into a fight with him or the terrors behind them would catch up in no time. “The terrors!” Tom called out as he looked rearward. They had taken advantage of the juking turns Yldril had performed and was coming in claws bared ready to strike at her back. “Fire guns!” Tom pulled the trigger and not long after a scattered fusilade followed. The creatures roared out but kept coming. Who knew if they had even hit it. “Brace!” Yldril roared as she rolled right, the wrong way right now. Tom had no time to look. No time to worry. He ran the action and shouldered the rifle as he saw the dark form of the night terror light up clear as day on his goggles. He fired and saw the hit land in the creature's chest, then it banked away, screeching in terror. Then heat washed over him from behind, warm, almost comforting in the cold night air and he was blinded completely. Bright white with a green tint burned at his eyes as he was pushed flat against Yldril’s back by a pair of hands from behind. And Yldril screamed. As quickly as it arrived it faded. A flash of fire, like they had flown through a fireball. Had there been another bomb that went off? Was it Rashan’s doing? He pushed the goggles up and out of the way and could see nothing. He could smell the acrid sulfur of flash powder. Whoever had pushed him down laid atop him, shielding him, but as the heat faded they pulled away and pulled him back up with them. “We have to help her!” the panicked voice of Fengi called out, revealing his saviour. Tom twisted and turned to try and get his bearings. Beyond the dragon was only darkness, but a yellow glow and wisps of smoke lit up by embers came from under her and she howled as she flew, hopefully making for the keep. “She is on fire!” Tom saw Fengi deftly moving across the harness, swinging from grip to grip. Sapphire came swiftly behind her, wings latching on as they went. He considered following for a moment, then remembered the baby strap. Chambering another round he trained the barrel rearwards, squinting into the night, waiting for a semblance of vision to return. ‘Where are you at you fucking bastard?’ _________________________________________________________________________________ “That insolent lopsided whore!” Rashan roared. That black drake had dared to use her breath against him. His superior flying had meant it was only a minor glancing blow, and much of the damage taken by his beautiful armor, now tarnished and ruined. He would flay her himself once she lay groveling at his feet. He descended towards what was left of the camp with disgust on his face. It was supposed to draw them out, like a pot of honey. Not be burned to ashes. He needed the fires; he needed troops. Still burning darklings lay scattered in the burnt off grass, others dragging themselves along towards some pointless task or standing dumbly, skin charred and bubbling. He could recognize his own work well enough. Flash powder bombs. How did a small, insignificant keep on the frontier hold such reserves of flash powder? As he landed Gehenna slid from her perch, swiftly going to inspect his wounds. “You are going to be alright, my lord. You! You! Fetch me the powder from number eleven, we need more. You two, those bags there, bring them,” she ordered the darklings about. They sprung to their tasks with vigor, as was only right for a servant. “There was only supposed to be the one dragon. And why was he black now!” Rashan snapped. His carefully laid plans could not succeed when he was provided with inaccurate information. Someone was going to burn for this, if they had not already. “I do not know, my liege. The crew were blackened as well. Paints perhaps.” Rashan snarled. No one with enough so-called honor in their blood would dare attack him at night while being so much of a coward that they took the enemy colors. These were resourceful keep dwellers. ‘The oracle… the oracle must be to blame. Or was this keep of Bizmati something other than what I had been led to believe?’ He had heard a thousand tales of bravery on the frontier. They all folded like grass once you burnt them. Perhaps these were different? He should be more careful. It had been years since last he suffered a proper wound in a battle as trivial as this. “My lord, we should bandage it. What is your command?” “I shall let Helvaran spring their traps like we planned. Give him Raver and Destra. If they can do this, there will be more. Tend my wounds and we shall see what happens next. Send what is left of the camp with him. They won’t be useful much longer burned like that. And bring salve. This is exceedingly painful.” The drip of acid had indeed eaten through the padding of his armor and was starting to sizzle against skin. He would not show pain, or fear. Victory was assured, he needed only wait for it to come. “Of course my lord and…” “And?” Rashan echoed quickly. He had no time for coyness today, even with his precious Gehenna. “The crack of thunder? That was not a blue dragon. There were flashes of light coming from the black dragon. A new spell perhaps?” “Or machinations of the oracle and the vaults. They were said to hold powerful relics. Let Helvaran discover its true nature. If they die, task someone with recovering the corpses. It may prove insightful.” “Yes my liege. At once.” _________________________________________________________________________________ Tom stumbled from the wounded dragon, shaken and a touch dazed. Rashan had not pursued them after the merge, Yldril claiming she had scored a hit in return. Hopefully that would keep him from the front lines for the night. The terror had likewise been driven off momentarily as the dragons exchanged fire. It had chased them to the keep, but a few salvos had dissuaded it from following further. Hopefully the damage had been substantial. One less heavy flier was a great boon for them. Especially since none had appeared to be present in the camp. They had been tricked. But it had been one expensive trick for the darklings to pull. Most of those in the camp should have been burned to a crisp. “Fengi, your hands, were you hit as well?!” Esmeralda cooed as people hurried too and from the injured dragon, hands already quickly at work cutting away her harnessing. “No no, it is nothing. We had to put the fire out.” The dragon groaned as leather stripes were pulled off tender skin and scales. “You don’t pat out burning flash, Fengi. it sticks,” Esmeralda scolded as she dragged Fengi away towards the washing basins, others already rinsing off the coal dust. “Did you do it? Did you hit the camp? We saw the fire,” Rachuck questioned hurriedly, startling Tom as he turned to the Captain. “Yeah yeah,” he nodded. “We got it. But they set it up. Baited with darklings, not much else. Rashan took some acid, hopefully a lot. We took a fireball in return. Had to shoot a night terror, sorry ‘bout that. All in all, not great, not terrible.” “I knew they would see this coming, following the attack by Jarix earlier. This was a fooli-” “Shut up already. The guns have been played. Next step. They are coming, and I bet they are coming right now. He is gonna be pissed.” The captain looked ready to reprimand for a moment before lowering his hand. “Yes, next step. Doors are sealed, Jarix has escaped into the night. They are not here yet. We will be ready.” “Then go god dammit!” Tom snapped as he shook off his own stupor. He had places to be and people to kill. Jacky arrived right on time, face hidden behind adamantine metal. She stamped the butt of her poleaxe on the stone floor. “Ready to crack some skulls.” _________________________________________________________________________________ “Remember boys, don’t get taken alive. Anything moves behind us, let all know, but we do not break ranks if it happens. We will fight back to back if we have to. Kokashi, Dakota, and I have the armory door. You are to pick off as many as you can. If we fall back towards your room, you come with us. No one is left behind. Leave early, not late. If you hear the machine gun on your floor, it is your last chance to leave.” Rachuck spoke to his men as they stood assembled in the armory. More were already spread out up into the floors above. They knew the plan. All that remained was faith and steel. The last few took their positions, torches being lit and tossed from window slits to light up the night. Then the wait began. It wouldn’t be long. It couldn’t be. The dragon’s pride had been wounded, so he would not stay his hand. All that was left to see was what was coming their way. Minutes passed, no more. Then the crack of gunfire was heard from high in the keep. Rifles, then shotguns barking into the night. More and more barrels joining in, the fruits of their labors, burning away. The wet thud of a body hitting the side of the keep. A chorus of beating wings as a backdrop to screams and screeches. His hand moved to the hilt of his shortened gun. He only had ten shots. His blade would have to do the rest. “You have trained with that thing, yes?” Dakota questioned at his side. The family armor glinted in the firelight, their mother’s blade securely at her side. “Of course, sister. Have you?” “Not enough. What I would not give to have mother with us one last time.” The unmistakable sound of something heavy was heard landing outside and they all tensed. The doors would not last long against a night terror. “You best not die tonight. You would never hear the end of it.” “Bold of you to assume we are going to heaven if we die tonight.” “Do not worry, I will burn you, sister,” he joked as the footfalls rapidly approached. The fury of the guns barked from above. ‘Come on you bastard, just die already. They can see you. They must be shooting you.’ The creature screamed and screeched, hopefully from wounds sustained, but it kept approaching. Then a thunderous explosion, wind blowing past the seams of the door, unsettling dust on the ancient stones. “I suppose Linkosta gets the first honor for our bloodline today brother,” Dakota smirked with relief. “Blessed be her and father’s gifts. With a little human ingenuity.” _________________________________________________________________________________ “What is happening!” Helvaran shouted at his stunted companions. “B-b-boom,” the darkling at his side answered like a broken music box. He backhanded the insolent creature away. “I can see that, what is going on?!” He stared in anger and confusion at where number six had stood moments before. The heavyset night terror lay writhing on the ground, a leg entirely removed as it was peppered with projectiles and spellfire from the keep. It would soon be dead. What manner of horror had been found inside the sacred vaults? He had been waiting to give the signal to advance on the lower entrance to the keep. The central hall to follow soon after. Overwhelm the defenders with weight of numbers. The plan was a dismal failure, but some had made it inside the spire and were advancing. They would achieve little if they could not split the defenders. ‘Think, think, fail and you will regret it. We need cover.’ “Ca-can I I.” “Speak god dammit Destra, what is it?” “T-t-tunnel,” the half-braindead veteran spat out. He was a peerless fighter, but he knew only fighting. Everything else had long since left him. Helvaran looked to see what he was on about, and there it was. The entrance to a tunnel, heading to the keep. Unlit, recessed into the ground. The dwellers did not want them to know about it. And they had not had the time to cover it properly “Brilliant. We may advance under cover!” Helvaran looked to his assembled troops, destined for the next two prongs of assault on the keep. “Second wing, assault the base of the keep. Fight to the end. Enter every crevice and swarm the defenders. Fire bombers, burn the doors with flash torches. Go! Third wing, follow me on foot!” The darklings reacted like well behaved clergymen, if very noisy. No complaint about being sent to their deaths as a distraction. They could not hope to breach the keep now, but perhaps they could weaken the entrance for the next attempt. Making haste, they moved to the entrance of the tunnel. It was locked, but soon the door was broken down. It was of pitiful construction. Helvaran chuckled at the desperation of bothering to lock such a thing. His vanguard rushed inside and he followed, Destra at his side. Inside it was dark as pitch, but they moved swiftly. Then they stopped. “What are you waiting for! Move!” “Block” and “Wall” came the responses. Outraged that his experienced vanguard could not fathom a simple tunnel he moved to the front, pushing as he went. ‘You useless sacks of discards. And to think you were Royal Guard once.’ Reaching the fore he was left stumped. It really was a wall? “What is this? Torch bearers!” he called out, and after a few moments torches were lit, lighting up the room. It was no tunnel. It was a store room! Here? “What sort of a moron builds a store room away from his home? Useless dwellers.” Then he froze. The shelves, they were lined with jars and boxes. The labels were clear for all to see. “Blitz gel, flash powder, Acid, Danger.” “Nobody move!” he screamed out as the whole force froze in place. “Up- up, some. Something moved,” Destra called out, pointing. Helvaran followed his pointing arm to see what dared disobey his order. “Up there.” By the glimmer of torchlight a small lizard could be seen on the highest shelf, bobbing its head up and down. Then it leaped from its perch. “Stop that creature!” Helvaran called out. Blades flashed into the air, cutting and stabbing at the small flying lizard as it soared over them to the opposite shelf. It landed most poorly, tumbling onwards out of sight. He swallowed once, then the flash of blitz shone from behind the shelf. “Oh no.” _________________________________________________________________________________ Oh no indeed. We have depot detonation. Skitters, may you rest in many pieces. I sure do hope you are enjoying all the fighting thus far. There is much more still to come lmao. Now I shall get back to blowing up more shit and admiring yet more fancy new art. I shall see you in 2 weeks HunterorHuntress.com For all things HoH. More stories, art, wiki you name it. Go check it out. Patreon If you want to help get more cool shit made consider joining the Patreon, you also get chapters two weeks ahead of time. Discord if you wanna have a chat about the story or just hang out First Previous submitted by /u/Tigra21 to r/HFY [link] [comments]

We’re thinking of getting a baby swing but I keep going back and forth on it. I’ve been looking at a few like the momcozy baby swing, some graco swings and Ingenuity ones but after a while they all start to blur together same kind of features, just different designs. What I actually need is something that's versatile, durable and can help during those fussy moments so I can get like 10 mins to eat or do something. But then I keep seeing people say their baby either loved the swing or absolutely hated it, no in between… so now I’m not sure if it’s worth buying at all. For those who’ve used one, which swing do you think works better to keep the baby calm, electric or manual? any specific brands/models you’d recommend or avoid? submitted by /u/Long_Investment_9780 to r/torontomoms [link] [comments]

I bought this Ingenuity InLighten Soothing Swing - Van the Elephant a little while back. I finally got to building it and I plugged it in and it won’t swing:| i don’t think i can return so im attempting to fix it. (Excuse the poser baby he thinks it’s his swing) The lights and music will turn on but it just won’t swing. If I put it at level five it’ll make a noise coming from the blue circled area- sounds like it’s attempting to move but can’t. I tried to add a video but it won’t allow me. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!! submitted by /u/Uchiha_itachi0917 to r/fixit [link] [comments]

Chapter 5: Perspective Shift Viewing the keep’s stairwell, one might mistake the professor for a poltergeist. Indeed, his footfalls hardly seem to meet the steps. Peering a trifle closer, however, one realizes that, as with the rest of the residence, each stone stair is adorned with sensor-laden plastic film. This time, the film is transparent, aside from the areas where Professor Pandora’s feet land. There, brief footprints form—purple, then yellow, then blue—following him up to the lord’s hall, which has been converted into a living room, kitchen, and dining room. Scattered about the living room, animatronics reenact historical atrocities: Ward 22 chemical castrations, Mengele twin experiments, Dr. Albert Kligman’s “dermatological research,” and others. Perusing these, the professor grins. Ah, he thinks, a kindred spirit, one capable of culling inspiration from history’s true pioneers. In fact, were I capable of friendship, it seems that I might find it herein. Where is this ingenious toyman? Why hasn’t he arrived to greet me? To attract his attention, I’ll announce my presence. The professor’s lips peel back; his larynx widens. In a language older than humanity—a netherspace-spawned nightmare reminiscent of a buzz saw attempting backwards Latin—he shrieks. Resounding throughout the keep, the screech shatters wall-mounted LED screens and makes electrified tube lights explode into spark showers. The professor continues for several minutes, to no avail. Isolated, he remains, bereft of adversaries and victims. This won’t do, he thinks. Suddenly, in the ceiling’s epicenter, an oral cavity forms. Plastic lips open and close, birthing sonance in the toyman’s own eerie speech: “Curse that damnable racket, you insolent interloper. My bride and daughter were sleeping, and you’ve aborted their dreams. Are you ignorant of proper guest etiquette or just willfully malicious?” Aborting his demonic caterwauling, the professor complies. When a ceiling oculus opens, the wraithlike fellow stares up into it and answers, “I apologize profusely. On the other hand, your conduct as a host leaves much to be desired, so perhaps you might stifle your judgments for the nonce.” “To claim the guest privilege, one must first be invited. Still, your method of entry intrigues me, so you’ll be spared from an immediate execution.” To illustrate his benevolence, the toyman opens a trapdoor beside Professor Pandora’s boot. Peering into it, the professor sees an oubliette occupied by razor-mouthed monstrosities, piranha-toothed humanoids covered in slothlike fur. Bones litter the floor beneath them, some recognizable as human. Illuminated, the creatures glance up from their repast—wild goat, eaten raw—and yodel. Clawing their way up the oubliette’s walls, they teeth-gnash and slobber. Before the creatures can emerge, the trapdoor closes. “I have constructed many doorways,” the ceiling mouth utters, “but never one such as yours. It mimicked my own sensor skin, but seemed to be its own living entity. Tell me, good sir, whence did that entrance emerge from, and why do I no longer sense it?” “The floor door comes and goes,” the professor answers. “Tell me, am I speaking to the toyman?” “Amadeus Wilson, to be exact. And whom do I have the honor to reply to? “They call me Professor Pandora.” “And which Ph.D. program spawned you?” For the first time in his malignant life, the professor succumbs to self-consciousness. Having accumulated no higher education, and provided his purloined pupils with nothing beyond torment, he has no true claim to the title. Rather than admit this datum, he changes the subject. “This colloquy has parched me,” he says. “Perhaps I might quench my thirst in your kitchen.” His fingers curl and uncurl, symptomizing blossoming rage. “Spare yourself the effort. I’ll have the maid mix you a concoction,” the ceiling mouth speaks, before widening into a larger aperture. Through the hole, a woman descends—or at least the remains of one—attached to a filament which dissolves when she lands. Her grease-stained uniform contains breasts so grotesquely oversized that the woman can hardly stand upright. Four holes have been cut into the garment to accommodate four extra arms. Her lips are sewn speechless; subcutaneous implants make the maid’s skin glow multicolored. Continuous horror has rendered her hair white. Eyes downcast, she sets off for the kitchen. She returns with a goblet. Snatching it into his grip, the professor finds the glass empty. “Am I expected to guzzle down air?” he enquires. The woman shakes her head negative, and then tilts over the goblet. Traveling up her arms and torso, strange swellings reach her mouth. She swishes and spits, filling Professor Pandora’s glass with a curious substance. A filament sprouts from the top of her head and hauls the maid back into the ceiling. Studying the beverage, the professor sees swirling colors: cattleya and smalt, vermilion and puce. Sniffing, he smells a succession of scents: sandalwood and lavender, bergamot and bay laurel. Am I experiencing phantosmia? he wonders. Outside of the nightclub, I’ve never glimpsed such a libation. Bubbles surface, whistling like bottlenose dolphins as they pop. Finger-stirring the liquid, the professor finds it freezing, then scalding. Shrugging, he takes a sip. His head rocks back; his arms pinwheel. Swirling nebulae dance across his mindscape. Within his cortex, the professor feels his 5-HT2A receptors activating, a mind-bending coming on. I’ve been dosed, he realizes, with some new serotonergic psychedelic. This Amadeus fellow is a worthy foe. Before the drug can enslave him, the professor shunts it out of his system, into netherspace, wherein the liquid gains sentience and begins preying upon captive souls. Suddenly, from a shadowy recess, a hexacopter drone flies forth. Gazing through its thermal imaging camera, the toyman targets the professor with an electric laser. He fires a 100-kilowatt light ray, which the professor barely manages to duck. Reflexively, the professor removes his purple overcoat, and throws it over the drone before the device can fire another light ray. Pulling the drone to the floor, he then shatter-stomps it. Arm-sliding back into his coat sleeves, he voices mockery: “You’ll have to do better than that.” Perhaps his words might have been better chosen, because from fresh-born wall gaps, four modified canines emerge, buoyed by pneumatic artificial muscles. Baring teeth of wurtzite boron nitride, their muzzles festooned with phosphorescent foam, they growl like power leaf blowers. One dog has a mobile satellite sticking out of his skull. A canine leaps for the professor and he bats it aside. Another goes for his ankle. Leapfrogging the beast, Pandora nearly stumbles, but preternatural reflexes keep him from tumbling. With eyes like indigo light projected through rippled glass, they target him. Ducking and juking, the professor dodges darting canine faces. A realization strikes him: There’s nothing for me here. No victims await me; no delight can be had. Perhaps it would be best to recede, to let The Other return. First, I’ll bestow a gift upon The Other, and obliterate these technomongrels for him. Otherwise, that inelegant sap would be shredded in seconds. Backflipping over four modified canines attacking in unison, the professor removes his top hat. He thrusts his arm deep within it, up to the elbow. From netherspace, he pulls a blade: an ebon rapier built from the nightmares of dying children. Its sweeping hilt scalds his hand, but the professor grits his teeth through the pain. With a powerful thrust, he penetrates one canine’s flank. As the creature yelps and convulses, Pandora plunges the blade into the next canine’s skull, piercing the nanomolecular weave encasing its brain. Two left, he thinks, jabbing the rapier into the satellite-equipped canine’s eye. The dog shakes his head and sneezes, and then collapses with his faux appendages splayed. Sizing up his last slavering assailant, the professor decides to get up close and personal. After casting his sword back into netherspace, he leaps upon the dog’s back. With both hands, he grabs the canine’s muzzle and wrenches it leftward, snapping the creature’s neck. Even this violence proves less than satisfying, the professor thinks ruefully. The toyman’s tinkering has reduced every organism within these blasphemous confines to puppet-status. What’s the point of torturing marionettes? Why did the door bring me here? The professor pushes his overcoat into his top hat. Disembodied, he leaps in after it. With a puff of sickly smoke, the top hat vanishes. Having reclaimed his own body, the professor’s host organism regards the proximate butchery and shrieks. Chapter 6: Centauride Having recovered some semblance of composure, the traveller presses a palm to his brow. The professor’s memories are now his memories. Erroneously, he believes himself a canine slayer. Before the nightclub and castle, I was at a commune, he remembers. There were deformed folk and monsters, feasts and celebrants. I killed twelve women before leaving, but why? What was my motive? They were so beautiful, so ethereally fragile. Why did I axe-chop their heads off? The traveller’s physical features are dissimilar to the professor’s—gaunt, infinitely haunted—though the two somehow share the same body. Years ago, when the traveller was alone in his physicality, he stumbled from a slaughterhouse rave into an underground nightclub. Within the club, he received a drink of swirling fuchsia and aubergine. When placed to his lips, it entered his body as a vapor. The vapor had a name: Professor Pandora. Subsequent to that occasion, the professor has lived through the traveller, seizing his body for carnage, then receding. In and out of the nightclub they’ve passed, to thereafter emerge into unhallowed settings. Whensoever the traveller gains awareness of his parasite, the professor strikes it from his memory. Thus, the traveller believes himself to be instinct-driven, remembers committing terrible acts without forethought. Here we go again, the traveller thinks. Another fucked up situation. Will I ever get home? Do I even have a home anymore? Are my friends and relatives even alive? Obviously, I was brought here for a reason. This toyman, I’ll have to confront him. Passing into the dining room, the traveller spots a twelve-foot table, topped by a scratch-free LCD screen. Its 360-degree surface has hundreds of touch points, allowing diners to work and game as they grub. Aside from a blinking mannequin, nobody sits at the table. The mannequin moans, and so the traveller hurries onward. In the kitchen, there stands a refrigerator, flanked by two massive tanks. Within the tanks, two vagrants scream eternally, frozen in suspended animation, coated in cryoprotectants. Inside of the fridge, there are edible fungi, homemade soft drinks, and unidentifiable meats. At the sight of a modified mosquito, wingless and swollen, vomiting indigo cheese inside a Tupperware container, the traveller’s stomach surges and he slams the door. Suddenly, he hears flapping. From every room corner, birds converge upon him, their diamond talons scratching, their unfolding metal beaks pecking. Screaming, the traveller covers his eyes just in time to avert a gouging. Blindly, he flees, rebounding off of a human-sized industrial blender. Toward the stairwell, he retreats. The birds give pursuit. Slash: a razor-feathered eagle wing slices the traveller’s scalp. Sploosh: smacking a parrot away, the traveller’s fist becomes lodged within its gelid, gelatinous belly. With effort, he pulls his hand free, twisting the parrot’s squishy skull off in the process. Off balance, the traveller’s feet tangle, and he tumbles face-first, busting his lip. One pigeon has proboscises where its eyes should be, and seven arthropodal compound oculi ringing its neck. Another has human lips, which grin horribly as the creature claws the traveller’s arm. Tasting blood, the traveller screams, pinned prone by dozens of winged antagonists. There are too many of ’em, he realizes, as the back of his shirt becomes confetti and its underlying flesh is carved. Behind his eyes, pain flares crimson. With no weapons available, he has little choice but to await expiration. Suddenly, a shadow slides over the traveller, heralding a rescuer’s arrival. This liberator is bizarrely zoomorphic, a limbless young woman installed into a biomechatronic pony physique. With her vocal cords severed, Shanna Wilson cannot speak. Still, as is the case with all of Amadeus’ half-living kin, the toyman’s pets are programmed to leave her uninjured. Clip-clopping forward until her four hooves form compass points around the traveller, the toyman’s daughter sends the birds scattering. Rolling over, the traveller views an equine underside, and cautiously crawls out from beneath it. Standing, he comes face-to-face with a blonde, sallow-faced sufferer, with giant implanted incisors bursting through her peeled-back lips. “Thank you,” he says, and she nods an acknowledgement. When the birds resume pecking, he instinctively hops onto her back. Then comes sudden motion, a galloping that leaves the traveller desperately grasping Shanna’s waist, averting a calamitous tumble. Falling behind, the birds flap up into hidden passageways, the honeycombed veins of the keep. Yards before the stairwell, Shanna falls suddenly still, so abruptly that the traveller loses his grip and goes flying. He bruises his thigh and sprains his right wrist, minor injuries given the circumstances. From the closest wall, a mouth sprouts, uttering, “Shanna, Shanna, Shanna…I leave you a bit of autonomy and what do you do? Throw a spanner into the works, it seems. Darling, you cannot provide succor to Daddy’s new plaything. Now go join your brother in the arcade.” Shanna attempts to resist, until the toyman activates a cerebral override, which sends her clip-clopping down the stairs, out of the traveller’s vision range. Colorful, transitory hoofprints trail her down. “And what have we here?” the toyman asks with his wall mouth. “A shapeshifter? A masquerader? An enchanter? Your form is so altered; perhaps you’re a new you entirely. Did we just meet, or should I introduce myself?” “Huh?” the traveller gasps. “What do you mean? Didn’t we just speak in the living room?” “Well, I sure conversed with somebody, a Professor Pandora.” “Professor? Dude, I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but I don’t know any professors. I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades—when I’m working, that is. Now can we drop this cat and mouse shit already? Your creepy-ass castle is terrifying, sure, and what you’ve done to your family is truly grotesque. But guess what, pal, I’ve seen worse in my travels. Why don’t you come down here, and we can exchange terror tales until my floor door reappears?” “Hold on just a minute. You don’t know any professors? How can that be? Perhaps I should scan you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And what’s this I see? A flickering in your eye’s neural network. Somebody’s wearing you, boy, and you’re too doltish to see it. Unfortunately, we’re fresh out of exorcists.” The toyman’s words trouble the traveller, but not for long. Manipulating the traveller’s hippocampus from within his medial temporal lobe, Professor Pandora erases them before they can be consolidated into long-term memory. “At any rate,” the toyman continues, “you enter my private technopolis uninvited, and now attempt to dictate our palaver’s terms? This frigid fringeland has but one ruler, and I am he. Within these walls, every entity both living and inanimate becomes my plaything. You are my property now, best accept it.” “I’m no man’s slave,” the traveller responds. “I was brought here for a reason…perhaps to end your madness.” “Try, if you wish,” the wall mouth speaks, before sealing over. Perhaps as a warning, the stairwell’s walls belch transitory flame spouts, scorching the empty air. Undaunted, the traveller begins ascending, one step at a time, slowly. A herd of mechanized velociraptor skeletons rush past him, heading toward the video arcade. Inhuman revelry fills the air; poltergeists crowd the atmosphere. Briefly, an organism slides into the traveller’s peripheral vision: a polycephalic hybrid, one head feline, the other vulpine, propelling itself on cephalopodan tentacles. But turning his head, the traveller spots no such creature. Perhaps it was never really there. Leaving the staircase, the traveller enters a private chamber. Combining a boy’s bedroom with a family entertainment center, the large room resembles nothing that the traveller has ever seen. Climbing structures, quarter pipes, and an archery range ring its perimeter. There are trampolines, Velcro walls, ball pits, and miniature golf fixtures. The ceiling features looping, water-filled, transparent tubes, through which ferrets blast at supersonic speeds. The bed shifts and bubbles; drawers slide open and closed. Somewhere within the castle, the toyman cackles. “Hello?” the traveller shouts, but there are no architectural lips to answer. And then there are. Between the traveller’s feet, a floor mouth forms and opens. “What shall I do with you?” it ponders. “A nanobacteria torture cell? Or perhaps a new face sculpted of tactile sensors? Should I rebuild you as a merman or a Minotauresque butler? So many options, and only one man within one man.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, speak your nonsense all ya want, pal. I escaped from the Order of the Lunar Anthropophagi. I exited the House of Eternal October with all my limbs intact. You think you’re so fuckin’ original, but I’ve met a hundred madmen just like you. Sure, you’re easily the smartest monster, but at the end of the day, so what? You destroyed your own family, for cryin’ out loud.” Unable to acknowledge criticism, the toyman continues as if the traveller hadn’t spoken. “Or would you like to be a performer? I could make a gymnast of you, or a daredevil extreme athlete. Did you believe that this chamber’s apparatuses are just for show? See your possible future and applaud your host’s ingenuity.” The floor mouth disappears, as a ceiling portion swings downward, becoming an inclined plane for some new arrivals to roll down. And roll they do, on modified skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs and unicycles. Gymnasts follow behind them, back handspringing down the ramp. Before the traveller’s astonished eyes, the two-dozen fresh arrivals commence a synchronized routine, utilizing the quarter pipes, trampolines, and climbing structures with expert precision—flipping, grinding and whirling, errorless. These performers had been human once: vagrants, foster children, mail order brides, and the like. Now, they are something else entirely. Dyneema fibers coat their epidermises, rendering the performers impact resistant. They are bullet resistant as well, in case the toyman requires a small army at some later date. Observing their efforts, the traveller realizes that the riders do not push, pedal or hand-propel, their conveyances being entirely motorized. They are androgynous, these performers, with the males having received estrogen bombardments, and the females androgen hormones. Thus, they are equally mighty and graceful, and seem to possess extraterrestrial reflexes. Their natural eyes are empty, their faces slack. Their hair has been shaven away, with implanted bionic eyes ringing their craniums, providing omnidirectional vision. Whatever personalities they’d once possessed are absent. As with his creature captives, Amadeus used transcranial magnetic stimulation and sensory image bombardment to resculpt the mentalities of these unfortunates, yoking them to his will forevermore. Having finished their routine, the performers ascend the inclined plane and disappear back into the ceiling. As the traveller considers pursuing them, the ramp swings up on its hinges, leaving the ceiling unbroken. Shrugging, the traveller wonders, What the hell was that about? Chapter 7: Taking the Plunge Slipping into a one-button, single-breasted jacket, Amadeus smiles at the mirror. He pinches his black bow tie and gives his flat-front trousers a pat. His patent leather shoes are well polished. Perhaps I should wear a tuxedo everyday, he thinks to himself, to keep these claustrophobic confines classy. With the traveller’s arrival, he’d almost forgotten. Today, the toyman is to be married. Technically, he’d already wedded Midge—his children’s mother, now their maid. But as with many toys, Amadeus had grown tired of her, and thus had granted himself a divorce. Utilizing his backup brain, the toyman tracks the traveller, while his ordinary mind invokes Richard Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.” Returning to the garret, the toyman flicks a finger toward the ceiling. An aperture opens; a ladder descends. Climbing, Amadeus says, “Come along, Tango. We can’t start the ceremony without you.” And naturally, the hummingbird follows, emerging into open air milliseconds after Amadeus. Atop the keep’s circular shell, a single rollercoaster car awaits, resting upon a launch track, which tilts slightly upwards, but seems connected to no further railroading. Should one climb inside the car, a quick plunge into nihility seems inevitable. But when Amadeus whistles, molecular assemblers spring into action, and the track begins self-replicating, forming corkscrews and cobra rolls, dive loops and raven turns. Soon, the rollercoaster rings the castle’s inner perimeter, with its brake run situated at the property’s gatehouse. Settling into his seat, Amadeus sends a thought into the ether, causing an over-the-shoulder restraint to fall over him and settle into its locking mechanism. Truthfully, with his augmented physiology, the toyman no longer requires restraints, being able to clutch with fourteen-jointed fingers and adhere his feet to anything solid. But every man has at least one fault, and Amadeus’ is nostalgia. During his much-cherished childhood years, Amadeus’ family had valued one tradition above all others: the yearly trip to Coney Island, which just so happened to coincide with his birthday. He remembers the Cyclone, the Tornado, the Wonder Wheel, and the Thunderbolt. He remembers standing at the edge of the shoreline, too timid to enter the sea, though his mother prodded and cooed. He remembers hot dogs and funnel cakes, custard and pizza. The remembrances are so vivid, he can practically step into them. In fact, should he desire to, Amadeus can mine his own amygdala, to refeel the precise feelings he’d felt on those occasions, bridging the gap between the toyman and his boy self. But why stop there? By bringing his striatum, mammillary bodies, and hippocampus into the equation, he can program those very same days into the arcade’s virtual reality booths, and relive them as his past form, or as another character entirely. But seeing his child self, Amadeus would only rebuild him, and so he drags himself back into the present. When he snaps his fingers, a miniature restraint materializes atop the next seat over. “You know what to do, Tango,” he says. And indeed, the hummingbird does, fluttering into position, entering into brief torpor after the harness secures him. And then the wheels are rolling, the car gaining momentum. Soon Amadeus is freefalling, inverting and rolling. Air buffets his grin. Weightless, his stomach sinks. He passes the keep again and again, viewing it from every angle. Just before he reaches the gatehouse, his artificial neural network alerts Amadeus to a factoid: the traveller is becoming too nosy. Exploring Junior’s closet, the intruder strews clothes across the floor. This will not do, Amadeus thinks, looping. And so a razor wire tumbleweed rolls out of the wall and chases the traveller about the chamber. When the car brakes, both restraints swing upward. Now Tango is fluttering, and Amadeus is standing, thinking to himself, Today is a wonderful day. Both of the gatehouse’s portcullises are up. Its adjoining barbican has been rendered temporarily defenseless: no boiling oil will splash down from its murder holes, no arrows will fly through the passageway’s slits. Under the gatehouse’s eroded battlements, rows of wrought iron seats lead toward a platinum altar. A makeshift aisle divides the rows: electrified tube lights spiraling around Orchidaceae. Lace curtains are hung; votive candles glow within suspended jars. Behind the altar, flowers, crystals, and pearls form an arched backdrop. When Amadeus nods at the rollercoaster, the car reverses. As it loops and rolls its way back up to the launch track, the car’s inbuilt disassemblers erase the rollercoaster behind it, breaking molecular bonds with enzyme bombardments. Within minutes, it is as if the rollercoaster had never existed. When next it materializes, the track will be altered, perhaps with a sustained inversion. The officiant is animatronic. Beneath its flexible plastic epidermis, motion actuators mimic human musculature. With three-dimensional sensors, it scans the crowd, studying facial contours, analyzing skin textures, identifying each attendee individually. Complex algorithms and sensors render it almost entirely autonomous, able to hold conversations, register emotions, and speak with pseudo-empathy. Should any unforeseen variable cause the animatronic to deviate from its ceremonial script, Amadeus will override it, and speak through the officiant via teleoperation. Leftward, the bride’s family and friends are gathered. Rightward, Amadeus’ guests sit. There are ex-hobos, lost hookers, kidnapped children, and a cornucopia of intellectual disabilities present. Everyone dresses in finery, smiling clownishly. None speak, save for preprogrammed verbalizations: “Perfect weather today,” “Love is a beautiful thing,” and, “That Amadeus sure is brilliant. His bride must be the luckiest gal on Earth.” Some stare past eternity. Others are built of awkward angles, their jagged, enhanced skeletal structures housing retractable armaments. The groom’s grandparents make an appearance, rolling to the front row in translucent caskets. Atop the caskets’ frosted glass exteriors, three-dimensional computer graphics depict the couple smiling and waving. Inside the boxes, two skeletons grin. Beside them, two seats await Amadeus’ mother and father. On the aisle’s opposite side, the bride’s grandparents claim chairs, leaving two for her mother and father. The bride has two grandfathers, it turns out, conjoined twins. One is Caucasian; the other is African. One’s a dwarf; one’s a giant. One appears middle-aged, the other an octogenarian. Attached at the waist, the giant appears to carry the dwarf in a side-slung baby pouch, but there is no pouch, only skin. Their suit is custom-tailored. Their lips spasm, attempting to frown, but unable to. The bride’s grandmother possesses physical features that would make even an anthropometrist scratch their head in puzzlement. Her eyelids possess the epicanthal folds of an Asiatic, but her head is dolichocephalic like an Australian Aborigine. Though her nose is long and narrow like an American Indian, her lips are as thick as a Sub-Saharan African’s. Within them, a Caucasian’s spatulate teeth nestle. As for the woman’s epidermis, it is quite zebraic. Horizontally striped, it displays shades of olive, peach, brown, red, black and yellow. Her irises resemble lapis lazuli. Viewing these bridal progenitors, one inevitably thinks, Holy Moses, such interesting individuals. Were they ever infants? Did they slide from live mothers, or were they gene-spliced into being, their recombinant DNA sculpted by the groom’s ghastly hands? What do their children resemble? And what is the bride? Is she human, or some technoblasphemy? If the latter, what would she be like in bed? Here comes the groom’s mother, Charlotte Wilson, and isn’t she grand? Silently, she squeezes her face in her hands. Her asymmetrical ruched mesh gown is navy blue and embellished with costume jewelry. Her chic blonde locks seem stolen from a mid-twenties strumpet. They were, in fact, donated by the bald looker seated in the back row. Her escort is none other than her husband, Herbert Wilson. Once, back in Amadeus’ human days, Herbert had attempted to disown his son. “You’re a monster!” he’d screamed. “The disappearances, and the…the blasphemous contraptions! I always knew you were sick! Even as a baby, you had an evil gleam in your eye! I could barely bring myself to touch you.” But seeing him now, you’d suspect no such acrimony. His smile is large; his eyes are wide. Resultant of a recent lobotomy, his previous personality is extinct. After helping Herbert into his chair, Charlotte sits demurely. For one brief instant, a complicated expression slides across her face, as if there is information that she wishes to impart to Herbert, but is too frightened to articulate. The show goes on, and into sight steps the bride’s mother, escorted by a Labrador usher. The canine wears a tuxedo and walks upright on his hind legs. Upon first glance, one suspects that something is off with the creature. Something about his face… Inevitably, understanding dawns: The Labrador’s lips and teeth are those of a human! Indeed, they are, as is the creature’s larynx, gifting him with the ability to speak English. Strangely, the dog speaks only in anacreontics, turning his every utterance into poetry, Later, for his reception toast, he’ll say: “Blinking, blanking, glasses fall, Red spills like a curtain call. Soothing, softly, comes the night, Lust encased in earthly blight. Drink up now and know for true, The toyman’s gaze follows you.” But for now, the dog remains silent. Seeing the bride’s mother, a question arises: What uncanny valley did this female emerge from? For a woman allegedly in her forties, she is remarkably well preserved. At her mouth and eye corners, no wrinkles can be discerned. Her demeanor is perky, her physique voluptuous. Still, the sight of the woman inspires unease. Her gait is too perfect, as if she is not walking at all, but rolling forward on ceramic ball bearings. Every word that she utters is exquisitely modulated, but when meeting her eyes, it seems that no intelligence lies behind them. Is she genuine flesh and blood, or a product of Amadeus’ workshop? one wonders. If she is custom-made, did the toyman somehow implant an operational reproductive system within her? Or is the gal’s motherhood strictly nonbiological? Claiming his position on the minister’s left, Amadeus faces the audience, smiling with diamond-tipped fangs. Beside him is Junior, his best man. Technically, Junior isn’t actually present, as his corporeal body remains tethered to a virtual reality booth. As detaching the young man would lead to his immediate demise, Junior attends through telepresence. Within a hovering videotelephony sphere, his beaming face can be glimpsed—not his current countenance, but the one he’d worn as a preschooler. When the true Junior tries to scream, the sphere’s Junior whistles. When the true Junior begs for death, the sphere’s Junior says, “I love you, Dad.” “I know you do,” Amadeus replies. Alongside them, chimpanzee groomsmen stand, wearing matching tuxedos. But these are no ordinary chimpanzees. Through genetic tweaking, Amadeus has amplified each’s intelligence to that of an average human, multiplying their neurons more than tenfold, up to eighty-six billion. He’d accomplished this feat while the chimps were still embryos, soaking their brains with stem cells. Because such neurogenesis requires greater head space, the chimpanzees’ craniums are oversized. Up the center aisle, bridesmaids step, followed by the maid of honor. The bridesmaids wear matching green dresses: strapless ruched chiffon. The maid of honor’s dress shares their length and color motif, but is one-shouldered to distinguish her. One and all, the bridesmaids are rod puppets, with hidden biomechatronic fingers manipulating their mobility. The maid of honor, on the other hand, is a biomorphic robot, with a biological system indiscernible from that of a human. Actuated by Amadeus-sent electromagnetic waves, the ladies smile, blink, and bat their eyes. Next, the ring bearer flutters down the aisle, beak-gripping a ring. Striding alongside Tango, the flower girl scatters petals. As she is a human-flower hybrid, the petals are castoffs from her own physicality. A song springs into being—Felix Mendelssohn's “Wedding March,” to be precise. And look, here comes the bride. submitted by /u/JeremytheTulpa to r/spooky_stories [link] [comments]

