sculpture

[bitterchill]

Ari is currently standing on a broad plateau on the Plane of Gold making a very pretty statue of a woman he loved once. He's not thrilled with the fact that she put him in a coma and swanned about doing horrible things for the span of his natural life, but half a millennium is a lot of time to get over that, and Belinda made herself beautiful enough that he's willing to overlook her faults in order to use her as a model. She was stunning.

For this statue, he's elected to use various shades of corundum. He managed to get the violet in her eyes into a pair of sapphires, and is now deliberating over how to render her skin. She changed it every so often, so he's got choices here.

Comments

[bitterchill]

Ari causes such a map to exist! It's on a state-of-the-art (given the state of the art) holographic projector. The center is a wobbly thing that appears to be the plane of gold. "There," says Ari, pointing to a cluster of somethingorother in space opposite their side of the plane, "is Amngaroth. I don't recall what supposedly started the feud, but there's a few thousand demons over there who've been warring with each other for much longer than I've been around. By this point they hate each other more than the angels."

[from_scratch]

"Huh. And where are we?"

[bitterchill]

Ari points at a red dot on the plane. It's about as far from Amngaroth as it's possible to be. "Scenic Nagala. I think the story is that a bunch of the Galegans and Kelkaron who hadn't been around for the start of the war got sick of the whole thing and decided to go to the opposite side of the plane. The Kelkaron mostly live in Talrakk, a few hundred miles east, they're nice enough."

[from_scratch]

"And these are - subcultures or communities of some kind, as opposed to the Earth gold standard of ethnic groups."

[bitterchill]

"Yep! Far as I can tell it's just who popped in nearest who, but that doesn't stop them from hating each other. I do my best not to get involved."

[from_scratch]

"Have I acquired some sort of affiliation via talking to you?"

[bitterchill]

"Ex-humans are a special class. We can take sides, but nobody expects you to. If you'd popped near a particularly orthodox Amnagarothe they might have tried to indoctrinate you, but even so you'd have been safe to get out of there. And as I said, I don't get involved."

[from_scratch]

"What a thrilling cultural education I am about to acquire."

[bitterchill]

"Don't worry too much about it, it took me almost twenty years to get all the cultures straight. Those are the two main groups in the region, anyway."

[from_scratch]

"About what fraction of demons live on the giant tacky plane anyway?"

[bitterchill]

"Around three-quarters are on or around it. There's some other landmasses, but this one's been around forever and it's pretty much the best game going."

[from_scratch]

"I wonder who decided Hell needed a gigantic plane of gold. It's not really a good substrate for a civilization. I guess you can put whatever on top of it."

[bitterchill]

"We have absolutely no idea, but feel free to curse their name for their role in the spread of demonic tackiness. I would've made the world out of a great sphere of multicolored corundum, myself. Much more tasteful."

[from_scratch]

"Well, that would... look like a level in a children's videogame... throw in a racetrack or something..."

[bitterchill]

"Racetracks, yes. Possibly a great big series of hoops for jetpack races as well. We're demons, my friend, the sky is the limit."

[from_scratch]

"Having realized that I could instantiate Mario Kart in real life doesn't make me want to actually do it."

[bitterchill]

"Isn't that the plumber? Or is this a different Mario?"

[from_scratch]

"The video game character Mario is ostensibly a plumber but never seen plumbing. He and the other characters of his franchise spend most of their time doing other things, including racing go-carts through assorted colorful scenery. Do you want to play Mario Kart?"

[bitterchill]

"...Yes. Yes, I want to pretend to be a plumber racing around colorful scenery, that sounds like the invention of the damn century."

[from_scratch]

Cam laughs. "All right, how much do you already have in the way of video game hardware, let's not be redundant unnecessarily."

[bitterchill]

"I'm only barely aware of them as a medium. I have a television, though?"

[from_scratch]

"Let's see your TV and see if you need an upgrade."

[bitterchill]

The TV is nearby! It is a ridiculous thing that takes up almost an entire wall. It's very, very modern.

"My most recent summoner was rich and knew things about technology and he wrote me up a list of his favorite toys," grins Ari. "I have no idea what half of them do, but whatever it is, they do it well."

[from_scratch]

"This TV will do nicely." Cam conjures up a Wii and its various hookups already in place, and controllers (the wheel kind, because why not), and a copy of Mario Kart. He goes briskly through various setup procedures while explaining the general phenomenon of Mario Kart to Ari, and then hands him one of the wheels.

[bitterchill]

Ari gamely attempts to Mario Kart! He is roughly as competent as might be expected of a man from 1426 who until fifteen minutes ago believed that video games were essentially Choose Your Own Adventure novels.

He does improve noticeably as time goes by, though.