by T5 and The Eurostar
The Amazon jungle, Brazil:
A shining knight needs sunlight to shine... This occurred to Ameristar as she woke up with a thundering headache. She felt heavy in the head.
Wait a minute! She realized she was tied up and hanging upside down, apparently in some cellar. N... nn... nnn... no... noo... no! A claustrophobic feeling hit her like a sledgehammer in the chest.
This what happened to Crasher, her beloved Crasher: raped and left for dead by those horrible Scorpion brothers. This dark, damp cellar reminded her of that horrible place. Panic started to rise in her chest. And that was when she realized her armor was gone.
Not thinking straight... must breathe... focus...
Ever so slowly, she regained some tiny bit of focus and began to look around in the darkness. It was black as night, but her hearing told her that someone was walking toward her. The noise of falling footsteps that approached her sent her into panic again. No! She would never let them do to her what they had done to her Crasher. Never!
She heard the clinking sounds of keys rattling the lock. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself for what might happen. A huge man in his late fifties appeared with a small oil lantern and began to walk toward her, with a fat hand reaching out for her.
The hand missed her by a fraction of a millisecond as she teleported to the opposite side of the chamber. She realized she was only wearing her panties and a plain white T-shirt. If only her armor could be reached via the Gaia unit; but there was no time for that now.
The man stomped toward her with spittle spraying from his large wet mouth. Without hesitation, she acted.
The man's head disappeared, and -- for what seemed an eternity -- the body stood on its two legs and seemed to decide which way was the best to fall. Of course, it chose the way of Ameristar and fell with a heavy thump on her. And she screamed in anger and horror at being touched by this stinking man in any way.
The odor almost made her puke on the corpse as she pushed it away. And that was when she heard the tremors of battle from upstairs, and a familiar roar that made her smile. My dragon has come for me.
She started to walk toward the door when everything turned black.
Standing over the unconscious Ameristar, a young blond man in a black leather jacket and jeans regarded her with fascination. "So we meet at last, Ameristar. About time."
He picked up the body and walked into the darkness of the shadows.
And once again, Ameristar woke up in darkness. But this time she found herself on a bed, strapped in with steel flexiwire around her wrists and ankles. Something was stuck on her forehead, and it made an irritating buzzing noise. She couldn't focus.
Someone entered the room, accompanied by a blinding light from the open door. "Ah, I see you're awake, my dear. Ameristar you call yourself, yes?"
Her vision was still blurry, but after a few seconds her eyes started to organize the colored blobs of light into coherent shapes. A man was standing in front of her wearing a lab coat. She gasped as she recognized him.
"You!"
Edulcore Cicciotto:
The Tower of Cuccubao: straight out of a Gustave Doré nightmare. Walls over walls of stones engraved with thousands of monsters, gods, demons out of every mythology the Earth has ever known. Visions of every Hell man had to endure: torture, violence, rape.
Vines and lichens and strange mushrooms encrust the bas-reliefs, among them a varied fauna of deadly insects, venomous amphibians, and poisonous serpents crawling and twisting.
We are circling the base of the tower trying to find a way to enter. But there is no trace of a gate, an entrance or even the smallest of holes.
"It's not that we can't find it, Ed. There is no gate, or I would undoubtedly have found it already... by chance, obviously!" says the smiling Kristofer, still stroking every stone with the hope of releasing some hidden mechanism.
"They had to enter somewhere," I say.
"Maybe they phased through just like Ameristar. See? Their tracks end here, right in front of this steep wall."
"Or they can fly," I suggest. My feathers sprout out of my arms while I am ready to take flight.
"Wait a moment!" says Drake. "They could have fled, or phased, or shrunken to subatomic size, but we don't need to follow their way when I can summon Drax!"
And all of a sudden, the young man disappears, and a big, white, furry dragon takes his place.
"Friends, follow me!" The creature opens its way through the stone, ripping the walls like tissue.
We walk inside. There is a long corridor spiralling up, lit by torches. On the internal side of the corridor, there is a seemingly infinite row of wooden doors, closed.
"Which way?" I ask.
Chance looks around.