Chapter 5: Perspective Shift Viewing the keep’s stairwell, one might mistake the professor for a poltergeist. Indeed, his footfalls hardly seem to meet the steps. Peering a trifle closer, however, one realizes that, as with the rest of the residence, each stone stair is adorned with sensor-laden plastic film. This time, the film is transparent, aside from the areas where Professor Pandora’s feet land. There, brief footprints form—purple, then yellow, then blue—following him up to the lord’s hall, which has been converted into a living room, kitchen, and dining room. Scattered about the living room, animatronics reenact historical atrocities: Ward 22 chemical castrations, Mengele twin experiments, Dr. Albert Kligman’s “dermatological research,” and others. Perusing these, the professor grins. Ah, he thinks, a kindred spirit, one capable of culling inspiration from history’s true pioneers. In fact, were I capable of friendship, it seems that I might find it herein. Where is this ingenious toyman? Why hasn’t he arrived to greet me? To attract his attention, I’ll announce my presence. The professor’s lips peel back; his larynx widens. In a language older than humanity—a netherspace-spawned nightmare reminiscent of a buzz saw attempting backwards Latin—he shrieks. Resounding throughout the keep, the screech shatters wall-mounted LED screens and makes electrified tube lights explode into spark showers. The professor continues for several minutes, to no avail. Isolated, he remains, bereft of adversaries and victims. This won’t do, he thinks. Suddenly, in the ceiling’s epicenter, an oral cavity forms. Plastic lips open and close, birthing sonance in the toyman’s own eerie speech: “Curse that damnable racket, you insolent interloper. My bride and daughter were sleeping, and you’ve aborted their dreams. Are you ignorant of proper guest etiquette or just willfully malicious?” Aborting his demonic caterwauling, the professor complies. When a ceiling oculus opens, the wraithlike fellow stares up into it and answers, “I apologize profusely. On the other hand, your conduct as a host leaves much to be desired, so perhaps you might stifle your judgments for the nonce.” “To claim the guest privilege, one must first be invited. Still, your method of entry intrigues me, so you’ll be spared from an immediate execution.” To illustrate his benevolence, the toyman opens a trapdoor beside Professor Pandora’s boot. Peering into it, the professor sees an oubliette occupied by razor-mouthed monstrosities, piranha-toothed humanoids covered in slothlike fur. Bones litter the floor beneath them, some recognizable as human. Illuminated, the creatures glance up from their repast—wild goat, eaten raw—and yodel. Clawing their way up the oubliette’s walls, they teeth-gnash and slobber. Before the creatures can emerge, the trapdoor closes. “I have constructed many doorways,” the ceiling mouth utters, “but never one such as yours. It mimicked my own sensor skin, but seemed to be its own living entity. Tell me, good sir, whence did that entrance emerge from, and why do I no longer sense it?” “The floor door comes and goes,” the professor answers. “Tell me, am I speaking to the toyman?” “Amadeus Wilson, to be exact. And whom do I have the honor to reply to? “They call me Professor Pandora.” “And which Ph.D. program spawned you?” For the first time in his malignant life, the professor succumbs to self-consciousness. Having accumulated no higher education, and provided his purloined pupils with nothing beyond torment, he has no true claim to the title. Rather than admit this datum, he changes the subject. “This colloquy has parched me,” he says. “Perhaps I might quench my thirst in your kitchen.” His fingers curl and uncurl, symptomizing blossoming rage. “Spare yourself the effort. I’ll have the maid mix you a concoction,” the ceiling mouth speaks, before widening into a larger aperture. Through the hole, a woman descends—or at least the remains of one—attached to a filament which dissolves when she lands. Her grease-stained uniform contains breasts so grotesquely oversized that the woman can hardly stand upright. Four holes have been cut into the garment to accommodate four extra arms. Her lips are sewn speechless; subcutaneous implants make the maid’s skin glow multicolored. Continuous horror has rendered her hair white. Eyes downcast, she sets off for the kitchen. She returns with a goblet. Snatching it into his grip, the professor finds the glass empty. “Am I expected to guzzle down air?” he enquires. The woman shakes her head negative, and then tilts over the goblet. Traveling up her arms and torso, strange swellings reach her mouth. She swishes and spits, filling Professor Pandora’s glass with a curious substance. A filament sprouts from the top of her head and hauls the maid back into the ceiling. Studying the beverage, the professor sees swirling colors: cattleya and smalt, vermilion and puce. Sniffing, he smells a succession of scents: sandalwood and lavender, bergamot and bay laurel. Am I experiencing phantosmia? he wonders. Outside of the nightclub, I’ve never glimpsed such a libation. Bubbles surface, whistling like bottlenose dolphins as they pop. Finger-stirring the liquid, the professor finds it freezing, then scalding. Shrugging, he takes a sip. His head rocks back; his arms pinwheel. Swirling nebulae dance across his mindscape. Within his cortex, the professor feels his 5-HT2A receptors activating, a mind-bending coming on. I’ve been dosed, he realizes, with some new serotonergic psychedelic. This Amadeus fellow is a worthy foe. Before the drug can enslave him, the professor shunts it out of his system, into netherspace, wherein the liquid gains sentience and begins preying upon captive souls. Suddenly, from a shadowy recess, a hexacopter drone flies forth. Gazing through its thermal imaging camera, the toyman targets the professor with an electric laser. He fires a 100-kilowatt light ray, which the professor barely manages to duck. Reflexively, the professor removes his purple overcoat, and throws it over the drone before the device can fire another light ray. Pulling the drone to the floor, he then shatter-stomps it. Arm-sliding back into his coat sleeves, he voices mockery: “You’ll have to do better than that.” Perhaps his words might have been better chosen, because from fresh-born wall gaps, four modified canines emerge, buoyed by pneumatic artificial muscles. Baring teeth of wurtzite boron nitride, their muzzles festooned with phosphorescent foam, they growl like power leaf blowers. One dog has a mobile satellite sticking out of his skull. A canine leaps for the professor and he bats it aside. Another goes for his ankle. Leapfrogging the beast, Pandora nearly stumbles, but preternatural reflexes keep him from tumbling. With eyes like indigo light projected through rippled glass, they target him. Ducking and juking, the professor dodges darting canine faces. A realization strikes him: There’s nothing for me here. No victims await me; no delight can be had. Perhaps it would be best to recede, to let The Other return. First, I’ll bestow a gift upon The Other, and obliterate these technomongrels for him. Otherwise, that inelegant sap would be shredded in seconds. Backflipping over four modified canines attacking in unison, the professor removes his top hat. He thrusts his arm deep within it, up to the elbow. From netherspace, he pulls a blade: an ebon rapier built from the nightmares of dying children. Its sweeping hilt scalds his hand, but the professor grits his teeth through the pain. With a powerful thrust, he penetrates one canine’s flank. As the creature yelps and convulses, Pandora plunges the blade into the next canine’s skull, piercing the nanomolecular weave encasing its brain. Two left, he thinks, jabbing the rapier into the satellite-equipped canine’s eye. The dog shakes his head and sneezes, and then collapses with his faux appendages splayed. Sizing up his last slavering assailant, the professor decides to get up close and personal. After casting his sword back into netherspace, he leaps upon the dog’s back. With both hands, he grabs the canine’s muzzle and wrenches it leftward, snapping the creature’s neck. Even this violence proves less than satisfying, the professor thinks ruefully. The toyman’s tinkering has reduced every organism within these blasphemous confines to puppet-status. What’s the point of torturing marionettes? Why did the door bring me here? The professor pushes his overcoat into his top hat. Disembodied, he leaps in after it. With a puff of sickly smoke, the top hat vanishes. Having reclaimed his own body, the professor’s host organism regards the proximate butchery and shrieks. Chapter 6: Centauride Having recovered some semblance of composure, the traveller presses a palm to his brow. The professor’s memories are now his memories. Erroneously, he believes himself a canine slayer. Before the nightclub and castle, I was at a commune, he remembers. There were deformed folk and monsters, feasts and celebrants. I killed twelve women before leaving, but why? What was my motive? They were so beautiful, so ethereally fragile. Why did I axe-chop their heads off? The traveller’s physical features are dissimilar to the professor’s—gaunt, infinitely haunted—though the two somehow share the same body. Years ago, when the traveller was alone in his physicality, he stumbled from a slaughterhouse rave into an underground nightclub. Within the club, he received a drink of swirling fuchsia and aubergine. When placed to his lips, it entered his body as a vapor. The vapor had a name: Professor Pandora. Subsequent to that occasion, the professor has lived through the traveller, seizing his body for carnage, then receding. In and out of the nightclub they’ve passed, to thereafter emerge into unhallowed settings. Whensoever the traveller gains awareness of his parasite, the professor strikes it from his memory. Thus, the traveller believes himself to be instinct-driven, remembers committing terrible acts without forethought. Here we go again, the traveller thinks. Another fucked up situation. Will I ever get home? Do I even have a home anymore? Are my friends and relatives even alive? Obviously, I was brought here for a reason. This toyman, I’ll have to confront him. Passing into the dining room, the traveller spots a twelve-foot table, topped by a scratch-free LCD screen. Its 360-degree surface has hundreds of touch points, allowing diners to work and game as they grub. Aside from a blinking mannequin, nobody sits at the table. The mannequin moans, and so the traveller hurries onward. In the kitchen, there stands a refrigerator, flanked by two massive tanks. Within the tanks, two vagrants scream eternally, frozen in suspended animation, coated in cryoprotectants. Inside of the fridge, there are edible fungi, homemade soft drinks, and unidentifiable meats. At the sight of a modified mosquito, wingless and swollen, vomiting indigo cheese inside a Tupperware container, the traveller’s stomach surges and he slams the door. Suddenly, he hears flapping. From every room corner, birds converge upon him, their diamond talons scratching, their unfolding metal beaks pecking. Screaming, the traveller covers his eyes just in time to avert a gouging. Blindly, he flees, rebounding off of a human-sized industrial blender. Toward the stairwell, he retreats. The birds give pursuit. Slash: a razor-feathered eagle wing slices the traveller’s scalp. Sploosh: smacking a parrot away, the traveller’s fist becomes lodged within its gelid, gelatinous belly. With effort, he pulls his hand free, twisting the parrot’s squishy skull off in the process. Off balance, the traveller’s feet tangle, and he tumbles face-first, busting his lip. One pigeon has proboscises where its eyes should be, and seven arthropodal compound oculi ringing its neck. Another has human lips, which grin horribly as the creature claws the traveller’s arm. Tasting blood, the traveller screams, pinned prone by dozens of winged antagonists. There are too many of ’em, he realizes, as the back of his shirt becomes confetti and its underlying flesh is carved. Behind his eyes, pain flares crimson. With no weapons available, he has little choice but to await expiration. Suddenly, a shadow slides over the traveller, heralding a rescuer’s arrival. This liberator is bizarrely zoomorphic, a limbless young woman installed into a biomechatronic pony physique. With her vocal cords severed, Shanna Wilson cannot speak. Still, as is the case with all of Amadeus’ half-living kin, the toyman’s pets are programmed to leave her uninjured. Clip-clopping forward until her four hooves form compass points around the traveller, the toyman’s daughter sends the birds scattering. Rolling over, the traveller views an equine underside, and cautiously crawls out from beneath it. Standing, he comes face-to-face with a blonde, sallow-faced sufferer, with giant implanted incisors bursting through her peeled-back lips. “Thank you,” he says, and she nods an acknowledgement. When the birds resume pecking, he instinctively hops onto her back. Then comes sudden motion, a galloping that leaves the traveller desperately grasping Shanna’s waist, averting a calamitous tumble. Falling behind, the birds flap up into hidden passageways, the honeycombed veins of the keep. Yards before the stairwell, Shanna falls suddenly still, so abruptly that the traveller loses his grip and goes flying. He bruises his thigh and sprains his right wrist, minor injuries given the circumstances. From the closest wall, a mouth sprouts, uttering, “Shanna, Shanna, Shanna…I leave you a bit of autonomy and what do you do? Throw a spanner into the works, it seems. Darling, you cannot provide succor to Daddy’s new plaything. Now go join your brother in the arcade.” Shanna attempts to resist, until the toyman activates a cerebral override, which sends her clip-clopping down the stairs, out of the traveller’s vision range. Colorful, transitory hoofprints trail her down. “And what have we here?” the toyman asks with his wall mouth. “A shapeshifter? A masquerader? An enchanter? Your form is so altered; perhaps you’re a new you entirely. Did we just meet, or should I introduce myself?” “Huh?” the traveller gasps. “What do you mean? Didn’t we just speak in the living room?” “Well, I sure conversed with somebody, a Professor Pandora.” “Professor? Dude, I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but I don’t know any professors. I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades—when I’m working, that is. Now can we drop this cat and mouse shit already? Your creepy-ass castle is terrifying, sure, and what you’ve done to your family is truly grotesque. But guess what, pal, I’ve seen worse in my travels. Why don’t you come down here, and we can exchange terror tales until my floor door reappears?” “Hold on just a minute. You don’t know any professors? How can that be? Perhaps I should scan you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And what’s this I see? A flickering in your eye’s neural network. Somebody’s wearing you, boy, and you’re too doltish to see it. Unfortunately, we’re fresh out of exorcists.” The toyman’s words trouble the traveller, but not for long. Manipulating the traveller’s hippocampus from within his medial temporal lobe, Professor Pandora erases them before they can be consolidated into long-term memory. “At any rate,” the toyman continues, “you enter my private technopolis uninvited, and now attempt to dictate our palaver’s terms? This frigid fringeland has but one ruler, and I am he. Within these walls, every entity both living and inanimate becomes my plaything. You are my property now, best accept it.” “I’m no man’s slave,” the traveller responds. “I was brought here for a reason…perhaps to end your madness.” “Try, if you wish,” the wall mouth speaks, before sealing over. Perhaps as a warning, the stairwell’s walls belch transitory flame spouts, scorching the empty air. Undaunted, the traveller begins ascending, one step at a time, slowly. A herd of mechanized velociraptor skeletons rush past him, heading toward the video arcade. Inhuman revelry fills the air; poltergeists crowd the atmosphere. Briefly, an organism slides into the traveller’s peripheral vision: a polycephalic hybrid, one head feline, the other vulpine, propelling itself on cephalopodan tentacles. But turning his head, the traveller spots no such creature. Perhaps it was never really there. Leaving the staircase, the traveller enters a private chamber. Combining a boy’s bedroom with a family entertainment center, the large room resembles nothing that the traveller has ever seen. Climbing structures, quarter pipes, and an archery range ring its perimeter. There are trampolines, Velcro walls, ball pits, and miniature golf fixtures. The ceiling features looping, water-filled, transparent tubes, through which ferrets blast at supersonic speeds. The bed shifts and bubbles; drawers slide open and closed. Somewhere within the castle, the toyman cackles. “Hello?” the traveller shouts, but there are no architectural lips to answer. And then there are. Between the traveller’s feet, a floor mouth forms and opens. “What shall I do with you?” it ponders. “A nanobacteria torture cell? Or perhaps a new face sculpted of tactile sensors? Should I rebuild you as a merman or a Minotauresque butler? So many options, and only one man within one man.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, speak your nonsense all ya want, pal. I escaped from the Order of the Lunar Anthropophagi. I exited the House of Eternal October with all my limbs intact. You think you’re so fuckin’ original, but I’ve met a hundred madmen just like you. Sure, you’re easily the smartest monster, but at the end of the day, so what? You destroyed your own family, for cryin’ out loud.” Unable to acknowledge criticism, the toyman continues as if the traveller hadn’t spoken. “Or would you like to be a performer? I could make a gymnast of you, or a daredevil extreme athlete. Did you believe that this chamber’s apparatuses are just for show? See your possible future and applaud your host’s ingenuity.” The floor mouth disappears, as a ceiling portion swings downward, becoming an inclined plane for some new arrivals to roll down. And roll they do, on modified skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs and unicycles. Gymnasts follow behind them, back handspringing down the ramp. Before the traveller’s astonished eyes, the two-dozen fresh arrivals commence a synchronized routine, utilizing the quarter pipes, trampolines, and climbing structures with expert precision—flipping, grinding and whirling, errorless. These performers had been human once: vagrants, foster children, mail order brides, and the like. Now, they are something else entirely. Dyneema fibers coat their epidermises, rendering the performers impact resistant. They are bullet resistant as well, in case the toyman requires a small army at some later date. Observing their efforts, the traveller realizes that the riders do not push, pedal or hand-propel, their conveyances being entirely motorized. They are androgynous, these performers, with the males having received estrogen bombardments, and the females androgen hormones. Thus, they are equally mighty and graceful, and seem to possess extraterrestrial reflexes. Their natural eyes are empty, their faces slack. Their hair has been shaven away, with implanted bionic eyes ringing their craniums, providing omnidirectional vision. Whatever personalities they’d once possessed are absent. As with his creature captives, Amadeus used transcranial magnetic stimulation and sensory image bombardment to resculpt the mentalities of these unfortunates, yoking them to his will forevermore. Having finished their routine, the performers ascend the inclined plane and disappear back into the ceiling. As the traveller considers pursuing them, the ramp swings up on its hinges, leaving the ceiling unbroken. Shrugging, the traveller wonders, What the hell was that about? Chapter 7: Taking the Plunge Slipping into a one-button, single-breasted jacket, Amadeus smiles at the mirror. He pinches his black bow tie and gives his flat-front trousers a pat. His patent leather shoes are well polished. Perhaps I should wear a tuxedo everyday, he thinks to himself, to keep these claustrophobic confines classy. With the traveller’s arrival, he’d almost forgotten. Today, the toyman is to be married. Technically, he’d already wedded Midge—his children’s mother, now their maid. But as with many toys, Amadeus had grown tired of her, and thus had granted himself a divorce. Utilizing his backup brain, the toyman tracks the traveller, while his ordinary mind invokes Richard Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.” Returning to the garret, the toyman flicks a finger toward the ceiling. An aperture opens; a ladder descends. Climbing, Amadeus says, “Come along, Tango. We can’t start the ceremony without you.” And naturally, the hummingbird follows, emerging into open air milliseconds after Amadeus. Atop the keep’s circular shell, a single rollercoaster car awaits, resting upon a launch track, which tilts slightly upwards, but seems connected to no further railroading. Should one climb inside the car, a quick plunge into nihility seems inevitable. But when Amadeus whistles, molecular assemblers spring into action, and the track begins self-replicating, forming corkscrews and cobra rolls, dive loops and raven turns. Soon, the rollercoaster rings the castle’s inner perimeter, with its brake run situated at the property’s gatehouse. Settling into his seat, Amadeus sends a thought into the ether, causing an over-the-shoulder restraint to fall over him and settle into its locking mechanism. Truthfully, with his augmented physiology, the toyman no longer requires restraints, being able to clutch with fourteen-jointed fingers and adhere his feet to anything solid. But every man has at least one fault, and Amadeus’ is nostalgia. During his much-cherished childhood years, Amadeus’ family had valued one tradition above all others: the yearly trip to Coney Island, which just so happened to coincide with his birthday. He remembers the Cyclone, the Tornado, the Wonder Wheel, and the Thunderbolt. He remembers standing at the edge of the shoreline, too timid to enter the sea, though his mother prodded and cooed. He remembers hot dogs and funnel cakes, custard and pizza. The remembrances are so vivid, he can practically step into them. In fact, should he desire to, Amadeus can mine his own amygdala, to refeel the precise feelings he’d felt on those occasions, bridging the gap between the toyman and his boy self. But why stop there? By bringing his striatum, mammillary bodies, and hippocampus into the equation, he can program those very same days into the arcade’s virtual reality booths, and relive them as his past form, or as another character entirely. But seeing his child self, Amadeus would only rebuild him, and so he drags himself back into the present. When he snaps his fingers, a miniature restraint materializes atop the next seat over. “You know what to do, Tango,” he says. And indeed, the hummingbird does, fluttering into position, entering into brief torpor after the harness secures him. And then the wheels are rolling, the car gaining momentum. Soon Amadeus is freefalling, inverting and rolling. Air buffets his grin. Weightless, his stomach sinks. He passes the keep again and again, viewing it from every angle. Just before he reaches the gatehouse, his artificial neural network alerts Amadeus to a factoid: the traveller is becoming too nosy. Exploring Junior’s closet, the intruder strews clothes across the floor. This will not do, Amadeus thinks, looping. And so a razor wire tumbleweed rolls out of the wall and chases the traveller about the chamber. When the car brakes, both restraints swing upward. Now Tango is fluttering, and Amadeus is standing, thinking to himself, Today is a wonderful day. Both of the gatehouse’s portcullises are up. Its adjoining barbican has been rendered temporarily defenseless: no boiling oil will splash down from its murder holes, no arrows will fly through the passageway’s slits. Under the gatehouse’s eroded battlements, rows of wrought iron seats lead toward a platinum altar. A makeshift aisle divides the rows: electrified tube lights spiraling around Orchidaceae. Lace curtains are hung; votive candles glow within suspended jars. Behind the altar, flowers, crystals, and pearls form an arched backdrop. When Amadeus nods at the rollercoaster, the car reverses. As it loops and rolls its way back up to the launch track, the car’s inbuilt disassemblers erase the rollercoaster behind it, breaking molecular bonds with enzyme bombardments. Within minutes, it is as if the rollercoaster had never existed. When next it materializes, the track will be altered, perhaps with a sustained inversion. The officiant is animatronic. Beneath its flexible plastic epidermis, motion actuators mimic human musculature. With three-dimensional sensors, it scans the crowd, studying facial contours, analyzing skin textures, identifying each attendee individually. Complex algorithms and sensors render it almost entirely autonomous, able to hold conversations, register emotions, and speak with pseudo-empathy. Should any unforeseen variable cause the animatronic to deviate from its ceremonial script, Amadeus will override it, and speak through the officiant via teleoperation. Leftward, the bride’s family and friends are gathered. Rightward, Amadeus’ guests sit. There are ex-hobos, lost hookers, kidnapped children, and a cornucopia of intellectual disabilities present. Everyone dresses in finery, smiling clownishly. None speak, save for preprogrammed verbalizations: “Perfect weather today,” “Love is a beautiful thing,” and, “That Amadeus sure is brilliant. His bride must be the luckiest gal on Earth.” Some stare past eternity. Others are built of awkward angles, their jagged, enhanced skeletal structures housing retractable armaments. The groom’s grandparents make an appearance, rolling to the front row in translucent caskets. Atop the caskets’ frosted glass exteriors, three-dimensional computer graphics depict the couple smiling and waving. Inside the boxes, two skeletons grin. Beside them, two seats await Amadeus’ mother and father. On the aisle’s opposite side, the bride’s grandparents claim chairs, leaving two for her mother and father. The bride has two grandfathers, it turns out, conjoined twins. One is Caucasian; the other is African. One’s a dwarf; one’s a giant. One appears middle-aged, the other an octogenarian. Attached at the waist, the giant appears to carry the dwarf in a side-slung baby pouch, but there is no pouch, only skin. Their suit is custom-tailored. Their lips spasm, attempting to frown, but unable to. The bride’s grandmother possesses physical features that would make even an anthropometrist scratch their head in puzzlement. Her eyelids possess the epicanthal folds of an Asiatic, but her head is dolichocephalic like an Australian Aborigine. Though her nose is long and narrow like an American Indian, her lips are as thick as a Sub-Saharan African’s. Within them, a Caucasian’s spatulate teeth nestle. As for the woman’s epidermis, it is quite zebraic. Horizontally striped, it displays shades of olive, peach, brown, red, black and yellow. Her irises resemble lapis lazuli. Viewing these bridal progenitors, one inevitably thinks, Holy Moses, such interesting individuals. Were they ever infants? Did they slide from live mothers, or were they gene-spliced into being, their recombinant DNA sculpted by the groom’s ghastly hands? What do their children resemble? And what is the bride? Is she human, or some technoblasphemy? If the latter, what would she be like in bed? Here comes the groom’s mother, Charlotte Wilson, and isn’t she grand? Silently, she squeezes her face in her hands. Her asymmetrical ruched mesh gown is navy blue and embellished with costume jewelry. Her chic blonde locks seem stolen from a mid-twenties strumpet. They were, in fact, donated by the bald looker seated in the back row. Her escort is none other than her husband, Herbert Wilson. Once, back in Amadeus’ human days, Herbert had attempted to disown his son. “You’re a monster!” he’d screamed. “The disappearances, and the…the blasphemous contraptions! I always knew you were sick! Even as a baby, you had an evil gleam in your eye! I could barely bring myself to touch you.” But seeing him now, you’d suspect no such acrimony. His smile is large; his eyes are wide. Resultant of a recent lobotomy, his previous personality is extinct. After helping Herbert into his chair, Charlotte sits demurely. For one brief instant, a complicated expression slides across her face, as if there is information that she wishes to impart to Herbert, but is too frightened to articulate. The show goes on, and into sight steps the bride’s mother, escorted by a Labrador usher. The canine wears a tuxedo and walks upright on his hind legs. Upon first glance, one suspects that something is off with the creature. Something about his face… Inevitably, understanding dawns: The Labrador’s lips and teeth are those of a human! Indeed, they are, as is the creature’s larynx, gifting him with the ability to speak English. Strangely, the dog speaks only in anacreontics, turning his every utterance into poetry, Later, for his reception toast, he’ll say: “Blinking, blanking, glasses fall, Red spills like a curtain call. Soothing, softly, comes the night, Lust encased in earthly blight. Drink up now and know for true, The toyman’s gaze follows you.” But for now, the dog remains silent. Seeing the bride’s mother, a question arises: What uncanny valley did this female emerge from? For a woman allegedly in her forties, she is remarkably well preserved. At her mouth and eye corners, no wrinkles can be discerned. Her demeanor is perky, her physique voluptuous. Still, the sight of the woman inspires unease. Her gait is too perfect, as if she is not walking at all, but rolling forward on ceramic ball bearings. Every word that she utters is exquisitely modulated, but when meeting her eyes, it seems that no intelligence lies behind them. Is she genuine flesh and blood, or a product of Amadeus’ workshop? one wonders. If she is custom-made, did the toyman somehow implant an operational reproductive system within her? Or is the gal’s motherhood strictly nonbiological? Claiming his position on the minister’s left, Amadeus faces the audience, smiling with diamond-tipped fangs. Beside him is Junior, his best man. Technically, Junior isn’t actually present, as his corporeal body remains tethered to a virtual reality booth. As detaching the young man would lead to his immediate demise, Junior attends through telepresence. Within a hovering videotelephony sphere, his beaming face can be glimpsed—not his current countenance, but the one he’d worn as a preschooler. When the true Junior tries to scream, the sphere’s Junior whistles. When the true Junior begs for death, the sphere’s Junior says, “I love you, Dad.” “I know you do,” Amadeus replies. Alongside them, chimpanzee groomsmen stand, wearing matching tuxedos. But these are no ordinary chimpanzees. Through genetic tweaking, Amadeus has amplified each’s intelligence to that of an average human, multiplying their neurons more than tenfold, up to eighty-six billion. He’d accomplished this feat while the chimps were still embryos, soaking their brains with stem cells. Because such neurogenesis requires greater head space, the chimpanzees’ craniums are oversized. Up the center aisle, bridesmaids step, followed by the maid of honor. The bridesmaids wear matching green dresses: strapless ruched chiffon. The maid of honor’s dress shares their length and color motif, but is one-shouldered to distinguish her. One and all, the bridesmaids are rod puppets, with hidden biomechatronic fingers manipulating their mobility. The maid of honor, on the other hand, is a biomorphic robot, with a biological system indiscernible from that of a human. Actuated by Amadeus-sent electromagnetic waves, the ladies smile, blink, and bat their eyes. Next, the ring bearer flutters down the aisle, beak-gripping a ring. Striding alongside Tango, the flower girl scatters petals. As she is a human-flower hybrid, the petals are castoffs from her own physicality. A song springs into being—Felix Mendelssohn's “Wedding March,” to be precise. And look, here comes the bride. submitted by /u/JeremytheTulpa to r/WritersOfHorror [link] [comments]

Chapter 5: Perspective Shift Viewing the keep’s stairwell, one might mistake the professor for a poltergeist. Indeed, his footfalls hardly seem to meet the steps. Peering a trifle closer, however, one realizes that, as with the rest of the residence, each stone stair is adorned with sensor-laden plastic film. This time, the film is transparent, aside from the areas where Professor Pandora’s feet land. There, brief footprints form—purple, then yellow, then blue—following him up to the lord’s hall, which has been converted into a living room, kitchen, and dining room. Scattered about the living room, animatronics reenact historical atrocities: Ward 22 chemical castrations, Mengele twin experiments, Dr. Albert Kligman’s “dermatological research,” and others. Perusing these, the professor grins. Ah, he thinks, a kindred spirit, one capable of culling inspiration from history’s true pioneers. In fact, were I capable of friendship, it seems that I might find it herein. Where is this ingenious toyman? Why hasn’t he arrived to greet me? To attract his attention, I’ll announce my presence. The professor’s lips peel back; his larynx widens. In a language older than humanity—a netherspace-spawned nightmare reminiscent of a buzz saw attempting backwards Latin—he shrieks. Resounding throughout the keep, the screech shatters wall-mounted LED screens and makes electrified tube lights explode into spark showers. The professor continues for several minutes, to no avail. Isolated, he remains, bereft of adversaries and victims. This won’t do, he thinks. Suddenly, in the ceiling’s epicenter, an oral cavity forms. Plastic lips open and close, birthing sonance in the toyman’s own eerie speech: “Curse that damnable racket, you insolent interloper. My bride and daughter were sleeping, and you’ve aborted their dreams. Are you ignorant of proper guest etiquette or just willfully malicious?” Aborting his demonic caterwauling, the professor complies. When a ceiling oculus opens, the wraithlike fellow stares up into it and answers, “I apologize profusely. On the other hand, your conduct as a host leaves much to be desired, so perhaps you might stifle your judgments for the nonce.” “To claim the guest privilege, one must first be invited. Still, your method of entry intrigues me, so you’ll be spared from an immediate execution.” To illustrate his benevolence, the toyman opens a trapdoor beside Professor Pandora’s boot. Peering into it, the professor sees an oubliette occupied by razor-mouthed monstrosities, piranha-toothed humanoids covered in slothlike fur. Bones litter the floor beneath them, some recognizable as human. Illuminated, the creatures glance up from their repast—wild goat, eaten raw—and yodel. Clawing their way up the oubliette’s walls, they teeth-gnash and slobber. Before the creatures can emerge, the trapdoor closes. “I have constructed many doorways,” the ceiling mouth utters, “but never one such as yours. It mimicked my own sensor skin, but seemed to be its own living entity. Tell me, good sir, whence did that entrance emerge from, and why do I no longer sense it?” “The floor door comes and goes,” the professor answers. “Tell me, am I speaking to the toyman?” “Amadeus Wilson, to be exact. And whom do I have the honor to reply to? “They call me Professor Pandora.” “And which Ph.D. program spawned you?” For the first time in his malignant life, the professor succumbs to self-consciousness. Having accumulated no higher education, and provided his purloined pupils with nothing beyond torment, he has no true claim to the title. Rather than admit this datum, he changes the subject. “This colloquy has parched me,” he says. “Perhaps I might quench my thirst in your kitchen.” His fingers curl and uncurl, symptomizing blossoming rage. “Spare yourself the effort. I’ll have the maid mix you a concoction,” the ceiling mouth speaks, before widening into a larger aperture. Through the hole, a woman descends—or at least the remains of one—attached to a filament which dissolves when she lands. Her grease-stained uniform contains breasts so grotesquely oversized that the woman can hardly stand upright. Four holes have been cut into the garment to accommodate four extra arms. Her lips are sewn speechless; subcutaneous implants make the maid’s skin glow multicolored. Continuous horror has rendered her hair white. Eyes downcast, she sets off for the kitchen. She returns with a goblet. Snatching it into his grip, the professor finds the glass empty. “Am I expected to guzzle down air?” he enquires. The woman shakes her head negative, and then tilts over the goblet. Traveling up her arms and torso, strange swellings reach her mouth. She swishes and spits, filling Professor Pandora’s glass with a curious substance. A filament sprouts from the top of her head and hauls the maid back into the ceiling. Studying the beverage, the professor sees swirling colors: cattleya and smalt, vermilion and puce. Sniffing, he smells a succession of scents: sandalwood and lavender, bergamot and bay laurel. Am I experiencing phantosmia? he wonders. Outside of the nightclub, I’ve never glimpsed such a libation. Bubbles surface, whistling like bottlenose dolphins as they pop. Finger-stirring the liquid, the professor finds it freezing, then scalding. Shrugging, he takes a sip. His head rocks back; his arms pinwheel. Swirling nebulae dance across his mindscape. Within his cortex, the professor feels his 5-HT2A receptors activating, a mind-bending coming on. I’ve been dosed, he realizes, with some new serotonergic psychedelic. This Amadeus fellow is a worthy foe. Before the drug can enslave him, the professor shunts it out of his system, into netherspace, wherein the liquid gains sentience and begins preying upon captive souls. Suddenly, from a shadowy recess, a hexacopter drone flies forth. Gazing through its thermal imaging camera, the toyman targets the professor with an electric laser. He fires a 100-kilowatt light ray, which the professor barely manages to duck. Reflexively, the professor removes his purple overcoat, and throws it over the drone before the device can fire another light ray. Pulling the drone to the floor, he then shatter-stomps it. Arm-sliding back into his coat sleeves, he voices mockery: “You’ll have to do better than that.” Perhaps his words might have been better chosen, because from fresh-born wall gaps, four modified canines emerge, buoyed by pneumatic artificial muscles. Baring teeth of wurtzite boron nitride, their muzzles festooned with phosphorescent foam, they growl like power leaf blowers. One dog has a mobile satellite sticking out of his skull. A canine leaps for the professor and he bats it aside. Another goes for his ankle. Leapfrogging the beast, Pandora nearly stumbles, but preternatural reflexes keep him from tumbling. With eyes like indigo light projected through rippled glass, they target him. Ducking and juking, the professor dodges darting canine faces. A realization strikes him: There’s nothing for me here. No victims await me; no delight can be had. Perhaps it would be best to recede, to let The Other return. First, I’ll bestow a gift upon The Other, and obliterate these technomongrels for him. Otherwise, that inelegant sap would be shredded in seconds. Backflipping over four modified canines attacking in unison, the professor removes his top hat. He thrusts his arm deep within it, up to the elbow. From netherspace, he pulls a blade: an ebon rapier built from the nightmares of dying children. Its sweeping hilt scalds his hand, but the professor grits his teeth through the pain. With a powerful thrust, he penetrates one canine’s flank. As the creature yelps and convulses, Pandora plunges the blade into the next canine’s skull, piercing the nanomolecular weave encasing its brain. Two left, he thinks, jabbing the rapier into the satellite-equipped canine’s eye. The dog shakes his head and sneezes, and then collapses with his faux appendages splayed. Sizing up his last slavering assailant, the professor decides to get up close and personal. After casting his sword back into netherspace, he leaps upon the dog’s back. With both hands, he grabs the canine’s muzzle and wrenches it leftward, snapping the creature’s neck. Even this violence proves less than satisfying, the professor thinks ruefully. The toyman’s tinkering has reduced every organism within these blasphemous confines to puppet-status. What’s the point of torturing marionettes? Why did the door bring me here? The professor pushes his overcoat into his top hat. Disembodied, he leaps in after it. With a puff of sickly smoke, the top hat vanishes. Having reclaimed his own body, the professor’s host organism regards the proximate butchery and shrieks. Chapter 6: Centauride Having recovered some semblance of composure, the traveller presses a palm to his brow. The professor’s memories are now his memories. Erroneously, he believes himself a canine slayer. Before the nightclub and castle, I was at a commune, he remembers. There were deformed folk and monsters, feasts and celebrants. I killed twelve women before leaving, but why? What was my motive? They were so beautiful, so ethereally fragile. Why did I axe-chop their heads off? The traveller’s physical features are dissimilar to the professor’s—gaunt, infinitely haunted—though the two somehow share the same body. Years ago, when the traveller was alone in his physicality, he stumbled from a slaughterhouse rave into an underground nightclub. Within the club, he received a drink of swirling fuchsia and aubergine. When placed to his lips, it entered his body as a vapor. The vapor had a name: Professor Pandora. Subsequent to that occasion, the professor has lived through the traveller, seizing his body for carnage, then receding. In and out of the nightclub they’ve passed, to thereafter emerge into unhallowed settings. Whensoever the traveller gains awareness of his parasite, the professor strikes it from his memory. Thus, the traveller believes himself to be instinct-driven, remembers committing terrible acts without forethought. Here we go again, the traveller thinks. Another fucked up situation. Will I ever get home? Do I even have a home anymore? Are my friends and relatives even alive? Obviously, I was brought here for a reason. This toyman, I’ll have to confront him. Passing into the dining room, the traveller spots a twelve-foot table, topped by a scratch-free LCD screen. Its 360-degree surface has hundreds of touch points, allowing diners to work and game as they grub. Aside from a blinking mannequin, nobody sits at the table. The mannequin moans, and so the traveller hurries onward. In the kitchen, there stands a refrigerator, flanked by two massive tanks. Within the tanks, two vagrants scream eternally, frozen in suspended animation, coated in cryoprotectants. Inside of the fridge, there are edible fungi, homemade soft drinks, and unidentifiable meats. At the sight of a modified mosquito, wingless and swollen, vomiting indigo cheese inside a Tupperware container, the traveller’s stomach surges and he slams the door. Suddenly, he hears flapping. From every room corner, birds converge upon him, their diamond talons scratching, their unfolding metal beaks pecking. Screaming, the traveller covers his eyes just in time to avert a gouging. Blindly, he flees, rebounding off of a human-sized industrial blender. Toward the stairwell, he retreats. The birds give pursuit. Slash: a razor-feathered eagle wing slices the traveller’s scalp. Sploosh: smacking a parrot away, the traveller’s fist becomes lodged within its gelid, gelatinous belly. With effort, he pulls his hand free, twisting the parrot’s squishy skull off in the process. Off balance, the traveller’s feet tangle, and he tumbles face-first, busting his lip. One pigeon has proboscises where its eyes should be, and seven arthropodal compound oculi ringing its neck. Another has human lips, which grin horribly as the creature claws the traveller’s arm. Tasting blood, the traveller screams, pinned prone by dozens of winged antagonists. There are too many of ’em, he realizes, as the back of his shirt becomes confetti and its underlying flesh is carved. Behind his eyes, pain flares crimson. With no weapons available, he has little choice but to await expiration. Suddenly, a shadow slides over the traveller, heralding a rescuer’s arrival. This liberator is bizarrely zoomorphic, a limbless young woman installed into a biomechatronic pony physique. With her vocal cords severed, Shanna Wilson cannot speak. Still, as is the case with all of Amadeus’ half-living kin, the toyman’s pets are programmed to leave her uninjured. Clip-clopping forward until her four hooves form compass points around the traveller, the toyman’s daughter sends the birds scattering. Rolling over, the traveller views an equine underside, and cautiously crawls out from beneath it. Standing, he comes face-to-face with a blonde, sallow-faced sufferer, with giant implanted incisors bursting through her peeled-back lips. “Thank you,” he says, and she nods an acknowledgement. When the birds resume pecking, he instinctively hops onto her back. Then comes sudden motion, a galloping that leaves the traveller desperately grasping Shanna’s waist, averting a calamitous tumble. Falling behind, the birds flap up into hidden passageways, the honeycombed veins of the keep. Yards before the stairwell, Shanna falls suddenly still, so abruptly that the traveller loses his grip and goes flying. He bruises his thigh and sprains his right wrist, minor injuries given the circumstances. From the closest wall, a mouth sprouts, uttering, “Shanna, Shanna, Shanna…I leave you a bit of autonomy and what do you do? Throw a spanner into the works, it seems. Darling, you cannot provide succor to Daddy’s new plaything. Now go join your brother in the arcade.” Shanna attempts to resist, until the toyman activates a cerebral override, which sends her clip-clopping down the stairs, out of the traveller’s vision range. Colorful, transitory hoofprints trail her down. “And what have we here?” the toyman asks with his wall mouth. “A shapeshifter? A masquerader? An enchanter? Your form is so altered; perhaps you’re a new you entirely. Did we just meet, or should I introduce myself?” “Huh?” the traveller gasps. “What do you mean? Didn’t we just speak in the living room?” “Well, I sure conversed with somebody, a Professor Pandora.” “Professor? Dude, I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but I don’t know any professors. I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades—when I’m working, that is. Now can we drop this cat and mouse shit already? Your creepy-ass castle is terrifying, sure, and what you’ve done to your family is truly grotesque. But guess what, pal, I’ve seen worse in my travels. Why don’t you come down here, and we can exchange terror tales until my floor door reappears?” “Hold on just a minute. You don’t know any professors? How can that be? Perhaps I should scan you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And what’s this I see? A flickering in your eye’s neural network. Somebody’s wearing you, boy, and you’re too doltish to see it. Unfortunately, we’re fresh out of exorcists.” The toyman’s words trouble the traveller, but not for long. Manipulating the traveller’s hippocampus from within his medial temporal lobe, Professor Pandora erases them before they can be consolidated into long-term memory. “At any rate,” the toyman continues, “you enter my private technopolis uninvited, and now attempt to dictate our palaver’s terms? This frigid fringeland has but one ruler, and I am he. Within these walls, every entity both living and inanimate becomes my plaything. You are my property now, best accept it.” “I’m no man’s slave,” the traveller responds. “I was brought here for a reason…perhaps to end your madness.” “Try, if you wish,” the wall mouth speaks, before sealing over. Perhaps as a warning, the stairwell’s walls belch transitory flame spouts, scorching the empty air. Undaunted, the traveller begins ascending, one step at a time, slowly. A herd of mechanized velociraptor skeletons rush past him, heading toward the video arcade. Inhuman revelry fills the air; poltergeists crowd the atmosphere. Briefly, an organism slides into the traveller’s peripheral vision: a polycephalic hybrid, one head feline, the other vulpine, propelling itself on cephalopodan tentacles. But turning his head, the traveller spots no such creature. Perhaps it was never really there. Leaving the staircase, the traveller enters a private chamber. Combining a boy’s bedroom with a family entertainment center, the large room resembles nothing that the traveller has ever seen. Climbing structures, quarter pipes, and an archery range ring its perimeter. There are trampolines, Velcro walls, ball pits, and miniature golf fixtures. The ceiling features looping, water-filled, transparent tubes, through which ferrets blast at supersonic speeds. The bed shifts and bubbles; drawers slide open and closed. Somewhere within the castle, the toyman cackles. “Hello?” the traveller shouts, but there are no architectural lips to answer. And then there are. Between the traveller’s feet, a floor mouth forms and opens. “What shall I do with you?” it ponders. “A nanobacteria torture cell? Or perhaps a new face sculpted of tactile sensors? Should I rebuild you as a merman or a Minotauresque butler? So many options, and only one man within one man.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, speak your nonsense all ya want, pal. I escaped from the Order of the Lunar Anthropophagi. I exited the House of Eternal October with all my limbs intact. You think you’re so fuckin’ original, but I’ve met a hundred madmen just like you. Sure, you’re easily the smartest monster, but at the end of the day, so what? You destroyed your own family, for cryin’ out loud.” Unable to acknowledge criticism, the toyman continues as if the traveller hadn’t spoken. “Or would you like to be a performer? I could make a gymnast of you, or a daredevil extreme athlete. Did you believe that this chamber’s apparatuses are just for show? See your possible future and applaud your host’s ingenuity.” The floor mouth disappears, as a ceiling portion swings downward, becoming an inclined plane for some new arrivals to roll down. And roll they do, on modified skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs and unicycles. Gymnasts follow behind them, back handspringing down the ramp. Before the traveller’s astonished eyes, the two-dozen fresh arrivals commence a synchronized routine, utilizing the quarter pipes, trampolines, and climbing structures with expert precision—flipping, grinding and whirling, errorless. These performers had been human once: vagrants, foster children, mail order brides, and the like. Now, they are something else entirely. Dyneema fibers coat their epidermises, rendering the performers impact resistant. They are bullet resistant as well, in case the toyman requires a small army at some later date. Observing their efforts, the traveller realizes that the riders do not push, pedal or hand-propel, their conveyances being entirely motorized. They are androgynous, these performers, with the males having received estrogen bombardments, and the females androgen hormones. Thus, they are equally mighty and graceful, and seem to possess extraterrestrial reflexes. Their natural eyes are empty, their faces slack. Their hair has been shaven away, with implanted bionic eyes ringing their craniums, providing omnidirectional vision. Whatever personalities they’d once possessed are absent. As with his creature captives, Amadeus used transcranial magnetic stimulation and sensory image bombardment to resculpt the mentalities of these unfortunates, yoking them to his will forevermore. Having finished their routine, the performers ascend the inclined plane and disappear back into the ceiling. As the traveller considers pursuing them, the ramp swings up on its hinges, leaving the ceiling unbroken. Shrugging, the traveller wonders, What the hell was that about? Chapter 7: Taking the Plunge Slipping into a one-button, single-breasted jacket, Amadeus smiles at the mirror. He pinches his black bow tie and gives his flat-front trousers a pat. His patent leather shoes are well polished. Perhaps I should wear a tuxedo everyday, he thinks to himself, to keep these claustrophobic confines classy. With the traveller’s arrival, he’d almost forgotten. Today, the toyman is to be married. Technically, he’d already wedded Midge—his children’s mother, now their maid. But as with many toys, Amadeus had grown tired of her, and thus had granted himself a divorce. Utilizing his backup brain, the toyman tracks the traveller, while his ordinary mind invokes Richard Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.” Returning to the garret, the toyman flicks a finger toward the ceiling. An aperture opens; a ladder descends. Climbing, Amadeus says, “Come along, Tango. We can’t start the ceremony without you.” And naturally, the hummingbird follows, emerging into open air milliseconds after Amadeus. Atop the keep’s circular shell, a single rollercoaster car awaits, resting upon a launch track, which tilts slightly upwards, but seems connected to no further railroading. Should one climb inside the car, a quick plunge into nihility seems inevitable. But when Amadeus whistles, molecular assemblers spring into action, and the track begins self-replicating, forming corkscrews and cobra rolls, dive loops and raven turns. Soon, the rollercoaster rings the castle’s inner perimeter, with its brake run situated at the property’s gatehouse. Settling into his seat, Amadeus sends a thought into the ether, causing an over-the-shoulder restraint to fall over him and settle into its locking mechanism. Truthfully, with his augmented physiology, the toyman no longer requires restraints, being able to clutch with fourteen-jointed fingers and adhere his feet to anything solid. But every man has at least one fault, and Amadeus’ is nostalgia. During his much-cherished childhood years, Amadeus’ family had valued one tradition above all others: the yearly trip to Coney Island, which just so happened to coincide with his birthday. He remembers the Cyclone, the Tornado, the Wonder Wheel, and the Thunderbolt. He remembers standing at the edge of the shoreline, too timid to enter the sea, though his mother prodded and cooed. He remembers hot dogs and funnel cakes, custard and pizza. The remembrances are so vivid, he can practically step into them. In fact, should he desire to, Amadeus can mine his own amygdala, to refeel the precise feelings he’d felt on those occasions, bridging the gap between the toyman and his boy self. But why stop there? By bringing his striatum, mammillary bodies, and hippocampus into the equation, he can program those very same days into the arcade’s virtual reality booths, and relive them as his past form, or as another character entirely. But seeing his child self, Amadeus would only rebuild him, and so he drags himself back into the present. When he snaps his fingers, a miniature restraint materializes atop the next seat over. “You know what to do, Tango,” he says. And indeed, the hummingbird does, fluttering into position, entering into brief torpor after the harness secures him. And then the wheels are rolling, the car gaining momentum. Soon Amadeus is freefalling, inverting and rolling. Air buffets his grin. Weightless, his stomach sinks. He passes the keep again and again, viewing it from every angle. Just before he reaches the gatehouse, his artificial neural network alerts Amadeus to a factoid: the traveller is becoming too nosy. Exploring Junior’s closet, the intruder strews clothes across the floor. This will not do, Amadeus thinks, looping. And so a razor wire tumbleweed rolls out of the wall and chases the traveller about the chamber. When the car brakes, both restraints swing upward. Now Tango is fluttering, and Amadeus is standing, thinking to himself, Today is a wonderful day. Both of the gatehouse’s portcullises are up. Its adjoining barbican has been rendered temporarily defenseless: no boiling oil will splash down from its murder holes, no arrows will fly through the passageway’s slits. Under the gatehouse’s eroded battlements, rows of wrought iron seats lead toward a platinum altar. A makeshift aisle divides the rows: electrified tube lights spiraling around Orchidaceae. Lace curtains are hung; votive candles glow within suspended jars. Behind the altar, flowers, crystals, and pearls form an arched backdrop. When Amadeus nods at the rollercoaster, the car reverses. As it loops and rolls its way back up to the launch track, the car’s inbuilt disassemblers erase the rollercoaster behind it, breaking molecular bonds with enzyme bombardments. Within minutes, it is as if the rollercoaster had never existed. When next it materializes, the track will be altered, perhaps with a sustained inversion. The officiant is animatronic. Beneath its flexible plastic epidermis, motion actuators mimic human musculature. With three-dimensional sensors, it scans the crowd, studying facial contours, analyzing skin textures, identifying each attendee individually. Complex algorithms and sensors render it almost entirely autonomous, able to hold conversations, register emotions, and speak with pseudo-empathy. Should any unforeseen variable cause the animatronic to deviate from its ceremonial script, Amadeus will override it, and speak through the officiant via teleoperation. Leftward, the bride’s family and friends are gathered. Rightward, Amadeus’ guests sit. There are ex-hobos, lost hookers, kidnapped children, and a cornucopia of intellectual disabilities present. Everyone dresses in finery, smiling clownishly. None speak, save for preprogrammed verbalizations: “Perfect weather today,” “Love is a beautiful thing,” and, “That Amadeus sure is brilliant. His bride must be the luckiest gal on Earth.” Some stare past eternity. Others are built of awkward angles, their jagged, enhanced skeletal structures housing retractable armaments. The groom’s grandparents make an appearance, rolling to the front row in translucent caskets. Atop the caskets’ frosted glass exteriors, three-dimensional computer graphics depict the couple smiling and waving. Inside the boxes, two skeletons grin. Beside them, two seats await Amadeus’ mother and father. On the aisle’s opposite side, the bride’s grandparents claim chairs, leaving two for her mother and father. The bride has two grandfathers, it turns out, conjoined twins. One is Caucasian; the other is African. One’s a dwarf; one’s a giant. One appears middle-aged, the other an octogenarian. Attached at the waist, the giant appears to carry the dwarf in a side-slung baby pouch, but there is no pouch, only skin. Their suit is custom-tailored. Their lips spasm, attempting to frown, but unable to. The bride’s grandmother possesses physical features that would make even an anthropometrist scratch their head in puzzlement. Her eyelids possess the epicanthal folds of an Asiatic, but her head is dolichocephalic like an Australian Aborigine. Though her nose is long and narrow like an American Indian, her lips are as thick as a Sub-Saharan African’s. Within them, a Caucasian’s spatulate teeth nestle. As for the woman’s epidermis, it is quite zebraic. Horizontally striped, it displays shades of olive, peach, brown, red, black and yellow. Her irises resemble lapis lazuli. Viewing these bridal progenitors, one inevitably thinks, Holy Moses, such interesting individuals. Were they ever infants? Did they slide from live mothers, or were they gene-spliced into being, their recombinant DNA sculpted by the groom’s ghastly hands? What do their children resemble? And what is the bride? Is she human, or some technoblasphemy? If the latter, what would she be like in bed? Here comes the groom’s mother, Charlotte Wilson, and isn’t she grand? Silently, she squeezes her face in her hands. Her asymmetrical ruched mesh gown is navy blue and embellished with costume jewelry. Her chic blonde locks seem stolen from a mid-twenties strumpet. They were, in fact, donated by the bald looker seated in the back row. Her escort is none other than her husband, Herbert Wilson. Once, back in Amadeus’ human days, Herbert had attempted to disown his son. “You’re a monster!” he’d screamed. “The disappearances, and the…the blasphemous contraptions! I always knew you were sick! Even as a baby, you had an evil gleam in your eye! I could barely bring myself to touch you.” But seeing him now, you’d suspect no such acrimony. His smile is large; his eyes are wide. Resultant of a recent lobotomy, his previous personality is extinct. After helping Herbert into his chair, Charlotte sits demurely. For one brief instant, a complicated expression slides across her face, as if there is information that she wishes to impart to Herbert, but is too frightened to articulate. The show goes on, and into sight steps the bride’s mother, escorted by a Labrador usher. The canine wears a tuxedo and walks upright on his hind legs. Upon first glance, one suspects that something is off with the creature. Something about his face… Inevitably, understanding dawns: The Labrador’s lips and teeth are those of a human! Indeed, they are, as is the creature’s larynx, gifting him with the ability to speak English. Strangely, the dog speaks only in anacreontics, turning his every utterance into poetry, Later, for his reception toast, he’ll say: “Blinking, blanking, glasses fall, Red spills like a curtain call. Soothing, softly, comes the night, Lust encased in earthly blight. Drink up now and know for true, The toyman’s gaze follows you.” But for now, the dog remains silent. Seeing the bride’s mother, a question arises: What uncanny valley did this female emerge from? For a woman allegedly in her forties, she is remarkably well preserved. At her mouth and eye corners, no wrinkles can be discerned. Her demeanor is perky, her physique voluptuous. Still, the sight of the woman inspires unease. Her gait is too perfect, as if she is not walking at all, but rolling forward on ceramic ball bearings. Every word that she utters is exquisitely modulated, but when meeting her eyes, it seems that no intelligence lies behind them. Is she genuine flesh and blood, or a product of Amadeus’ workshop? one wonders. If she is custom-made, did the toyman somehow implant an operational reproductive system within her? Or is the gal’s motherhood strictly nonbiological? Claiming his position on the minister’s left, Amadeus faces the audience, smiling with diamond-tipped fangs. Beside him is Junior, his best man. Technically, Junior isn’t actually present, as his corporeal body remains tethered to a virtual reality booth. As detaching the young man would lead to his immediate demise, Junior attends through telepresence. Within a hovering videotelephony sphere, his beaming face can be glimpsed—not his current countenance, but the one he’d worn as a preschooler. When the true Junior tries to scream, the sphere’s Junior whistles. When the true Junior begs for death, the sphere’s Junior says, “I love you, Dad.” “I know you do,” Amadeus replies. Alongside them, chimpanzee groomsmen stand, wearing matching tuxedos. But these are no ordinary chimpanzees. Through genetic tweaking, Amadeus has amplified each’s intelligence to that of an average human, multiplying their neurons more than tenfold, up to eighty-six billion. He’d accomplished this feat while the chimps were still embryos, soaking their brains with stem cells. Because such neurogenesis requires greater head space, the chimpanzees’ craniums are oversized. Up the center aisle, bridesmaids step, followed by the maid of honor. The bridesmaids wear matching green dresses: strapless ruched chiffon. The maid of honor’s dress shares their length and color motif, but is one-shouldered to distinguish her. One and all, the bridesmaids are rod puppets, with hidden biomechatronic fingers manipulating their mobility. The maid of honor, on the other hand, is a biomorphic robot, with a biological system indiscernible from that of a human. Actuated by Amadeus-sent electromagnetic waves, the ladies smile, blink, and bat their eyes. Next, the ring bearer flutters down the aisle, beak-gripping a ring. Striding alongside Tango, the flower girl scatters petals. As she is a human-flower hybrid, the petals are castoffs from her own physicality. A song springs into being—Felix Mendelssohn's “Wedding March,” to be precise. And look, here comes the bride. submitted by /u/JeremytheTulpa to r/TheMidnightArchives [link] [comments]

