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

[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.

[from_scratch]

Cam doesn't play very fiercely, but he doesn't let Ari win anyway; the computer players won't.

[bitterchill]

After some rounds, Ari actually wins a round! He performs a victory dance, detonating several tiny smokeless fireworks around himself.

[from_scratch]

Cam laughs.