Chapter 5: Perspective Shift Viewing the keep’s stairwell, one might mistake the professor for a poltergeist. Indeed, his footfalls hardly seem to meet the steps. Peering a trifle closer, however, one realizes that, as with the rest of the residence, each stone stair is adorned with sensor-laden plastic film. This time, the film is transparent, aside from the areas where Professor Pandora’s feet land. There, brief footprints form—purple, then yellow, then blue—following him up to the lord’s hall, which has been converted into a living room, kitchen, and dining room. Scattered about the living room, animatronics reenact historical atrocities: Ward 22 chemical castrations, Mengele twin experiments, Dr. Albert Kligman’s “dermatological research,” and others. Perusing these, the professor grins. Ah, he thinks, a kindred spirit, one capable of culling inspiration from history’s true pioneers. In fact, were I capable of friendship, it seems that I might find it herein. Where is this ingenious toyman? Why hasn’t he arrived to greet me? To attract his attention, I’ll announce my presence. The professor’s lips peel back; his larynx widens. In a language older than humanity—a netherspace-spawned nightmare reminiscent of a buzz saw attempting backwards Latin—he shrieks. Resounding throughout the keep, the screech shatters wall-mounted LED screens and makes electrified tube lights explode into spark showers. The professor continues for several minutes, to no avail. Isolated, he remains, bereft of adversaries and victims. This won’t do, he thinks. Suddenly, in the ceiling’s epicenter, an oral cavity forms. Plastic lips open and close, birthing sonance in the toyman’s own eerie speech: “Curse that damnable racket, you insolent interloper. My bride and daughter were sleeping, and you’ve aborted their dreams. Are you ignorant of proper guest etiquette or just willfully malicious?” Aborting his demonic caterwauling, the professor complies. When a ceiling oculus opens, the wraithlike fellow stares up into it and answers, “I apologize profusely. On the other hand, your conduct as a host leaves much to be desired, so perhaps you might stifle your judgments for the nonce.” “To claim the guest privilege, one must first be invited. Still, your method of entry intrigues me, so you’ll be spared from an immediate execution.” To illustrate his benevolence, the toyman opens a trapdoor beside Professor Pandora’s boot. Peering into it, the professor sees an oubliette occupied by razor-mouthed monstrosities, piranha-toothed humanoids covered in slothlike fur. Bones litter the floor beneath them, some recognizable as human. Illuminated, the creatures glance up from their repast—wild goat, eaten raw—and yodel. Clawing their way up the oubliette’s walls, they teeth-gnash and slobber. Before the creatures can emerge, the trapdoor closes. “I have constructed many doorways,” the ceiling mouth utters, “but never one such as yours. It mimicked my own sensor skin, but seemed to be its own living entity. Tell me, good sir, whence did that entrance emerge from, and why do I no longer sense it?” “The floor door comes and goes,” the professor answers. “Tell me, am I speaking to the toyman?” “Amadeus Wilson, to be exact. And whom do I have the honor to reply to? “They call me Professor Pandora.” “And which Ph.D. program spawned you?” For the first time in his malignant life, the professor succumbs to self-consciousness. Having accumulated no higher education, and provided his purloined pupils with nothing beyond torment, he has no true claim to the title. Rather than admit this datum, he changes the subject. “This colloquy has parched me,” he says. “Perhaps I might quench my thirst in your kitchen.” His fingers curl and uncurl, symptomizing blossoming rage. “Spare yourself the effort. I’ll have the maid mix you a concoction,” the ceiling mouth speaks, before widening into a larger aperture. Through the hole, a woman descends—or at least the remains of one—attached to a filament which dissolves when she lands. Her grease-stained uniform contains breasts so grotesquely oversized that the woman can hardly stand upright. Four holes have been cut into the garment to accommodate four extra arms. Her lips are sewn speechless; subcutaneous implants make the maid’s skin glow multicolored. Continuous horror has rendered her hair white. Eyes downcast, she sets off for the kitchen. She returns with a goblet. Snatching it into his grip, the professor finds the glass empty. “Am I expected to guzzle down air?” he enquires. The woman shakes her head negative, and then tilts over the goblet. Traveling up her arms and torso, strange swellings reach her mouth. She swishes and spits, filling Professor Pandora’s glass with a curious substance. A filament sprouts from the top of her head and hauls the maid back into the ceiling. Studying the beverage, the professor sees swirling colors: cattleya and smalt, vermilion and puce. Sniffing, he smells a succession of scents: sandalwood and lavender, bergamot and bay laurel. Am I experiencing phantosmia? he wonders. Outside of the nightclub, I’ve never glimpsed such a libation. Bubbles surface, whistling like bottlenose dolphins as they pop. Finger-stirring the liquid, the professor finds it freezing, then scalding. Shrugging, he takes a sip. His head rocks back; his arms pinwheel. Swirling nebulae dance across his mindscape. Within his cortex, the professor feels his 5-HT2A receptors activating, a mind-bending coming on. I’ve been dosed, he realizes, with some new serotonergic psychedelic. This Amadeus fellow is a worthy foe. Before the drug can enslave him, the professor shunts it out of his system, into netherspace, wherein the liquid gains sentience and begins preying upon captive souls. Suddenly, from a shadowy recess, a hexacopter drone flies forth. Gazing through its thermal imaging camera, the toyman targets the professor with an electric laser. He fires a 100-kilowatt light ray, which the professor barely manages to duck. Reflexively, the professor removes his purple overcoat, and throws it over the drone before the device can fire another light ray. Pulling the drone to the floor, he then shatter-stomps it. Arm-sliding back into his coat sleeves, he voices mockery: “You’ll have to do better than that.” Perhaps his words might have been better chosen, because from fresh-born wall gaps, four modified canines emerge, buoyed by pneumatic artificial muscles. Baring teeth of wurtzite boron nitride, their muzzles festooned with phosphorescent foam, they growl like power leaf blowers. One dog has a mobile satellite sticking out of his skull. A canine leaps for the professor and he bats it aside. Another goes for his ankle. Leapfrogging the beast, Pandora nearly stumbles, but preternatural reflexes keep him from tumbling. With eyes like indigo light projected through rippled glass, they target him. Ducking and juking, the professor dodges darting canine faces. A realization strikes him: There’s nothing for me here. No victims await me; no delight can be had. Perhaps it would be best to recede, to let The Other return. First, I’ll bestow a gift upon The Other, and obliterate these technomongrels for him. Otherwise, that inelegant sap would be shredded in seconds. Backflipping over four modified canines attacking in unison, the professor removes his top hat. He thrusts his arm deep within it, up to the elbow. From netherspace, he pulls a blade: an ebon rapier built from the nightmares of dying children. Its sweeping hilt scalds his hand, but the professor grits his teeth through the pain. With a powerful thrust, he penetrates one canine’s flank. As the creature yelps and convulses, Pandora plunges the blade into the next canine’s skull, piercing the nanomolecular weave encasing its brain. Two left, he thinks, jabbing the rapier into the satellite-equipped canine’s eye. The dog shakes his head and sneezes, and then collapses with his faux appendages splayed. Sizing up his last slavering assailant, the professor decides to get up close and personal. After casting his sword back into netherspace, he leaps upon the dog’s back. With both hands, he grabs the canine’s muzzle and wrenches it leftward, snapping the creature’s neck. Even this violence proves less than satisfying, the professor thinks ruefully. The toyman’s tinkering has reduced every organism within these blasphemous confines to puppet-status. What’s the point of torturing marionettes? Why did the door bring me here? The professor pushes his overcoat into his top hat. Disembodied, he leaps in after it. With a puff of sickly smoke, the top hat vanishes. Having reclaimed his own body, the professor’s host organism regards the proximate butchery and shrieks. Chapter 6: Centauride Having recovered some semblance of composure, the traveller presses a palm to his brow. The professor’s memories are now his memories. Erroneously, he believes himself a canine slayer. Before the nightclub and castle, I was at a commune, he remembers. There were deformed folk and monsters, feasts and celebrants. I killed twelve women before leaving, but why? What was my motive? They were so beautiful, so ethereally fragile. Why did I axe-chop their heads off? The traveller’s physical features are dissimilar to the professor’s—gaunt, infinitely haunted—though the two somehow share the same body. Years ago, when the traveller was alone in his physicality, he stumbled from a slaughterhouse rave into an underground nightclub. Within the club, he received a drink of swirling fuchsia and aubergine. When placed to his lips, it entered his body as a vapor. The vapor had a name: Professor Pandora. Subsequent to that occasion, the professor has lived through the traveller, seizing his body for carnage, then receding. In and out of the nightclub they’ve passed, to thereafter emerge into unhallowed settings. Whensoever the traveller gains awareness of his parasite, the professor strikes it from his memory. Thus, the traveller believes himself to be instinct-driven, remembers committing terrible acts without forethought. Here we go again, the traveller thinks. Another fucked up situation. Will I ever get home? Do I even have a home anymore? Are my friends and relatives even alive? Obviously, I was brought here for a reason. This toyman, I’ll have to confront him. Passing into the dining room, the traveller spots a twelve-foot table, topped by a scratch-free LCD screen. Its 360-degree surface has hundreds of touch points, allowing diners to work and game as they grub. Aside from a blinking mannequin, nobody sits at the table. The mannequin moans, and so the traveller hurries onward. In the kitchen, there stands a refrigerator, flanked by two massive tanks. Within the tanks, two vagrants scream eternally, frozen in suspended animation, coated in cryoprotectants. Inside of the fridge, there are edible fungi, homemade soft drinks, and unidentifiable meats. At the sight of a modified mosquito, wingless and swollen, vomiting indigo cheese inside a Tupperware container, the traveller’s stomach surges and he slams the door. Suddenly, he hears flapping. From every room corner, birds converge upon him, their diamond talons scratching, their unfolding metal beaks pecking. Screaming, the traveller covers his eyes just in time to avert a gouging. Blindly, he flees, rebounding off of a human-sized industrial blender. Toward the stairwell, he retreats. The birds give pursuit. Slash: a razor-feathered eagle wing slices the traveller’s scalp. Sploosh: smacking a parrot away, the traveller’s fist becomes lodged within its gelid, gelatinous belly. With effort, he pulls his hand free, twisting the parrot’s squishy skull off in the process. Off balance, the traveller’s feet tangle, and he tumbles face-first, busting his lip. One pigeon has proboscises where its eyes should be, and seven arthropodal compound oculi ringing its neck. Another has human lips, which grin horribly as the creature claws the traveller’s arm. Tasting blood, the traveller screams, pinned prone by dozens of winged antagonists. There are too many of ’em, he realizes, as the back of his shirt becomes confetti and its underlying flesh is carved. Behind his eyes, pain flares crimson. With no weapons available, he has little choice but to await expiration. Suddenly, a shadow slides over the traveller, heralding a rescuer’s arrival. This liberator is bizarrely zoomorphic, a limbless young woman installed into a biomechatronic pony physique. With her vocal cords severed, Shanna Wilson cannot speak. Still, as is the case with all of Amadeus’ half-living kin, the toyman’s pets are programmed to leave her uninjured. Clip-clopping forward until her four hooves form compass points around the traveller, the toyman’s daughter sends the birds scattering. Rolling over, the traveller views an equine underside, and cautiously crawls out from beneath it. Standing, he comes face-to-face with a blonde, sallow-faced sufferer, with giant implanted incisors bursting through her peeled-back lips. “Thank you,” he says, and she nods an acknowledgement. When the birds resume pecking, he instinctively hops onto her back. Then comes sudden motion, a galloping that leaves the traveller desperately grasping Shanna’s waist, averting a calamitous tumble. Falling behind, the birds flap up into hidden passageways, the honeycombed veins of the keep. Yards before the stairwell, Shanna falls suddenly still, so abruptly that the traveller loses his grip and goes flying. He bruises his thigh and sprains his right wrist, minor injuries given the circumstances. From the closest wall, a mouth sprouts, uttering, “Shanna, Shanna, Shanna…I leave you a bit of autonomy and what do you do? Throw a spanner into the works, it seems. Darling, you cannot provide succor to Daddy’s new plaything. Now go join your brother in the arcade.” Shanna attempts to resist, until the toyman activates a cerebral override, which sends her clip-clopping down the stairs, out of the traveller’s vision range. Colorful, transitory hoofprints trail her down. “And what have we here?” the toyman asks with his wall mouth. “A shapeshifter? A masquerader? An enchanter? Your form is so altered; perhaps you’re a new you entirely. Did we just meet, or should I introduce myself?” “Huh?” the traveller gasps. “What do you mean? Didn’t we just speak in the living room?” “Well, I sure conversed with somebody, a Professor Pandora.” “Professor? Dude, I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but I don’t know any professors. I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades—when I’m working, that is. Now can we drop this cat and mouse shit already? Your creepy-ass castle is terrifying, sure, and what you’ve done to your family is truly grotesque. But guess what, pal, I’ve seen worse in my travels. Why don’t you come down here, and we can exchange terror tales until my floor door reappears?” “Hold on just a minute. You don’t know any professors? How can that be? Perhaps I should scan you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And what’s this I see? A flickering in your eye’s neural network. Somebody’s wearing you, boy, and you’re too doltish to see it. Unfortunately, we’re fresh out of exorcists.” The toyman’s words trouble the traveller, but not for long. Manipulating the traveller’s hippocampus from within his medial temporal lobe, Professor Pandora erases them before they can be consolidated into long-term memory. “At any rate,” the toyman continues, “you enter my private technopolis uninvited, and now attempt to dictate our palaver’s terms? This frigid fringeland has but one ruler, and I am he. Within these walls, every entity both living and inanimate becomes my plaything. You are my property now, best accept it.” “I’m no man’s slave,” the traveller responds. “I was brought here for a reason…perhaps to end your madness.” “Try, if you wish,” the wall mouth speaks, before sealing over. Perhaps as a warning, the stairwell’s walls belch transitory flame spouts, scorching the empty air. Undaunted, the traveller begins ascending, one step at a time, slowly. A herd of mechanized velociraptor skeletons rush past him, heading toward the video arcade. Inhuman revelry fills the air; poltergeists crowd the atmosphere. Briefly, an organism slides into the traveller’s peripheral vision: a polycephalic hybrid, one head feline, the other vulpine, propelling itself on cephalopodan tentacles. But turning his head, the traveller spots no such creature. Perhaps it was never really there. Leaving the staircase, the traveller enters a private chamber. Combining a boy’s bedroom with a family entertainment center, the large room resembles nothing that the traveller has ever seen. Climbing structures, quarter pipes, and an archery range ring its perimeter. There are trampolines, Velcro walls, ball pits, and miniature golf fixtures. The ceiling features looping, water-filled, transparent tubes, through which ferrets blast at supersonic speeds. The bed shifts and bubbles; drawers slide open and closed. Somewhere within the castle, the toyman cackles. “Hello?” the traveller shouts, but there are no architectural lips to answer. And then there are. Between the traveller’s feet, a floor mouth forms and opens. “What shall I do with you?” it ponders. “A nanobacteria torture cell? Or perhaps a new face sculpted of tactile sensors? Should I rebuild you as a merman or a Minotauresque butler? So many options, and only one man within one man.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, speak your nonsense all ya want, pal. I escaped from the Order of the Lunar Anthropophagi. I exited the House of Eternal October with all my limbs intact. You think you’re so fuckin’ original, but I’ve met a hundred madmen just like you. Sure, you’re easily the smartest monster, but at the end of the day, so what? You destroyed your own family, for cryin’ out loud.” Unable to acknowledge criticism, the toyman continues as if the traveller hadn’t spoken. “Or would you like to be a performer? I could make a gymnast of you, or a daredevil extreme athlete. Did you believe that this chamber’s apparatuses are just for show? See your possible future and applaud your host’s ingenuity.” The floor mouth disappears, as a ceiling portion swings downward, becoming an inclined plane for some new arrivals to roll down. And roll they do, on modified skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs and unicycles. Gymnasts follow behind them, back handspringing down the ramp. Before the traveller’s astonished eyes, the two-dozen fresh arrivals commence a synchronized routine, utilizing the quarter pipes, trampolines, and climbing structures with expert precision—flipping, grinding and whirling, errorless. These performers had been human once: vagrants, foster children, mail order brides, and the like. Now, they are something else entirely. Dyneema fibers coat their epidermises, rendering the performers impact resistant. They are bullet resistant as well, in case the toyman requires a small army at some later date. Observing their efforts, the traveller realizes that the riders do not push, pedal or hand-propel, their conveyances being entirely motorized. They are androgynous, these performers, with the males having received estrogen bombardments, and the females androgen hormones. Thus, they are equally mighty and graceful, and seem to possess extraterrestrial reflexes. Their natural eyes are empty, their faces slack. Their hair has been shaven away, with implanted bionic eyes ringing their craniums, providing omnidirectional vision. Whatever personalities they’d once possessed are absent. As with his creature captives, Amadeus used transcranial magnetic stimulation and sensory image bombardment to resculpt the mentalities of these unfortunates, yoking them to his will forevermore. Having finished their routine, the performers ascend the inclined plane and disappear back into the ceiling. As the traveller considers pursuing them, the ramp swings up on its hinges, leaving the ceiling unbroken. Shrugging, the traveller wonders, What the hell was that about? Chapter 7: Taking the Plunge Slipping into a one-button, single-breasted jacket, Amadeus smiles at the mirror. He pinches his black bow tie and gives his flat-front trousers a pat. His patent leather shoes are well polished. Perhaps I should wear a tuxedo everyday, he thinks to himself, to keep these claustrophobic confines classy. With the traveller’s arrival, he’d almost forgotten. Today, the toyman is to be married. Technically, he’d already wedded Midge—his children’s mother, now their maid. But as with many toys, Amadeus had grown tired of her, and thus had granted himself a divorce. Utilizing his backup brain, the toyman tracks the traveller, while his ordinary mind invokes Richard Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.” Returning to the garret, the toyman flicks a finger toward the ceiling. An aperture opens; a ladder descends. Climbing, Amadeus says, “Come along, Tango. We can’t start the ceremony without you.” And naturally, the hummingbird follows, emerging into open air milliseconds after Amadeus. Atop the keep’s circular shell, a single rollercoaster car awaits, resting upon a launch track, which tilts slightly upwards, but seems connected to no further railroading. Should one climb inside the car, a quick plunge into nihility seems inevitable. But when Amadeus whistles, molecular assemblers spring into action, and the track begins self-replicating, forming corkscrews and cobra rolls, dive loops and raven turns. Soon, the rollercoaster rings the castle’s inner perimeter, with its brake run situated at the property’s gatehouse. Settling into his seat, Amadeus sends a thought into the ether, causing an over-the-shoulder restraint to fall over him and settle into its locking mechanism. Truthfully, with his augmented physiology, the toyman no longer requires restraints, being able to clutch with fourteen-jointed fingers and adhere his feet to anything solid. But every man has at least one fault, and Amadeus’ is nostalgia. During his much-cherished childhood years, Amadeus’ family had valued one tradition above all others: the yearly trip to Coney Island, which just so happened to coincide with his birthday. He remembers the Cyclone, the Tornado, the Wonder Wheel, and the Thunderbolt. He remembers standing at the edge of the shoreline, too timid to enter the sea, though his mother prodded and cooed. He remembers hot dogs and funnel cakes, custard and pizza. The remembrances are so vivid, he can practically step into them. In fact, should he desire to, Amadeus can mine his own amygdala, to refeel the precise feelings he’d felt on those occasions, bridging the gap between the toyman and his boy self. But why stop there? By bringing his striatum, mammillary bodies, and hippocampus into the equation, he can program those very same days into the arcade’s virtual reality booths, and relive them as his past form, or as another character entirely. But seeing his child self, Amadeus would only rebuild him, and so he drags himself back into the present. When he snaps his fingers, a miniature restraint materializes atop the next seat over. “You know what to do, Tango,” he says. And indeed, the hummingbird does, fluttering into position, entering into brief torpor after the harness secures him. And then the wheels are rolling, the car gaining momentum. Soon Amadeus is freefalling, inverting and rolling. Air buffets his grin. Weightless, his stomach sinks. He passes the keep again and again, viewing it from every angle. Just before he reaches the gatehouse, his artificial neural network alerts Amadeus to a factoid: the traveller is becoming too nosy. Exploring Junior’s closet, the intruder strews clothes across the floor. This will not do, Amadeus thinks, looping. And so a razor wire tumbleweed rolls out of the wall and chases the traveller about the chamber. When the car brakes, both restraints swing upward. Now Tango is fluttering, and Amadeus is standing, thinking to himself, Today is a wonderful day. Both of the gatehouse’s portcullises are up. Its adjoining barbican has been rendered temporarily defenseless: no boiling oil will splash down from its murder holes, no arrows will fly through the passageway’s slits. Under the gatehouse’s eroded battlements, rows of wrought iron seats lead toward a platinum altar. A makeshift aisle divides the rows: electrified tube lights spiraling around Orchidaceae. Lace curtains are hung; votive candles glow within suspended jars. Behind the altar, flowers, crystals, and pearls form an arched backdrop. When Amadeus nods at the rollercoaster, the car reverses. As it loops and rolls its way back up to the launch track, the car’s inbuilt disassemblers erase the rollercoaster behind it, breaking molecular bonds with enzyme bombardments. Within minutes, it is as if the rollercoaster had never existed. When next it materializes, the track will be altered, perhaps with a sustained inversion. The officiant is animatronic. Beneath its flexible plastic epidermis, motion actuators mimic human musculature. With three-dimensional sensors, it scans the crowd, studying facial contours, analyzing skin textures, identifying each attendee individually. Complex algorithms and sensors render it almost entirely autonomous, able to hold conversations, register emotions, and speak with pseudo-empathy. Should any unforeseen variable cause the animatronic to deviate from its ceremonial script, Amadeus will override it, and speak through the officiant via teleoperation. Leftward, the bride’s family and friends are gathered. Rightward, Amadeus’ guests sit. There are ex-hobos, lost hookers, kidnapped children, and a cornucopia of intellectual disabilities present. Everyone dresses in finery, smiling clownishly. None speak, save for preprogrammed verbalizations: “Perfect weather today,” “Love is a beautiful thing,” and, “That Amadeus sure is brilliant. His bride must be the luckiest gal on Earth.” Some stare past eternity. Others are built of awkward angles, their jagged, enhanced skeletal structures housing retractable armaments. The groom’s grandparents make an appearance, rolling to the front row in translucent caskets. Atop the caskets’ frosted glass exteriors, three-dimensional computer graphics depict the couple smiling and waving. Inside the boxes, two skeletons grin. Beside them, two seats await Amadeus’ mother and father. On the aisle’s opposite side, the bride’s grandparents claim chairs, leaving two for her mother and father. The bride has two grandfathers, it turns out, conjoined twins. One is Caucasian; the other is African. One’s a dwarf; one’s a giant. One appears middle-aged, the other an octogenarian. Attached at the waist, the giant appears to carry the dwarf in a side-slung baby pouch, but there is no pouch, only skin. Their suit is custom-tailored. Their lips spasm, attempting to frown, but unable to. The bride’s grandmother possesses physical features that would make even an anthropometrist scratch their head in puzzlement. Her eyelids possess the epicanthal folds of an Asiatic, but her head is dolichocephalic like an Australian Aborigine. Though her nose is long and narrow like an American Indian, her lips are as thick as a Sub-Saharan African’s. Within them, a Caucasian’s spatulate teeth nestle. As for the woman’s epidermis, it is quite zebraic. Horizontally striped, it displays shades of olive, peach, brown, red, black and yellow. Her irises resemble lapis lazuli. Viewing these bridal progenitors, one inevitably thinks, Holy Moses, such interesting individuals. Were they ever infants? Did they slide from live mothers, or were they gene-spliced into being, their recombinant DNA sculpted by the groom’s ghastly hands? What do their children resemble? And what is the bride? Is she human, or some technoblasphemy? If the latter, what would she be like in bed? Here comes the groom’s mother, Charlotte Wilson, and isn’t she grand? Silently, she squeezes her face in her hands. Her asymmetrical ruched mesh gown is navy blue and embellished with costume jewelry. Her chic blonde locks seem stolen from a mid-twenties strumpet. They were, in fact, donated by the bald looker seated in the back row. Her escort is none other than her husband, Herbert Wilson. Once, back in Amadeus’ human days, Herbert had attempted to disown his son. “You’re a monster!” he’d screamed. “The disappearances, and the…the blasphemous contraptions! I always knew you were sick! Even as a baby, you had an evil gleam in your eye! I could barely bring myself to touch you.” But seeing him now, you’d suspect no such acrimony. His smile is large; his eyes are wide. Resultant of a recent lobotomy, his previous personality is extinct. After helping Herbert into his chair, Charlotte sits demurely. For one brief instant, a complicated expression slides across her face, as if there is information that she wishes to impart to Herbert, but is too frightened to articulate. The show goes on, and into sight steps the bride’s mother, escorted by a Labrador usher. The canine wears a tuxedo and walks upright on his hind legs. Upon first glance, one suspects that something is off with the creature. Something about his face… Inevitably, understanding dawns: The Labrador’s lips and teeth are those of a human! Indeed, they are, as is the creature’s larynx, gifting him with the ability to speak English. Strangely, the dog speaks only in anacreontics, turning his every utterance into poetry, Later, for his reception toast, he’ll say: “Blinking, blanking, glasses fall, Red spills like a curtain call. Soothing, softly, comes the night, Lust encased in earthly blight. Drink up now and know for true, The toyman’s gaze follows you.” But for now, the dog remains silent. Seeing the bride’s mother, a question arises: What uncanny valley did this female emerge from? For a woman allegedly in her forties, she is remarkably well preserved. At her mouth and eye corners, no wrinkles can be discerned. Her demeanor is perky, her physique voluptuous. Still, the sight of the woman inspires unease. Her gait is too perfect, as if she is not walking at all, but rolling forward on ceramic ball bearings. Every word that she utters is exquisitely modulated, but when meeting her eyes, it seems that no intelligence lies behind them. Is she genuine flesh and blood, or a product of Amadeus’ workshop? one wonders. If she is custom-made, did the toyman somehow implant an operational reproductive system within her? Or is the gal’s motherhood strictly nonbiological? Claiming his position on the minister’s left, Amadeus faces the audience, smiling with diamond-tipped fangs. Beside him is Junior, his best man. Technically, Junior isn’t actually present, as his corporeal body remains tethered to a virtual reality booth. As detaching the young man would lead to his immediate demise, Junior attends through telepresence. Within a hovering videotelephony sphere, his beaming face can be glimpsed—not his current countenance, but the one he’d worn as a preschooler. When the true Junior tries to scream, the sphere’s Junior whistles. When the true Junior begs for death, the sphere’s Junior says, “I love you, Dad.” “I know you do,” Amadeus replies. Alongside them, chimpanzee groomsmen stand, wearing matching tuxedos. But these are no ordinary chimpanzees. Through genetic tweaking, Amadeus has amplified each’s intelligence to that of an average human, multiplying their neurons more than tenfold, up to eighty-six billion. He’d accomplished this feat while the chimps were still embryos, soaking their brains with stem cells. Because such neurogenesis requires greater head space, the chimpanzees’ craniums are oversized. Up the center aisle, bridesmaids step, followed by the maid of honor. The bridesmaids wear matching green dresses: strapless ruched chiffon. The maid of honor’s dress shares their length and color motif, but is one-shouldered to distinguish her. One and all, the bridesmaids are rod puppets, with hidden biomechatronic fingers manipulating their mobility. The maid of honor, on the other hand, is a biomorphic robot, with a biological system indiscernible from that of a human. Actuated by Amadeus-sent electromagnetic waves, the ladies smile, blink, and bat their eyes. Next, the ring bearer flutters down the aisle, beak-gripping a ring. Striding alongside Tango, the flower girl scatters petals. As she is a human-flower hybrid, the petals are castoffs from her own physicality. A song springs into being—Felix Mendelssohn's “Wedding March,” to be precise. And look, here comes the bride. submitted by /u/JeremytheTulpa to r/SpinalTapHorror [link] [comments]

Chapter 5: Perspective Shift Viewing the keep’s stairwell, one might mistake the professor for a poltergeist. Indeed, his footfalls hardly seem to meet the steps. Peering a trifle closer, however, one realizes that, as with the rest of the residence, each stone stair is adorned with sensor-laden plastic film. This time, the film is transparent, aside from the areas where Professor Pandora’s feet land. There, brief footprints form—purple, then yellow, then blue—following him up to the lord’s hall, which has been converted into a living room, kitchen, and dining room. Scattered about the living room, animatronics reenact historical atrocities: Ward 22 chemical castrations, Mengele twin experiments, Dr. Albert Kligman’s “dermatological research,” and others. Perusing these, the professor grins. Ah, he thinks, a kindred spirit, one capable of culling inspiration from history’s true pioneers. In fact, were I capable of friendship, it seems that I might find it herein. Where is this ingenious toyman? Why hasn’t he arrived to greet me? To attract his attention, I’ll announce my presence. The professor’s lips peel back; his larynx widens. In a language older than humanity—a netherspace-spawned nightmare reminiscent of a buzz saw attempting backwards Latin—he shrieks. Resounding throughout the keep, the screech shatters wall-mounted LED screens and makes electrified tube lights explode into spark showers. The professor continues for several minutes, to no avail. Isolated, he remains, bereft of adversaries and victims. This won’t do, he thinks. Suddenly, in the ceiling’s epicenter, an oral cavity forms. Plastic lips open and close, birthing sonance in the toyman’s own eerie speech: “Curse that damnable racket, you insolent interloper. My bride and daughter were sleeping, and you’ve aborted their dreams. Are you ignorant of proper guest etiquette or just willfully malicious?” Aborting his demonic caterwauling, the professor complies. When a ceiling oculus opens, the wraithlike fellow stares up into it and answers, “I apologize profusely. On the other hand, your conduct as a host leaves much to be desired, so perhaps you might stifle your judgments for the nonce.” “To claim the guest privilege, one must first be invited. Still, your method of entry intrigues me, so you’ll be spared from an immediate execution.” To illustrate his benevolence, the toyman opens a trapdoor beside Professor Pandora’s boot. Peering into it, the professor sees an oubliette occupied by razor-mouthed monstrosities, piranha-toothed humanoids covered in slothlike fur. Bones litter the floor beneath them, some recognizable as human. Illuminated, the creatures glance up from their repast—wild goat, eaten raw—and yodel. Clawing their way up the oubliette’s walls, they teeth-gnash and slobber. Before the creatures can emerge, the trapdoor closes. “I have constructed many doorways,” the ceiling mouth utters, “but never one such as yours. It mimicked my own sensor skin, but seemed to be its own living entity. Tell me, good sir, whence did that entrance emerge from, and why do I no longer sense it?” “The floor door comes and goes,” the professor answers. “Tell me, am I speaking to the toyman?” “Amadeus Wilson, to be exact. And whom do I have the honor to reply to? “They call me Professor Pandora.” “And which Ph.D. program spawned you?” For the first time in his malignant life, the professor succumbs to self-consciousness. Having accumulated no higher education, and provided his purloined pupils with nothing beyond torment, he has no true claim to the title. Rather than admit this datum, he changes the subject. “This colloquy has parched me,” he says. “Perhaps I might quench my thirst in your kitchen.” His fingers curl and uncurl, symptomizing blossoming rage. “Spare yourself the effort. I’ll have the maid mix you a concoction,” the ceiling mouth speaks, before widening into a larger aperture. Through the hole, a woman descends—or at least the remains of one—attached to a filament which dissolves when she lands. Her grease-stained uniform contains breasts so grotesquely oversized that the woman can hardly stand upright. Four holes have been cut into the garment to accommodate four extra arms. Her lips are sewn speechless; subcutaneous implants make the maid’s skin glow multicolored. Continuous horror has rendered her hair white. Eyes downcast, she sets off for the kitchen. She returns with a goblet. Snatching it into his grip, the professor finds the glass empty. “Am I expected to guzzle down air?” he enquires. The woman shakes her head negative, and then tilts over the goblet. Traveling up her arms and torso, strange swellings reach her mouth. She swishes and spits, filling Professor Pandora’s glass with a curious substance. A filament sprouts from the top of her head and hauls the maid back into the ceiling. Studying the beverage, the professor sees swirling colors: cattleya and smalt, vermilion and puce. Sniffing, he smells a succession of scents: sandalwood and lavender, bergamot and bay laurel. Am I experiencing phantosmia? he wonders. Outside of the nightclub, I’ve never glimpsed such a libation. Bubbles surface, whistling like bottlenose dolphins as they pop. Finger-stirring the liquid, the professor finds it freezing, then scalding. Shrugging, he takes a sip. His head rocks back; his arms pinwheel. Swirling nebulae dance across his mindscape. Within his cortex, the professor feels his 5-HT2A receptors activating, a mind-bending coming on. I’ve been dosed, he realizes, with some new serotonergic psychedelic. This Amadeus fellow is a worthy foe. Before the drug can enslave him, the professor shunts it out of his system, into netherspace, wherein the liquid gains sentience and begins preying upon captive souls. Suddenly, from a shadowy recess, a hexacopter drone flies forth. Gazing through its thermal imaging camera, the toyman targets the professor with an electric laser. He fires a 100-kilowatt light ray, which the professor barely manages to duck. Reflexively, the professor removes his purple overcoat, and throws it over the drone before the device can fire another light ray. Pulling the drone to the floor, he then shatter-stomps it. Arm-sliding back into his coat sleeves, he voices mockery: “You’ll have to do better than that.” Perhaps his words might have been better chosen, because from fresh-born wall gaps, four modified canines emerge, buoyed by pneumatic artificial muscles. Baring teeth of wurtzite boron nitride, their muzzles festooned with phosphorescent foam, they growl like power leaf blowers. One dog has a mobile satellite sticking out of his skull. A canine leaps for the professor and he bats it aside. Another goes for his ankle. Leapfrogging the beast, Pandora nearly stumbles, but preternatural reflexes keep him from tumbling. With eyes like indigo light projected through rippled glass, they target him. Ducking and juking, the professor dodges darting canine faces. A realization strikes him: There’s nothing for me here. No victims await me; no delight can be had. Perhaps it would be best to recede, to let The Other return. First, I’ll bestow a gift upon The Other, and obliterate these technomongrels for him. Otherwise, that inelegant sap would be shredded in seconds. Backflipping over four modified canines attacking in unison, the professor removes his top hat. He thrusts his arm deep within it, up to the elbow. From netherspace, he pulls a blade: an ebon rapier built from the nightmares of dying children. Its sweeping hilt scalds his hand, but the professor grits his teeth through the pain. With a powerful thrust, he penetrates one canine’s flank. As the creature yelps and convulses, Pandora plunges the blade into the next canine’s skull, piercing the nanomolecular weave encasing its brain. Two left, he thinks, jabbing the rapier into the satellite-equipped canine’s eye. The dog shakes his head and sneezes, and then collapses with his faux appendages splayed. Sizing up his last slavering assailant, the professor decides to get up close and personal. After casting his sword back into netherspace, he leaps upon the dog’s back. With both hands, he grabs the canine’s muzzle and wrenches it leftward, snapping the creature’s neck. Even this violence proves less than satisfying, the professor thinks ruefully. The toyman’s tinkering has reduced every organism within these blasphemous confines to puppet-status. What’s the point of torturing marionettes? Why did the door bring me here? The professor pushes his overcoat into his top hat. Disembodied, he leaps in after it. With a puff of sickly smoke, the top hat vanishes. Having reclaimed his own body, the professor’s host organism regards the proximate butchery and shrieks. Chapter 6: Centauride Having recovered some semblance of composure, the traveller presses a palm to his brow. The professor’s memories are now his memories. Erroneously, he believes himself a canine slayer. Before the nightclub and castle, I was at a commune, he remembers. There were deformed folk and monsters, feasts and celebrants. I killed twelve women before leaving, but why? What was my motive? They were so beautiful, so ethereally fragile. Why did I axe-chop their heads off? The traveller’s physical features are dissimilar to the professor’s—gaunt, infinitely haunted—though the two somehow share the same body. Years ago, when the traveller was alone in his physicality, he stumbled from a slaughterhouse rave into an underground nightclub. Within the club, he received a drink of swirling fuchsia and aubergine. When placed to his lips, it entered his body as a vapor. The vapor had a name: Professor Pandora. Subsequent to that occasion, the professor has lived through the traveller, seizing his body for carnage, then receding. In and out of the nightclub they’ve passed, to thereafter emerge into unhallowed settings. Whensoever the traveller gains awareness of his parasite, the professor strikes it from his memory. Thus, the traveller believes himself to be instinct-driven, remembers committing terrible acts without forethought. Here we go again, the traveller thinks. Another fucked up situation. Will I ever get home? Do I even have a home anymore? Are my friends and relatives even alive? Obviously, I was brought here for a reason. This toyman, I’ll have to confront him. Passing into the dining room, the traveller spots a twelve-foot table, topped by a scratch-free LCD screen. Its 360-degree surface has hundreds of touch points, allowing diners to work and game as they grub. Aside from a blinking mannequin, nobody sits at the table. The mannequin moans, and so the traveller hurries onward. In the kitchen, there stands a refrigerator, flanked by two massive tanks. Within the tanks, two vagrants scream eternally, frozen in suspended animation, coated in cryoprotectants. Inside of the fridge, there are edible fungi, homemade soft drinks, and unidentifiable meats. At the sight of a modified mosquito, wingless and swollen, vomiting indigo cheese inside a Tupperware container, the traveller’s stomach surges and he slams the door. Suddenly, he hears flapping. From every room corner, birds converge upon him, their diamond talons scratching, their unfolding metal beaks pecking. Screaming, the traveller covers his eyes just in time to avert a gouging. Blindly, he flees, rebounding off of a human-sized industrial blender. Toward the stairwell, he retreats. The birds give pursuit. Slash: a razor-feathered eagle wing slices the traveller’s scalp. Sploosh: smacking a parrot away, the traveller’s fist becomes lodged within its gelid, gelatinous belly. With effort, he pulls his hand free, twisting the parrot’s squishy skull off in the process. Off balance, the traveller’s feet tangle, and he tumbles face-first, busting his lip. One pigeon has proboscises where its eyes should be, and seven arthropodal compound oculi ringing its neck. Another has human lips, which grin horribly as the creature claws the traveller’s arm. Tasting blood, the traveller screams, pinned prone by dozens of winged antagonists. There are too many of ’em, he realizes, as the back of his shirt becomes confetti and its underlying flesh is carved. Behind his eyes, pain flares crimson. With no weapons available, he has little choice but to await expiration. Suddenly, a shadow slides over the traveller, heralding a rescuer’s arrival. This liberator is bizarrely zoomorphic, a limbless young woman installed into a biomechatronic pony physique. With her vocal cords severed, Shanna Wilson cannot speak. Still, as is the case with all of Amadeus’ half-living kin, the toyman’s pets are programmed to leave her uninjured. Clip-clopping forward until her four hooves form compass points around the traveller, the toyman’s daughter sends the birds scattering. Rolling over, the traveller views an equine underside, and cautiously crawls out from beneath it. Standing, he comes face-to-face with a blonde, sallow-faced sufferer, with giant implanted incisors bursting through her peeled-back lips. “Thank you,” he says, and she nods an acknowledgement. When the birds resume pecking, he instinctively hops onto her back. Then comes sudden motion, a galloping that leaves the traveller desperately grasping Shanna’s waist, averting a calamitous tumble. Falling behind, the birds flap up into hidden passageways, the honeycombed veins of the keep. Yards before the stairwell, Shanna falls suddenly still, so abruptly that the traveller loses his grip and goes flying. He bruises his thigh and sprains his right wrist, minor injuries given the circumstances. From the closest wall, a mouth sprouts, uttering, “Shanna, Shanna, Shanna…I leave you a bit of autonomy and what do you do? Throw a spanner into the works, it seems. Darling, you cannot provide succor to Daddy’s new plaything. Now go join your brother in the arcade.” Shanna attempts to resist, until the toyman activates a cerebral override, which sends her clip-clopping down the stairs, out of the traveller’s vision range. Colorful, transitory hoofprints trail her down. “And what have we here?” the toyman asks with his wall mouth. “A shapeshifter? A masquerader? An enchanter? Your form is so altered; perhaps you’re a new you entirely. Did we just meet, or should I introduce myself?” “Huh?” the traveller gasps. “What do you mean? Didn’t we just speak in the living room?” “Well, I sure conversed with somebody, a Professor Pandora.” “Professor? Dude, I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but I don’t know any professors. I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades—when I’m working, that is. Now can we drop this cat and mouse shit already? Your creepy-ass castle is terrifying, sure, and what you’ve done to your family is truly grotesque. But guess what, pal, I’ve seen worse in my travels. Why don’t you come down here, and we can exchange terror tales until my floor door reappears?” “Hold on just a minute. You don’t know any professors? How can that be? Perhaps I should scan you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And what’s this I see? A flickering in your eye’s neural network. Somebody’s wearing you, boy, and you’re too doltish to see it. Unfortunately, we’re fresh out of exorcists.” The toyman’s words trouble the traveller, but not for long. Manipulating the traveller’s hippocampus from within his medial temporal lobe, Professor Pandora erases them before they can be consolidated into long-term memory. “At any rate,” the toyman continues, “you enter my private technopolis uninvited, and now attempt to dictate our palaver’s terms? This frigid fringeland has but one ruler, and I am he. Within these walls, every entity both living and inanimate becomes my plaything. You are my property now, best accept it.” “I’m no man’s slave,” the traveller responds. “I was brought here for a reason…perhaps to end your madness.” “Try, if you wish,” the wall mouth speaks, before sealing over. Perhaps as a warning, the stairwell’s walls belch transitory flame spouts, scorching the empty air. Undaunted, the traveller begins ascending, one step at a time, slowly. A herd of mechanized velociraptor skeletons rush past him, heading toward the video arcade. Inhuman revelry fills the air; poltergeists crowd the atmosphere. Briefly, an organism slides into the traveller’s peripheral vision: a polycephalic hybrid, one head feline, the other vulpine, propelling itself on cephalopodan tentacles. But turning his head, the traveller spots no such creature. Perhaps it was never really there. Leaving the staircase, the traveller enters a private chamber. Combining a boy’s bedroom with a family entertainment center, the large room resembles nothing that the traveller has ever seen. Climbing structures, quarter pipes, and an archery range ring its perimeter. There are trampolines, Velcro walls, ball pits, and miniature golf fixtures. The ceiling features looping, water-filled, transparent tubes, through which ferrets blast at supersonic speeds. The bed shifts and bubbles; drawers slide open and closed. Somewhere within the castle, the toyman cackles. “Hello?” the traveller shouts, but there are no architectural lips to answer. And then there are. Between the traveller’s feet, a floor mouth forms and opens. “What shall I do with you?” it ponders. “A nanobacteria torture cell? Or perhaps a new face sculpted of tactile sensors? Should I rebuild you as a merman or a Minotauresque butler? So many options, and only one man within one man.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, speak your nonsense all ya want, pal. I escaped from the Order of the Lunar Anthropophagi. I exited the House of Eternal October with all my limbs intact. You think you’re so fuckin’ original, but I’ve met a hundred madmen just like you. Sure, you’re easily the smartest monster, but at the end of the day, so what? You destroyed your own family, for cryin’ out loud.” Unable to acknowledge criticism, the toyman continues as if the traveller hadn’t spoken. “Or would you like to be a performer? I could make a gymnast of you, or a daredevil extreme athlete. Did you believe that this chamber’s apparatuses are just for show? See your possible future and applaud your host’s ingenuity.” The floor mouth disappears, as a ceiling portion swings downward, becoming an inclined plane for some new arrivals to roll down. And roll they do, on modified skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs and unicycles. Gymnasts follow behind them, back handspringing down the ramp. Before the traveller’s astonished eyes, the two-dozen fresh arrivals commence a synchronized routine, utilizing the quarter pipes, trampolines, and climbing structures with expert precision—flipping, grinding and whirling, errorless. These performers had been human once: vagrants, foster children, mail order brides, and the like. Now, they are something else entirely. Dyneema fibers coat their epidermises, rendering the performers impact resistant. They are bullet resistant as well, in case the toyman requires a small army at some later date. Observing their efforts, the traveller realizes that the riders do not push, pedal or hand-propel, their conveyances being entirely motorized. They are androgynous, these performers, with the males having received estrogen bombardments, and the females androgen hormones. Thus, they are equally mighty and graceful, and seem to possess extraterrestrial reflexes. Their natural eyes are empty, their faces slack. Their hair has been shaven away, with implanted bionic eyes ringing their craniums, providing omnidirectional vision. Whatever personalities they’d once possessed are absent. As with his creature captives, Amadeus used transcranial magnetic stimulation and sensory image bombardment to resculpt the mentalities of these unfortunates, yoking them to his will forevermore. Having finished their routine, the performers ascend the inclined plane and disappear back into the ceiling. As the traveller considers pursuing them, the ramp swings up on its hinges, leaving the ceiling unbroken. Shrugging, the traveller wonders, What the hell was that about? Chapter 7: Taking the Plunge Slipping into a one-button, single-breasted jacket, Amadeus smiles at the mirror. He pinches his black bow tie and gives his flat-front trousers a pat. His patent leather shoes are well polished. Perhaps I should wear a tuxedo everyday, he thinks to himself, to keep these claustrophobic confines classy. With the traveller’s arrival, he’d almost forgotten. Today, the toyman is to be married. Technically, he’d already wedded Midge—his children’s mother, now their maid. But as with many toys, Amadeus had grown tired of her, and thus had granted himself a divorce. Utilizing his backup brain, the toyman tracks the traveller, while his ordinary mind invokes Richard Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.” Returning to the garret, the toyman flicks a finger toward the ceiling. An aperture opens; a ladder descends. Climbing, Amadeus says, “Come along, Tango. We can’t start the ceremony without you.” And naturally, the hummingbird follows, emerging into open air milliseconds after Amadeus. Atop the keep’s circular shell, a single rollercoaster car awaits, resting upon a launch track, which tilts slightly upwards, but seems connected to no further railroading. Should one climb inside the car, a quick plunge into nihility seems inevitable. But when Amadeus whistles, molecular assemblers spring into action, and the track begins self-replicating, forming corkscrews and cobra rolls, dive loops and raven turns. Soon, the rollercoaster rings the castle’s inner perimeter, with its brake run situated at the property’s gatehouse. Settling into his seat, Amadeus sends a thought into the ether, causing an over-the-shoulder restraint to fall over him and settle into its locking mechanism. Truthfully, with his augmented physiology, the toyman no longer requires restraints, being able to clutch with fourteen-jointed fingers and adhere his feet to anything solid. But every man has at least one fault, and Amadeus’ is nostalgia. During his much-cherished childhood years, Amadeus’ family had valued one tradition above all others: the yearly trip to Coney Island, which just so happened to coincide with his birthday. He remembers the Cyclone, the Tornado, the Wonder Wheel, and the Thunderbolt. He remembers standing at the edge of the shoreline, too timid to enter the sea, though his mother prodded and cooed. He remembers hot dogs and funnel cakes, custard and pizza. The remembrances are so vivid, he can practically step into them. In fact, should he desire to, Amadeus can mine his own amygdala, to refeel the precise feelings he’d felt on those occasions, bridging the gap between the toyman and his boy self. But why stop there? By bringing his striatum, mammillary bodies, and hippocampus into the equation, he can program those very same days into the arcade’s virtual reality booths, and relive them as his past form, or as another character entirely. But seeing his child self, Amadeus would only rebuild him, and so he drags himself back into the present. When he snaps his fingers, a miniature restraint materializes atop the next seat over. “You know what to do, Tango,” he says. And indeed, the hummingbird does, fluttering into position, entering into brief torpor after the harness secures him. And then the wheels are rolling, the car gaining momentum. Soon Amadeus is freefalling, inverting and rolling. Air buffets his grin. Weightless, his stomach sinks. He passes the keep again and again, viewing it from every angle. Just before he reaches the gatehouse, his artificial neural network alerts Amadeus to a factoid: the traveller is becoming too nosy. Exploring Junior’s closet, the intruder strews clothes across the floor. This will not do, Amadeus thinks, looping. And so a razor wire tumbleweed rolls out of the wall and chases the traveller about the chamber. When the car brakes, both restraints swing upward. Now Tango is fluttering, and Amadeus is standing, thinking to himself, Today is a wonderful day. Both of the gatehouse’s portcullises are up. Its adjoining barbican has been rendered temporarily defenseless: no boiling oil will splash down from its murder holes, no arrows will fly through the passageway’s slits. Under the gatehouse’s eroded battlements, rows of wrought iron seats lead toward a platinum altar. A makeshift aisle divides the rows: electrified tube lights spiraling around Orchidaceae. Lace curtains are hung; votive candles glow within suspended jars. Behind the altar, flowers, crystals, and pearls form an arched backdrop. When Amadeus nods at the rollercoaster, the car reverses. As it loops and rolls its way back up to the launch track, the car’s inbuilt disassemblers erase the rollercoaster behind it, breaking molecular bonds with enzyme bombardments. Within minutes, it is as if the rollercoaster had never existed. When next it materializes, the track will be altered, perhaps with a sustained inversion. The officiant is animatronic. Beneath its flexible plastic epidermis, motion actuators mimic human musculature. With three-dimensional sensors, it scans the crowd, studying facial contours, analyzing skin textures, identifying each attendee individually. Complex algorithms and sensors render it almost entirely autonomous, able to hold conversations, register emotions, and speak with pseudo-empathy. Should any unforeseen variable cause the animatronic to deviate from its ceremonial script, Amadeus will override it, and speak through the officiant via teleoperation. Leftward, the bride’s family and friends are gathered. Rightward, Amadeus’ guests sit. There are ex-hobos, lost hookers, kidnapped children, and a cornucopia of intellectual disabilities present. Everyone dresses in finery, smiling clownishly. None speak, save for preprogrammed verbalizations: “Perfect weather today,” “Love is a beautiful thing,” and, “That Amadeus sure is brilliant. His bride must be the luckiest gal on Earth.” Some stare past eternity. Others are built of awkward angles, their jagged, enhanced skeletal structures housing retractable armaments. The groom’s grandparents make an appearance, rolling to the front row in translucent caskets. Atop the caskets’ frosted glass exteriors, three-dimensional computer graphics depict the couple smiling and waving. Inside the boxes, two skeletons grin. Beside them, two seats await Amadeus’ mother and father. On the aisle’s opposite side, the bride’s grandparents claim chairs, leaving two for her mother and father. The bride has two grandfathers, it turns out, conjoined twins. One is Caucasian; the other is African. One’s a dwarf; one’s a giant. One appears middle-aged, the other an octogenarian. Attached at the waist, the giant appears to carry the dwarf in a side-slung baby pouch, but there is no pouch, only skin. Their suit is custom-tailored. Their lips spasm, attempting to frown, but unable to. The bride’s grandmother possesses physical features that would make even an anthropometrist scratch their head in puzzlement. Her eyelids possess the epicanthal folds of an Asiatic, but her head is dolichocephalic like an Australian Aborigine. Though her nose is long and narrow like an American Indian, her lips are as thick as a Sub-Saharan African’s. Within them, a Caucasian’s spatulate teeth nestle. As for the woman’s epidermis, it is quite zebraic. Horizontally striped, it displays shades of olive, peach, brown, red, black and yellow. Her irises resemble lapis lazuli. Viewing these bridal progenitors, one inevitably thinks, Holy Moses, such interesting individuals. Were they ever infants? Did they slide from live mothers, or were they gene-spliced into being, their recombinant DNA sculpted by the groom’s ghastly hands? What do their children resemble? And what is the bride? Is she human, or some technoblasphemy? If the latter, what would she be like in bed? Here comes the groom’s mother, Charlotte Wilson, and isn’t she grand? Silently, she squeezes her face in her hands. Her asymmetrical ruched mesh gown is navy blue and embellished with costume jewelry. Her chic blonde locks seem stolen from a mid-twenties strumpet. They were, in fact, donated by the bald looker seated in the back row. Her escort is none other than her husband, Herbert Wilson. Once, back in Amadeus’ human days, Herbert had attempted to disown his son. “You’re a monster!” he’d screamed. “The disappearances, and the…the blasphemous contraptions! I always knew you were sick! Even as a baby, you had an evil gleam in your eye! I could barely bring myself to touch you.” But seeing him now, you’d suspect no such acrimony. His smile is large; his eyes are wide. Resultant of a recent lobotomy, his previous personality is extinct. After helping Herbert into his chair, Charlotte sits demurely. For one brief instant, a complicated expression slides across her face, as if there is information that she wishes to impart to Herbert, but is too frightened to articulate. The show goes on, and into sight steps the bride’s mother, escorted by a Labrador usher. The canine wears a tuxedo and walks upright on his hind legs. Upon first glance, one suspects that something is off with the creature. Something about his face… Inevitably, understanding dawns: The Labrador’s lips and teeth are those of a human! Indeed, they are, as is the creature’s larynx, gifting him with the ability to speak English. Strangely, the dog speaks only in anacreontics, turning his every utterance into poetry, Later, for his reception toast, he’ll say: “Blinking, blanking, glasses fall, Red spills like a curtain call. Soothing, softly, comes the night, Lust encased in earthly blight. Drink up now and know for true, The toyman’s gaze follows you.” But for now, the dog remains silent. Seeing the bride’s mother, a question arises: What uncanny valley did this female emerge from? For a woman allegedly in her forties, she is remarkably well preserved. At her mouth and eye corners, no wrinkles can be discerned. Her demeanor is perky, her physique voluptuous. Still, the sight of the woman inspires unease. Her gait is too perfect, as if she is not walking at all, but rolling forward on ceramic ball bearings. Every word that she utters is exquisitely modulated, but when meeting her eyes, it seems that no intelligence lies behind them. Is she genuine flesh and blood, or a product of Amadeus’ workshop? one wonders. If she is custom-made, did the toyman somehow implant an operational reproductive system within her? Or is the gal’s motherhood strictly nonbiological? Claiming his position on the minister’s left, Amadeus faces the audience, smiling with diamond-tipped fangs. Beside him is Junior, his best man. Technically, Junior isn’t actually present, as his corporeal body remains tethered to a virtual reality booth. As detaching the young man would lead to his immediate demise, Junior attends through telepresence. Within a hovering videotelephony sphere, his beaming face can be glimpsed—not his current countenance, but the one he’d worn as a preschooler. When the true Junior tries to scream, the sphere’s Junior whistles. When the true Junior begs for death, the sphere’s Junior says, “I love you, Dad.” “I know you do,” Amadeus replies. Alongside them, chimpanzee groomsmen stand, wearing matching tuxedos. But these are no ordinary chimpanzees. Through genetic tweaking, Amadeus has amplified each’s intelligence to that of an average human, multiplying their neurons more than tenfold, up to eighty-six billion. He’d accomplished this feat while the chimps were still embryos, soaking their brains with stem cells. Because such neurogenesis requires greater head space, the chimpanzees’ craniums are oversized. Up the center aisle, bridesmaids step, followed by the maid of honor. The bridesmaids wear matching green dresses: strapless ruched chiffon. The maid of honor’s dress shares their length and color motif, but is one-shouldered to distinguish her. One and all, the bridesmaids are rod puppets, with hidden biomechatronic fingers manipulating their mobility. The maid of honor, on the other hand, is a biomorphic robot, with a biological system indiscernible from that of a human. Actuated by Amadeus-sent electromagnetic waves, the ladies smile, blink, and bat their eyes. Next, the ring bearer flutters down the aisle, beak-gripping a ring. Striding alongside Tango, the flower girl scatters petals. As she is a human-flower hybrid, the petals are castoffs from her own physicality. A song springs into being—Felix Mendelssohn's “Wedding March,” to be precise. And look, here comes the bride. submitted by /u/JeremytheTulpa to r/DarkTales [link] [comments]

Chapter 5: Perspective Shift Viewing the keep’s stairwell, one might mistake the professor for a poltergeist. Indeed, his footfalls hardly seem to meet the steps. Peering a trifle closer, however, one realizes that, as with the rest of the residence, each stone stair is adorned with sensor-laden plastic film. This time, the film is transparent, aside from the areas where Professor Pandora’s feet land. There, brief footprints form—purple, then yellow, then blue—following him up to the lord’s hall, which has been converted into a living room, kitchen, and dining room. Scattered about the living room, animatronics reenact historical atrocities: Ward 22 chemical castrations, Mengele twin experiments, Dr. Albert Kligman’s “dermatological research,” and others. Perusing these, the professor grins. Ah, he thinks, a kindred spirit, one capable of culling inspiration from history’s true pioneers. In fact, were I capable of friendship, it seems that I might find it herein. Where is this ingenious toyman? Why hasn’t he arrived to greet me? To attract his attention, I’ll announce my presence. The professor’s lips peel back; his larynx widens. In a language older than humanity—a netherspace-spawned nightmare reminiscent of a buzz saw attempting backwards Latin—he shrieks. Resounding throughout the keep, the screech shatters wall-mounted LED screens and makes electrified tube lights explode into spark showers. The professor continues for several minutes, to no avail. Isolated, he remains, bereft of adversaries and victims. This won’t do, he thinks. Suddenly, in the ceiling’s epicenter, an oral cavity forms. Plastic lips open and close, birthing sonance in the toyman’s own eerie speech: “Curse that damnable racket, you insolent interloper. My bride and daughter were sleeping, and you’ve aborted their dreams. Are you ignorant of proper guest etiquette or just willfully malicious?” Aborting his demonic caterwauling, the professor complies. When a ceiling oculus opens, the wraithlike fellow stares up into it and answers, “I apologize profusely. On the other hand, your conduct as a host leaves much to be desired, so perhaps you might stifle your judgments for the nonce.” “To claim the guest privilege, one must first be invited. Still, your method of entry intrigues me, so you’ll be spared from an immediate execution.” To illustrate his benevolence, the toyman opens a trapdoor beside Professor Pandora’s boot. Peering into it, the professor sees an oubliette occupied by razor-mouthed monstrosities, piranha-toothed humanoids covered in slothlike fur. Bones litter the floor beneath them, some recognizable as human. Illuminated, the creatures glance up from their repast—wild goat, eaten raw—and yodel. Clawing their way up the oubliette’s walls, they teeth-gnash and slobber. Before the creatures can emerge, the trapdoor closes. “I have constructed many doorways,” the ceiling mouth utters, “but never one such as yours. It mimicked my own sensor skin, but seemed to be its own living entity. Tell me, good sir, whence did that entrance emerge from, and why do I no longer sense it?” “The floor door comes and goes,” the professor answers. “Tell me, am I speaking to the toyman?” “Amadeus Wilson, to be exact. And whom do I have the honor to reply to? “They call me Professor Pandora.” “And which Ph.D. program spawned you?” For the first time in his malignant life, the professor succumbs to self-consciousness. Having accumulated no higher education, and provided his purloined pupils with nothing beyond torment, he has no true claim to the title. Rather than admit this datum, he changes the subject. “This colloquy has parched me,” he says. “Perhaps I might quench my thirst in your kitchen.” His fingers curl and uncurl, symptomizing blossoming rage. “Spare yourself the effort. I’ll have the maid mix you a concoction,” the ceiling mouth speaks, before widening into a larger aperture. Through the hole, a woman descends—or at least the remains of one—attached to a filament which dissolves when she lands. Her grease-stained uniform contains breasts so grotesquely oversized that the woman can hardly stand upright. Four holes have been cut into the garment to accommodate four extra arms. Her lips are sewn speechless; subcutaneous implants make the maid’s skin glow multicolored. Continuous horror has rendered her hair white. Eyes downcast, she sets off for the kitchen. She returns with a goblet. Snatching it into his grip, the professor finds the glass empty. “Am I expected to guzzle down air?” he enquires. The woman shakes her head negative, and then tilts over the goblet. Traveling up her arms and torso, strange swellings reach her mouth. She swishes and spits, filling Professor Pandora’s glass with a curious substance. A filament sprouts from the top of her head and hauls the maid back into the ceiling. Studying the beverage, the professor sees swirling colors: cattleya and smalt, vermilion and puce. Sniffing, he smells a succession of scents: sandalwood and lavender, bergamot and bay laurel. Am I experiencing phantosmia? he wonders. Outside of the nightclub, I’ve never glimpsed such a libation. Bubbles surface, whistling like bottlenose dolphins as they pop. Finger-stirring the liquid, the professor finds it freezing, then scalding. Shrugging, he takes a sip. His head rocks back; his arms pinwheel. Swirling nebulae dance across his mindscape. Within his cortex, the professor feels his 5-HT2A receptors activating, a mind-bending coming on. I’ve been dosed, he realizes, with some new serotonergic psychedelic. This Amadeus fellow is a worthy foe. Before the drug can enslave him, the professor shunts it out of his system, into netherspace, wherein the liquid gains sentience and begins preying upon captive souls. Suddenly, from a shadowy recess, a hexacopter drone flies forth. Gazing through its thermal imaging camera, the toyman targets the professor with an electric laser. He fires a 100-kilowatt light ray, which the professor barely manages to duck. Reflexively, the professor removes his purple overcoat, and throws it over the drone before the device can fire another light ray. Pulling the drone to the floor, he then shatter-stomps it. Arm-sliding back into his coat sleeves, he voices mockery: “You’ll have to do better than that.” Perhaps his words might have been better chosen, because from fresh-born wall gaps, four modified canines emerge, buoyed by pneumatic artificial muscles. Baring teeth of wurtzite boron nitride, their muzzles festooned with phosphorescent foam, they growl like power leaf blowers. One dog has a mobile satellite sticking out of his skull. A canine leaps for the professor and he bats it aside. Another goes for his ankle. Leapfrogging the beast, Pandora nearly stumbles, but preternatural reflexes keep him from tumbling. With eyes like indigo light projected through rippled glass, they target him. Ducking and juking, the professor dodges darting canine faces. A realization strikes him: There’s nothing for me here. No victims await me; no delight can be had. Perhaps it would be best to recede, to let The Other return. First, I’ll bestow a gift upon The Other, and obliterate these technomongrels for him. Otherwise, that inelegant sap would be shredded in seconds. Backflipping over four modified canines attacking in unison, the professor removes his top hat. He thrusts his arm deep within it, up to the elbow. From netherspace, he pulls a blade: an ebon rapier built from the nightmares of dying children. Its sweeping hilt scalds his hand, but the professor grits his teeth through the pain. With a powerful thrust, he penetrates one canine’s flank. As the creature yelps and convulses, Pandora plunges the blade into the next canine’s skull, piercing the nanomolecular weave encasing its brain. Two left, he thinks, jabbing the rapier into the satellite-equipped canine’s eye. The dog shakes his head and sneezes, and then collapses with his faux appendages splayed. Sizing up his last slavering assailant, the professor decides to get up close and personal. After casting his sword back into netherspace, he leaps upon the dog’s back. With both hands, he grabs the canine’s muzzle and wrenches it leftward, snapping the creature’s neck. Even this violence proves less than satisfying, the professor thinks ruefully. The toyman’s tinkering has reduced every organism within these blasphemous confines to puppet-status. What’s the point of torturing marionettes? Why did the door bring me here? The professor pushes his overcoat into his top hat. Disembodied, he leaps in after it. With a puff of sickly smoke, the top hat vanishes. Having reclaimed his own body, the professor’s host organism regards the proximate butchery and shrieks. Chapter 6: Centauride Having recovered some semblance of composure, the traveller presses a palm to his brow. The professor’s memories are now his memories. Erroneously, he believes himself a canine slayer. Before the nightclub and castle, I was at a commune, he remembers. There were deformed folk and monsters, feasts and celebrants. I killed twelve women before leaving, but why? What was my motive? They were so beautiful, so ethereally fragile. Why did I axe-chop their heads off? The traveller’s physical features are dissimilar to the professor’s—gaunt, infinitely haunted—though the two somehow share the same body. Years ago, when the traveller was alone in his physicality, he stumbled from a slaughterhouse rave into an underground nightclub. Within the club, he received a drink of swirling fuchsia and aubergine. When placed to his lips, it entered his body as a vapor. The vapor had a name: Professor Pandora. Subsequent to that occasion, the professor has lived through the traveller, seizing his body for carnage, then receding. In and out of the nightclub they’ve passed, to thereafter emerge into unhallowed settings. Whensoever the traveller gains awareness of his parasite, the professor strikes it from his memory. Thus, the traveller believes himself to be instinct-driven, remembers committing terrible acts without forethought. Here we go again, the traveller thinks. Another fucked up situation. Will I ever get home? Do I even have a home anymore? Are my friends and relatives even alive? Obviously, I was brought here for a reason. This toyman, I’ll have to confront him. Passing into the dining room, the traveller spots a twelve-foot table, topped by a scratch-free LCD screen. Its 360-degree surface has hundreds of touch points, allowing diners to work and game as they grub. Aside from a blinking mannequin, nobody sits at the table. The mannequin moans, and so the traveller hurries onward. In the kitchen, there stands a refrigerator, flanked by two massive tanks. Within the tanks, two vagrants scream eternally, frozen in suspended animation, coated in cryoprotectants. Inside of the fridge, there are edible fungi, homemade soft drinks, and unidentifiable meats. At the sight of a modified mosquito, wingless and swollen, vomiting indigo cheese inside a Tupperware container, the traveller’s stomach surges and he slams the door. Suddenly, he hears flapping. From every room corner, birds converge upon him, their diamond talons scratching, their unfolding metal beaks pecking. Screaming, the traveller covers his eyes just in time to avert a gouging. Blindly, he flees, rebounding off of a human-sized industrial blender. Toward the stairwell, he retreats. The birds give pursuit. Slash: a razor-feathered eagle wing slices the traveller’s scalp. Sploosh: smacking a parrot away, the traveller’s fist becomes lodged within its gelid, gelatinous belly. With effort, he pulls his hand free, twisting the parrot’s squishy skull off in the process. Off balance, the traveller’s feet tangle, and he tumbles face-first, busting his lip. One pigeon has proboscises where its eyes should be, and seven arthropodal compound oculi ringing its neck. Another has human lips, which grin horribly as the creature claws the traveller’s arm. Tasting blood, the traveller screams, pinned prone by dozens of winged antagonists. There are too many of ’em, he realizes, as the back of his shirt becomes confetti and its underlying flesh is carved. Behind his eyes, pain flares crimson. With no weapons available, he has little choice but to await expiration. Suddenly, a shadow slides over the traveller, heralding a rescuer’s arrival. This liberator is bizarrely zoomorphic, a limbless young woman installed into a biomechatronic pony physique. With her vocal cords severed, Shanna Wilson cannot speak. Still, as is the case with all of Amadeus’ half-living kin, the toyman’s pets are programmed to leave her uninjured. Clip-clopping forward until her four hooves form compass points around the traveller, the toyman’s daughter sends the birds scattering. Rolling over, the traveller views an equine underside, and cautiously crawls out from beneath it. Standing, he comes face-to-face with a blonde, sallow-faced sufferer, with giant implanted incisors bursting through her peeled-back lips. “Thank you,” he says, and she nods an acknowledgement. When the birds resume pecking, he instinctively hops onto her back. Then comes sudden motion, a galloping that leaves the traveller desperately grasping Shanna’s waist, averting a calamitous tumble. Falling behind, the birds flap up into hidden passageways, the honeycombed veins of the keep. Yards before the stairwell, Shanna falls suddenly still, so abruptly that the traveller loses his grip and goes flying. He bruises his thigh and sprains his right wrist, minor injuries given the circumstances. From the closest wall, a mouth sprouts, uttering, “Shanna, Shanna, Shanna…I leave you a bit of autonomy and what do you do? Throw a spanner into the works, it seems. Darling, you cannot provide succor to Daddy’s new plaything. Now go join your brother in the arcade.” Shanna attempts to resist, until the toyman activates a cerebral override, which sends her clip-clopping down the stairs, out of the traveller’s vision range. Colorful, transitory hoofprints trail her down. “And what have we here?” the toyman asks with his wall mouth. “A shapeshifter? A masquerader? An enchanter? Your form is so altered; perhaps you’re a new you entirely. Did we just meet, or should I introduce myself?” “Huh?” the traveller gasps. “What do you mean? Didn’t we just speak in the living room?” “Well, I sure conversed with somebody, a Professor Pandora.” “Professor? Dude, I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but I don’t know any professors. I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades—when I’m working, that is. Now can we drop this cat and mouse shit already? Your creepy-ass castle is terrifying, sure, and what you’ve done to your family is truly grotesque. But guess what, pal, I’ve seen worse in my travels. Why don’t you come down here, and we can exchange terror tales until my floor door reappears?” “Hold on just a minute. You don’t know any professors? How can that be? Perhaps I should scan you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And what’s this I see? A flickering in your eye’s neural network. Somebody’s wearing you, boy, and you’re too doltish to see it. Unfortunately, we’re fresh out of exorcists.” The toyman’s words trouble the traveller, but not for long. Manipulating the traveller’s hippocampus from within his medial temporal lobe, Professor Pandora erases them before they can be consolidated into long-term memory. “At any rate,” the toyman continues, “you enter my private technopolis uninvited, and now attempt to dictate our palaver’s terms? This frigid fringeland has but one ruler, and I am he. Within these walls, every entity both living and inanimate becomes my plaything. You are my property now, best accept it.” “I’m no man’s slave,” the traveller responds. “I was brought here for a reason…perhaps to end your madness.” “Try, if you wish,” the wall mouth speaks, before sealing over. Perhaps as a warning, the stairwell’s walls belch transitory flame spouts, scorching the empty air. Undaunted, the traveller begins ascending, one step at a time, slowly. A herd of mechanized velociraptor skeletons rush past him, heading toward the video arcade. Inhuman revelry fills the air; poltergeists crowd the atmosphere. Briefly, an organism slides into the traveller’s peripheral vision: a polycephalic hybrid, one head feline, the other vulpine, propelling itself on cephalopodan tentacles. But turning his head, the traveller spots no such creature. Perhaps it was never really there. Leaving the staircase, the traveller enters a private chamber. Combining a boy’s bedroom with a family entertainment center, the large room resembles nothing that the traveller has ever seen. Climbing structures, quarter pipes, and an archery range ring its perimeter. There are trampolines, Velcro walls, ball pits, and miniature golf fixtures. The ceiling features looping, water-filled, transparent tubes, through which ferrets blast at supersonic speeds. The bed shifts and bubbles; drawers slide open and closed. Somewhere within the castle, the toyman cackles. “Hello?” the traveller shouts, but there are no architectural lips to answer. And then there are. Between the traveller’s feet, a floor mouth forms and opens. “What shall I do with you?” it ponders. “A nanobacteria torture cell? Or perhaps a new face sculpted of tactile sensors? Should I rebuild you as a merman or a Minotauresque butler? So many options, and only one man within one man.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, speak your nonsense all ya want, pal. I escaped from the Order of the Lunar Anthropophagi. I exited the House of Eternal October with all my limbs intact. You think you’re so fuckin’ original, but I’ve met a hundred madmen just like you. Sure, you’re easily the smartest monster, but at the end of the day, so what? You destroyed your own family, for cryin’ out loud.” Unable to acknowledge criticism, the toyman continues as if the traveller hadn’t spoken. “Or would you like to be a performer? I could make a gymnast of you, or a daredevil extreme athlete. Did you believe that this chamber’s apparatuses are just for show? See your possible future and applaud your host’s ingenuity.” The floor mouth disappears, as a ceiling portion swings downward, becoming an inclined plane for some new arrivals to roll down. And roll they do, on modified skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs and unicycles. Gymnasts follow behind them, back handspringing down the ramp. Before the traveller’s astonished eyes, the two-dozen fresh arrivals commence a synchronized routine, utilizing the quarter pipes, trampolines, and climbing structures with expert precision—flipping, grinding and whirling, errorless. These performers had been human once: vagrants, foster children, mail order brides, and the like. Now, they are something else entirely. Dyneema fibers coat their epidermises, rendering the performers impact resistant. They are bullet resistant as well, in case the toyman requires a small army at some later date. Observing their efforts, the traveller realizes that the riders do not push, pedal or hand-propel, their conveyances being entirely motorized. They are androgynous, these performers, with the males having received estrogen bombardments, and the females androgen hormones. Thus, they are equally mighty and graceful, and seem to possess extraterrestrial reflexes. Their natural eyes are empty, their faces slack. Their hair has been shaven away, with implanted bionic eyes ringing their craniums, providing omnidirectional vision. Whatever personalities they’d once possessed are absent. As with his creature captives, Amadeus used transcranial magnetic stimulation and sensory image bombardment to resculpt the mentalities of these unfortunates, yoking them to his will forevermore. Having finished their routine, the performers ascend the inclined plane and disappear back into the ceiling. As the traveller considers pursuing them, the ramp swings up on its hinges, leaving the ceiling unbroken. Shrugging, the traveller wonders, What the hell was that about? Chapter 7: Taking the Plunge Slipping into a one-button, single-breasted jacket, Amadeus smiles at the mirror. He pinches his black bow tie and gives his flat-front trousers a pat. His patent leather shoes are well polished. Perhaps I should wear a tuxedo everyday, he thinks to himself, to keep these claustrophobic confines classy. With the traveller’s arrival, he’d almost forgotten. Today, the toyman is to be married. Technically, he’d already wedded Midge—his children’s mother, now their maid. But as with many toys, Amadeus had grown tired of her, and thus had granted himself a divorce. Utilizing his backup brain, the toyman tracks the traveller, while his ordinary mind invokes Richard Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.” Returning to the garret, the toyman flicks a finger toward the ceiling. An aperture opens; a ladder descends. Climbing, Amadeus says, “Come along, Tango. We can’t start the ceremony without you.” And naturally, the hummingbird follows, emerging into open air milliseconds after Amadeus. Atop the keep’s circular shell, a single rollercoaster car awaits, resting upon a launch track, which tilts slightly upwards, but seems connected to no further railroading. Should one climb inside the car, a quick plunge into nihility seems inevitable. But when Amadeus whistles, molecular assemblers spring into action, and the track begins self-replicating, forming corkscrews and cobra rolls, dive loops and raven turns. Soon, the rollercoaster rings the castle’s inner perimeter, with its brake run situated at the property’s gatehouse. Settling into his seat, Amadeus sends a thought into the ether, causing an over-the-shoulder restraint to fall over him and settle into its locking mechanism. Truthfully, with his augmented physiology, the toyman no longer requires restraints, being able to clutch with fourteen-jointed fingers and adhere his feet to anything solid. But every man has at least one fault, and Amadeus’ is nostalgia. During his much-cherished childhood years, Amadeus’ family had valued one tradition above all others: the yearly trip to Coney Island, which just so happened to coincide with his birthday. He remembers the Cyclone, the Tornado, the Wonder Wheel, and the Thunderbolt. He remembers standing at the edge of the shoreline, too timid to enter the sea, though his mother prodded and cooed. He remembers hot dogs and funnel cakes, custard and pizza. The remembrances are so vivid, he can practically step into them. In fact, should he desire to, Amadeus can mine his own amygdala, to refeel the precise feelings he’d felt on those occasions, bridging the gap between the toyman and his boy self. But why stop there? By bringing his striatum, mammillary bodies, and hippocampus into the equation, he can program those very same days into the arcade’s virtual reality booths, and relive them as his past form, or as another character entirely. But seeing his child self, Amadeus would only rebuild him, and so he drags himself back into the present. When he snaps his fingers, a miniature restraint materializes atop the next seat over. “You know what to do, Tango,” he says. And indeed, the hummingbird does, fluttering into position, entering into brief torpor after the harness secures him. And then the wheels are rolling, the car gaining momentum. Soon Amadeus is freefalling, inverting and rolling. Air buffets his grin. Weightless, his stomach sinks. He passes the keep again and again, viewing it from every angle. Just before he reaches the gatehouse, his artificial neural network alerts Amadeus to a factoid: the traveller is becoming too nosy. Exploring Junior’s closet, the intruder strews clothes across the floor. This will not do, Amadeus thinks, looping. And so a razor wire tumbleweed rolls out of the wall and chases the traveller about the chamber. When the car brakes, both restraints swing upward. Now Tango is fluttering, and Amadeus is standing, thinking to himself, Today is a wonderful day. Both of the gatehouse’s portcullises are up. Its adjoining barbican has been rendered temporarily defenseless: no boiling oil will splash down from its murder holes, no arrows will fly through the passageway’s slits. Under the gatehouse’s eroded battlements, rows of wrought iron seats lead toward a platinum altar. A makeshift aisle divides the rows: electrified tube lights spiraling around Orchidaceae. Lace curtains are hung; votive candles glow within suspended jars. Behind the altar, flowers, crystals, and pearls form an arched backdrop. When Amadeus nods at the rollercoaster, the car reverses. As it loops and rolls its way back up to the launch track, the car’s inbuilt disassemblers erase the rollercoaster behind it, breaking molecular bonds with enzyme bombardments. Within minutes, it is as if the rollercoaster had never existed. When next it materializes, the track will be altered, perhaps with a sustained inversion. The officiant is animatronic. Beneath its flexible plastic epidermis, motion actuators mimic human musculature. With three-dimensional sensors, it scans the crowd, studying facial contours, analyzing skin textures, identifying each attendee individually. Complex algorithms and sensors render it almost entirely autonomous, able to hold conversations, register emotions, and speak with pseudo-empathy. Should any unforeseen variable cause the animatronic to deviate from its ceremonial script, Amadeus will override it, and speak through the officiant via teleoperation. Leftward, the bride’s family and friends are gathered. Rightward, Amadeus’ guests sit. There are ex-hobos, lost hookers, kidnapped children, and a cornucopia of intellectual disabilities present. Everyone dresses in finery, smiling clownishly. None speak, save for preprogrammed verbalizations: “Perfect weather today,” “Love is a beautiful thing,” and, “That Amadeus sure is brilliant. His bride must be the luckiest gal on Earth.” Some stare past eternity. Others are built of awkward angles, their jagged, enhanced skeletal structures housing retractable armaments. The groom’s grandparents make an appearance, rolling to the front row in translucent caskets. Atop the caskets’ frosted glass exteriors, three-dimensional computer graphics depict the couple smiling and waving. Inside the boxes, two skeletons grin. Beside them, two seats await Amadeus’ mother and father. On the aisle’s opposite side, the bride’s grandparents claim chairs, leaving two for her mother and father. The bride has two grandfathers, it turns out, conjoined twins. One is Caucasian; the other is African. One’s a dwarf; one’s a giant. One appears middle-aged, the other an octogenarian. Attached at the waist, the giant appears to carry the dwarf in a side-slung baby pouch, but there is no pouch, only skin. Their suit is custom-tailored. Their lips spasm, attempting to frown, but unable to. The bride’s grandmother possesses physical features that would make even an anthropometrist scratch their head in puzzlement. Her eyelids possess the epicanthal folds of an Asiatic, but her head is dolichocephalic like an Australian Aborigine. Though her nose is long and narrow like an American Indian, her lips are as thick as a Sub-Saharan African’s. Within them, a Caucasian’s spatulate teeth nestle. As for the woman’s epidermis, it is quite zebraic. Horizontally striped, it displays shades of olive, peach, brown, red, black and yellow. Her irises resemble lapis lazuli. Viewing these bridal progenitors, one inevitably thinks, Holy Moses, such interesting individuals. Were they ever infants? Did they slide from live mothers, or were they gene-spliced into being, their recombinant DNA sculpted by the groom’s ghastly hands? What do their children resemble? And what is the bride? Is she human, or some technoblasphemy? If the latter, what would she be like in bed? Here comes the groom’s mother, Charlotte Wilson, and isn’t she grand? Silently, she squeezes her face in her hands. Her asymmetrical ruched mesh gown is navy blue and embellished with costume jewelry. Her chic blonde locks seem stolen from a mid-twenties strumpet. They were, in fact, donated by the bald looker seated in the back row. Her escort is none other than her husband, Herbert Wilson. Once, back in Amadeus’ human days, Herbert had attempted to disown his son. “You’re a monster!” he’d screamed. “The disappearances, and the…the blasphemous contraptions! I always knew you were sick! Even as a baby, you had an evil gleam in your eye! I could barely bring myself to touch you.” But seeing him now, you’d suspect no such acrimony. His smile is large; his eyes are wide. Resultant of a recent lobotomy, his previous personality is extinct. After helping Herbert into his chair, Charlotte sits demurely. For one brief instant, a complicated expression slides across her face, as if there is information that she wishes to impart to Herbert, but is too frightened to articulate. The show goes on, and into sight steps the bride’s mother, escorted by a Labrador usher. The canine wears a tuxedo and walks upright on his hind legs. Upon first glance, one suspects that something is off with the creature. Something about his face… Inevitably, understanding dawns: The Labrador’s lips and teeth are those of a human! Indeed, they are, as is the creature’s larynx, gifting him with the ability to speak English. Strangely, the dog speaks only in anacreontics, turning his every utterance into poetry, Later, for his reception toast, he’ll say: “Blinking, blanking, glasses fall, Red spills like a curtain call. Soothing, softly, comes the night, Lust encased in earthly blight. Drink up now and know for true, The toyman’s gaze follows you.” But for now, the dog remains silent. Seeing the bride’s mother, a question arises: What uncanny valley did this female emerge from? For a woman allegedly in her forties, she is remarkably well preserved. At her mouth and eye corners, no wrinkles can be discerned. Her demeanor is perky, her physique voluptuous. Still, the sight of the woman inspires unease. Her gait is too perfect, as if she is not walking at all, but rolling forward on ceramic ball bearings. Every word that she utters is exquisitely modulated, but when meeting her eyes, it seems that no intelligence lies behind them. Is she genuine flesh and blood, or a product of Amadeus’ workshop? one wonders. If she is custom-made, did the toyman somehow implant an operational reproductive system within her? Or is the gal’s motherhood strictly nonbiological? Claiming his position on the minister’s left, Amadeus faces the audience, smiling with diamond-tipped fangs. Beside him is Junior, his best man. Technically, Junior isn’t actually present, as his corporeal body remains tethered to a virtual reality booth. As detaching the young man would lead to his immediate demise, Junior attends through telepresence. Within a hovering videotelephony sphere, his beaming face can be glimpsed—not his current countenance, but the one he’d worn as a preschooler. When the true Junior tries to scream, the sphere’s Junior whistles. When the true Junior begs for death, the sphere’s Junior says, “I love you, Dad.” “I know you do,” Amadeus replies. Alongside them, chimpanzee groomsmen stand, wearing matching tuxedos. But these are no ordinary chimpanzees. Through genetic tweaking, Amadeus has amplified each’s intelligence to that of an average human, multiplying their neurons more than tenfold, up to eighty-six billion. He’d accomplished this feat while the chimps were still embryos, soaking their brains with stem cells. Because such neurogenesis requires greater head space, the chimpanzees’ craniums are oversized. Up the center aisle, bridesmaids step, followed by the maid of honor. The bridesmaids wear matching green dresses: strapless ruched chiffon. The maid of honor’s dress shares their length and color motif, but is one-shouldered to distinguish her. One and all, the bridesmaids are rod puppets, with hidden biomechatronic fingers manipulating their mobility. The maid of honor, on the other hand, is a biomorphic robot, with a biological system indiscernible from that of a human. Actuated by Amadeus-sent electromagnetic waves, the ladies smile, blink, and bat their eyes. Next, the ring bearer flutters down the aisle, beak-gripping a ring. Striding alongside Tango, the flower girl scatters petals. As she is a human-flower hybrid, the petals are castoffs from her own physicality. A song springs into being—Felix Mendelssohn's “Wedding March,” to be precise. And look, here comes the bride. submitted by /u/JeremytheTulpa to r/Horror_stories [link] [comments]

Chapter 5: Perspective Shift Viewing the keep’s stairwell, one might mistake the professor for a poltergeist. Indeed, his footfalls hardly seem to meet the steps. Peering a trifle closer, however, one realizes that, as with the rest of the residence, each stone stair is adorned with sensor-laden plastic film. This time, the film is transparent, aside from the areas where Professor Pandora’s feet land. There, brief footprints form—purple, then yellow, then blue—following him up to the lord’s hall, which has been converted into a living room, kitchen, and dining room. Scattered about the living room, animatronics reenact historical atrocities: Ward 22 chemical castrations, Mengele twin experiments, Dr. Albert Kligman’s “dermatological research,” and others. Perusing these, the professor grins. Ah, he thinks, a kindred spirit, one capable of culling inspiration from history’s true pioneers. In fact, were I capable of friendship, it seems that I might find it herein. Where is this ingenious toyman? Why hasn’t he arrived to greet me? To attract his attention, I’ll announce my presence. The professor’s lips peel back; his larynx widens. In a language older than humanity—a netherspace-spawned nightmare reminiscent of a buzz saw attempting backwards Latin—he shrieks. Resounding throughout the keep, the screech shatters wall-mounted LED screens and makes electrified tube lights explode into spark showers. The professor continues for several minutes, to no avail. Isolated, he remains, bereft of adversaries and victims. This won’t do, he thinks. Suddenly, in the ceiling’s epicenter, an oral cavity forms. Plastic lips open and close, birthing sonance in the toyman’s own eerie speech: “Curse that damnable racket, you insolent interloper. My bride and daughter were sleeping, and you’ve aborted their dreams. Are you ignorant of proper guest etiquette or just willfully malicious?” Aborting his demonic caterwauling, the professor complies. When a ceiling oculus opens, the wraithlike fellow stares up into it and answers, “I apologize profusely. On the other hand, your conduct as a host leaves much to be desired, so perhaps you might stifle your judgments for the nonce.” “To claim the guest privilege, one must first be invited. Still, your method of entry intrigues me, so you’ll be spared from an immediate execution.” To illustrate his benevolence, the toyman opens a trapdoor beside Professor Pandora’s boot. Peering into it, the professor sees an oubliette occupied by razor-mouthed monstrosities, piranha-toothed humanoids covered in slothlike fur. Bones litter the floor beneath them, some recognizable as human. Illuminated, the creatures glance up from their repast—wild goat, eaten raw—and yodel. Clawing their way up the oubliette’s walls, they teeth-gnash and slobber. Before the creatures can emerge, the trapdoor closes. “I have constructed many doorways,” the ceiling mouth utters, “but never one such as yours. It mimicked my own sensor skin, but seemed to be its own living entity. Tell me, good sir, whence did that entrance emerge from, and why do I no longer sense it?” “The floor door comes and goes,” the professor answers. “Tell me, am I speaking to the toyman?” “Amadeus Wilson, to be exact. And whom do I have the honor to reply to? “They call me Professor Pandora.” “And which Ph.D. program spawned you?” For the first time in his malignant life, the professor succumbs to self-consciousness. Having accumulated no higher education, and provided his purloined pupils with nothing beyond torment, he has no true claim to the title. Rather than admit this datum, he changes the subject. “This colloquy has parched me,” he says. “Perhaps I might quench my thirst in your kitchen.” His fingers curl and uncurl, symptomizing blossoming rage. “Spare yourself the effort. I’ll have the maid mix you a concoction,” the ceiling mouth speaks, before widening into a larger aperture. Through the hole, a woman descends—or at least the remains of one—attached to a filament which dissolves when she lands. Her grease-stained uniform contains breasts so grotesquely oversized that the woman can hardly stand upright. Four holes have been cut into the garment to accommodate four extra arms. Her lips are sewn speechless; subcutaneous implants make the maid’s skin glow multicolored. Continuous horror has rendered her hair white. Eyes downcast, she sets off for the kitchen. She returns with a goblet. Snatching it into his grip, the professor finds the glass empty. “Am I expected to guzzle down air?” he enquires. The woman shakes her head negative, and then tilts over the goblet. Traveling up her arms and torso, strange swellings reach her mouth. She swishes and spits, filling Professor Pandora’s glass with a curious substance. A filament sprouts from the top of her head and hauls the maid back into the ceiling. Studying the beverage, the professor sees swirling colors: cattleya and smalt, vermilion and puce. Sniffing, he smells a succession of scents: sandalwood and lavender, bergamot and bay laurel. Am I experiencing phantosmia? he wonders. Outside of the nightclub, I’ve never glimpsed such a libation. Bubbles surface, whistling like bottlenose dolphins as they pop. Finger-stirring the liquid, the professor finds it freezing, then scalding. Shrugging, he takes a sip. His head rocks back; his arms pinwheel. Swirling nebulae dance across his mindscape. Within his cortex, the professor feels his 5-HT2A receptors activating, a mind-bending coming on. I’ve been dosed, he realizes, with some new serotonergic psychedelic. This Amadeus fellow is a worthy foe. Before the drug can enslave him, the professor shunts it out of his system, into netherspace, wherein the liquid gains sentience and begins preying upon captive souls. Suddenly, from a shadowy recess, a hexacopter drone flies forth. Gazing through its thermal imaging camera, the toyman targets the professor with an electric laser. He fires a 100-kilowatt light ray, which the professor barely manages to duck. Reflexively, the professor removes his purple overcoat, and throws it over the drone before the device can fire another light ray. Pulling the drone to the floor, he then shatter-stomps it. Arm-sliding back into his coat sleeves, he voices mockery: “You’ll have to do better than that.” Perhaps his words might have been better chosen, because from fresh-born wall gaps, four modified canines emerge, buoyed by pneumatic artificial muscles. Baring teeth of wurtzite boron nitride, their muzzles festooned with phosphorescent foam, they growl like power leaf blowers. One dog has a mobile satellite sticking out of his skull. A canine leaps for the professor and he bats it aside. Another goes for his ankle. Leapfrogging the beast, Pandora nearly stumbles, but preternatural reflexes keep him from tumbling. With eyes like indigo light projected through rippled glass, they target him. Ducking and juking, the professor dodges darting canine faces. A realization strikes him: There’s nothing for me here. No victims await me; no delight can be had. Perhaps it would be best to recede, to let The Other return. First, I’ll bestow a gift upon The Other, and obliterate these technomongrels for him. Otherwise, that inelegant sap would be shredded in seconds. Backflipping over four modified canines attacking in unison, the professor removes his top hat. He thrusts his arm deep within it, up to the elbow. From netherspace, he pulls a blade: an ebon rapier built from the nightmares of dying children. Its sweeping hilt scalds his hand, but the professor grits his teeth through the pain. With a powerful thrust, he penetrates one canine’s flank. As the creature yelps and convulses, Pandora plunges the blade into the next canine’s skull, piercing the nanomolecular weave encasing its brain. Two left, he thinks, jabbing the rapier into the satellite-equipped canine’s eye. The dog shakes his head and sneezes, and then collapses with his faux appendages splayed. Sizing up his last slavering assailant, the professor decides to get up close and personal. After casting his sword back into netherspace, he leaps upon the dog’s back. With both hands, he grabs the canine’s muzzle and wrenches it leftward, snapping the creature’s neck. Even this violence proves less than satisfying, the professor thinks ruefully. The toyman’s tinkering has reduced every organism within these blasphemous confines to puppet-status. What’s the point of torturing marionettes? Why did the door bring me here? The professor pushes his overcoat into his top hat. Disembodied, he leaps in after it. With a puff of sickly smoke, the top hat vanishes. Having reclaimed his own body, the professor’s host organism regards the proximate butchery and shrieks. Chapter 6: Centauride Having recovered some semblance of composure, the traveller presses a palm to his brow. The professor’s memories are now his memories. Erroneously, he believes himself a canine slayer. Before the nightclub and castle, I was at a commune, he remembers. There were deformed folk and monsters, feasts and celebrants. I killed twelve women before leaving, but why? What was my motive? They were so beautiful, so ethereally fragile. Why did I axe-chop their heads off? The traveller’s physical features are dissimilar to the professor’s—gaunt, infinitely haunted—though the two somehow share the same body. Years ago, when the traveller was alone in his physicality, he stumbled from a slaughterhouse rave into an underground nightclub. Within the club, he received a drink of swirling fuchsia and aubergine. When placed to his lips, it entered his body as a vapor. The vapor had a name: Professor Pandora. Subsequent to that occasion, the professor has lived through the traveller, seizing his body for carnage, then receding. In and out of the nightclub they’ve passed, to thereafter emerge into unhallowed settings. Whensoever the traveller gains awareness of his parasite, the professor strikes it from his memory. Thus, the traveller believes himself to be instinct-driven, remembers committing terrible acts without forethought. Here we go again, the traveller thinks. Another fucked up situation. Will I ever get home? Do I even have a home anymore? Are my friends and relatives even alive? Obviously, I was brought here for a reason. This toyman, I’ll have to confront him. Passing into the dining room, the traveller spots a twelve-foot table, topped by a scratch-free LCD screen. Its 360-degree surface has hundreds of touch points, allowing diners to work and game as they grub. Aside from a blinking mannequin, nobody sits at the table. The mannequin moans, and so the traveller hurries onward. In the kitchen, there stands a refrigerator, flanked by two massive tanks. Within the tanks, two vagrants scream eternally, frozen in suspended animation, coated in cryoprotectants. Inside of the fridge, there are edible fungi, homemade soft drinks, and unidentifiable meats. At the sight of a modified mosquito, wingless and swollen, vomiting indigo cheese inside a Tupperware container, the traveller’s stomach surges and he slams the door. Suddenly, he hears flapping. From every room corner, birds converge upon him, their diamond talons scratching, their unfolding metal beaks pecking. Screaming, the traveller covers his eyes just in time to avert a gouging. Blindly, he flees, rebounding off of a human-sized industrial blender. Toward the stairwell, he retreats. The birds give pursuit. Slash: a razor-feathered eagle wing slices the traveller’s scalp. Sploosh: smacking a parrot away, the traveller’s fist becomes lodged within its gelid, gelatinous belly. With effort, he pulls his hand free, twisting the parrot’s squishy skull off in the process. Off balance, the traveller’s feet tangle, and he tumbles face-first, busting his lip. One pigeon has proboscises where its eyes should be, and seven arthropodal compound oculi ringing its neck. Another has human lips, which grin horribly as the creature claws the traveller’s arm. Tasting blood, the traveller screams, pinned prone by dozens of winged antagonists. There are too many of ’em, he realizes, as the back of his shirt becomes confetti and its underlying flesh is carved. Behind his eyes, pain flares crimson. With no weapons available, he has little choice but to await expiration. Suddenly, a shadow slides over the traveller, heralding a rescuer’s arrival. This liberator is bizarrely zoomorphic, a limbless young woman installed into a biomechatronic pony physique. With her vocal cords severed, Shanna Wilson cannot speak. Still, as is the case with all of Amadeus’ half-living kin, the toyman’s pets are programmed to leave her uninjured. Clip-clopping forward until her four hooves form compass points around the traveller, the toyman’s daughter sends the birds scattering. Rolling over, the traveller views an equine underside, and cautiously crawls out from beneath it. Standing, he comes face-to-face with a blonde, sallow-faced sufferer, with giant implanted incisors bursting through her peeled-back lips. “Thank you,” he says, and she nods an acknowledgement. When the birds resume pecking, he instinctively hops onto her back. Then comes sudden motion, a galloping that leaves the traveller desperately grasping Shanna’s waist, averting a calamitous tumble. Falling behind, the birds flap up into hidden passageways, the honeycombed veins of the keep. Yards before the stairwell, Shanna falls suddenly still, so abruptly that the traveller loses his grip and goes flying. He bruises his thigh and sprains his right wrist, minor injuries given the circumstances. From the closest wall, a mouth sprouts, uttering, “Shanna, Shanna, Shanna…I leave you a bit of autonomy and what do you do? Throw a spanner into the works, it seems. Darling, you cannot provide succor to Daddy’s new plaything. Now go join your brother in the arcade.” Shanna attempts to resist, until the toyman activates a cerebral override, which sends her clip-clopping down the stairs, out of the traveller’s vision range. Colorful, transitory hoofprints trail her down. “And what have we here?” the toyman asks with his wall mouth. “A shapeshifter? A masquerader? An enchanter? Your form is so altered; perhaps you’re a new you entirely. Did we just meet, or should I introduce myself?” “Huh?” the traveller gasps. “What do you mean? Didn’t we just speak in the living room?” “Well, I sure conversed with somebody, a Professor Pandora.” “Professor? Dude, I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but I don’t know any professors. I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades—when I’m working, that is. Now can we drop this cat and mouse shit already? Your creepy-ass castle is terrifying, sure, and what you’ve done to your family is truly grotesque. But guess what, pal, I’ve seen worse in my travels. Why don’t you come down here, and we can exchange terror tales until my floor door reappears?” “Hold on just a minute. You don’t know any professors? How can that be? Perhaps I should scan you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And what’s this I see? A flickering in your eye’s neural network. Somebody’s wearing you, boy, and you’re too doltish to see it. Unfortunately, we’re fresh out of exorcists.” The toyman’s words trouble the traveller, but not for long. Manipulating the traveller’s hippocampus from within his medial temporal lobe, Professor Pandora erases them before they can be consolidated into long-term memory. “At any rate,” the toyman continues, “you enter my private technopolis uninvited, and now attempt to dictate our palaver’s terms? This frigid fringeland has but one ruler, and I am he. Within these walls, every entity both living and inanimate becomes my plaything. You are my property now, best accept it.” “I’m no man’s slave,” the traveller responds. “I was brought here for a reason…perhaps to end your madness.” “Try, if you wish,” the wall mouth speaks, before sealing over. Perhaps as a warning, the stairwell’s walls belch transitory flame spouts, scorching the empty air. Undaunted, the traveller begins ascending, one step at a time, slowly. A herd of mechanized velociraptor skeletons rush past him, heading toward the video arcade. Inhuman revelry fills the air; poltergeists crowd the atmosphere. Briefly, an organism slides into the traveller’s peripheral vision: a polycephalic hybrid, one head feline, the other vulpine, propelling itself on cephalopodan tentacles. But turning his head, the traveller spots no such creature. Perhaps it was never really there. Leaving the staircase, the traveller enters a private chamber. Combining a boy’s bedroom with a family entertainment center, the large room resembles nothing that the traveller has ever seen. Climbing structures, quarter pipes, and an archery range ring its perimeter. There are trampolines, Velcro walls, ball pits, and miniature golf fixtures. The ceiling features looping, water-filled, transparent tubes, through which ferrets blast at supersonic speeds. The bed shifts and bubbles; drawers slide open and closed. Somewhere within the castle, the toyman cackles. “Hello?” the traveller shouts, but there are no architectural lips to answer. And then there are. Between the traveller’s feet, a floor mouth forms and opens. “What shall I do with you?” it ponders. “A nanobacteria torture cell? Or perhaps a new face sculpted of tactile sensors? Should I rebuild you as a merman or a Minotauresque butler? So many options, and only one man within one man.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, speak your nonsense all ya want, pal. I escaped from the Order of the Lunar Anthropophagi. I exited the House of Eternal October with all my limbs intact. You think you’re so fuckin’ original, but I’ve met a hundred madmen just like you. Sure, you’re easily the smartest monster, but at the end of the day, so what? You destroyed your own family, for cryin’ out loud.” Unable to acknowledge criticism, the toyman continues as if the traveller hadn’t spoken. “Or would you like to be a performer? I could make a gymnast of you, or a daredevil extreme athlete. Did you believe that this chamber’s apparatuses are just for show? See your possible future and applaud your host’s ingenuity.” The floor mouth disappears, as a ceiling portion swings downward, becoming an inclined plane for some new arrivals to roll down. And roll they do, on modified skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs and unicycles. Gymnasts follow behind them, back handspringing down the ramp. Before the traveller’s astonished eyes, the two-dozen fresh arrivals commence a synchronized routine, utilizing the quarter pipes, trampolines, and climbing structures with expert precision—flipping, grinding and whirling, errorless. These performers had been human once: vagrants, foster children, mail order brides, and the like. Now, they are something else entirely. Dyneema fibers coat their epidermises, rendering the performers impact resistant. They are bullet resistant as well, in case the toyman requires a small army at some later date. Observing their efforts, the traveller realizes that the riders do not push, pedal or hand-propel, their conveyances being entirely motorized. They are androgynous, these performers, with the males having received estrogen bombardments, and the females androgen hormones. Thus, they are equally mighty and graceful, and seem to possess extraterrestrial reflexes. Their natural eyes are empty, their faces slack. Their hair has been shaven away, with implanted bionic eyes ringing their craniums, providing omnidirectional vision. Whatever personalities they’d once possessed are absent. As with his creature captives, Amadeus used transcranial magnetic stimulation and sensory image bombardment to resculpt the mentalities of these unfortunates, yoking them to his will forevermore. Having finished their routine, the performers ascend the inclined plane and disappear back into the ceiling. As the traveller considers pursuing them, the ramp swings up on its hinges, leaving the ceiling unbroken. Shrugging, the traveller wonders, What the hell was that about? Chapter 7: Taking the Plunge Slipping into a one-button, single-breasted jacket, Amadeus smiles at the mirror. He pinches his black bow tie and gives his flat-front trousers a pat. His patent leather shoes are well polished. Perhaps I should wear a tuxedo everyday, he thinks to himself, to keep these claustrophobic confines classy. With the traveller’s arrival, he’d almost forgotten. Today, the toyman is to be married. Technically, he’d already wedded Midge—his children’s mother, now their maid. But as with many toys, Amadeus had grown tired of her, and thus had granted himself a divorce. Utilizing his backup brain, the toyman tracks the traveller, while his ordinary mind invokes Richard Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.” Returning to the garret, the toyman flicks a finger toward the ceiling. An aperture opens; a ladder descends. Climbing, Amadeus says, “Come along, Tango. We can’t start the ceremony without you.” And naturally, the hummingbird follows, emerging into open air milliseconds after Amadeus. Atop the keep’s circular shell, a single rollercoaster car awaits, resting upon a launch track, which tilts slightly upwards, but seems connected to no further railroading. Should one climb inside the car, a quick plunge into nihility seems inevitable. But when Amadeus whistles, molecular assemblers spring into action, and the track begins self-replicating, forming corkscrews and cobra rolls, dive loops and raven turns. Soon, the rollercoaster rings the castle’s inner perimeter, with its brake run situated at the property’s gatehouse. Settling into his seat, Amadeus sends a thought into the ether, causing an over-the-shoulder restraint to fall over him and settle into its locking mechanism. Truthfully, with his augmented physiology, the toyman no longer requires restraints, being able to clutch with fourteen-jointed fingers and adhere his feet to anything solid. But every man has at least one fault, and Amadeus’ is nostalgia. During his much-cherished childhood years, Amadeus’ family had valued one tradition above all others: the yearly trip to Coney Island, which just so happened to coincide with his birthday. He remembers the Cyclone, the Tornado, the Wonder Wheel, and the Thunderbolt. He remembers standing at the edge of the shoreline, too timid to enter the sea, though his mother prodded and cooed. He remembers hot dogs and funnel cakes, custard and pizza. The remembrances are so vivid, he can practically step into them. In fact, should he desire to, Amadeus can mine his own amygdala, to refeel the precise feelings he’d felt on those occasions, bridging the gap between the toyman and his boy self. But why stop there? By bringing his striatum, mammillary bodies, and hippocampus into the equation, he can program those very same days into the arcade’s virtual reality booths, and relive them as his past form, or as another character entirely. But seeing his child self, Amadeus would only rebuild him, and so he drags himself back into the present. When he snaps his fingers, a miniature restraint materializes atop the next seat over. “You know what to do, Tango,” he says. And indeed, the hummingbird does, fluttering into position, entering into brief torpor after the harness secures him. And then the wheels are rolling, the car gaining momentum. Soon Amadeus is freefalling, inverting and rolling. Air buffets his grin. Weightless, his stomach sinks. He passes the keep again and again, viewing it from every angle. Just before he reaches the gatehouse, his artificial neural network alerts Amadeus to a factoid: the traveller is becoming too nosy. Exploring Junior’s closet, the intruder strews clothes across the floor. This will not do, Amadeus thinks, looping. And so a razor wire tumbleweed rolls out of the wall and chases the traveller about the chamber. When the car brakes, both restraints swing upward. Now Tango is fluttering, and Amadeus is standing, thinking to himself, Today is a wonderful day. Both of the gatehouse’s portcullises are up. Its adjoining barbican has been rendered temporarily defenseless: no boiling oil will splash down from its murder holes, no arrows will fly through the passageway’s slits. Under the gatehouse’s eroded battlements, rows of wrought iron seats lead toward a platinum altar. A makeshift aisle divides the rows: electrified tube lights spiraling around Orchidaceae. Lace curtains are hung; votive candles glow within suspended jars. Behind the altar, flowers, crystals, and pearls form an arched backdrop. When Amadeus nods at the rollercoaster, the car reverses. As it loops and rolls its way back up to the launch track, the car’s inbuilt disassemblers erase the rollercoaster behind it, breaking molecular bonds with enzyme bombardments. Within minutes, it is as if the rollercoaster had never existed. When next it materializes, the track will be altered, perhaps with a sustained inversion. The officiant is animatronic. Beneath its flexible plastic epidermis, motion actuators mimic human musculature. With three-dimensional sensors, it scans the crowd, studying facial contours, analyzing skin textures, identifying each attendee individually. Complex algorithms and sensors render it almost entirely autonomous, able to hold conversations, register emotions, and speak with pseudo-empathy. Should any unforeseen variable cause the animatronic to deviate from its ceremonial script, Amadeus will override it, and speak through the officiant via teleoperation. Leftward, the bride’s family and friends are gathered. Rightward, Amadeus’ guests sit. There are ex-hobos, lost hookers, kidnapped children, and a cornucopia of intellectual disabilities present. Everyone dresses in finery, smiling clownishly. None speak, save for preprogrammed verbalizations: “Perfect weather today,” “Love is a beautiful thing,” and, “That Amadeus sure is brilliant. His bride must be the luckiest gal on Earth.” Some stare past eternity. Others are built of awkward angles, their jagged, enhanced skeletal structures housing retractable armaments. The groom’s grandparents make an appearance, rolling to the front row in translucent caskets. Atop the caskets’ frosted glass exteriors, three-dimensional computer graphics depict the couple smiling and waving. Inside the boxes, two skeletons grin. Beside them, two seats await Amadeus’ mother and father. On the aisle’s opposite side, the bride’s grandparents claim chairs, leaving two for her mother and father. The bride has two grandfathers, it turns out, conjoined twins. One is Caucasian; the other is African. One’s a dwarf; one’s a giant. One appears middle-aged, the other an octogenarian. Attached at the waist, the giant appears to carry the dwarf in a side-slung baby pouch, but there is no pouch, only skin. Their suit is custom-tailored. Their lips spasm, attempting to frown, but unable to. The bride’s grandmother possesses physical features that would make even an anthropometrist scratch their head in puzzlement. Her eyelids possess the epicanthal folds of an Asiatic, but her head is dolichocephalic like an Australian Aborigine. Though her nose is long and narrow like an American Indian, her lips are as thick as a Sub-Saharan African’s. Within them, a Caucasian’s spatulate teeth nestle. As for the woman’s epidermis, it is quite zebraic. Horizontally striped, it displays shades of olive, peach, brown, red, black and yellow. Her irises resemble lapis lazuli. Viewing these bridal progenitors, one inevitably thinks, Holy Moses, such interesting individuals. Were they ever infants? Did they slide from live mothers, or were they gene-spliced into being, their recombinant DNA sculpted by the groom’s ghastly hands? What do their children resemble? And what is the bride? Is she human, or some technoblasphemy? If the latter, what would she be like in bed? Here comes the groom’s mother, Charlotte Wilson, and isn’t she grand? Silently, she squeezes her face in her hands. Her asymmetrical ruched mesh gown is navy blue and embellished with costume jewelry. Her chic blonde locks seem stolen from a mid-twenties strumpet. They were, in fact, donated by the bald looker seated in the back row. Her escort is none other than her husband, Herbert Wilson. Once, back in Amadeus’ human days, Herbert had attempted to disown his son. “You’re a monster!” he’d screamed. “The disappearances, and the…the blasphemous contraptions! I always knew you were sick! Even as a baby, you had an evil gleam in your eye! I could barely bring myself to touch you.” But seeing him now, you’d suspect no such acrimony. His smile is large; his eyes are wide. Resultant of a recent lobotomy, his previous personality is extinct. After helping Herbert into his chair, Charlotte sits demurely. For one brief instant, a complicated expression slides across her face, as if there is information that she wishes to impart to Herbert, but is too frightened to articulate. The show goes on, and into sight steps the bride’s mother, escorted by a Labrador usher. The canine wears a tuxedo and walks upright on his hind legs. Upon first glance, one suspects that something is off with the creature. Something about his face… Inevitably, understanding dawns: The Labrador’s lips and teeth are those of a human! Indeed, they are, as is the creature’s larynx, gifting him with the ability to speak English. Strangely, the dog speaks only in anacreontics, turning his every utterance into poetry, Later, for his reception toast, he’ll say: “Blinking, blanking, glasses fall, Red spills like a curtain call. Soothing, softly, comes the night, Lust encased in earthly blight. Drink up now and know for true, The toyman’s gaze follows you.” But for now, the dog remains silent. Seeing the bride’s mother, a question arises: What uncanny valley did this female emerge from? For a woman allegedly in her forties, she is remarkably well preserved. At her mouth and eye corners, no wrinkles can be discerned. Her demeanor is perky, her physique voluptuous. Still, the sight of the woman inspires unease. Her gait is too perfect, as if she is not walking at all, but rolling forward on ceramic ball bearings. Every word that she utters is exquisitely modulated, but when meeting her eyes, it seems that no intelligence lies behind them. Is she genuine flesh and blood, or a product of Amadeus’ workshop? one wonders. If she is custom-made, did the toyman somehow implant an operational reproductive system within her? Or is the gal’s motherhood strictly nonbiological? Claiming his position on the minister’s left, Amadeus faces the audience, smiling with diamond-tipped fangs. Beside him is Junior, his best man. Technically, Junior isn’t actually present, as his corporeal body remains tethered to a virtual reality booth. As detaching the young man would lead to his immediate demise, Junior attends through telepresence. Within a hovering videotelephony sphere, his beaming face can be glimpsed—not his current countenance, but the one he’d worn as a preschooler. When the true Junior tries to scream, the sphere’s Junior whistles. When the true Junior begs for death, the sphere’s Junior says, “I love you, Dad.” “I know you do,” Amadeus replies. Alongside them, chimpanzee groomsmen stand, wearing matching tuxedos. But these are no ordinary chimpanzees. Through genetic tweaking, Amadeus has amplified each’s intelligence to that of an average human, multiplying their neurons more than tenfold, up to eighty-six billion. He’d accomplished this feat while the chimps were still embryos, soaking their brains with stem cells. Because such neurogenesis requires greater head space, the chimpanzees’ craniums are oversized. Up the center aisle, bridesmaids step, followed by the maid of honor. The bridesmaids wear matching green dresses: strapless ruched chiffon. The maid of honor’s dress shares their length and color motif, but is one-shouldered to distinguish her. One and all, the bridesmaids are rod puppets, with hidden biomechatronic fingers manipulating their mobility. The maid of honor, on the other hand, is a biomorphic robot, with a biological system indiscernible from that of a human. Actuated by Amadeus-sent electromagnetic waves, the ladies smile, blink, and bat their eyes. Next, the ring bearer flutters down the aisle, beak-gripping a ring. Striding alongside Tango, the flower girl scatters petals. As she is a human-flower hybrid, the petals are castoffs from her own physicality. A song springs into being—Felix Mendelssohn's “Wedding March,” to be precise. And look, here comes the bride. submitted by /u/JeremytheTulpa to r/scarystories [link] [comments]

Chapter 5: Perspective Shift Viewing the keep’s stairwell, one might mistake the professor for a poltergeist. Indeed, his footfalls hardly seem to meet the steps. Peering a trifle closer, however, one realizes that, as with the rest of the residence, each stone stair is adorned with sensor-laden plastic film. This time, the film is transparent, aside from the areas where Professor Pandora’s feet land. There, brief footprints form—purple, then yellow, then blue—following him up to the lord’s hall, which has been converted into a living room, kitchen, and dining room. Scattered about the living room, animatronics reenact historical atrocities: Ward 22 chemical castrations, Mengele twin experiments, Dr. Albert Kligman’s “dermatological research,” and others. Perusing these, the professor grins. Ah, he thinks, a kindred spirit, one capable of culling inspiration from history’s true pioneers. In fact, were I capable of friendship, it seems that I might find it herein. Where is this ingenious toyman? Why hasn’t he arrived to greet me? To attract his attention, I’ll announce my presence. The professor’s lips peel back; his larynx widens. In a language older than humanity—a netherspace-spawned nightmare reminiscent of a buzz saw attempting backwards Latin—he shrieks. Resounding throughout the keep, the screech shatters wall-mounted LED screens and makes electrified tube lights explode into spark showers. The professor continues for several minutes, to no avail. Isolated, he remains, bereft of adversaries and victims. This won’t do, he thinks. Suddenly, in the ceiling’s epicenter, an oral cavity forms. Plastic lips open and close, birthing sonance in the toyman’s own eerie speech: “Curse that damnable racket, you insolent interloper. My bride and daughter were sleeping, and you’ve aborted their dreams. Are you ignorant of proper guest etiquette or just willfully malicious?” Aborting his demonic caterwauling, the professor complies. When a ceiling oculus opens, the wraithlike fellow stares up into it and answers, “I apologize profusely. On the other hand, your conduct as a host leaves much to be desired, so perhaps you might stifle your judgments for the nonce.” “To claim the guest privilege, one must first be invited. Still, your method of entry intrigues me, so you’ll be spared from an immediate execution.” To illustrate his benevolence, the toyman opens a trapdoor beside Professor Pandora’s boot. Peering into it, the professor sees an oubliette occupied by razor-mouthed monstrosities, piranha-toothed humanoids covered in slothlike fur. Bones litter the floor beneath them, some recognizable as human. Illuminated, the creatures glance up from their repast—wild goat, eaten raw—and yodel. Clawing their way up the oubliette’s walls, they teeth-gnash and slobber. Before the creatures can emerge, the trapdoor closes. “I have constructed many doorways,” the ceiling mouth utters, “but never one such as yours. It mimicked my own sensor skin, but seemed to be its own living entity. Tell me, good sir, whence did that entrance emerge from, and why do I no longer sense it?” “The floor door comes and goes,” the professor answers. “Tell me, am I speaking to the toyman?” “Amadeus Wilson, to be exact. And whom do I have the honor to reply to? “They call me Professor Pandora.” “And which Ph.D. program spawned you?” For the first time in his malignant life, the professor succumbs to self-consciousness. Having accumulated no higher education, and provided his purloined pupils with nothing beyond torment, he has no true claim to the title. Rather than admit this datum, he changes the subject. “This colloquy has parched me,” he says. “Perhaps I might quench my thirst in your kitchen.” His fingers curl and uncurl, symptomizing blossoming rage. “Spare yourself the effort. I’ll have the maid mix you a concoction,” the ceiling mouth speaks, before widening into a larger aperture. Through the hole, a woman descends—or at least the remains of one—attached to a filament which dissolves when she lands. Her grease-stained uniform contains breasts so grotesquely oversized that the woman can hardly stand upright. Four holes have been cut into the garment to accommodate four extra arms. Her lips are sewn speechless; subcutaneous implants make the maid’s skin glow multicolored. Continuous horror has rendered her hair white. Eyes downcast, she sets off for the kitchen. She returns with a goblet. Snatching it into his grip, the professor finds the glass empty. “Am I expected to guzzle down air?” he enquires. The woman shakes her head negative, and then tilts over the goblet. Traveling up her arms and torso, strange swellings reach her mouth. She swishes and spits, filling Professor Pandora’s glass with a curious substance. A filament sprouts from the top of her head and hauls the maid back into the ceiling. Studying the beverage, the professor sees swirling colors: cattleya and smalt, vermilion and puce. Sniffing, he smells a succession of scents: sandalwood and lavender, bergamot and bay laurel. Am I experiencing phantosmia? he wonders. Outside of the nightclub, I’ve never glimpsed such a libation. Bubbles surface, whistling like bottlenose dolphins as they pop. Finger-stirring the liquid, the professor finds it freezing, then scalding. Shrugging, he takes a sip. His head rocks back; his arms pinwheel. Swirling nebulae dance across his mindscape. Within his cortex, the professor feels his 5-HT2A receptors activating, a mind-bending coming on. I’ve been dosed, he realizes, with some new serotonergic psychedelic. This Amadeus fellow is a worthy foe. Before the drug can enslave him, the professor shunts it out of his system, into netherspace, wherein the liquid gains sentience and begins preying upon captive souls. Suddenly, from a shadowy recess, a hexacopter drone flies forth. Gazing through its thermal imaging camera, the toyman targets the professor with an electric laser. He fires a 100-kilowatt light ray, which the professor barely manages to duck. Reflexively, the professor removes his purple overcoat, and throws it over the drone before the device can fire another light ray. Pulling the drone to the floor, he then shatter-stomps it. Arm-sliding back into his coat sleeves, he voices mockery: “You’ll have to do better than that.” Perhaps his words might have been better chosen, because from fresh-born wall gaps, four modified canines emerge, buoyed by pneumatic artificial muscles. Baring teeth of wurtzite boron nitride, their muzzles festooned with phosphorescent foam, they growl like power leaf blowers. One dog has a mobile satellite sticking out of his skull. A canine leaps for the professor and he bats it aside. Another goes for his ankle. Leapfrogging the beast, Pandora nearly stumbles, but preternatural reflexes keep him from tumbling. With eyes like indigo light projected through rippled glass, they target him. Ducking and juking, the professor dodges darting canine faces. A realization strikes him: There’s nothing for me here. No victims await me; no delight can be had. Perhaps it would be best to recede, to let The Other return. First, I’ll bestow a gift upon The Other, and obliterate these technomongrels for him. Otherwise, that inelegant sap would be shredded in seconds. Backflipping over four modified canines attacking in unison, the professor removes his top hat. He thrusts his arm deep within it, up to the elbow. From netherspace, he pulls a blade: an ebon rapier built from the nightmares of dying children. Its sweeping hilt scalds his hand, but the professor grits his teeth through the pain. With a powerful thrust, he penetrates one canine’s flank. As the creature yelps and convulses, Pandora plunges the blade into the next canine’s skull, piercing the nanomolecular weave encasing its brain. Two left, he thinks, jabbing the rapier into the satellite-equipped canine’s eye. The dog shakes his head and sneezes, and then collapses with his faux appendages splayed. Sizing up his last slavering assailant, the professor decides to get up close and personal. After casting his sword back into netherspace, he leaps upon the dog’s back. With both hands, he grabs the canine’s muzzle and wrenches it leftward, snapping the creature’s neck. Even this violence proves less than satisfying, the professor thinks ruefully. The toyman’s tinkering has reduced every organism within these blasphemous confines to puppet-status. What’s the point of torturing marionettes? Why did the door bring me here? The professor pushes his overcoat into his top hat. Disembodied, he leaps in after it. With a puff of sickly smoke, the top hat vanishes. Having reclaimed his own body, the professor’s host organism regards the proximate butchery and shrieks. Chapter 6: Centauride Having recovered some semblance of composure, the traveller presses a palm to his brow. The professor’s memories are now his memories. Erroneously, he believes himself a canine slayer. Before the nightclub and castle, I was at a commune, he remembers. There were deformed folk and monsters, feasts and celebrants. I killed twelve women before leaving, but why? What was my motive? They were so beautiful, so ethereally fragile. Why did I axe-chop their heads off? The traveller’s physical features are dissimilar to the professor’s—gaunt, infinitely haunted—though the two somehow share the same body. Years ago, when the traveller was alone in his physicality, he stumbled from a slaughterhouse rave into an underground nightclub. Within the club, he received a drink of swirling fuchsia and aubergine. When placed to his lips, it entered his body as a vapor. The vapor had a name: Professor Pandora. Subsequent to that occasion, the professor has lived through the traveller, seizing his body for carnage, then receding. In and out of the nightclub they’ve passed, to thereafter emerge into unhallowed settings. Whensoever the traveller gains awareness of his parasite, the professor strikes it from his memory. Thus, the traveller believes himself to be instinct-driven, remembers committing terrible acts without forethought. Here we go again, the traveller thinks. Another fucked up situation. Will I ever get home? Do I even have a home anymore? Are my friends and relatives even alive? Obviously, I was brought here for a reason. This toyman, I’ll have to confront him. Passing into the dining room, the traveller spots a twelve-foot table, topped by a scratch-free LCD screen. Its 360-degree surface has hundreds of touch points, allowing diners to work and game as they grub. Aside from a blinking mannequin, nobody sits at the table. The mannequin moans, and so the traveller hurries onward. In the kitchen, there stands a refrigerator, flanked by two massive tanks. Within the tanks, two vagrants scream eternally, frozen in suspended animation, coated in cryoprotectants. Inside of the fridge, there are edible fungi, homemade soft drinks, and unidentifiable meats. At the sight of a modified mosquito, wingless and swollen, vomiting indigo cheese inside a Tupperware container, the traveller’s stomach surges and he slams the door. Suddenly, he hears flapping. From every room corner, birds converge upon him, their diamond talons scratching, their unfolding metal beaks pecking. Screaming, the traveller covers his eyes just in time to avert a gouging. Blindly, he flees, rebounding off of a human-sized industrial blender. Toward the stairwell, he retreats. The birds give pursuit. Slash: a razor-feathered eagle wing slices the traveller’s scalp. Sploosh: smacking a parrot away, the traveller’s fist becomes lodged within its gelid, gelatinous belly. With effort, he pulls his hand free, twisting the parrot’s squishy skull off in the process. Off balance, the traveller’s feet tangle, and he tumbles face-first, busting his lip. One pigeon has proboscises where its eyes should be, and seven arthropodal compound oculi ringing its neck. Another has human lips, which grin horribly as the creature claws the traveller’s arm. Tasting blood, the traveller screams, pinned prone by dozens of winged antagonists. There are too many of ’em, he realizes, as the back of his shirt becomes confetti and its underlying flesh is carved. Behind his eyes, pain flares crimson. With no weapons available, he has little choice but to await expiration. Suddenly, a shadow slides over the traveller, heralding a rescuer’s arrival. This liberator is bizarrely zoomorphic, a limbless young woman installed into a biomechatronic pony physique. With her vocal cords severed, Shanna Wilson cannot speak. Still, as is the case with all of Amadeus’ half-living kin, the toyman’s pets are programmed to leave her uninjured. Clip-clopping forward until her four hooves form compass points around the traveller, the toyman’s daughter sends the birds scattering. Rolling over, the traveller views an equine underside, and cautiously crawls out from beneath it. Standing, he comes face-to-face with a blonde, sallow-faced sufferer, with giant implanted incisors bursting through her peeled-back lips. “Thank you,” he says, and she nods an acknowledgement. When the birds resume pecking, he instinctively hops onto her back. Then comes sudden motion, a galloping that leaves the traveller desperately grasping Shanna’s waist, averting a calamitous tumble. Falling behind, the birds flap up into hidden passageways, the honeycombed veins of the keep. Yards before the stairwell, Shanna falls suddenly still, so abruptly that the traveller loses his grip and goes flying. He bruises his thigh and sprains his right wrist, minor injuries given the circumstances. From the closest wall, a mouth sprouts, uttering, “Shanna, Shanna, Shanna…I leave you a bit of autonomy and what do you do? Throw a spanner into the works, it seems. Darling, you cannot provide succor to Daddy’s new plaything. Now go join your brother in the arcade.” Shanna attempts to resist, until the toyman activates a cerebral override, which sends her clip-clopping down the stairs, out of the traveller’s vision range. Colorful, transitory hoofprints trail her down. “And what have we here?” the toyman asks with his wall mouth. “A shapeshifter? A masquerader? An enchanter? Your form is so altered; perhaps you’re a new you entirely. Did we just meet, or should I introduce myself?” “Huh?” the traveller gasps. “What do you mean? Didn’t we just speak in the living room?” “Well, I sure conversed with somebody, a Professor Pandora.” “Professor? Dude, I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but I don’t know any professors. I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades—when I’m working, that is. Now can we drop this cat and mouse shit already? Your creepy-ass castle is terrifying, sure, and what you’ve done to your family is truly grotesque. But guess what, pal, I’ve seen worse in my travels. Why don’t you come down here, and we can exchange terror tales until my floor door reappears?” “Hold on just a minute. You don’t know any professors? How can that be? Perhaps I should scan you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And what’s this I see? A flickering in your eye’s neural network. Somebody’s wearing you, boy, and you’re too doltish to see it. Unfortunately, we’re fresh out of exorcists.” The toyman’s words trouble the traveller, but not for long. Manipulating the traveller’s hippocampus from within his medial temporal lobe, Professor Pandora erases them before they can be consolidated into long-term memory. “At any rate,” the toyman continues, “you enter my private technopolis uninvited, and now attempt to dictate our palaver’s terms? This frigid fringeland has but one ruler, and I am he. Within these walls, every entity both living and inanimate becomes my plaything. You are my property now, best accept it.” “I’m no man’s slave,” the traveller responds. “I was brought here for a reason…perhaps to end your madness.” “Try, if you wish,” the wall mouth speaks, before sealing over. Perhaps as a warning, the stairwell’s walls belch transitory flame spouts, scorching the empty air. Undaunted, the traveller begins ascending, one step at a time, slowly. A herd of mechanized velociraptor skeletons rush past him, heading toward the video arcade. Inhuman revelry fills the air; poltergeists crowd the atmosphere. Briefly, an organism slides into the traveller’s peripheral vision: a polycephalic hybrid, one head feline, the other vulpine, propelling itself on cephalopodan tentacles. But turning his head, the traveller spots no such creature. Perhaps it was never really there. Leaving the staircase, the traveller enters a private chamber. Combining a boy’s bedroom with a family entertainment center, the large room resembles nothing that the traveller has ever seen. Climbing structures, quarter pipes, and an archery range ring its perimeter. There are trampolines, Velcro walls, ball pits, and miniature golf fixtures. The ceiling features looping, water-filled, transparent tubes, through which ferrets blast at supersonic speeds. The bed shifts and bubbles; drawers slide open and closed. Somewhere within the castle, the toyman cackles. “Hello?” the traveller shouts, but there are no architectural lips to answer. And then there are. Between the traveller’s feet, a floor mouth forms and opens. “What shall I do with you?” it ponders. “A nanobacteria torture cell? Or perhaps a new face sculpted of tactile sensors? Should I rebuild you as a merman or a Minotauresque butler? So many options, and only one man within one man.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, speak your nonsense all ya want, pal. I escaped from the Order of the Lunar Anthropophagi. I exited the House of Eternal October with all my limbs intact. You think you’re so fuckin’ original, but I’ve met a hundred madmen just like you. Sure, you’re easily the smartest monster, but at the end of the day, so what? You destroyed your own family, for cryin’ out loud.” Unable to acknowledge criticism, the toyman continues as if the traveller hadn’t spoken. “Or would you like to be a performer? I could make a gymnast of you, or a daredevil extreme athlete. Did you believe that this chamber’s apparatuses are just for show? See your possible future and applaud your host’s ingenuity.” The floor mouth disappears, as a ceiling portion swings downward, becoming an inclined plane for some new arrivals to roll down. And roll they do, on modified skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs and unicycles. Gymnasts follow behind them, back handspringing down the ramp. Before the traveller’s astonished eyes, the two-dozen fresh arrivals commence a synchronized routine, utilizing the quarter pipes, trampolines, and climbing structures with expert precision—flipping, grinding and whirling, errorless. These performers had been human once: vagrants, foster children, mail order brides, and the like. Now, they are something else entirely. Dyneema fibers coat their epidermises, rendering the performers impact resistant. They are bullet resistant as well, in case the toyman requires a small army at some later date. Observing their efforts, the traveller realizes that the riders do not push, pedal or hand-propel, their conveyances being entirely motorized. They are androgynous, these performers, with the males having received estrogen bombardments, and the females androgen hormones. Thus, they are equally mighty and graceful, and seem to possess extraterrestrial reflexes. Their natural eyes are empty, their faces slack. Their hair has been shaven away, with implanted bionic eyes ringing their craniums, providing omnidirectional vision. Whatever personalities they’d once possessed are absent. As with his creature captives, Amadeus used transcranial magnetic stimulation and sensory image bombardment to resculpt the mentalities of these unfortunates, yoking them to his will forevermore. Having finished their routine, the performers ascend the inclined plane and disappear back into the ceiling. As the traveller considers pursuing them, the ramp swings up on its hinges, leaving the ceiling unbroken. Shrugging, the traveller wonders, What the hell was that about? Chapter 7: Taking the Plunge Slipping into a one-button, single-breasted jacket, Amadeus smiles at the mirror. He pinches his black bow tie and gives his flat-front trousers a pat. His patent leather shoes are well polished. Perhaps I should wear a tuxedo everyday, he thinks to himself, to keep these claustrophobic confines classy. With the traveller’s arrival, he’d almost forgotten. Today, the toyman is to be married. Technically, he’d already wedded Midge—his children’s mother, now their maid. But as with many toys, Amadeus had grown tired of her, and thus had granted himself a divorce. Utilizing his backup brain, the toyman tracks the traveller, while his ordinary mind invokes Richard Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.” Returning to the garret, the toyman flicks a finger toward the ceiling. An aperture opens; a ladder descends. Climbing, Amadeus says, “Come along, Tango. We can’t start the ceremony without you.” And naturally, the hummingbird follows, emerging into open air milliseconds after Amadeus. Atop the keep’s circular shell, a single rollercoaster car awaits, resting upon a launch track, which tilts slightly upwards, but seems connected to no further railroading. Should one climb inside the car, a quick plunge into nihility seems inevitable. But when Amadeus whistles, molecular assemblers spring into action, and the track begins self-replicating, forming corkscrews and cobra rolls, dive loops and raven turns. Soon, the rollercoaster rings the castle’s inner perimeter, with its brake run situated at the property’s gatehouse. Settling into his seat, Amadeus sends a thought into the ether, causing an over-the-shoulder restraint to fall over him and settle into its locking mechanism. Truthfully, with his augmented physiology, the toyman no longer requires restraints, being able to clutch with fourteen-jointed fingers and adhere his feet to anything solid. But every man has at least one fault, and Amadeus’ is nostalgia. During his much-cherished childhood years, Amadeus’ family had valued one tradition above all others: the yearly trip to Coney Island, which just so happened to coincide with his birthday. He remembers the Cyclone, the Tornado, the Wonder Wheel, and the Thunderbolt. He remembers standing at the edge of the shoreline, too timid to enter the sea, though his mother prodded and cooed. He remembers hot dogs and funnel cakes, custard and pizza. The remembrances are so vivid, he can practically step into them. In fact, should he desire to, Amadeus can mine his own amygdala, to refeel the precise feelings he’d felt on those occasions, bridging the gap between the toyman and his boy self. But why stop there? By bringing his striatum, mammillary bodies, and hippocampus into the equation, he can program those very same days into the arcade’s virtual reality booths, and relive them as his past form, or as another character entirely. But seeing his child self, Amadeus would only rebuild him, and so he drags himself back into the present. When he snaps his fingers, a miniature restraint materializes atop the next seat over. “You know what to do, Tango,” he says. And indeed, the hummingbird does, fluttering into position, entering into brief torpor after the harness secures him. And then the wheels are rolling, the car gaining momentum. Soon Amadeus is freefalling, inverting and rolling. Air buffets his grin. Weightless, his stomach sinks. He passes the keep again and again, viewing it from every angle. Just before he reaches the gatehouse, his artificial neural network alerts Amadeus to a factoid: the traveller is becoming too nosy. Exploring Junior’s closet, the intruder strews clothes across the floor. This will not do, Amadeus thinks, looping. And so a razor wire tumbleweed rolls out of the wall and chases the traveller about the chamber. When the car brakes, both restraints swing upward. Now Tango is fluttering, and Amadeus is standing, thinking to himself, Today is a wonderful day. Both of the gatehouse’s portcullises are up. Its adjoining barbican has been rendered temporarily defenseless: no boiling oil will splash down from its murder holes, no arrows will fly through the passageway’s slits. Under the gatehouse’s eroded battlements, rows of wrought iron seats lead toward a platinum altar. A makeshift aisle divides the rows: electrified tube lights spiraling around Orchidaceae. Lace curtains are hung; votive candles glow within suspended jars. Behind the altar, flowers, crystals, and pearls form an arched backdrop. When Amadeus nods at the rollercoaster, the car reverses. As it loops and rolls its way back up to the launch track, the car’s inbuilt disassemblers erase the rollercoaster behind it, breaking molecular bonds with enzyme bombardments. Within minutes, it is as if the rollercoaster had never existed. When next it materializes, the track will be altered, perhaps with a sustained inversion. The officiant is animatronic. Beneath its flexible plastic epidermis, motion actuators mimic human musculature. With three-dimensional sensors, it scans the crowd, studying facial contours, analyzing skin textures, identifying each attendee individually. Complex algorithms and sensors render it almost entirely autonomous, able to hold conversations, register emotions, and speak with pseudo-empathy. Should any unforeseen variable cause the animatronic to deviate from its ceremonial script, Amadeus will override it, and speak through the officiant via teleoperation. Leftward, the bride’s family and friends are gathered. Rightward, Amadeus’ guests sit. There are ex-hobos, lost hookers, kidnapped children, and a cornucopia of intellectual disabilities present. Everyone dresses in finery, smiling clownishly. None speak, save for preprogrammed verbalizations: “Perfect weather today,” “Love is a beautiful thing,” and, “That Amadeus sure is brilliant. His bride must be the luckiest gal on Earth.” Some stare past eternity. Others are built of awkward angles, their jagged, enhanced skeletal structures housing retractable armaments. The groom’s grandparents make an appearance, rolling to the front row in translucent caskets. Atop the caskets’ frosted glass exteriors, three-dimensional computer graphics depict the couple smiling and waving. Inside the boxes, two skeletons grin. Beside them, two seats await Amadeus’ mother and father. On the aisle’s opposite side, the bride’s grandparents claim chairs, leaving two for her mother and father. The bride has two grandfathers, it turns out, conjoined twins. One is Caucasian; the other is African. One’s a dwarf; one’s a giant. One appears middle-aged, the other an octogenarian. Attached at the waist, the giant appears to carry the dwarf in a side-slung baby pouch, but there is no pouch, only skin. Their suit is custom-tailored. Their lips spasm, attempting to frown, but unable to. The bride’s grandmother possesses physical features that would make even an anthropometrist scratch their head in puzzlement. Her eyelids possess the epicanthal folds of an Asiatic, but her head is dolichocephalic like an Australian Aborigine. Though her nose is long and narrow like an American Indian, her lips are as thick as a Sub-Saharan African’s. Within them, a Caucasian’s spatulate teeth nestle. As for the woman’s epidermis, it is quite zebraic. Horizontally striped, it displays shades of olive, peach, brown, red, black and yellow. Her irises resemble lapis lazuli. Viewing these bridal progenitors, one inevitably thinks, Holy Moses, such interesting individuals. Were they ever infants? Did they slide from live mothers, or were they gene-spliced into being, their recombinant DNA sculpted by the groom’s ghastly hands? What do their children resemble? And what is the bride? Is she human, or some technoblasphemy? If the latter, what would she be like in bed? Here comes the groom’s mother, Charlotte Wilson, and isn’t she grand? Silently, she squeezes her face in her hands. Her asymmetrical ruched mesh gown is navy blue and embellished with costume jewelry. Her chic blonde locks seem stolen from a mid-twenties strumpet. They were, in fact, donated by the bald looker seated in the back row. Her escort is none other than her husband, Herbert Wilson. Once, back in Amadeus’ human days, Herbert had attempted to disown his son. “You’re a monster!” he’d screamed. “The disappearances, and the…the blasphemous contraptions! I always knew you were sick! Even as a baby, you had an evil gleam in your eye! I could barely bring myself to touch you.” But seeing him now, you’d suspect no such acrimony. His smile is large; his eyes are wide. Resultant of a recent lobotomy, his previous personality is extinct. After helping Herbert into his chair, Charlotte sits demurely. For one brief instant, a complicated expression slides across her face, as if there is information that she wishes to impart to Herbert, but is too frightened to articulate. The show goes on, and into sight steps the bride’s mother, escorted by a Labrador usher. The canine wears a tuxedo and walks upright on his hind legs. Upon first glance, one suspects that something is off with the creature. Something about his face… Inevitably, understanding dawns: The Labrador’s lips and teeth are those of a human! Indeed, they are, as is the creature’s larynx, gifting him with the ability to speak English. Strangely, the dog speaks only in anacreontics, turning his every utterance into poetry, Later, for his reception toast, he’ll say: “Blinking, blanking, glasses fall, Red spills like a curtain call. Soothing, softly, comes the night, Lust encased in earthly blight. Drink up now and know for true, The toyman’s gaze follows you.” But for now, the dog remains silent. Seeing the bride’s mother, a question arises: What uncanny valley did this female emerge from? For a woman allegedly in her forties, she is remarkably well preserved. At her mouth and eye corners, no wrinkles can be discerned. Her demeanor is perky, her physique voluptuous. Still, the sight of the woman inspires unease. Her gait is too perfect, as if she is not walking at all, but rolling forward on ceramic ball bearings. Every word that she utters is exquisitely modulated, but when meeting her eyes, it seems that no intelligence lies behind them. Is she genuine flesh and blood, or a product of Amadeus’ workshop? one wonders. If she is custom-made, did the toyman somehow implant an operational reproductive system within her? Or is the gal’s motherhood strictly nonbiological? Claiming his position on the minister’s left, Amadeus faces the audience, smiling with diamond-tipped fangs. Beside him is Junior, his best man. Technically, Junior isn’t actually present, as his corporeal body remains tethered to a virtual reality booth. As detaching the young man would lead to his immediate demise, Junior attends through telepresence. Within a hovering videotelephony sphere, his beaming face can be glimpsed—not his current countenance, but the one he’d worn as a preschooler. When the true Junior tries to scream, the sphere’s Junior whistles. When the true Junior begs for death, the sphere’s Junior says, “I love you, Dad.” “I know you do,” Amadeus replies. Alongside them, chimpanzee groomsmen stand, wearing matching tuxedos. But these are no ordinary chimpanzees. Through genetic tweaking, Amadeus has amplified each’s intelligence to that of an average human, multiplying their neurons more than tenfold, up to eighty-six billion. He’d accomplished this feat while the chimps were still embryos, soaking their brains with stem cells. Because such neurogenesis requires greater head space, the chimpanzees’ craniums are oversized. Up the center aisle, bridesmaids step, followed by the maid of honor. The bridesmaids wear matching green dresses: strapless ruched chiffon. The maid of honor’s dress shares their length and color motif, but is one-shouldered to distinguish her. One and all, the bridesmaids are rod puppets, with hidden biomechatronic fingers manipulating their mobility. The maid of honor, on the other hand, is a biomorphic robot, with a biological system indiscernible from that of a human. Actuated by Amadeus-sent electromagnetic waves, the ladies smile, blink, and bat their eyes. Next, the ring bearer flutters down the aisle, beak-gripping a ring. Striding alongside Tango, the flower girl scatters petals. As she is a human-flower hybrid, the petals are castoffs from her own physicality. A song springs into being—Felix Mendelssohn's “Wedding March,” to be precise. And look, here comes the bride. submitted by /u/JeremytheTulpa to r/TheCrypticCompendium [link] [comments]

Chapter 5: Perspective Shift Viewing the keep’s stairwell, one might mistake the professor for a poltergeist. Indeed, his footfalls hardly seem to meet the steps. Peering a trifle closer, however, one realizes that, as with the rest of the residence, each stone stair is adorned with sensor-laden plastic film. This time, the film is transparent, aside from the areas where Professor Pandora’s feet land. There, brief footprints form—purple, then yellow, then blue—following him up to the lord’s hall, which has been converted into a living room, kitchen, and dining room. Scattered about the living room, animatronics reenact historical atrocities: Ward 22 chemical castrations, Mengele twin experiments, Dr. Albert Kligman’s “dermatological research,” and others. Perusing these, the professor grins. Ah, he thinks, a kindred spirit, one capable of culling inspiration from history’s true pioneers. In fact, were I capable of friendship, it seems that I might find it herein. Where is this ingenious toyman? Why hasn’t he arrived to greet me? To attract his attention, I’ll announce my presence. The professor’s lips peel back; his larynx widens. In a language older than humanity—a netherspace-spawned nightmare reminiscent of a buzz saw attempting backwards Latin—he shrieks. Resounding throughout the keep, the screech shatters wall-mounted LED screens and makes electrified tube lights explode into spark showers. The professor continues for several minutes, to no avail. Isolated, he remains, bereft of adversaries and victims. This won’t do, he thinks. Suddenly, in the ceiling’s epicenter, an oral cavity forms. Plastic lips open and close, birthing sonance in the toyman’s own eerie speech: “Curse that damnable racket, you insolent interloper. My bride and daughter were sleeping, and you’ve aborted their dreams. Are you ignorant of proper guest etiquette or just willfully malicious?” Aborting his demonic caterwauling, the professor complies. When a ceiling oculus opens, the wraithlike fellow stares up into it and answers, “I apologize profusely. On the other hand, your conduct as a host leaves much to be desired, so perhaps you might stifle your judgments for the nonce.” “To claim the guest privilege, one must first be invited. Still, your method of entry intrigues me, so you’ll be spared from an immediate execution.” To illustrate his benevolence, the toyman opens a trapdoor beside Professor Pandora’s boot. Peering into it, the professor sees an oubliette occupied by razor-mouthed monstrosities, piranha-toothed humanoids covered in slothlike fur. Bones litter the floor beneath them, some recognizable as human. Illuminated, the creatures glance up from their repast—wild goat, eaten raw—and yodel. Clawing their way up the oubliette’s walls, they teeth-gnash and slobber. Before the creatures can emerge, the trapdoor closes. “I have constructed many doorways,” the ceiling mouth utters, “but never one such as yours. It mimicked my own sensor skin, but seemed to be its own living entity. Tell me, good sir, whence did that entrance emerge from, and why do I no longer sense it?” “The floor door comes and goes,” the professor answers. “Tell me, am I speaking to the toyman?” “Amadeus Wilson, to be exact. And whom do I have the honor to reply to? “They call me Professor Pandora.” “And which Ph.D. program spawned you?” For the first time in his malignant life, the professor succumbs to self-consciousness. Having accumulated no higher education, and provided his purloined pupils with nothing beyond torment, he has no true claim to the title. Rather than admit this datum, he changes the subject. “This colloquy has parched me,” he says. “Perhaps I might quench my thirst in your kitchen.” His fingers curl and uncurl, symptomizing blossoming rage. “Spare yourself the effort. I’ll have the maid mix you a concoction,” the ceiling mouth speaks, before widening into a larger aperture. Through the hole, a woman descends—or at least the remains of one—attached to a filament which dissolves when she lands. Her grease-stained uniform contains breasts so grotesquely oversized that the woman can hardly stand upright. Four holes have been cut into the garment to accommodate four extra arms. Her lips are sewn speechless; subcutaneous implants make the maid’s skin glow multicolored. Continuous horror has rendered her hair white. Eyes downcast, she sets off for the kitchen. She returns with a goblet. Snatching it into his grip, the professor finds the glass empty. “Am I expected to guzzle down air?” he enquires. The woman shakes her head negative, and then tilts over the goblet. Traveling up her arms and torso, strange swellings reach her mouth. She swishes and spits, filling Professor Pandora’s glass with a curious substance. A filament sprouts from the top of her head and hauls the maid back into the ceiling. Studying the beverage, the professor sees swirling colors: cattleya and smalt, vermilion and puce. Sniffing, he smells a succession of scents: sandalwood and lavender, bergamot and bay laurel. Am I experiencing phantosmia? he wonders. Outside of the nightclub, I’ve never glimpsed such a libation. Bubbles surface, whistling like bottlenose dolphins as they pop. Finger-stirring the liquid, the professor finds it freezing, then scalding. Shrugging, he takes a sip. His head rocks back; his arms pinwheel. Swirling nebulae dance across his mindscape. Within his cortex, the professor feels his 5-HT2A receptors activating, a mind-bending coming on. I’ve been dosed, he realizes, with some new serotonergic psychedelic. This Amadeus fellow is a worthy foe. Before the drug can enslave him, the professor shunts it out of his system, into netherspace, wherein the liquid gains sentience and begins preying upon captive souls. Suddenly, from a shadowy recess, a hexacopter drone flies forth. Gazing through its thermal imaging camera, the toyman targets the professor with an electric laser. He fires a 100-kilowatt light ray, which the professor barely manages to duck. Reflexively, the professor removes his purple overcoat, and throws it over the drone before the device can fire another light ray. Pulling the drone to the floor, he then shatter-stomps it. Arm-sliding back into his coat sleeves, he voices mockery: “You’ll have to do better than that.” Perhaps his words might have been better chosen, because from fresh-born wall gaps, four modified canines emerge, buoyed by pneumatic artificial muscles. Baring teeth of wurtzite boron nitride, their muzzles festooned with phosphorescent foam, they growl like power leaf blowers. One dog has a mobile satellite sticking out of his skull. A canine leaps for the professor and he bats it aside. Another goes for his ankle. Leapfrogging the beast, Pandora nearly stumbles, but preternatural reflexes keep him from tumbling. With eyes like indigo light projected through rippled glass, they target him. Ducking and juking, the professor dodges darting canine faces. A realization strikes him: There’s nothing for me here. No victims await me; no delight can be had. Perhaps it would be best to recede, to let The Other return. First, I’ll bestow a gift upon The Other, and obliterate these technomongrels for him. Otherwise, that inelegant sap would be shredded in seconds. Backflipping over four modified canines attacking in unison, the professor removes his top hat. He thrusts his arm deep within it, up to the elbow. From netherspace, he pulls a blade: an ebon rapier built from the nightmares of dying children. Its sweeping hilt scalds his hand, but the professor grits his teeth through the pain. With a powerful thrust, he penetrates one canine’s flank. As the creature yelps and convulses, Pandora plunges the blade into the next canine’s skull, piercing the nanomolecular weave encasing its brain. Two left, he thinks, jabbing the rapier into the satellite-equipped canine’s eye. The dog shakes his head and sneezes, and then collapses with his faux appendages splayed. Sizing up his last slavering assailant, the professor decides to get up close and personal. After casting his sword back into netherspace, he leaps upon the dog’s back. With both hands, he grabs the canine’s muzzle and wrenches it leftward, snapping the creature’s neck. Even this violence proves less than satisfying, the professor thinks ruefully. The toyman’s tinkering has reduced every organism within these blasphemous confines to puppet-status. What’s the point of torturing marionettes? Why did the door bring me here? The professor pushes his overcoat into his top hat. Disembodied, he leaps in after it. With a puff of sickly smoke, the top hat vanishes. Having reclaimed his own body, the professor’s host organism regards the proximate butchery and shrieks. Chapter 6: Centauride Having recovered some semblance of composure, the traveller presses a palm to his brow. The professor’s memories are now his memories. Erroneously, he believes himself a canine slayer. Before the nightclub and castle, I was at a commune, he remembers. There were deformed folk and monsters, feasts and celebrants. I killed twelve women before leaving, but why? What was my motive? They were so beautiful, so ethereally fragile. Why did I axe-chop their heads off? The traveller’s physical features are dissimilar to the professor’s—gaunt, infinitely haunted—though the two somehow share the same body. Years ago, when the traveller was alone in his physicality, he stumbled from a slaughterhouse rave into an underground nightclub. Within the club, he received a drink of swirling fuchsia and aubergine. When placed to his lips, it entered his body as a vapor. The vapor had a name: Professor Pandora. Subsequent to that occasion, the professor has lived through the traveller, seizing his body for carnage, then receding. In and out of the nightclub they’ve passed, to thereafter emerge into unhallowed settings. Whensoever the traveller gains awareness of his parasite, the professor strikes it from his memory. Thus, the traveller believes himself to be instinct-driven, remembers committing terrible acts without forethought. Here we go again, the traveller thinks. Another fucked up situation. Will I ever get home? Do I even have a home anymore? Are my friends and relatives even alive? Obviously, I was brought here for a reason. This toyman, I’ll have to confront him. Passing into the dining room, the traveller spots a twelve-foot table, topped by a scratch-free LCD screen. Its 360-degree surface has hundreds of touch points, allowing diners to work and game as they grub. Aside from a blinking mannequin, nobody sits at the table. The mannequin moans, and so the traveller hurries onward. In the kitchen, there stands a refrigerator, flanked by two massive tanks. Within the tanks, two vagrants scream eternally, frozen in suspended animation, coated in cryoprotectants. Inside of the fridge, there are edible fungi, homemade soft drinks, and unidentifiable meats. At the sight of a modified mosquito, wingless and swollen, vomiting indigo cheese inside a Tupperware container, the traveller’s stomach surges and he slams the door. Suddenly, he hears flapping. From every room corner, birds converge upon him, their diamond talons scratching, their unfolding metal beaks pecking. Screaming, the traveller covers his eyes just in time to avert a gouging. Blindly, he flees, rebounding off of a human-sized industrial blender. Toward the stairwell, he retreats. The birds give pursuit. Slash: a razor-feathered eagle wing slices the traveller’s scalp. Sploosh: smacking a parrot away, the traveller’s fist becomes lodged within its gelid, gelatinous belly. With effort, he pulls his hand free, twisting the parrot’s squishy skull off in the process. Off balance, the traveller’s feet tangle, and he tumbles face-first, busting his lip. One pigeon has proboscises where its eyes should be, and seven arthropodal compound oculi ringing its neck. Another has human lips, which grin horribly as the creature claws the traveller’s arm. Tasting blood, the traveller screams, pinned prone by dozens of winged antagonists. There are too many of ’em, he realizes, as the back of his shirt becomes confetti and its underlying flesh is carved. Behind his eyes, pain flares crimson. With no weapons available, he has little choice but to await expiration. Suddenly, a shadow slides over the traveller, heralding a rescuer’s arrival. This liberator is bizarrely zoomorphic, a limbless young woman installed into a biomechatronic pony physique. With her vocal cords severed, Shanna Wilson cannot speak. Still, as is the case with all of Amadeus’ half-living kin, the toyman’s pets are programmed to leave her uninjured. Clip-clopping forward until her four hooves form compass points around the traveller, the toyman’s daughter sends the birds scattering. Rolling over, the traveller views an equine underside, and cautiously crawls out from beneath it. Standing, he comes face-to-face with a blonde, sallow-faced sufferer, with giant implanted incisors bursting through her peeled-back lips. “Thank you,” he says, and she nods an acknowledgement. When the birds resume pecking, he instinctively hops onto her back. Then comes sudden motion, a galloping that leaves the traveller desperately grasping Shanna’s waist, averting a calamitous tumble. Falling behind, the birds flap up into hidden passageways, the honeycombed veins of the keep. Yards before the stairwell, Shanna falls suddenly still, so abruptly that the traveller loses his grip and goes flying. He bruises his thigh and sprains his right wrist, minor injuries given the circumstances. From the closest wall, a mouth sprouts, uttering, “Shanna, Shanna, Shanna…I leave you a bit of autonomy and what do you do? Throw a spanner into the works, it seems. Darling, you cannot provide succor to Daddy’s new plaything. Now go join your brother in the arcade.” Shanna attempts to resist, until the toyman activates a cerebral override, which sends her clip-clopping down the stairs, out of the traveller’s vision range. Colorful, transitory hoofprints trail her down. “And what have we here?” the toyman asks with his wall mouth. “A shapeshifter? A masquerader? An enchanter? Your form is so altered; perhaps you’re a new you entirely. Did we just meet, or should I introduce myself?” “Huh?” the traveller gasps. “What do you mean? Didn’t we just speak in the living room?” “Well, I sure conversed with somebody, a Professor Pandora.” “Professor? Dude, I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but I don’t know any professors. I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades—when I’m working, that is. Now can we drop this cat and mouse shit already? Your creepy-ass castle is terrifying, sure, and what you’ve done to your family is truly grotesque. But guess what, pal, I’ve seen worse in my travels. Why don’t you come down here, and we can exchange terror tales until my floor door reappears?” “Hold on just a minute. You don’t know any professors? How can that be? Perhaps I should scan you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And what’s this I see? A flickering in your eye’s neural network. Somebody’s wearing you, boy, and you’re too doltish to see it. Unfortunately, we’re fresh out of exorcists.” The toyman’s words trouble the traveller, but not for long. Manipulating the traveller’s hippocampus from within his medial temporal lobe, Professor Pandora erases them before they can be consolidated into long-term memory. “At any rate,” the toyman continues, “you enter my private technopolis uninvited, and now attempt to dictate our palaver’s terms? This frigid fringeland has but one ruler, and I am he. Within these walls, every entity both living and inanimate becomes my plaything. You are my property now, best accept it.” “I’m no man’s slave,” the traveller responds. “I was brought here for a reason…perhaps to end your madness.” “Try, if you wish,” the wall mouth speaks, before sealing over. Perhaps as a warning, the stairwell’s walls belch transitory flame spouts, scorching the empty air. Undaunted, the traveller begins ascending, one step at a time, slowly. A herd of mechanized velociraptor skeletons rush past him, heading toward the video arcade. Inhuman revelry fills the air; poltergeists crowd the atmosphere. Briefly, an organism slides into the traveller’s peripheral vision: a polycephalic hybrid, one head feline, the other vulpine, propelling itself on cephalopodan tentacles. But turning his head, the traveller spots no such creature. Perhaps it was never really there. Leaving the staircase, the traveller enters a private chamber. Combining a boy’s bedroom with a family entertainment center, the large room resembles nothing that the traveller has ever seen. Climbing structures, quarter pipes, and an archery range ring its perimeter. There are trampolines, Velcro walls, ball pits, and miniature golf fixtures. The ceiling features looping, water-filled, transparent tubes, through which ferrets blast at supersonic speeds. The bed shifts and bubbles; drawers slide open and closed. Somewhere within the castle, the toyman cackles. “Hello?” the traveller shouts, but there are no architectural lips to answer. And then there are. Between the traveller’s feet, a floor mouth forms and opens. “What shall I do with you?” it ponders. “A nanobacteria torture cell? Or perhaps a new face sculpted of tactile sensors? Should I rebuild you as a merman or a Minotauresque butler? So many options, and only one man within one man.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, speak your nonsense all ya want, pal. I escaped from the Order of the Lunar Anthropophagi. I exited the House of Eternal October with all my limbs intact. You think you’re so fuckin’ original, but I’ve met a hundred madmen just like you. Sure, you’re easily the smartest monster, but at the end of the day, so what? You destroyed your own family, for cryin’ out loud.” Unable to acknowledge criticism, the toyman continues as if the traveller hadn’t spoken. “Or would you like to be a performer? I could make a gymnast of you, or a daredevil extreme athlete. Did you believe that this chamber’s apparatuses are just for show? See your possible future and applaud your host’s ingenuity.” The floor mouth disappears, as a ceiling portion swings downward, becoming an inclined plane for some new arrivals to roll down. And roll they do, on modified skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs and unicycles. Gymnasts follow behind them, back handspringing down the ramp. Before the traveller’s astonished eyes, the two-dozen fresh arrivals commence a synchronized routine, utilizing the quarter pipes, trampolines, and climbing structures with expert precision—flipping, grinding and whirling, errorless. These performers had been human once: vagrants, foster children, mail order brides, and the like. Now, they are something else entirely. Dyneema fibers coat their epidermises, rendering the performers impact resistant. They are bullet resistant as well, in case the toyman requires a small army at some later date. Observing their efforts, the traveller realizes that the riders do not push, pedal or hand-propel, their conveyances being entirely motorized. They are androgynous, these performers, with the males having received estrogen bombardments, and the females androgen hormones. Thus, they are equally mighty and graceful, and seem to possess extraterrestrial reflexes. Their natural eyes are empty, their faces slack. Their hair has been shaven away, with implanted bionic eyes ringing their craniums, providing omnidirectional vision. Whatever personalities they’d once possessed are absent. As with his creature captives, Amadeus used transcranial magnetic stimulation and sensory image bombardment to resculpt the mentalities of these unfortunates, yoking them to his will forevermore. Having finished their routine, the performers ascend the inclined plane and disappear back into the ceiling. As the traveller considers pursuing them, the ramp swings up on its hinges, leaving the ceiling unbroken. Shrugging, the traveller wonders, What the hell was that about? Chapter 7: Taking the Plunge Slipping into a one-button, single-breasted jacket, Amadeus smiles at the mirror. He pinches his black bow tie and gives his flat-front trousers a pat. His patent leather shoes are well polished. Perhaps I should wear a tuxedo everyday, he thinks to himself, to keep these claustrophobic confines classy. With the traveller’s arrival, he’d almost forgotten. Today, the toyman is to be married. Technically, he’d already wedded Midge—his children’s mother, now their maid. But as with many toys, Amadeus had grown tired of her, and thus had granted himself a divorce. Utilizing his backup brain, the toyman tracks the traveller, while his ordinary mind invokes Richard Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.” Returning to the garret, the toyman flicks a finger toward the ceiling. An aperture opens; a ladder descends. Climbing, Amadeus says, “Come along, Tango. We can’t start the ceremony without you.” And naturally, the hummingbird follows, emerging into open air milliseconds after Amadeus. Atop the keep’s circular shell, a single rollercoaster car awaits, resting upon a launch track, which tilts slightly upwards, but seems connected to no further railroading. Should one climb inside the car, a quick plunge into nihility seems inevitable. But when Amadeus whistles, molecular assemblers spring into action, and the track begins self-replicating, forming corkscrews and cobra rolls, dive loops and raven turns. Soon, the rollercoaster rings the castle’s inner perimeter, with its brake run situated at the property’s gatehouse. Settling into his seat, Amadeus sends a thought into the ether, causing an over-the-shoulder restraint to fall over him and settle into its locking mechanism. Truthfully, with his augmented physiology, the toyman no longer requires restraints, being able to clutch with fourteen-jointed fingers and adhere his feet to anything solid. But every man has at least one fault, and Amadeus’ is nostalgia. During his much-cherished childhood years, Amadeus’ family had valued one tradition above all others: the yearly trip to Coney Island, which just so happened to coincide with his birthday. He remembers the Cyclone, the Tornado, the Wonder Wheel, and the Thunderbolt. He remembers standing at the edge of the shoreline, too timid to enter the sea, though his mother prodded and cooed. He remembers hot dogs and funnel cakes, custard and pizza. The remembrances are so vivid, he can practically step into them. In fact, should he desire to, Amadeus can mine his own amygdala, to refeel the precise feelings he’d felt on those occasions, bridging the gap between the toyman and his boy self. But why stop there? By bringing his striatum, mammillary bodies, and hippocampus into the equation, he can program those very same days into the arcade’s virtual reality booths, and relive them as his past form, or as another character entirely. But seeing his child self, Amadeus would only rebuild him, and so he drags himself back into the present. When he snaps his fingers, a miniature restraint materializes atop the next seat over. “You know what to do, Tango,” he says. And indeed, the hummingbird does, fluttering into position, entering into brief torpor after the harness secures him. And then the wheels are rolling, the car gaining momentum. Soon Amadeus is freefalling, inverting and rolling. Air buffets his grin. Weightless, his stomach sinks. He passes the keep again and again, viewing it from every angle. Just before he reaches the gatehouse, his artificial neural network alerts Amadeus to a factoid: the traveller is becoming too nosy. Exploring Junior’s closet, the intruder strews clothes across the floor. This will not do, Amadeus thinks, looping. And so a razor wire tumbleweed rolls out of the wall and chases the traveller about the chamber. When the car brakes, both restraints swing upward. Now Tango is fluttering, and Amadeus is standing, thinking to himself, Today is a wonderful day. Both of the gatehouse’s portcullises are up. Its adjoining barbican has been rendered temporarily defenseless: no boiling oil will splash down from its murder holes, no arrows will fly through the passageway’s slits. Under the gatehouse’s eroded battlements, rows of wrought iron seats lead toward a platinum altar. A makeshift aisle divides the rows: electrified tube lights spiraling around Orchidaceae. Lace curtains are hung; votive candles glow within suspended jars. Behind the altar, flowers, crystals, and pearls form an arched backdrop. When Amadeus nods at the rollercoaster, the car reverses. As it loops and rolls its way back up to the launch track, the car’s inbuilt disassemblers erase the rollercoaster behind it, breaking molecular bonds with enzyme bombardments. Within minutes, it is as if the rollercoaster had never existed. When next it materializes, the track will be altered, perhaps with a sustained inversion. The officiant is animatronic. Beneath its flexible plastic epidermis, motion actuators mimic human musculature. With three-dimensional sensors, it scans the crowd, studying facial contours, analyzing skin textures, identifying each attendee individually. Complex algorithms and sensors render it almost entirely autonomous, able to hold conversations, register emotions, and speak with pseudo-empathy. Should any unforeseen variable cause the animatronic to deviate from its ceremonial script, Amadeus will override it, and speak through the officiant via teleoperation. Leftward, the bride’s family and friends are gathered. Rightward, Amadeus’ guests sit. There are ex-hobos, lost hookers, kidnapped children, and a cornucopia of intellectual disabilities present. Everyone dresses in finery, smiling clownishly. None speak, save for preprogrammed verbalizations: “Perfect weather today,” “Love is a beautiful thing,” and, “That Amadeus sure is brilliant. His bride must be the luckiest gal on Earth.” Some stare past eternity. Others are built of awkward angles, their jagged, enhanced skeletal structures housing retractable armaments. The groom’s grandparents make an appearance, rolling to the front row in translucent caskets. Atop the caskets’ frosted glass exteriors, three-dimensional computer graphics depict the couple smiling and waving. Inside the boxes, two skeletons grin. Beside them, two seats await Amadeus’ mother and father. On the aisle’s opposite side, the bride’s grandparents claim chairs, leaving two for her mother and father. The bride has two grandfathers, it turns out, conjoined twins. One is Caucasian; the other is African. One’s a dwarf; one’s a giant. One appears middle-aged, the other an octogenarian. Attached at the waist, the giant appears to carry the dwarf in a side-slung baby pouch, but there is no pouch, only skin. Their suit is custom-tailored. Their lips spasm, attempting to frown, but unable to. The bride’s grandmother possesses physical features that would make even an anthropometrist scratch their head in puzzlement. Her eyelids possess the epicanthal folds of an Asiatic, but her head is dolichocephalic like an Australian Aborigine. Though her nose is long and narrow like an American Indian, her lips are as thick as a Sub-Saharan African’s. Within them, a Caucasian’s spatulate teeth nestle. As for the woman’s epidermis, it is quite zebraic. Horizontally striped, it displays shades of olive, peach, brown, red, black and yellow. Her irises resemble lapis lazuli. Viewing these bridal progenitors, one inevitably thinks, Holy Moses, such interesting individuals. Were they ever infants? Did they slide from live mothers, or were they gene-spliced into being, their recombinant DNA sculpted by the groom’s ghastly hands? What do their children resemble? And what is the bride? Is she human, or some technoblasphemy? If the latter, what would she be like in bed? Here comes the groom’s mother, Charlotte Wilson, and isn’t she grand? Silently, she squeezes her face in her hands. Her asymmetrical ruched mesh gown is navy blue and embellished with costume jewelry. Her chic blonde locks seem stolen from a mid-twenties strumpet. They were, in fact, donated by the bald looker seated in the back row. Her escort is none other than her husband, Herbert Wilson. Once, back in Amadeus’ human days, Herbert had attempted to disown his son. “You’re a monster!” he’d screamed. “The disappearances, and the…the blasphemous contraptions! I always knew you were sick! Even as a baby, you had an evil gleam in your eye! I could barely bring myself to touch you.” But seeing him now, you’d suspect no such acrimony. His smile is large; his eyes are wide. Resultant of a recent lobotomy, his previous personality is extinct. After helping Herbert into his chair, Charlotte sits demurely. For one brief instant, a complicated expression slides across her face, as if there is information that she wishes to impart to Herbert, but is too frightened to articulate. The show goes on, and into sight steps the bride’s mother, escorted by a Labrador usher. The canine wears a tuxedo and walks upright on his hind legs. Upon first glance, one suspects that something is off with the creature. Something about his face… Inevitably, understanding dawns: The Labrador’s lips and teeth are those of a human! Indeed, they are, as is the creature’s larynx, gifting him with the ability to speak English. Strangely, the dog speaks only in anacreontics, turning his every utterance into poetry, Later, for his reception toast, he’ll say: “Blinking, blanking, glasses fall, Red spills like a curtain call. Soothing, softly, comes the night, Lust encased in earthly blight. Drink up now and know for true, The toyman’s gaze follows you.” But for now, the dog remains silent. Seeing the bride’s mother, a question arises: What uncanny valley did this female emerge from? For a woman allegedly in her forties, she is remarkably well preserved. At her mouth and eye corners, no wrinkles can be discerned. Her demeanor is perky, her physique voluptuous. Still, the sight of the woman inspires unease. Her gait is too perfect, as if she is not walking at all, but rolling forward on ceramic ball bearings. Every word that she utters is exquisitely modulated, but when meeting her eyes, it seems that no intelligence lies behind them. Is she genuine flesh and blood, or a product of Amadeus’ workshop? one wonders. If she is custom-made, did the toyman somehow implant an operational reproductive system within her? Or is the gal’s motherhood strictly nonbiological? Claiming his position on the minister’s left, Amadeus faces the audience, smiling with diamond-tipped fangs. Beside him is Junior, his best man. Technically, Junior isn’t actually present, as his corporeal body remains tethered to a virtual reality booth. As detaching the young man would lead to his immediate demise, Junior attends through telepresence. Within a hovering videotelephony sphere, his beaming face can be glimpsed—not his current countenance, but the one he’d worn as a preschooler. When the true Junior tries to scream, the sphere’s Junior whistles. When the true Junior begs for death, the sphere’s Junior says, “I love you, Dad.” “I know you do,” Amadeus replies. Alongside them, chimpanzee groomsmen stand, wearing matching tuxedos. But these are no ordinary chimpanzees. Through genetic tweaking, Amadeus has amplified each’s intelligence to that of an average human, multiplying their neurons more than tenfold, up to eighty-six billion. He’d accomplished this feat while the chimps were still embryos, soaking their brains with stem cells. Because such neurogenesis requires greater head space, the chimpanzees’ craniums are oversized. Up the center aisle, bridesmaids step, followed by the maid of honor. The bridesmaids wear matching green dresses: strapless ruched chiffon. The maid of honor’s dress shares their length and color motif, but is one-shouldered to distinguish her. One and all, the bridesmaids are rod puppets, with hidden biomechatronic fingers manipulating their mobility. The maid of honor, on the other hand, is a biomorphic robot, with a biological system indiscernible from that of a human. Actuated by Amadeus-sent electromagnetic waves, the ladies smile, blink, and bat their eyes. Next, the ring bearer flutters down the aisle, beak-gripping a ring. Striding alongside Tango, the flower girl scatters petals. As she is a human-flower hybrid, the petals are castoffs from her own physicality. A song springs into being—Felix Mendelssohn's “Wedding March,” to be precise. And look, here comes the bride. submitted by /u/JeremytheTulpa to r/joinmeatthecampfire [link] [comments]

If you’ve ever tried to soothe a fussy baby while juggling laundry or making dinner, you know how crucial a good baby swing can be. I recently found myself on the hunt for the best baby swings out there, and let me tell you, it’s a jungle of options! That’s why I’ve compiled this list of the top baby swings, based on extensive research from product reviews, community recommendations from subreddits like r/babybumps and r/Parenting, and insights from expert reviewers. I wanted to save you the time and energy of sifting through endless reviews, so you can quickly find the perfect swing for your little one. Whether you're looking for something compact for travel or a swing that doubles as a cozy spot for nap time, I’ve got you covered. As a parent myself, I know how important it is to make informed choices without getting lost in the details. So, if you’ve got your own baby swing stories or recommendations, I’d love to hear them in the comments! Baby Swing Age Range Features Graco DuetSoothe Swing and Rocker Newborn to 30 lbs (0-9 months) 2-in-1 design with removable seat, six speeds, two vibration settings, and soothing music/nature sounds. 4moms MamaRoo Multi-Motion Baby Swing Newborn to 25 lbs (0-6 months) Five motions that mimic real-life movements, adjustable speed via mobile app, compact design, machine-washable cover. Munchkin Bluetooth Enabled Baby Swing Newborn to 6 months Lightweight, easy to assemble, Bluetooth connectivity for music, remote control, mesh back for ventilation. Graco Simple Sway Swing Newborn to 30 lbs (0-9 months) Affordable, side-to-side swaying motion, six speeds, two vibration levels, and various soothing sounds. Nova Baby Swing for Newborns Newborn to 9 months Lightweight and portable, five speed settings, Bluetooth connectivity, includes mosquito net for outdoor use. Bright Starts Baby Swing Newborn to 30 lbs (0-9 months) Compact and budget-friendly, six speeds, TrueSpeed weight sensing technology, toy bar, and soothing melodies. LAREX Baby Swing for Infants Newborn to 25 lbs Side-to-side rocking motion, three adjustable positions, Bluetooth music, remote control, USB powered. Ingenuity SimpleComfort Baby Swing Newborn to 30 lbs (0-9 months) Compact design, six speeds, multiple soothing sounds, 180-degree rotation, machine-washable seat pad. BabyBond Baby Swings for Infants Newborn to 6 months Sleek design, three adjustable seat positions, five sway motions, remote control, 5-point harness for safety. submitted by /u/AutoModerator to r/SafeBabyGates [link] [comments]

[First] [Previous] [Next] Memory transcription subject: Illia, Federation Communications Technician Date [standardized human time]: October 23, 2136 My hooves worked towards untying the predator. The knot was significantly harder to unfasten with hooves instead of paws; I envied the Venlil and their dexterity. After playing with the rope for some time now, it finally gave way and crumpled to the ground. I inhaled a sharp breath, taking a wary step backward. It felt like I had been knocked in the snout by a specter, jostling my senses back into order. What on Jild was I doing?! Unfortunately, it was too late now. The unconfined human stood up with tremendous effort, sliding a paw up against the tree to support its ascent as it unfurled into its natural, mountainous stature. It groaned and stretched its limbs far and wide, trying to hold the entire forest within its clutches. I was briefly reminded of that same flash of fear I felt in its presence before, until It suddenly jerked its head to the side, followed by a very lethal-sounding crack. I was going to hurl. Instead of the predator dropping dead onto the ground as I expected, it released a growl of satisfaction and then began working its way down, brutally snapping the rest of its joints. I dubiously regarded the act as some predatory ritual of flushing out weakness, and I dared not ask. I would prefer it if the murderer didn’t practice on me. The gravity of what I had just done moments ago hit me like a bus as I stared at the behemoth from behind. I just fucked over both myself and my entire crew, and did so willingly. This was exactly what it wanted–to trick me into giving in to the farce only to end my life the second I turned my back. I would die thinking I could trust a predator. How could I be so stupid?! Regret kicked in, and I had completely lost sight of my previous goal. I weighed my options. The human was in poor condition, and wouldn’t be able to catch up to me if I ran. I shook my sprained hind leg, rocking it back and forth to test its durability. The pain had receded, for the most part. It was still sore but it’d last long enough to bring me back to camp. I had to find the others, and fast. I cursed silently to myself. Orsik would be furious. I’m such a selfish— My thoughts were cleared by the Human’s throaty rumbling. It peered at me from the edge of the tree, feasting on my body with its eyes. It wordlessly pointed a bony finger towards the kit in front of me to which I kicked in reflex, sending it sliding towards the creature. It knelt down with a hiss, and opened the container. The fur above its eyes crinkled in confusion, trying to make sense of the lettering. It continued rummaging through the medical kit, displacing some of the bottles stored inside. I was about to speak up and guide its directionless scavenging before its paws landed on the object of its desire. It aptly popped a few painkillers into its mouth, probably thinking the pills were made for general consumption rather than for medicinal purposes. Even so, the alien’s way of searching was methodical; perhaps it had done this before? It lifted various items to its face, tasting, smelling and shaking the substances while setting the unfamiliar ones to the side. I was surprised; I previously thought I would have to guide the predator’s treatment, but it proved to be doing fine on its own. “Y-You know what y-you’re doing?” I looked at it quizzically. Its face soured as it applied disinfectant to its wounds, sending a scoff my way. My curiosity overshadowed my fear, and so I pressed on. “Do Humans understand the c-concept of medicine? A-And if so, how long has your kind been familiar with the prac-” The human exaggeratedly slammed the empty bottle down. “Give me a break! You don’t see me asking you stupid questions, do you? If you’re so interested in humanity, maybe you should’ve tried talking to us instead of blowing us all to hell. Good [Human religious figure]!” It finished tending to its injuries after a few moments, putting on a bandage to top it off. “You say that like it’s my fault.” “Isn’t it?” The predator smugly replied, “You’re just as responsible for blowing up Earth as Kalsim and his featherfuck army.” That jab struck something within me that set my heart aflame. “You have no right to say such a thing! You murdered dozens of innocent people, and still your bloodlust isn’t satiated! The alien bared its teeth, “And yet that doesn’t come anywhere close to the countless billions slaughtered by your hand! You’d do it all over again if you could!” It screamed, “Innocent?! I’ve seen videos online with thousands of Krakotl all cheering for our demise, gathered together to watch massive shuttles leave for Earth. You call that innocent?” “No, it was awful!” I futilely retorted, though it was the truth. “**[Earthen bovine prey animal]**shit! I might very well be the last human in the universe thanks to you. I hope you rest easy knowing you got what you wanted.” I squinted in confusion as I dissected the predator’s flawed statement. It must have genuinely thought that the bombing run was successful. After further pondering, I surmised that it really wouldn’t have a way of knowing whether or not its homeworld was still intact, assuming it left the battle shortly after the bombs dropped. “You… You think Earth is gone?” “Don’t play dumb,” The primate snapped. “Earth still remains, the bombing run failed.” It held the expression of someone who was on the receiving end of a terrible joke, “You’re lying through your teeth.” It chuckled bitterly. “I am speaking the truth!” I couldn’t stress my sincerity enough to someone who didn’t want to hear it. It mulled over my words. “You-Earth really isn’t gone?” Its venomous tone receded, and disbelief cleared out. I flicked an ear out of habit before correcting myself, “Correct.” It quietly released a breath that could only be described as one of relief before its face hardened in its distinctive scowl, “That doesn’t change a damn thing.” Its angry focus zeroed in on me, and I stared back as a weighty blanket of uncomfortable silence landed between us. “I-I’m not proud of what I did. Not in the slightest. Not that you’d believe me…” I combed a paw through the colorful grass lining the floor. “I had my reasons, and those didn’t include killing. Though, I should’ve thought about that before enlisting.” Some part of me felt good after admitting that out loud; I’d been holding onto all the secondhand grief from the bombing for far too long. It offered no response to that statement, probably having nothing but insults to share. “So… you’re n-not going to kill me, right?” I shakily asked. “Not unless you give me a reason to.” It spoke with ragged breath, weary from its exaggerated tirade. I swallowed. That was better than ‘yes’, at least. I still found that strange; it had every reason, yet chose not to. I would leave the conversation there for now, lest I change its mind. “Lead the way.” It gesticulated towards the forest. I had nearly forgotten about the signal, and was relieved that it was still willing to help after our verbal firefight. “O-Oh, uh, right.” I obliged, but my nerves got the best of me; knowingly having a predator sizing me up from behind was far too much for my brain to handle. I would’ve thought that all of this predator exposure would have gained me some resistance by now. Another impatient grumble came from behind me. “For fuck’s sake, if you’re that scared of me you shouldn’t have asked for my help.” “I had no choice!” I emphasized. “And now you’ve got to live with that. Now quit being a baby and get a move on.” “I am not a baby.” I mumbled to myself, just out of the predator’s earshot. The human’s peer pressure strategy worked, and my limbs sprung into action, moving at a steady enough pace to keep some distance between me and the flesh eater. My eyes traced the colorful landscape around me, admiring the wondrous, untamed beauty that was certain never to be found on a planet riddled with predators, yet here it was. Adequate words to describe what I was seeing could not be found and wouldn’t do it any justice. The sun’s radiance elegantly gleamed off of the planet’s native vegetation, and created a kaleidoscope-like effect as we passed by. Glancing behind me, my pursuer appeared equally entranced, oddly enough. My unlikely ally and I paced through the wilderness until the surrounding forest started to look familiar. We finally made it to my camp, and the unease I felt from the human dissipated. Regardless, I still kept my guard up. I didn’t trust it no matter what it said. Who knew what its true intentions really were? “O-Ok.” I breathed, keeping the murderer in my periphery. It held itself together well, though it was clear to me that the long journey made it weary. “This is it.” I flicked an ear to the makeshift radio I left. “We must hurry.” I said, and gathered a mouthful of the wire I had saved from earlier, dropping it a few feet away from the alien. Despite our status as enemies, I couldn’t help but express my concern, “A-Are you sure you can do this?” “Obviously.” It curtly responded, "You need to get this up there, right?” It poked a fleshy digit towards the wire piled on the floor, then to the towering growth nearby. “Y-Yes.” I backed up as it moved to pick up the wire, shooting me an unfriendly look while doing so. It turned and took a few steps forward, zoning in on its target as it would while on the hunt. It craned its neck to where it was almost perfectly vertical, as if mocking the tree. The tree was extremely high, and a fall from that height with no equipment was almost certain to be lethal. How exactly the human intended on getting up there was a mystery, but I was too afraid to ask. There was a lone branch at the tree’s tallest point, bare and swinging in the wind. The predator shook its head, then suddenly changed course towards my desk, where it began to disturb my things. It carelessly dug through my organized piles of scrap, and once it was done violating that, it hefted up the containers placed next to the table and flipped them over, dumping their contents out onto the ground. “Hey! Wh-Those are mine!” I bleated defensively. “Stop!” The muscular terror didn’t so much as turn to address me–which was more preferable, “Shut up.” It then took a half-empty canteen that I was saving for later. So that’s why it made a mess of my workplace. I snorted in frustration. “If you were thirsty, why didn’t you say anything?” “Shut up.” It enunciated with the turn of its head, its poisonous words acting as a precursor of what was to come if I continued bothering it. I submitted without further comment, rooting my hooves to the floor. It returned to its construction, and coiled the wire around the canteen’s grooves, securing the two together with a knot. I couldn’t place exactly what its plan was, or how on Jild it’d manage to climb up there. The human mimed a swinging motion with the assembly, harnessing the grace of a well-practiced hunter. Was it making a weapon?! Seemingly pleased with its creation, the killer stalked towards its prey–thankfully not me. My lungs deflated as it hobbled away, and I observed the curious scene from afar. With a few grunts of discomfort, the human whipped the length upward through the air, creating a circle with the wire. The contraption followed the movement of its wrist until the quickly increasing velocity caused it to blur. The rapid-moving instrument of death sung through the skies as the Human suddenly released the rope, while loosely securing it with its other paw. The rope slung over the desired branch and landed on the first try, gently swaying above as it gradually lost momentum. The predator controlled the canteen’s descent, feeding it more slack as it met the bottom. I was completely awestruck, staring at the alien with my mouth ajar. The human’s ingenuity and quick thinking surprised me. I never expected a primitive, much less a predator, to have come up with such a clever technique. The canteen must have acted as a way of weighing down the wire while still being light enough to be thrown. That act alone was impressive, but still disturbing. I could only imagine the horrors of human evolution that led to such a predatory development. Its evidently high level of experience led me to believe that it had done this before, if not something similar, like spearing prey. I wouldn’t explore that any more than necessary; the less I knew, the better. “Wow…” I breathed. The human, in contrast, didn't show an ounce of joy over the great feat. It was impressive, but added no comfort with the knowledge that it could just as effortlessly impale me from afar as it could strangle me with its bare paws. “Here.” It said as it approached, handing over the canteen-end of the now-suspended wire. I tentatively reached out a hoof, disgusted to grace the predator’s exposed flesh. “Thank… Thank you.” I took the cord from the alien right before it ambled over to a large crate in front of me, taking a seat on its edge. “I can’t express how grateful I am.” It was odd, thanking a predator. It dismissed my appreciation with a grunt. I finally had what I needed, and eagerly began threading the extended antenna onto the receiver. Excitement brimmed within me once again, and I had somehow managed to push down the worry of having the wounded predator barely a tree’s length away from me. I waited for the signal to reconnect with baited breath, gently nudging the tuner to ward away the static. I pressed an ear against the device, only to be blown away as I heard exactly what was being broadcasted, clear as daylight in the voice of a Krakotl: [ITERATION 0-112358] This is Research Team K of Federation Base Designation 0-1, assigned to the first and only planet within the system of Demis-50, or more commonly known among our research team as [Terrible Beauty]. Supplies and personnel are dwindling with every passing day, and we desperately need additional support. The native predators are unrelenting, and wholly despise our presence. We cannot continue our research under these conditions. Again, I am requesting immediate support. More flamethrowers and personnel will suffice for now. It’s only a matter of time before they- The message was abruptly cut off, only to start over again. Recoiling from the volume of the device, I jotted down whatever I could. I was both shocked and giddy to discover that the signal came from this very planet, and not the stars. Moreover, this was a functioning Federation radio station, and had been broadcasting the same message for Jild knows how long. They had an entire research team here, and it’s unclear if they’re still alive, or planetside. Where did they go? I had no knowledge of there being research teams being sent to foreign planets, I wonder if this was strictly a Krakotl-only operation? And if they were still here, how long have they been here? The fur on my neck bristled in response to that chilling query. The sheer number of questions residing within my brain with no answers to them nearly made my head explode. The good news was this mystery research team had a radio station. Now the only problem would be finding it with no maps and no hint of which direction to follow, paired with the hazardous environment and abundance of predators. Wonderful. I will address that issue once I get there, I thought. My predatory helper leaned forward with sudden intrigue, “What’s it saying?” I glanced over between the message’s pauses, equally intrigued myself. “What? You mean you can't hear it?” “No?” It tersely replied, matching my tone. “How interesting…” I mumbled my thoughts aloud. I knew humans didn’t have the best range of hearing, but I didn’t realize how great their impairment was, especially with the volume being as loud as it was. It was nearly enough to be mistaken as being spoken by my Commanding Officer; booming and harsh on the ears. Having sufficient notes, I thought it only fair to recapitulate for the predator. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without its help, after all. I traced a claw over the scribbles I made as I read, “The signal is coming from a radio station, not a satellite. They have–The Federation has a–um, a military detachment here.” I was careful enough to leave out very specific bits of information. “The message is a repeated broadcast; they’re requesting help, and they’re being attacked by those disgusting alien predators.” I gasped, “N-No offense.” It curved its lip at me. “Where is this detachment?” “I d-don’t know.” I responded. “No coordinates, nothing?” “No,” Not that I would share even if they were specified. “But we actually have a chance to get out of here.” I voiced my excitement. The human grumbled scornfully. “We.” Its posture slumped and head hung lowly toward the floor. Empathy tugged at my heart. My main objective now was to find the radio station and try to contact the Federation, but once we did, and if rescue came, what would become of the Predator? I looked over to the scruffy, pale human. It sat there with its forward-facing eyes closed, absorbing the sun’s rays. It was easier to examine it in its relaxed state, especially while those eyes weren't on me. We were sworn enemies in a war I wanted no part of, and this was a flesh-eating, vicious, murderous predator! There shouldn’t be any reason for me to feel worried or bad about leaving it here, that was what any sensible person would do. Then why did I feel this way? Why did I feel such compassion towards something so undeserving of anything evoking a positive emotion? Could it be that I felt indebted? It had saved my life more than once, and granted me its mercy. I wouldn’t have survived as long as I had without the primate’s intervention. The primate in question cradled its skull in its hands, likely mulling over the prospect of what was next to come, vulnerable to any harm that may come to it, and yet it remained undisturbed. Our distrust for each other was mutual, that much was clear. The human let its guard down when I could have called for Orsik, or just as easily blasted it to pieces when it wasn’t looking, if I still had a weapon. Surely it understood that, or simply deemed me unthreatening. I knew there was something that resided deep within that prevented its instincts from taking over. It had shown restraint and civility; characteristics totally unlike the abhorrent predators from the war stories I’ve heard veteran exterminators tout with an empty look in their eyes, or the ones the Federation taught me to despise. I so badly wanted to reassure the human, to repay its kindness and tell it that things would turn out fine in its favor, but there was no use in lying. Whether the alien wanted to or not, it most definitely wouldn’t be leaving this planet, and it knew that. The human’s head unexpectedly snapped upright and I instinctively flinched away, pretending that I hadn’t been watching it for the past five minutes straight. My ribs grew tight, squeezing my internal organs into a fine paste as I realized that I would soon need to return the predator to its bindings to avoid suspicion. I hesitated to voice the next course of action for a moment, but it caught on before I could speak, a grim look spreading over its features. “Oh, no. You are not putting me back in those ropes,” It asserted. I would have complied, but this was for its own safety, as well as mine. “You must! The others will kill you if they find you roaming about!” “I’ll take my chances.” The stubborn predator declared, crossing its arms in defiance. I exhaled hot air through my nose. “Are you stupid?! Do you want them to burn you alive?” “Well, they didn’t last time.” “And what makes you think this time will be any different?!” This imbecile’s reasoning mirrored a two-year old’s. It bobbed its broad shoulders up and down in a human gesture that was lost on me. It was very clear to me that the human didn’t care what happened. “My life is on the line too! They’ll kill the both of us without a second thought!” Silence. My hooves burned into the ground. I would not let this selfish bastard dictate how my life was to go. “I won’t tell you again,” I said, stamping a hoof onto the grass beneath me. Fear lingered for a moment after tossing that hint of a threat, especially since the vague inkling of amusement drained from the human's face. The message seemed to get through as it leapt to its feet and lunged towards me, fists clenched with raw aggression. I felt my knees buckle, but instead of cowering I went against my psychology and tried my best to match its intensity, which seemed to surprise the intimidator, but only for less than a second. It growled in exasperation and angrily stomped off into the forest. I nearly passed out from how long I had been holding my breath, but found strength in knowing that most prey would have fainted or fled. I am not most prey. (A/N: In this chapter, Illia regretfully enlists the help of the same person who wants to kill her, driven by both desperation and foolishness. After some heated discourse, The predator successfully fulfills its purpose, albeit in a much different fashion. The enigma of a message from Illia's 'home'made radio is finally decoded, and what it entails is both exciting and dreadful all the same. Will Illia find this supposed radio tower? Why is the Federation on this planet? Is it the Federation? Stay tuned for more NoP: Sweet Vengeance!) [First] [Previous] [Next] submitted by /u/blankxlate to r/NatureofPredators [link] [comments]

Intro · Overview · Turn Flow · Gameplay Tips · Card List · Matchups · Games to Diamond The Anthem Ayo, it’s ya boi ReignBeau. You may know me from ƃuᴉɥʇou because I’m a filthy casual dad gamer that has never made a guide. Been on LoR and this /r/ since beta, leeching theorycrafts and getting hype during expansion seasons, etc. You’ll usually find me posted in Diamond or lazy Plat in LoR and TFT. I fancy some good competitive off-meta play and spicy interactions.   But who cares. Deck code or bust sucka: ((CECQGAYDAEBQOAIBAANACBAAAMAQIAYPAIBQABQLAQBQGAADAUHAEAIDBMPQCBAACQAQEAABAIAQEAAHAEAQGEI)) Mobalytics Link: app.mobalytics.gg/lor/decks/ccc1dhiukgp8scet2no0 Intro You ready for the NEW NEW wait this is December 2020 right ladder eviscerator?   That’s right, it’s Riven time. Hailing all the way from set 3, I bring you: The Anthem. Well that’s what I call it cause I like naming my favorite stuff that. Idc what you call it. It’s a Riven Shyvana Strike deck.   I played this deck and this deck alone from P4 0LP to D3 with a 66% winrate (20W/10L). Yeah yeah, I know Diamond isn’t that shiny, but it felt better doing it with a more mature, more unique deck. Idk how to validate that in LoR noob but happy to if possible.   Win Condition: Keep board control through strikes and attacking with challenger and quick attack, grow big mid game with fury, then punish with overwhelm and cataclysm. Fun Win Condition: Feed your fury babies and give them good exercise! When they’re all grown up on their 6th turn nameday, give them a shiny new sword and drag your enemies to hell.   Death Condition: Have your strikes consistently prevented. Have your dragons constantly speared. Less Fun Death Condition: Nobody puts dragon in a corner. Nobody.   When I colloquially use the word strike, I mean any spell that allows you to strike an enemy. General vibe: Defense through offense. This deck is flexible, but requires a bit of meta-precision to maneuver. Keeping steady spell mana to be ready from switching from offense strikes to defensive can be a learning curve. You only have 2 defensive spells in the game, you cannot rely on passive defense. It is necessary to know your meta and know how many combat tricks to save versus what size your dragons will be until then (think saving to double strike spell Nasus). But with that said, it’s just plain fun. When you get used to it, there’s very little you need to worry about. Oh, did they kill your sword dragon? No worries, there’s a similar stat’d one and constant flow of sword pieces right behind it. Deny’s incoming? Your spells are cheap and plentiful. Oh nu big equips?! We don’t f with strikes that hit us back. Waves of 1 attack creature? Delicious.   THIS IS GENERAL INFORMATION. PLEASE RELY ON YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE AND INGENUITY TO PILOT THE ANTHEM. Turn Flow Your gameplay will take one of two early paths, depending on which dragon you chose to keep in your hand. If you chose Shyvana, you’ll have an early start to board clearing and be great against tokens. If you chose Screeching Dragon, you’ll look for sword shards to prepare for an explosive turn 5-6.   Mulligan ‘Adapt to your opponent, but try to curve.’ This deck is fairly-well balanced. If you draw high, it’s unlikely you wont have something valuable to drop by turn 3. Always keep 1 of the 2 dragons. The only exception is when you’re expecting vengeance on 6-7 but a slow opponent's start otherwise, then take 2. Shyvana: Ruined Dragonguard, Sharpsight/Ranger’s Resolve, 1-2 cost creatures Screeching Dragon: Riven, Any sword shard pieces you can find   Turns 1-3 Rock Collecting Alright, let’s get this going. By now, I’ve identified if I’m banking 3 by turn 4 or curving based on my hand and the opponent’s threat at x mana.   If you will likely need to kill something high value by turn 3-5, get a strike and whatever you can. The +2 attack sword shard will help you reach 5 attack for Bloody Business. Save cataclysms with fury/first strike/overwhelm as a last resort. Use your Legion Drummer + Trifarian Gloryseeker combo if needed, or just as fodder/bait. Your 3 cost units are well-statted for their abilities, so they can be interchangeable with a strike spell when needed.   This situation is less common. If you know you won’t desperately need to strike a champion/big value unit on turn 3-5….   Screeching Dragon: Use this time to start gathering sword shards with Blade Squire -> Runeweaver -> Riven. Early game you want more quick attack, and when your dragons have fed you will want overwhelm. Getting a full sword on a dragon turn 5-6 with priority is a massive powerspike. By using big stat units and challenger, our deck makes sword shards insanely valuable at 1 mana. You will always have a use-case for each buff, which means you don’t experience the negative modifier of not getting the one you want early.   Blade Squire -> Runeweaver (any shard) -> Riven   Blade Squire -> Runeweaver (quick attack shard) -> Ruined Dragonguard   Front Pocket: Cataclysm, Bloody Business   Back Pocket: Whirling Death, Sharpsight, Ranger’s Resolve   Shyvana: Since Shyvana will be more aggressive early, it helps to try to guarantee quick attacks. An early Runeweaver or Legion Drummer can be a safe bet. Failing that, look for some extra D in Sharpsight and Ranger’s Resolve. Feel free to toss out Egghead to give you 5-8 mana range options later and soak some damage now. For the big finish, end turn 3 with a Ruined Dragonguard to prepare your ascent.   Bank -> Runeweaver (quick attack shard)-> Ruined Dragonguard   Bank -> Bank -> Ruined Dragonguard   Front pocket: Cataclysm, Whirling Death   Back Pocket: Quick attack shard, Sharpsight, Single Combat   Turns 4 -5 Here Be Dragons Bring your dragons to life. Keep your dragons alive. Stat growth through board control is the name of the game.   Screeching Dragon: If you properly achieved a shiny new rock collection, you’re in a restful state for turn 4. It’s nice to still have Riven on turn 5, but don’t burn any mana defending her. Just another bait for high-value removal. If you have all 3 shards, bank 3 mana and use the +2/0 shard..somewhere. Hopefully a useful place, but anywhere is fine.   Turn 5 is what you’ve been waiting for. Bring the Screeching Dragon. If you still have any other creature on the field, drop the last 2 shards on them and make the big sword – immediately equipping it. If they have a vengeance ready, I hope you anticipated this before turn 1 and have another dragon to drop. Don’t cry over the sword, they’re cheap to get another in this deck. Start farming any high value or low attack targets to build fury. Try to get at least 2 stacks on play turn, and 1-2 each player’s turn after.   Bank 3/defend -> Screeching Dragon, shard, shard, sword, swing   Front pocket: Cataclysm, Strike spells   Back Pocket: More dragons   Shyvana: If you started Shyvana, saved mana, and have strikes - start beating mfrs with other mfs! You have 3 Cataclysms, you can afford to use ONE with your early quick attack. The rest need to be saved for overwhelm when your fury baby is big. If all went well, you’re getting double stacks now from preying on weak enemies – which unchecked can easily be a +4/4 per attack token. Shyvana’s stat boost on attack is great at leveling out your HP after activating fury. If you’ve managed some sword shards, abuse that quick attack and +2 attack to trigger fury for evolution. By turn 5-6 you can be looking to put the big sword somewhere. Feel free to recover some mana turn and get some shards 5, or drop a Screeching Dragon if those pitiful, clueless fools are trying to assemble a mid-game board. Why do sneak when big stat gud.   Shyvana, Strike/Cataclysm/Bait defense -> Screeching Dragon OR Bank 3 and gather shards   Front pocket: Cataclysm, Screeching Dragon   Back Pocket: More shards   Turn 6+ and Ending: Vesuvius, fire of fire Turn 6 and 7 are often mostly strike spells alternating with attacks (with the help of Dragonguard Lookout)/cataclysm. If they play a high value target, immediately strike it. If they play a low value target, immediately strike it. If they play a wtf giant Nasus you weren’t keeping count of, double strike it. It’s an absolute bloodbath out there. Shrieking, monolithic dragons that seem to get bigger every time you look up are parading through the battlefield in violent gales. The enemy line was obviously shook after witnessing every new command summoned instantly being struck down in one fell swoop. It’s time to deliver.   Screeching Dragon with a full sword is your game ender. The board should already be thin from your constant assault in your plight to grow your dragons. Shyvana is adequate if you can use her champ spell to put challenge on her – otherwise she’s just the side piece.   Screeching Dragon + Sword -> Cataclysm -> Cataclysm -> Attack -> (turn flip) Dragonguard Lookout -> Attack   GG   Oops Shit wait, it didn’t go like that. Our midgame ascent was blustered and we ate dirt. Egghead bestows a chance for play when you get to turn 8-9, but it’s not where you do your best. Strikes are thin, new creatures are small, ways to apply overwhelm are scarce. bl,nt   Gameplay Tips: · There are 3 cataclysms: 1 for early quick strike, 2 for overwhelm finishes. ymmv · Riven and Ruined Dragonguard are value engines – Riven your weaponshop and Ruined Dragonguard your dragon trainer. You should never attack with them without an open field. With that said, don’t be afraid to let them die blocking after a couple turns of value. No need to protect them, any hits they take are hits your dragons didn’t have to and with their decent stats – they pay themselves off fast. · Trifarian Gloryseeker + Strike Spell can be a well timed answer to a turn 5 Viego, if you can Sharpsight/Ranger’s Resolve your way there. · Adding for a bit as I remember helpful bits.   Card List: This section will likely be added soon.   Matchups: I’ll keep this part thin. Meta is temporary, this deck is eternal. Ask mid-covid me, who totally did not knew it would be back. Hardest to easiest matchups:   Not Gonna Happen:   Kennen + Ez. Can’t land a hit, dragons starve. Darkness. Dragon snipers. No time to grow when you die in 2 Darknesses.   Difficult:   Gwen+Kat. Their early board damage is tough to soak with your kit, but if you get to turn 6 you can kill Eternal Dancers and start to take control a bit. Pirate Aggro. It takes just the right combination of stall into dragon+cataclysm to feel survivable. The roll is not in your favor here.   Moderate:   Nasus/Kindred Slay. Your doggy is scary sometimes, but thanks for leaving all those snacks laying around. Deny their card draw with strikes. Be ready to smack Nasus before he levels. Lurk. Their consistent attack size is a threat to your scale size. You must out-strike to perform.   Everything Else:   50 or so games in recent meta is clearly not enough to test everything, but nothing else felt challenging. I was worried about Timelines, but they could just not hold up to having their Forgemasters eaten so quickly, so they wasted a lot of mana on reequipping. I did not face a challenge with any other brews, yet.     Games to Diamond Here were my matchups just between P4 and D1 (20W/10L). The rest of the data comes from games outside of that. Nasus Kindred Slay: 4W-2L Jhinnie: 2W-0L Pirate Aggro: 0W-2L Kennen Ez: 0W-2L Timelines: 2W-0L Poppy Taric: 1W-0L Kat Gwen Elise: 0W-1L Poppy Jax: 1W-0L Tri Tf Ez Cait: 1W-0L Zed Equip: 1W-0L Asol Ramp: 1W-0L Eve Viego: 1W-1L TF Swain: 1W-0L LS Zoe: 1W-0L Lurk: 0W-1L MF TF: 1W-0L Gwen Shurima: 1W-0L Pantheon Yummi: 1W-0L LB Yuumi: 1W-0L Annie Elise: 0W-1L   Disclaimer: I'm a filthy liar and subbed in 2 cards from set 4 FINAL NOTE: There’s probably 100 reasons this deck will never be meta, but it does have a time when it performs well against the meta. For me, it’s just a passion project that I can have fun and streak on from time to time. I’ve mulled through so many tests and the deck has hardly moved, but I’m far from an expert. Love to try any optimization anyone comes up with! Feel free to question any choices. Stay weird. *Edit - Kill me. I had to find+replace Shyvanna for Shyvana and missed the title. -Cheers, Reign submitted by /u/r3ign_b3au to r/LoRCompetitive [link] [comments]

Update: I've attached a post where I put the rules I followed. Although they're really more like guidelines. https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/nwp9ec/aduros_guide_to_playing_mass_effect_randomly/ ​ UPDATE 2: The thrilling conclusion! https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/101qjfz/i_finished_playing_the_mass_effect_trilogy/ ​ ​ I've played through the trilogy a few times. So for my first playthrough of the remaster, I thought I'd do things a little differently. Every decision I made was made based on random chance (Using RPG Simple Dice). From character creation and skills, to the planets I visited. To dialogue and the big decisions. Lots of things went poorly in the first game. I went and got Wrex's armour, and somehow accrued enough points for either the Paragon or Regenegade options to talk him down. But the dice chose to screw up the persuasion. Ashley had to rescue me, and Urdnot Wrex got Urdnot Wrecked. Also, I genuinely managed to rescue Liara last. I did every other major quest available before you rescue her on Mars. So she was just a complete traumatised wreck who thinks you're a hallucination. Given Random Shep's violent mood swings, I can't blame her. Kaiden died, as he does in most people playthroughs. Also lots of hostages seemed to get shot along the way. ​ ​ In the second game, things were looking up. I got to buy most of the ship upgrades. Assemble all 12 Squad Members, about half of them loyal. The dice also got to re-design Shepard's face. She went from a caucasian with black eyes and purple hair to a darker skinned woman with grey hair, orange eyebrows, green eyes and massive duckface lips. Nobody commented on this. ​ Then I began the goddamned Suicide Mission. First off, after getting the IFF, Shepard chose to go to pick up Thane, kill the Shadow Broker, and do a couple of Firewalker missions.. Sorry Ken and Gabby. But at least you were more important than petty missions like stopping the Reapers brainwashing the entire Geth race. ​ ​ Then came the suicide mission itself. Jack, my only loyal biotic, did not make the trip over. Probably should have invested in that armour upgrade. Good news is, everyone else landed on the base. Next, I need to put one Squad Member to lead most of the squad in breaking in. Grunt got put in charge of the fire team, and did Mama Shepard proud. However, Shepard sent her trusty best friend Garrus into the vents. I really had hopes Garrus might make it. After all, he was a loyal tech. Unfortunately, Garrus got a bullet through the head closing a door. That guy cannot catch a break. ​ ​ Next up, the seeker swarms. Hoo boy. This time I finally gave Jacob the suicidally dangerous job he had been was angling for. Not that it made much of a difference, since Miranda and Samara weren't loyal. There's me thinking, welll, Jacob probably isn't up for this. But he doesn't have the biggest role in Three. If he dies, I can live with it. Then, because Jacob screwed up the barrier. The Seekers fly off with bloody Mordin. I am somewhere between fuming and laughing my head off at this point. I'm currently processing those rather hefty losses, and debating restarting the whole mission. When its time to choose a leader for the second fire team. And guess who it is, Tali. Who is not a fighter, and is still mad that tattled on her dad to the Admiralty Board. Tali ends up dying of an infection, complicated by getting shot a whole bunch by collectors. Also, a disloyal Legion is sent pick up Chakwas. But Shep had barely chosen to speak to Legion, so she doesn't even realise that it had a soul. Bad for the Geth in the long run, not too demoralising for the crew. Finally, its time to choose a couple of squad members to kick the collectors in their daddy bags. I bring Miranda and Zaeed. And honestly I'm pretty glad that I could keep an eye on those two. Miranda is a major NPC in Three. And I'd never gotten the Zaeed DLC before. I blow up some collectors, shoot a big skeleton dude in the face. And Zaeed and Miranda are dead. Just collapsed under some rubble. Because apparently they weren't loyal enough to not get hit by a big rock. But the time I get back to the crew, Thane and Samara are dead on the floor. Samara didn't make it because I struck out with Morinth, and I barely spoke to Thane. So that's not a huge loss for Shep. So there's the Hero of the Citadel. Having assembled a dozen of the most talented fighters and intellects in the Galaxy, she's walking away from the Collector Base with the only survivors of her crew. Kasumi, Shepard's beautiful baby boy Grunt. And Jacob. With Joker and a rather disappointed Chakwas there to greet her. ​ All things considered, I would highly recommend doing this for anyone who has played through the game more than once. I found a lot of cutscenes and heard a lot of dialogue that I'd never gone through before. For instance, I learned that when Ashley shoots Wrex, its not just a quick, impulsive shot to the head. Like every other Krogan in the game, Ashley has to shoot him about six times with a shotgun. There was also a genuine element of danger on certain missions. That really spiced up the narrative for me, not knowing who would live or die. If you're playing the game 'right', then you know that almost everything is going to be fine. I bet most of you knew whether Ashley or Kaiden were going to get off Virmire before you even loaded up the game. And got almost everyone through the Suicide Mission okay. But for this playthrough, I was truly on edge. Right now, I'm looking forward to seeing how I'll screw up the entire Galaxy in 3. submitted by /u/Aduro95 to r/masseffect [link] [comments]

I have been working from home since March due to the pandemic. I had my daughter 4/25 and only took 2 weeks off from work. These are my must haves to keep baby occupied while I work. Ingenuity Swing This was so worth the cost. You can rotate the swing so that baby swings side to side or front to back. The seat is also removable and light weight and portable. The mobile mesmerizes my baby. It spins, has a light that changes color, and has a mirror. Fisher Price Chair I got this as a hand me down. My daughter loves the vibration and the toys that dangle. This chair is a life saver to keep her upright and occupied. I also added a crinkly book to the arch for extra entertainment. Graco Duo Glider This sits right next to my desk. My daughter loves the movement and the white noise setting. She often dozes in this, which is why I keep it next to my desk. Fisher Price Deluxe Tummy Time Mat When assembling this mat, I left the actual mat part off and have the arch and piano part in the pack and play, that way I can safely leave baby to kick and play for longer periods of time. Hatch Rest Sound Machine A nap time essential! Baby sleeps great with the volume at 50%. Miku Baby Monitor I love that this monitor tracks room temp, humidity, and baby's vitals. I can comfortably leave baby to nap. Summer Swaddles These swaddles help my baby nap longer so that I can accomplish more! submitted by /u/quartzcreek to r/BabyBumps [link] [comments]

Hey all, I did this with Bloodborne and now I'm gonna do the same thing here! My first adventure into Souls was Bloodborne. After having a hard time starting, I eventually fell in love and platinumed the game. It was my first one ever. When I saw Dark Souls 3 complete edition for a mere $9 on ebay, I decided it was time to enter my second adventure, and my first of the main series. I won't lie, starting off, this game IMMEDIATELY felt harder than Bloodborne. Maybe this was due to HP recovery, etc. but I began way too aggressive. I struggled hard on Iudex Gundyr, probably took me around 15 tries to beat him, before resulting in a double death on my first victory. This to me was ridiculous - I had PLATINUMED Bloodborne, how could this be so hard? I pressed on and must have spent at least 10 hours dying to Lothric Knights, dying to random enemies, the Winged Knight, etc. I finally got to Vordt, figured him out in under 5 tries, and then found myself in the Undead Settlement. From the fat fire witches, to the Bowl Smashers/Saw guys, this area pissed me off. I finally found the Curse Rotted Greatwood, struggled to beat it, and flat out quit. This boss was supposed to be easy, and I was getting destroyed by it. As is tradition for me, I waited about a month, then decided to completely re-start the game, picked Knight, wielded 2H, and just went from there. When I focused on dodging again, instead of the shield, the game instantly started to click. I got through Iudex Gundyr in 2 tries, got through Vordt on my first try, then was able to kill Curse Rotted after only 2 more tries. After getting lost in the poison woods of Farron and the Road of Sacrifices, everything just clicked completely. I ended up loving the game so much that I went through the whole DLC in 1 night, even though it probably took about 20 hours. (No sleep club!) Being said, I ended up loving Dark Souls, and would love to give a run-down on what I thought about each boss of the game, and just for fun, a ranking out of 10. I will rank these by quality, then give a difficulty tier ranking at the end. I fought every boss solo on my first and second playthroughs and rankings/quality will reflect a solo approach. Iudex Gundyr: A real bitch when starting out, but in hindsight a phenomenal tutorial boss. Iudex begins with slow attacks, obvious tells, and large frames where you can roll through attacks. Simply stay back, and punish when free. Unlike Bloodborne, having more limited healing and no way to get HP back really made me struggle at first, but learning on phase 1 allowed me to improve my skills. Phase 2 on the other hand exposed me to larger non-humanoid bosses, and how important it was NOT to spam attack like Bloodborne, but rather pace your attacks, and mitigate your surroundings. I love the arena, love the theme. In terms of quality, Iudex is hard to top, in the mindset that he's a tutorial boss, at the same time, he IS a tutorial boss. (7/10) Vordt of the Boreal Valley: Meh. Vordt is the next boss, which despite being out of the tutorial phase, feels like a tutorial again. Very obvious tells, in phase 1, it's easier to avoid getting hit than taking a hit, staying under him is expected, and due to hitboxes, you won't take damage by standing next to him. Phase two is the same as phase one except for he now has a faster charge, which is more of a bullshit attack. It's not too hard to avoid, but if it connects, it does lots of damage, and almost guarantees being hit again. He also spams his ice breath, which is very easy to get around and heavily punish. (3/10) Curse Rotted Greatwood: Another Meh. CRGW is another boss that looks really cool, and seems like it could command a lot of cool lore. Instead the boss fight is pop the pustules until he takes enough damage and dies. Even when struggling, phase one was never a problem. Phase two one the other hand is a bit more challenging because of poor placement of pustules that requires an overhand swing, with small frames of damage, unless you want to fight the hand the entire time. The hand is a good addition, but feels irrelevant half the time, and has a grab animation that's just a tad too fast, as there's no clear tell. (4/10) Crystal Sage: This boss gets too much hate. While I certainly don't love him, he's fun to fight, and hardly feels cheap. Phase one is just camera control, and punishing him when he stays in place to release an attack. Phase two is a little harder with 3 extra sages, and I'm not ashamed to admit I died a lot because of trying to manage all the attacks. Once I realized that one hit felled a fake sage, I would just immediately run towards a spawning sage, and take them out before attacking the main one. Most of his attacks are fairly simple to dodge, but fun arenas and fun mechanics really allow this boss to make more of an impact than Vordt. (5/10) Deacons of the Deep: Let's be real here - this fight is an utter joke. Unless you get mobbed when you don't understand the mechanics or curse killed, it's hard to die here, even with only 2 or 3 estus shards. Mechanically it's lame, just kill the deacons in red until the Archdeacon pops up and you kill him. Lorewise though - it's pretty cool, guarding the tomb of Aldrich, etc. I prefer this fight to some of the aforementioned ones, but lore isn't an index of quality alone. (2.5/10) Abyss Watchers: Once the game clicked for me, this was my first real wall, but this fight is so damn cool. The mechanic of 3 total watchers spawning, none of them friendly towards you, but that one would combat the other two made it such an amazing fight. It felt like a world was going on OUTSIDE of the player character, that this was simply routine for the Watchers. Learning this mechanic, playing smack and run, dealing with the "friendly" watcher, and spacing all 3 of them out, made phase one a joy to learn, even if it isn't that tough. Phase two throws all of that out the window. Increased attack speeds, AOE, flaming weapons, new combos, damn is this phase cool. To this day it's one of the few bosses on NG+7 that I actually still haven't mastered. It always feels like a challenge for me, and the lore just is the cherry on top. (8.5/10) High Lord Wolnir: Another easy boss, but this one I always find myself enjoying. Whether it be from the initial cutscenes, the beautiful boss design, the lore of the creeping Abyss and the bracelets, the slight difference of being dragged back into the Abyss vs just dying depending on how you kill him makes me really enjoy this fight. Being said, it's poorly executed. 4 or 5 smacks per ring is really easy to do for the first two rings. Even when Wolnir throws down his black mist, or spawns in skeletons, ignoring the latter and running around the former is fairly simple. As long as your not smacking his head, the mist really isn't something that will damage you. My problem with this fight besides from the lack of threat with the first two rings is the glitching for the 3rd ring. Wolnir will often come up extremely close with black fog, or his dagger, or skeleton soldiers, AND his hands will clip through the walls. At that point you're just playing a waiting game, hoping he'll move his hand. I like the concept, but poorly executed. (4/10) Old Demon King: This boss could have been so cool. I am so sad that the potential here just doesn't feel lived up to. Demons can be such cool bosses, as I will get to later, and due to the limited moveset, low to medium damage, short range, this boss just never felt all to challenging. For phase one, just go up to him, stay on his ass and wail, back up, rinse and repeat. Phase two he has his explosion, and fire ring, but neither feel too hard to avoid or counter. I had died SO MANY TIMES fully exploring the Catacombs and the entirety of the Smouldering Lake, this just felt like a let down. I still die on this boss occasionally, but it always is just from a dumb error like rolling the same way as the fire ring. Being said, he's not the worst, his mechanics are solid, he's old after all, but he's just kind of ok. (5.5/10) Pontiff Sulyvahn: Now this was a boss. By far the hardest boss for me up until this point and a much larger wall than the Abyss Watchers. Spam rolling immediately gets you killed, not staying extremely close gets you killed, and not paying attention? Well that also gets you killed. He was fast, hit like a truck had dangerously long range. This boss just felt like a massive difficulty spike. Imagine my surprise and anguish when there were 2 of him. Being said, phase 2 comes in, and even when the shadow spawns, there's plenty of time to get hits off of Pontiff, and he follows his shadow. Moves are incredibly telegraphed, and I rarely kill the shadow because he's slightly slower and hits less hard, so he's an incredibly useful way to exploit Pontiff, especially because Pontiff doesn't move as fast with the shadow alive. The lore is in depth, the arena is beautiful, and the entirety of Irithyll is just jaw dropping after what we've seen so far. Pontiff is one of my favorites. (9/10) Aldrich, Devourer of Gods: Aldrich is a really cool boss because he's just unexpected. You've gone through the entire game hearing about a man-eater, a deadly foe, and when you face him, you're met with Gwyndolin. It's pretty darn cool. The music is intense, powerful, and the confrontation with Aldrich can reflect. I really wanted to like him, but to me, he's just a typical boss. Besides his cheap arrows, none of his moves are all too hard do dodge, his fire phase, the only changes are more arrows or more fire. He's still easy to maneuver around, and even when he spams his arrows 3x in a row in phase 2, avoiding them is really simple as long as you keep moving, with short walks, flashed in for a little stamina recovery. This isn't to say I don't get hit, but besides this attack, Aldrich doesn't feel too much of a challenge. Lore, music, and boss mechanics though help to elevate him a little higher. (6/10) Yhorm the Giant: Great lore. When I initially fought him it was solo, but on my second try I did inadvertently bring Seigward into the fight. Yhorm is definitely an interesting gimmick fight. If you don't have Stormruler, you're in for a challenge, but if you have it, the entire mechanic is just run, charge, run, charge, run, charge, etc. While I want to give Yhorm a higher ranking, the game intends for you to fight him using Stormruler and Seigward, and it just makes the fight too easy, and not a challenge. Incredibly basic boss mechanics, and slow attacks, just extremely hard hitting. (4.5/10) Dancer of the Boreal Valley: Reading reddit, I was extremely prepared for the dancer to be one of the hardest bosses I had ever fought. A large group seems to find her inexplicably challenging. I on the other hand don't find her too hard, but I do love this fight. From flipped music, to a fast, large more beastlike boss, I felt right at home, as this boss was meant to be taken on just like a Bloodborne boss. You need to be fast, have timely dodges, avoid grabs and combos by smacking the hell out of her. I really liked this fight. Boss mechanics were solid, fast paced, diverse move set, and the second phase really felt more different than just more fire because of the new moves or speed added. (8/10) Ocerios, the Consumed King: Oceiros was another boss where I think having experience from Bloodborne made this fight more manageable. Phase one you need to deal with jumps, but sticking to dat booty, avoiding certain hitboxes and swipes, etc. isn't too bad. Phase two, after he slams Ocelotte is my main complaint here. He gets harder to fight, obviously, but it feels that this fight it determined mainly by RNG. If he spams his charge, you're in for a rough time, but if he spews his breath, or does his flying magic attack, you've got a massive opening for hits. That's what hurts this fight for me. (5.5/10) Champion Gundyr: Oh yeah baby, this is another fight I love. You take the original Gundyr fight, go back in time to the guy at his prime, and oh boy is he a doozy. Powerful, extremely fast attacks, lethal kicks, ridiculous range - this is what a Dark Souls boss fight SHOULD be. While I can't say I wasn't disappointed that he didn't change forms, I think having him gain new moves, insanely high damaging grabs, etc. all allow for him to become a major challenge, while still feeling fair. I don't die to him all too often, but he's still one of my more challenging fights. I love the lore, love the intensity, and overall this should be the standard for a Dark Souls boss fight. Not the best, but damn close to the top. (8/10) Dragonslayer Armor: Another humanoid knight boss, but somehow feels completely different than the Champ. His arena is really interesting, but I have to say, his fight feels a lot more like a slog than the Champs. While Champion Gundyr rewards you for staying close, quick dodging, and punishing idle time after moves, Dragonslayer Armor rewards a slower and careful player, taking time to whittle away at his health while staying away. His shield bash and halberd ensure you stay back and are careful. Phase two is more of the same with just flying magic bullshit balls. These aren't too bad, but if you make a mistake, you're fucked. Something just feels lacking in this fight for me. It's by no means bad, but just doesn't compare to the Champ. (6/10) Lothric and Lorian: Wow. Just wow. What an absolutely enchantingly delightful fight. In phase one Lorian swings fast, and hard, and with Lothric teleporting him, he can often he getting wailed on one second, then doing the wailing the next. His only bullshit move to me is the build up sword beam, which is only unfair because he's hard to see at times as he blends in with the windows. That's my ONLY flaw with this fight. It's fair, it's difficult, and it's fun as hell. Phase 2, dealing with both brothers, learning when it's safe to move, prioritizing dodging over attacking, dealing with flame AOE, readable but demanding tells, and the fact that Lorian can be brought back makes this one of my absolute favorites. What a thrill, and if you don't realize how technically sound this fight is, from the lore, to the music, to the voice acting, to the mechanics, we can't be friends. (9.5/10) Ancient Wyvern: Another gimmick boss. Can't say I've ever tried to fight him legit, nor do I have the desire to attack his toes until he goes down. Not really much to say, the challenge of this boss is the environment. If you're exploring your first time like I did, then it's a challenge dealing with all the enemies and trying not to die. If you're on subsequent playthroughs and don't need anything it's a damn bore just running past everything. There really isn't a challenge besides one stairway. Just jump off the balcony and plunge. (2.5/10) King of Storms and the Nameless King: An absolute wall in difficulty. Another beautiful fight, though. I'll preface this with saying, when I first started learning this fight, the camera was a bitch. With experience though, it's incredibly easy to handle and master, it just takes time. The camera is NOT a demerit, unless you're playing with other people. It is incredibly fair, you just need to change your style of play and not lock on. KOTS was a challenge for me for a while though - I had a hard time reading the King on top when he was thrusting, using his lightning spear, and I still have a hard time with the attack where he goes in the air, throws lightning, then does an aerial attack, always seem to mess it up. Being said, not too bad, and an absolutely fun part of the fight, though it does get tedious if you die as much as I do. (58 times my first attempt) Nameless King on the other hand, ramps the difficulty up. If you're experienced with the fight, you'll know he's incredibly telegraphed, and easy to avoid ONCE you learn the attack delay. This was difficult as hell on my first playthrough. Two or three hits and you're done, and having to face KOTS each time was definitely a little frustrating to get back to him. Being said, he's incredibly fair. Long recovery, constant patterns, can be staggered and riposted, etc. The only attack of his I never figured out was his lightning attack. But, all said, he's nearly flawless, and in getting my platinum, he was my favorite by far to do Sunbro stuff on. (9.5/10) Soul of Cinder: This was the only real fight in the game I felt I had missed out on something by not playing DS1 and DS2 first. Fighting him meant nothing special to me in the lore, and I didn't realize he was the representation of the player character. The experience was delightful though. SoC hits hard, and his moveset is extremely varied. I see complaints about him having too many different options, and not enough diversity per option, but I disagree entirely. 4-5 moves per phase, be it mage, warrior, lancer, etc. are incredibly fair, and because he changes his phases so frequently, it requires mastery of them all to be successful. Not to mention, phase two is beautiful. The haunting music, the soul beginning to shine, and true power. The melancholy as he battles you, protecting the first flame with his very soul, the power, the difficulty, the combos, etc. all make for a great fight. While not my favorite, I think SoC has a lot to offer, and excluding DLC, makes a very fitting end to the trilogy based on the lore I know. (8.5/10) DLC Champion's Gravetender & Gravetender Greatwolf: Just lame. Gravetender is hardly a threat provided you take out the wolves first. Even just absentmindedly wailing on him you can easily take out 2/3 of his health before he even summons the Greatwolf. Greatwolf is occasionally swipes at you, runs at you with charges, and blows ice breath at you. The charge attack can feel incredibly cheap, as you may not be able to see the Greatwolf due to the environment, and the other two attacks are easy to dodge, or exploit by running around the breath of hugging the side of the boss. I'll give some credit for ingenuity, making the wolf have less health if you defeat it twice before is cool - but if I have to fight the wolf TWICE before the boss fight anyhow, this hardly feels like a boss, just another NPC. That's my biggest problem with this, it doesn't feel like a boss fight. It just feels like a NPC batte. (3/10) Sister Friede and Father Ariandel: Another stunning fight. Some of my favorite music in the entire game, new and inventive boss mechanics for phase one, and a haunting melancholy or remorse and silent fury when you fight Friede in phase one. She's delicate, but powerful, can be riposted or spammed, but can easily kill you in one combo, the invisibility mechanic, is the only real flaw, as without headphones isolating audio it can be challenging to find her. Being said, phase two is a delight, and really gives you a chance to put everything you've learned so far into play. You need to avoid Freide and her magic, while also avoiding Ariandel, and balance between striking Ariandel, avoiding massive fire AOE, or extreme slowness transitioned into striking his bowl with rapid speed, etc. It's beautiful, and honestly if the fight ended there, it would STILL be in my top 5 Soulsborne fights. Yet it doesn't after initially tricking you, the "ashes alighteth" and back comes Friede, with a vengeance. This part is fucking hard. I know you can riposte, but I've never been able to. Friede swings with unrelenting speed and fury, and moves so fast you can't even attack after each of her combos. Your only hope is to learn her moves, her tells, and exploit any downtime she has, while avoiding pretty much every attack she has. In multiplayer, this fight is fairly simple, but going solo, is looking for a world of pain. From the lore, to the haunting music, to the boss design, I truly love this fight. (9.75/10) Demon in Pain/Demon from Below/Demon Prince: This fight gets some criticism for being bullshitty, but honestly I've always been a fan. Existing in the rotted core of the great tree, the last remaining bastion of the old in the Dreg Heap, we're faced with a lore-gasm. This was the Demon Prince that Lothric fought, this unspeakably powerful evil, vanquished long ago, still had a soul left unclaimed. Phase one is fairly but challenging, managing the embered demon and the burned out on. While it seems hard because both are fast, they both have a unique movement pattern in terms of speed, and closing distance. While I never bothered to learn if the orange or red demon was the DiP or the DfB, I always would take out the orange one first because I had more trouble with it, with both of them. Then it was attack nonstop for as long as you can, recover stamina, and repeat. It was challenging but fair. Lo and behold in phase two the Demon Prince is something else. Twice the size of the others, with massive fire AOE, higher damage, and a diversified moveset, the Demon Prince can be a challenge even for seasoned players. A specific praise I have for this fight, though, is that the order or the demons killed changes the Prince's moves. How cool is that? I cannot think of another fight in all the games I've ever played that has such a cool mechanic. Each individual move set is so unique and approached so differently it feels almost like another boss. Most people like the laser beam demon, because he's "easier" but I could never figure that out, so I would often go with the meteor one. While the meteors could do more damage, they left a MASSIVE counter window, and if exploited, I could get away taking little to no damage. I truly think this fight is a masterpiece. (10/10) Darkeater Midir: This fight is hard. Really really hard. Having faced him and the Orphan, I honestly don't know who I think is a more challenging boss. I think one of my biggest flaws with Midir is his damage doesn't make sense. Brushing up against his leg does the same amount of damage as a tail swipe, or a claw hit. His entire body is a hitbox, and having no recourse makes it unnecessarily challenging. As far as lore and mechanics go? This fight is beautiful. Midir has a large moveset, which although seem ridiculously challenging, are often fair, and all have reasonable tells. The lore is super cool, the connection with Shira and Filianore, his corruption, etc. My problem with this fight is it's just super slow, and Midir has a fuckton of health. Should a god dragon called the DARKEATER be easy? No. Being said where do we draw the line between a good boss with a challenge and one of tedium? I find Midir more tiresome than other bosses because even with a high DPS weapon, you get 1 or 2 hits in at a time at the max, if you don't miss your window, and he has nearly 16k health. This problem is exacerbated in subsequent Ng+ cycles. All in all, the hardest boss in the game by far, but not really one of the best. (8/10) Halflight, Spear of the Church: I appreciate what they were going for here, but it just didn't work out. On online play you get either someone who destroys your build or you can destroy them. Nothing really too special, and they also can't heal, so the fight is over quickly. If you play offline, it offers a more consistent challenge, but it feels out of place so far into the Ringed City. He's hard, but not with the others of the ringed city. His attacks are somewhat interesting, but not new besides his spear walls. He's easy to spam into a stun, and he also doesn't stay in the stun for long, so it's just inconsistent. The fact that you can also literally ignore Judicator Argo is kind of dumb. What's the point if he just dies summoning Halflight? Nowhere else in Soulsborne is an intro speech required, even with bosses like Lothric and Lorian. You wouldn't be missing out without it, it would just be standard. There was 0 point to him being in the Church for offline play, and he's just literally a buffer for online matchmaking. (Which is extremely inconsistent. I played through almost all Ng+ cycles with online on [for covenants] and another person was only summoned once.) This fight is lost on me. Not the worst, but meh. (5.5/10) Slave Knight Gael. Yes. This fight is a stunning sendoff. From the lore bonus of Filianore's rest decaying, the end of the world, two people, two supposed nobodies, the last ones left, fighting over the Dark Soul, for no true reason, once the world was dust. It's beautiful. The assembly of Pgymy thrones, the pain in Gael, knowing that even if he was somehow able to return with the pigment of the Dark Soul, he couldn't paint the world. "Those who aren't ken to fire cannot paint a world. Those absorbed by fire, must not paint a world," was an absolutely beautiful foreshadow. Gael isn't ken to fire. He's just a slave knight, a worthless thrown away body, who somehow overcame, and consumed the souls of the survivors in the rotted world. He's testing you, making sure that you are the true one to paint a new world, knowing it's better to let the world rot, then begin another failure. Gael begins animalistic, and desperate. He's frantic and his attacks hit hard. In phase two, Gael regains composure, understanding what defeat would mean. He becomes knightly again, using every tool at his disposal. He utilizes his crossbow, Way of White Corona (from the painted world of Ariandel), and you can see the souls, and his power become so extreme, that at times, it just explodes out of him in a violent flash. He can no longer control his power, and uses every opportunity, of desperate slashes, viscous combos, on the ruins of a crumbling civilization, and the keepers of the dark soul, to beat you. What a magical souls boss fight. While he isn't the toughest boss, he sure ticks every fucking box to be the best boss of the entire game. (10/10) Difficulty Rankings: Midir Lothric and Lorian Friede Gael Nameless King SoC Demon Princes Champion Gundyr Pontiff Dancer Dragonslayer Armor Aldrich Abyss Watchers Gravetender and Greatwolf Halflight Oceiros Old Demon King Iudex Yhorm Vordt CRGW Crystal Sage Wolnir. Deacons Wyvern Overall, I loved this game, the only knock on it being the platinum requirements. Rings/Miracles/Spells/Pyro/Covenants just felt like a chore. While I finished this game's requirements in 100 hours(baring covenant items/spells) it took me almost another 50 hours to get this other crap because of poor online matchmaking, or ridiculously low item drop rates. While in good conscious I can never recommend platinuming this game, it was an absolute treasure to play, the maps were extremely well developed, and overall, I found the bosses to be inventive, creative and downright enjoyable. If you're still with me thanks for reading! This will forever be one of my favorite games. submitted by /u/GoldWhale to r/darksouls3 [link] [comments]

TL;DR: I think Teemo's okay. Around 2008, Riot decided they needed a lighter end to their spectrum of champions. A race, so to speak, of creatures that were more jovial in portrayal than the dark kind they had been pouring their resources into. Led by a Rioter known only as 'Ezreal,' they developed Him in the still Indie-company-sized studio of Riot Games. Him. Genesis. From Him, a new race would come to be. From the hairless and often explosive females to the oft-dramatic males for and against Bandle's safety, all with their own undertakings. Most won't remember Him as the lawless origin to the race called Yordles. To many, too many, He is but an image in the Mind's eye, of a moppish-yet-sturdy smile. For others, the image is a scope in the hands of He, capable explorer and scout. For me, it was the story of a log, a paw, and a vaulting motion towards the player--invitation, demonstration and warning all in one. When I was in the last year of high school, my friends introduced me to League of Legends. I don't have the wherewithal to remember what season I joined. What do I remember in those first few games among friends? We were in a skype call. After some, if I may admit it, boring matches, I fled to the store to find someone more entertaining than Annie and Warwick to play. I saw Him. And spoke words my friends couldn't hear for they were whispered between the creature before me, and my quivering lips. "Oh my god, Teemo." "I thought you hated the game," my friends teased in the days afterward. I'd laugh off the question and say, "Top, please!" Then lock in Teemo, the Swift Scout. A smile pressed across my lips as I previewed my several skins, admiring the way they changed the context of this... this thing, rapidly encroaching on my impressionable young mind. What was it about Him that made me so eager to play League? Soon enough, as my friends either stagnated or stopped playing altogether. The introduced became the tenured, though my advice wasn't useful to new players. All I knew how to do was play Him. Q. Blinding dart. The force of those lungs. W. Move Quick. The work of His legs. E. Toxic Shot. His ingenuity. R. Noxious Trap. A calling card. I dreamt of walking down a road one day and spotting one in my path. Returning it to him and receiving a thank you for my time. But even in this domain I was left lacking, because the part of League that captivated me most was champ select... peering upon Teemo's splash, trying to capture the same feeling I had that first, blinding moment in high school. What had enamored me? I could see bits and pieces, yet a recollection of the entire artwork eluded me, and I began to grow frustrated and toxic. I risked being banned--after a two week warning, I realized I must go on a pilgrimage. On a road to discovery, to study Teemo and discover why this Yordle made me so passionate. And here I am today. Join me as we dissect what it means to be Teemo. Part one: a glimpse of his body. Imagine, if you will, the lush jungle of Kumungu. A buzzing, hot place full of danger at every step, yet rewarding travelers with constant doses of serenity and fae beauty. It is hard to imagine every single wonder this jungle can provide, nor their extent. Already its tall palms, the gromps that hop in massive packs to avoid predators, the rolling stones called Krugs, all assault your ability to separate fact from fiction. Wiping sweat off your brow, you stumble through the brush to emerge on a small clearing. The Kumungu hushes itself and you grow cautious, afraid of whatever laid in store in this sunny, almost picturesque relief. A campsite. You walk closer, setting down your things to inspect it. There is a small campfire, snuffed before dawn, and a swirl of broken twigs where a small body sat. As your surroundings continue to swirl about you as if the scene has trapped you in the reverie of another person, the true remnants of this campsite are revealed. The safety of it all, the confidence of a settler to sleep alone in the Kumungu. You imagine the quiet happiness of a creature who has had the honor to tame the jungle, breathing breath and circulating the blood of an adventurer through his diminutive and constantly-aware body. You imagine its leavings, a bundle of tinder, a rock utilized as a pestle. It sleeps in its own, victorious body. It survives with the intellect of its own mind. You glance back at your bag of man-made tools--and feel nothing but the worst scorn imaginable! What shame the scene drives in you, to be ever-reliant on the success of other men! You wish to lie prostrate right there in the middle of the clearing and plead, nay, pray for the same insight. Standing up from your journey into the mind of this legend, a noise breaks the spell. The bout of madness is over. You twist around to see what made the rustling. A chipper laugh. "HAHEEUHEAU." Gone. But all of that shameful energy has turned into determination. Leaving your pack on the ground, you deign to live as the animals do. Part two: to be a maid in his home. "Excuse me, maid," Teemo calls from the back room of his humble home in Bandle City, "I will be leaving again soon. Please leave my shoes outside my door." Your heart skips a beat. The Yordle, he, oh god, he just arrived home mere minutes ago. When accepting this job out of the classifieds, taking it for granted, an opportunity to travel, you never accounted for such a creature like the Swift Scout. Like Jane Eyre on her walk outside Thornfield, simply delivering mail and resuming her telltale boredom at a casual pace, your first sight of Teemo exploded the monotony decades hence. Rushing inside, covered in dust. Bootprints trailing on the sandalwood floors--"don't worry," you remember mumbling, "I can clean it up." "That's your job, right?" Teemo asked. You wouldn't know, but you caught him in a jovial, rather than murderous, mood. "I forgot, I haven't been home. Let's share a drink." The two of you sat across from one another. Teemo poured Bandle bourbon into two glasses. The large pitcher sloshed forward and you caught him catching it... tendons underneath his furred arm tensing. You weren't going to be able to keep this job, you surmise. Teemo carried the conversation on, while you imagined how the aftertaste of bourbon must feel on the back of his little throat. To think such a small, pernicious thing could knock more drinks down than you... And at this trying time, where you almost lost it all, he hadn't asked you to move his shoes. You near the boots of swiftness, breathing heavy. It takes a moment's preparation to reach down and grab them. Your fingers slip into them, and are greeted by warm air. The heat hasn't yet left the boots. Oh, Christ above!! They are still hot from use! From pounding, over, over, and over, over, and over, on the dirt ground underneath Teemo's feet!! Teemo shoots out of his bath, throwing a towel over himself. "Is everything okay?" He cries. "Did you slip?" All his visage does is earn another howl from your addled mind, yet so much panic forces you into a cooled state. Everything slows down while Teemo awaits an answer, you on the floor, he dripping wet with a head full of shampoo-bubbles. An offer begins to form on your lips. But then the scene ends. Part Three: His Fingers. Dear Riot, I heard you were changing the champion portraits. I have something to ask. Can you please make it so we can choose what part of the skin becomes the portrait? I really want my portrait to be Omega Squad Teemo's fingers. There is something about the singular makeup of his furred digits that inspires me to play better. My breathing becomes heavy, as if I am running a marathon at record pace, and my reaction times turn frenzied--almost as good as a scripter! When I imagine Omega Squad Teemo's fingers curled around my, sorry, his dart gun, I position better, I am more positive in games towards my fellow summoners. Can we do an AMA with the League artist who designed Teemo's fingers? I want to know why they chose that enticing groove, the perfect length of each follicle, the same-colored claws! Jesus Christ, I can imagine the thin veins running beneath those killer points, almost as much as I can smell Teemo's fingers curling under my chins mere moments before he SNAPS. MY. NECK. But then there is something else. The rotating game mode... Zigg's fingers are right out in the open, naked but for the pen in the clutch of his paws. Oh god, who draws these Yordles and their fingers? Have I said fingers a lot? Sorry. Imagine finding one of their perfect strands on your pillowcase, or floating in the broth of your chicken Campbell soup. You pick it up, holding it against a fluorescent light, and see its golden integrity in full. I want to have this moment happen forever and ever. If only you would give me the CHANCE. PLEASE, PLEASE GIVE ME JUST A GLIMPSE OF OMEGA SQUAD TEEMO'S RESPLENDANT DIGITS! I CANT HOLD BACK ANYMORE!!! Every time I am in school, at dinner, alone in my room, those fingers crawl under my clothing and pull me down into the fiery throes of passion. Please, please, please give me this feature or I don't know what will happen to me next. Part Four: A doughy dream. You are eating pancakes at mom's. There is a television on the kitchen counter, where she catches up on the latest news. The nonstop coverage of some political debate finally shuts up for commercials. Still groggy, the popping colors and loud noises of these ads entertain you. That is, until a cereal ad breaks away into a scene for Pillsbury biscuits. Your mind snaps out of half-sleep, so sudden your mom gives a peripheral glance to see what's the matter. It was like any other commercial from Pillsbury, involving a mascot selling some new brand of processed dough. Yet, and yet... the Pillsbury Doughboy had been replaced by Teemo. You spit out your mouthful of cereal back into your bowl, lean in, start to go off-kilter with fascination. "Press my belly again!" Teemo pleads. The stay-at-home mom in the commercial complies, a skeptical smile on her face as she presses in the scout's stomach. "Hoh-oh! Hee hee hee!" Sliiiide. Crack. Did your hand just act on its own, breaking your mom's expensive, favorite ceramic bowl? She says something and rushes off to fetch the broom. Now she has left you alone with Pillsbury Teemo. As you thought, the sly creature had been waiting for such a distraction. That the two of you met here was no matter of circumstance--Teemo immediately breaks away from the T.V mom, then gestures for you to come closer. "Would YOU like to press my tummy?" Teemo asks. You stand up, still with enough sense to avoid the broken ceramic. Teemo, the T.V mom, both wave you on like you're a marathon runner finishing the last leg of the race. Five fingers battle for which will do the honor, until you are sure the anticipation will break your hand. Then. Fizz. That was the static of the television prickling the fur on your index finger. Smiling, dumb, you press Teemo's exposed belly. "Hee hee hee, come with meee!" You are sucked inside the commercial! The other boys, real jocks and always needed a snack after their big game, stand aside for Teemo's honored guest. "Make me small like you," you beg. Teemo waves an arm and you start to notice the counter grow in size. "Yes, yes, yes!" Oh man, it is the best time, the greatest time, an excursion so pleasurable you think it might throw you into an aneurism. Thank you, god! Thank you, Pillsbury! Thank you, thank you--your feet makes small impressions in the dough as you and Teemo play tag, giggling like schoolgirls, while all the other members of your new family urge you on. Teemo tugs you down into the dough and the two of you snuggle together. "Are you ready to be together forever?" He asks. You give a muted nod, somehow knowing what comes next. T.V mom lifts up the tray of biscuits, telling the kids whoever behaves the best gets the 'specialest' biscuit. As the tray enters the oven, the scorching heat melting the skin on your backside, you wake up. Real mom is crossing her arms, angry. You fell face-first into your bowl of cereal again. The Pillsbury Doughboy, no longer Teemo, dances away on the screen. Mom turns to get a napkin. The Doughboy winks at you. Part Five: Playing against other Yordles. When I play against other Yordles, my blood runs hot. Teemo is the true owner of the top lane. Kled is a reject, someone better of driving him and his stupid lizard off of a cliff! And Lulu, that perennial little brat has no place anywhere, let alone in the Rift's proudest lane. Tristana can rocket-jump straight into a wood-chipper. Rumble is a college drop-out, and Corki doesn't even look like a Yordle. One day I went Teemo top against Kled. It was supposed to be an easy game, considering I was a gold III smurfing in Silver II. I got into a one-on-one with Kled, the battle going my way until the freak jumped off his mount at the right time, dodging a blinding dart. I became blinded by tears as my screen turned grey. Then again. And again. Teemo, my animus, was dying and it was my fault. The game ended at fifteen minute and I knew, not for the last time, I failed Him. My eyes went to my personal shrine to the scout, and I swore my framed picture of his face frowned with dissatisfaction. My heart palpitated. Right away I rushed to the pet store and bought myself two things: a rat and a lizard. My mind was a haze of fury and upset, yet the pet store owner let me get them anyway, and even smiled at me on my way out. Almost knowingly... I rushed back into my home, plopping my new pets in front of the shrine. I brandished a small letter-opener, then lifted the lizard over my portrait of a Teemo. "You love Skarl so much," I whispered, slipping my letter-opener under the beast's throat. "You love him, Kled. Well, I-I.. I..." I fell to the ground, sobbing. "I can't do it anymore!" I yelled, sobbing. "No more sacrifices, Teemo!" The truth was, I loved all Yordles. Teemo shouldn't ever ask me to harm what was made from His flesh, His blood. "Quite right," agreed a voice from behind me. I whirled around to find the pet-shop owner. "Finally, you understand." The rat and lizard scurried under the couch in fright, as their handler shrank before my very eyes! It was He! Devil Teemo! I fell prostrate, bowing to my Lord, crying tears of joy and penance. Devil Teemo gently took my blade away. "You've done well to learn the value of all life," he admitted. "I've paid close attention to your journey, first thinking to punish you... then to watch and see if you changed. And, bless the 'Shroom, you did." "T-Te-ee-mo!" I wailed. The devil smiled devilishly. "Say, did your really build AD last game? For that... I think I'll make you my personal servant for life." I offered my hands to him, and he put me in shackles made of silver. They were loose enough to not hurt me weak, brittle wrists. He dragged me into a portal, and my days on the Rift, rather than watching over it, were over. Part Six: My VR Teemo experience. The year is 2026. Oculus and everybody got their business together and figured out true Virtual Reality. The games published can now be called, unironically, triple A. Funnily enough, all they needed to do was provide a way for the game console to 'plug' into the player. The bridged, LAN connection of sorts allows the player to experience a much more visceral and fast experience. Of course, this comes with dangers. Games are now labelled 'rated M, male, 20-45' or 'T, for females aged 16-32.' This is because the bridged connection provides unique, situational sensations that certain biologies are unable to comprehend. Rule-breakers report a few... strange occurrences not available to the public. You know the risks of what you are about to do. Yet you have already stolen your sister's VR device, as well as her host of games on the Steam cloud. You went through the trouble of piecing her password together from her diary, so you can access the 'family unfriendly' portion of her library. It started that day you peeked inside her headset. That single image plagued the back of your lids until you preferred to be blind than... than to see it again without having the capability to interact. Too hungry to put it off anymore, you lift the VR helmet onto your head and plug the USB 7.0 jack into your armpit. By using brainwaves you enter your sister's password and access your chosen game in a nanosecond: Miracle Simulator--Yordle DLC. Right away the neuraltransmitters indicate a squeezing force on your left hand. You swivel to the left, and right away your breath is stolen. "Ow," Teemo says, laughing through a grimace. "Not so hard, honey." You look down and see the sky-blue hospital sheets. The constant beep of a heartbeat monitor bumps in your ears. A virtual doctor towers above your body, and you quickly get into bed to better complete the experience. This is definitely the game your sister was playing. "We're going to be a family?" You whisper into the mic, braving the voice features. Teemo loads a response. "Yes. A girl, remember?" You frown. "VR, load up situation change. Boy." "A b-b-boy, remember?" Teemo crackles, changing his response. "I'm retiring from scouting, getting a seat on the Bandle counsel. We'll never be apart, promise." The Yordle breaks composure, resting his head on you to weep. "I'm so proud of you, of us." The VR presses forward a spongy substance to soak up your tears. They flow freely. "Me too. I'm so happy to be here with you." The doctor finally has his own voice line. "Okay, here we go. Get ready to push--" A fierce disturbance coaxes a howl of pain from you! The hospital room flashes red as the sensation the game wants to deliver, your body is frankly unable to answer. Teemo's distorted, pixelated face gives you a concerned look. "I-Is p-p-p-play one okay?" "Yes!" You shriek to the heavens. "But exit, exit game!" In the last moment, the AI grins and waves you off. You fall out of your bed hyperventilating. The ribbons of your conscience ravel back into their rightful places. That experience almost killed you! "I'm okay," you breathe, "I'm okay, I'm alive." It was worth it, though. You rest a hand on your stomach, and feel a little kick. It was worth it--in more ways than anyone will ever know. Part seven: Dating Profile Single and ready to mingle! Teemo, the Swift Scout. I'm a scout who lives in Bandle City, and am looking for a light, honest-to-heart relationship. Applicants ought to know right away that to get to me, you have to get through my BFF Tristana. We're thicker than thieves, on the job and outside of it! Likes: long walks in the jungle, my work, sharing a drink with friends. Dislikes: burst damage, hard CC, people who can't take a joke, drama. One thing to know about me: I'm a Yordle. You might have guessed it from my profile image, lol. That means I'm shorter, and more emotional than some human or cat-person or Zaunite project. I break down at sad movies and want to beat up the villains in my favorite action flicks (John Wick 2 and Shaolin Soccer, bee-tee-dubs :) ) What I want most in a partner: honesty and commitment. Someone who doesn't underestimate this scout's code. My passion: microbrewing, believe it or not. A quirk: I go to work shirtless ;) So if you think I am a fit, let me know ASAP: a stud like me can't be on the market long, right? Part Eight: a reply to Teemo's dating profile. Dear Teemo, Your body is so chiseled--gah, let me restart this missive xD I can tell from your eyes you have suffered a great hurt in your past, and I cannot help but desire to mend you. A little bit about me: I am a budding warrior from Demacia, known for dispensing justice. Yet no one, not even my own sister, ever asks me to dispense sound advice. There's something so isolating to living in a bubble, you know? I want to make mistakes with someone, get cuffed and put into the backseat of a police car with someone. I read that you're passionate, oftentimes in the wrong way, and I see potential. Potential for the two of us to grow and flourish; live our lives together in imperfection. Will you hold me at night and whisper "it's okay" after I give you a tearful rendition of how I killed a six-year-old Noxian child? How I surprised here from inside a bush and drove my blade through her chest, and into her stuffed animal? People see me as larger than life, but I am so much smaller than a Yordle. Please, deliver me from this constant grief and my devotion is yours to do with as you please. Hope to hear from you soon, xD Garen. Part Nine: Teemo's reply to Garen. Hello Garen of Demacia, You sound brave enough to me. Hope you're man enough for some extreme hiking in the Kumungu HAHEUAHAUAH hope 2 see u soon, Teemo Part Ten: Teemo sacrifices himself in a hostage crisis I regret to inform Bandle City that, at 1:25 PM Saturday, Teemo the swift scout succumbed to injuries endured while protecting the Yordle people. Captain Teemo, even on days off, was on duty. It was no different that fateful morning at the Bandle Mint, our largest bank. When Veigar broke through the glass windows and demanded hostages, it was Teemo who withdrew his concealed firearm, a blowgun, and saved the lives of countless citizens. We cannot guess as to what went through his head in the fight that ensued. But we hope that we, the people, were grateful enough to the scout that he had nothing but gratitude in his valorous last moments. The shard of dark magic that took his life has done the world the greatest disservice. Even its thrower, Veigar, has begged Bandle's forgiveness for removing this brave warrior from our charge. Teemo is survived by his maid, as well as his close friend Garen. As denoted in his will, Poppy will lay him to rest in the Grove Cemetary tomorrow evening, after a procession befitting his brave soul. To everyone grieving, remember that Teemo did everything in life for the betterment of your day. That he would not want to see tears, but smiles on the childrens' faces while they go towards, again, a promising and bright future. Thank you, Captain Teemo, for your duty. Your loss is gonna sting. Part Eleven: Teemo's valiant return to life. Urgot knew he was going to need even more power to fight the chem barons. More than his weaknesses permitted. There was but one option, gleaned by him from a lab report never meant to cross his eyes. A scout named Teemo had been shipped to Zaun for containment. While his kind weeped, Teemo was merely put into an unstoppable rest by Veigar's curse. The dreadnought knew how to break such spells. Crawling forward on crablike legs, he peered over the Yordle. Such surprisingly toned arms, and a stomach taut with muscle... Urgot never considered the ultimate life form would exist without outside... construction. Not able to resist the urge, he pounded the 'awake' button to Teemo. Lightning pierced the pollution clouds above Zaun, went on to strike the antenna-tower! Urgot laughed joyously as Teemo's body flailed, receiving enough electricity to light all of Piltover for a week straight. Alive, Teemo was becoming alive! The Yordle gasped, shooting up on his stone bed. He immediately tugged loose the IV's in his arm and stared at the dreadnought, trying to figure out what was going on. Urgot found it unbefitting of the ultimate life-form to be so surprised. Then Teemo softly grinned. "Thanks for that, big guy," he said. "Wow... look at those arms..." The mechanical man wiggled in embarrassment. "Oh, t-these old things? Weak, the pinnacle of human weakness, you know hard it can be to find good augments around here." "No, no! I bet you could break a watermelon with these cannons." In the hours that came, Urgot forgot all about killing the chembarons and taking over Zaun. Instead, history changed. Teemo saved the world by having a long discussion about thick arms with Urgot. Part Twelve: Teemo eats a poptart Male Yordles have slightly protruded muzzles that make their mouths into tunnels of tiny, adorable, razor sharp teeth. Of course, Teemo isn't thinking about his incredible body, especially not with the aroma of a s'mores poptart right under his pink nose. You, his maid, quit dusting his trophy shelves, distracted to an exxtreme. You risk a glance over--the scout is preparing to take a bite, just setting down the Bandle tribune. "You know," Teemo says, delaying the poptart. "I had a dream about baked goods. I was stuck in some magic box, with giant humans..." 'Eat it,' your mind begs. 'Please, for the love of everyone, take a bite out of your poptart.' After the great scare that was his 'death,' and subsequent resurrection in Zaun, you needed this. "You look famished," you comment. "Eat your food, m'lord." Oh, and how sly you think you are! Teemo grins, knowing full-well that you have a penchant for noticing the little things. He turns his chair over to you. Stuck against the shelves there is nowhere to look other than at him. Teemo lifts the poptart to his mouth. He bites it. You watch as his cute incisors tear apart the cracked outside of the poptart. Then the gooey marshmallow comes: a strand sticks between his right canine and far, top-right molar. How far will it stretch? Mmm... how far, darn it?! Unable to stand alone, you swing back to clutch one of Teemo's trophies--a statue of him leaping over a log, a Nature's Friend award for saving the Kumungu jungle. Glomp, crick, glomp. Chew, chew, chew. You think you've fared the worst of it. Then he stops with his mouth open to breathe, making a show of it just to brutalize your poor, poor sensibilities! A crumb escapes and crawls away on the wooden floor, broken. "Ah, it's so good," he mumbles through the mouthful. "As a good scout, I ought to finish this piece of my rations, and continue to the next. But this.. this bite is more scrumptious, somehow?" "Stop!" You yell. "No more, I yield, I yield!" Just then, Garen breaks into the room. He is unhappy. "What are you doing, dear?" Garen asks. "Don't tell me..." Teemo leans back and swallows. You watch the poptart mush go down into his gullet and the spell breaks, thank the Mothership. "Merely entertaining our maid." If anyone else sat where Teemo did, Garen might have lectured them. Yet the devil is far too charming. The Demacian warrior takes a seat. "Well," he says, "we have a long hike today. Eat your food." Your clutch your own head in consternation. Not another bite... Part thirteen: Leemo NOTE: this section is not about Teemo, but his brother I created, Leemo. Although related by blood, they are dangerous and devilish in different ways. Leemo was born in darkness, which is thought to be the reason for his dark velvet coat. Unlike the light-son Teemo, Leemo was cast away by his parents to live in the Deathcage Orphanage, an orphanage where even infants must fight to survive. Fight he did. His first kill was upon two snakes, who attacked him in hopes of poisoning his strong body. Then two bulls, who attacked him in hopes of poisoning his strong mind. Then two horses, who attacked him in hopes of poisoning his strong resolve. Leemo went on to become a freelance assassin. He has wavy purple fur that creates a human-like part over his brow. He never looks happy except in private when he finds a picture of his beloved, Jasmine, who perished in the HexTech wars. Unlike Teemo, Leemo is dangerous both on and off the battlefield. Say one thing wrong against him, like try to bully him, and he will beat you up. He likes to drink blood for breakfast, eat baby deer for dinner. Sometimes you can find the purple Yordle pondering the meaningless existence of life atop a stone gargoyle, or photoshopped onto the front cover of my Shadow the Hedgehog Videogame. It is foretold that the two brothers Teemo and Leemo will meet one day. Even so Leemo is my original character and I love him devoutly, I know Teemo will kill his brother in cold blood. The true 'original' characters is too pure, too powerful for any foolish iteration to improve upon. I cry knowing my precious and brooding Leemo is destined for the slaughterhouse. Teemo, if you are reading this, please spare Leemo. The sweetest wine is but one flavor, and Leemo is the flavor I partake in when you are busy. Sorry. So sorry. Big sorry. Part fourteen: Team Liquid gets new management. "Gimme back my bobblehead!" Piglet yelled, jumping up and down with his arms outstretched. Dardoch tittered, continued his mean game. The Teemo bobblehead, a precious heirloom to the marksman, shook its head 'no' in disappointment. "You will never get it back. I hate you, you play to lose." Locodoco, their coach, did nothing to alleviate the situation--instead, his grating laughter made it all the worse. "Fools, stop fighting, you guys are idiots who won't listen to me." "Idiots!" Cried Team Liquid's manager from the doorway. "Listen up. You are all very naughty so we have gotten the best to coach you. I had to sign a contract in my own blood." All the toxic players in the room cocked their head to the side, confused. So basically everyone except TL's support cocked their head to the side, confused. "Ay ay ay," the manager groaned. "Look down." Down by their manager's knees was none other than Devil Teemo! Piglet's eyes lit up with sardonic glee. At last, justice would be served to this naughty jungler. Teemo leaned on the doorway and smiled, knocking fear and titillation into the hearts of the young team. Locodoco perked up in his seat. "You are no Tristana, though," the coach whispered, unable to argue against his heart. "And yet, so striking..." "Trust me," Devil Teemo said in his demonic voice, "I get that a lot." "No way!" Dardoch cried. "We just teamed with Disney. this makes no sense." "You think the devil himself and Disney aren't close friends?" The way his long, pointed claws carved itno the door forced Dardoch to shut up. "You have been a sinner, Dardoch. Some might call you the Michael Jordan of League of Legends, switching teams so often, except you haven't actually won a tournament." The jungler flinched. "I wonder what your true 'breaking point' is. Consider yourself replaced." Teemo lifted out a single finger and flicked it up. A trap door opened beneath Dardoch, dragging the Team Liquid player into the fiery depths of League of Legends elo hell. Piglet cried with such joy that his voice cracked. Dardoch's last gesture was to drag his nails across the carpet before being sucked into infinite torture. Out from the flames rose a new jungler. A gaunt and humble student of Teemo. TheRainMan. "TheRainMan?!" Shouted Piglet. "No, it cannot be, he was made irrelevant years ago." "I used to live a quiet life, being toxic in games and sacrificing small animals to my Lord," TheRainMan explained. "One day, I found the strength to stop. Teemo has helped me remain strong ever since." Devil Teemo nodded. "Prove yourself to them, my servant." Nearby, Reignover was losing a game of League as per usual. TheRainMan pointed a single digit, which by dark magics became furred, long. A yellow bolt shot forth from his fingernail, hitting Reignover's screen. In an instant the camera broke away from the player's champion, panning towards the enemy nexus. It exploded. Team Liquid's manager gave a toothy grin. Disney had given him the power to change the fabric of league itself. Part Fifteen: A bit of his blood You sit there, reminiscing on your school paper assignment. This dissertation will decide whether or not you become the Bandle scientist your parents want you to be. The subject of your study is a simple one, yet intrinsically deep by its execution: is Teemo's scarf a part of his body, or a part of his outfit? Pencil in hand, you ponder the question. There is but seventy-two hours left to write, seventy-two hours to do an assignment said to take several weeks. Once again you drift to those long, red strands. If it was so simple as reaching forward and touching the beautiful silk pictured in your memory! The great Yordle, Teemo, is yars away, looking through books without a clue you're studying him. Sighing, you resign yourself to abject failure, putting away your papers. When, in the corner of your eye, you spot a strange substance by the shelves. The allure of the red liquid brings you closer to Teemo than ever before. Close enough to hear the Yordle curse under his breath and say four syllables that set your heart to floundering. "Ow," Teemo cries, "papercut!" The Yordle walks away without another word. The blood rests on the paper of the book. The book's title? Who cares... This is the blood of Teemo. A deep, red marker of the vivacious creature's existence. In the quiet, unoccupied annals of the Bandle library, Teemo unwittingly left it in your charge. What will you do with it? Touch it. There is enough there to get a full drop to form on the end of your pinky finger. It glistens red, and feels thicker in content than your, or anyone else's blood. You almost smell the scout's outdoorsy lifestyle in its formation. Not giving it a second thought you pop your pinky into your mouth. Lights of the entire rainbow hit you! In a second you find yourself strapped into a seat, pen let free! The euphoria of Teemo's blood gives you a lust for learning, a lust for all things in life. A mere drop grants you the rarest insight into the Yordle's scarf. It is both a part of him and a part of his outfit. An identity and a disguise, a mark of how he kills enemies then drinks with friends. Line after line after line--by the time you start to come down from the high, your dissertation is done. But Teemo has found you panting at one of the tables. He frowns, concerned. "You drank my blood, didn't you?" Teemo inspected his own finger, still bleeding from the papercut. "The addiction is so great, if we don't wean you off, you might die." You nod. That is fine. It was worth ultimate bliss. But the Yordle has no plans to let an innocent die due to his perfection. He hold out his arm. "I want you to pace yourself. It's okay..." Your memory begins to blacken and fade out just as you eagerly lift his hand towards your mouth. You see many things in your sleep. A tray of biscuits, a strange machine with many cords, a missive to Riot about fingers. You see a devilish him, a purple him, a him that coaches Team Liquid. You see floating poptarts and hot shoes. You realize how Teemo is an inter-dimensional gift sent to those who need someone to love. An animus. An inspirer. The genesis. As reality rips you away from this endless paradise, Teemo drags you towards his world for one last thing. Your lips finally meet. It is too indescribable, to inexplicable. When you awake, Teemo has left you to your own devices. You stand up and quietly, pleasantly, resume your day, content to put away all that has happened. I finish these words with the greatest joy. Finally my love has been explained, to both myself and to the world. Some will comment accusations like 'have you no shame,' to which I answer that I have plenty of shame, but only for holding back this long. Teemo, if you ever come before me, I adore you. You are my everything, my alpha and omega squad. If it comes to be that we ever can hold hands, know that nothing will ever separate us. Know that, even in the meanest thunderstorm, I will bury my face in your neck-scarf and expect safety, as you expect loyalty from me. We will be together, we will be... complete. Thank you Riot 'Ezreal' for designing the champion. Thank you Riot Games for allowing him in your game, League of Legends. Thank you to the community that plays, whose collective thoughts and desires coagulated into this post. On my lips I summarize all my love: Oh my god... Teemo. Phew! Glad that's over. Now that Teemo's out of the way, let me tell you guys how much I love Twitch... submitted by /u/Papaya_Dreaming to r/leagueoflegends [link] [comments]