ENDGAME - The Turtle Moves

[old_stoneface]

Who: Vimes, Tyzias, Megatron
When: The Endgame Event
Where: Ankh-Morpork
What: Time to prod buttock.
Warnings/Notes: Death, gloom, despair, highly improbable planetary structures.

Down in the deepest kingdoms of the sea, where there is no light, there lives a type of creature with no brain and no eyes and no mouth. It does nothing but live and put forth petals of perfect crimson where none are there to see. It is nothing but a tiny yes in the night.
And yet...
And yet...
It has enemies who bear it a vicious, unbending malice, who wish not only for its tiny life to be over but also that it had never existed.

Now, imagine what they think of humanity, and imagine that someone has given them a Soul Divider.

Comments

[old_stoneface]

⮞ A WORLD THAT RUNS ON STORIES

---

The sight that greeted the Heroes of Light as the Enterprise approached the homeworld of Sam Vimes was one that was... completely, utterly, unlike anything else in the multiverse.

The Disc is exactly that, a disc of rock ten thousand miles across, its circumference ringed by prismatic sunbursts as a cascade of seawater flows over the edge. At the center of it all, a mountain, impossibly high, home of the gods. And from this angle, the lot of it can be seen from up here, from the sun-baked sands of Klatch to the snow-capped mountains of Überwald, from the familiar and constant austerity of the Ramtop mountains, to the sweltering jungles of Hwondaland...

And all of it pales in comparison to the stars of the show. For the Disc, breathtaking as it is, stands upon the backs of four elephants which exist on a scale that the human brain is not quite prepared to consider. The head of each alone is more massive than the sun and moon, equal in size, which orbit the world. And even these marvels are dwarfed by the turtle upon which they stand, the Great A'Tuin, whose shell, pockmarked with meteor impacts and covered in the frost of space, is ten thousand miles across, and supports it all, as she swims through the infinite black on her journey alone.

For all that the view should steal his breath away, Vimes has only eyes for one particular spot on the Disc, a little brown smear by the Circle Sea that he's come to think of as home. An ornate silver cigar case is extricated from his breast pocket, a cigar removed, the end bitten off, and then lit. Inhale. Exhale.

"Can't believe I'm coming 'ome, after all this."

[tiredcharmer]

After all the time she spent working with Vimes, Tyzias had gotten used to his medieval idiosyncrasies. His mumbling about "quantums" whenever things got really strange, his strange superstitions, and even his stubborn adherence to the belief that his world really was a giant disc carried by four giant-er elephants on the back of a giant-est turtle.

Now look at Tyzias. She's Booboo the Rustblooded Fool.

Her jaw drops, and the wooden skewer that appeared in her mouth the moment they exited the Dream Width nearly tumbles to the floor. She catches it on instinct and begins nervously chewing on it again. She looks exactly the same as she appeared in Vimes's memory: dirty, but well-maintained Watch uniform, dark brown human skin, and an absence of any troll biology. "Guess I owe you a drink, sir," she mutters, even speaking in an Ankh-Morpork accent.

[peace_through_empathy]

Megatron's been around, and he likes to think he's seen his fair share of odd worlds (and been responsible, either directly or indirectly, for their destruction). He liked to think after four millennia and two different universes he'd seen pretty much everything the universe could throw at him.

He was very, very, very, very wrong. The sight of Great A'Tuin and the four Elephants is probably one of the most magnificent sights he's ever or will ever see, but now, even with his literary background and love of poetry, words that can accurately describe the sight fail him. He makes do with what he can.

"Incredible." He states and if the others are surprised by the rather flat montone of his voice, as Megatron himself is, the reason is easy to see why as soon as you get a good look at him; like Tyzias he has been altered to better blend in, to a certain degree with the world they find themselves flying to; he's traded the sentio metallico chassis of a Cybertronian for the baked clay of a Discworld Golem, and everything that implies; that said, there are still a few nods towards his true form; attached to his right forearm is a round roughly-cynlinder shaped growth, and his head bears approximation of the buckethead helmet. The Autobrand insignia is now carved into his chest, as well as the loopy patterns that normally adorn his chestplate.

"At Least We Should Have Little Issue Blending In." He notes, again in the Golem monotone.

[old_stoneface]

The change to Megatron surprised him, a little, but he'd at least seen Tyzias look like that, before. Vimes nodded at both.

"I don't drink, but I will accept payment in the form of a cup of coffee and a bacon sandwich. Told you there was a bloody turtle."

He pointed in the direction of the apparent brown smudge on the landscape, directing his next comment to the pilot. "Take us there, lad. If there's something going on, I'd bet a pound of gold it's got something to do with Ankh-Morpork. It always does."

[tiredcharmer]

Tyzias has only been been to Ankh-Morpork twice in Vimes's memories, but she can somehow viscerally smell it from atmosphere. Somehow, the rank odor is comforting. The troll isn't sure how to feel about that. "Oi, Megatron. You don't have a sense of smell when you're all robot-like, do ya? Or, er. Golem-like, I s'pose."

[peace_through_empathy]

"Normally I Possess Olfactory Sensors That Allow Me To Process Data In A Way That Would Be Comparable To An Organic Sense Of Smell." Megatron intones, then ponderously raises his arm and taps the middle of his face where a nose should be. "...But That No Longer Appears To Be The Case In This Form. No Tactile Sensors In My Extremities Either. My Sense Of Touch Has Been Deadened As Well. Oh. That Is Disconcerting."

He doesn't like the idea of having vital senses stripped of him; it will invariably make him less effective in a danger scenario, which they are almost assuredly going into.

"Reaction Time Is Slower As Well." He continues to take stock of his new form. "Though That May Simply Be Down To A Lack Of Familiarity With This Form On My Part. Movements Seem Stiffer, But Hopefully I Will Adjust Quickly. I Will Not Allow Myself To Hinder This Mission." He tries to turn his head to look at Vimes, but quickly realizes he has no neck joint. He takes a moment to re-orient himself to face the man.

"Ankh-Morpork Is Your Home Correct?" He asks. "Anything I Should Know Going In?"

[old_stoneface]

Vimes frowned. This wasn't quite expected, but it would probably prove advantageous. "My home, yeah." He sighed. "Right. Golems. Far as I'm aware, you're fireproof, but if you've been on fire don't go walking into water. I know there was one golem that died when a water tank exploded and fell on him, only bits and pieces left. You can move faster than you'd think, and you're damn near invulnerable. As for Ankh-Morpork... Call me selfish, but the first place we're going is Scoone Avenue. I've got a wife and son who haven't seen me in near on a year."

After a moment, he allowed: "Second place is the Palace. If there's any of this Soul Divider nonsense going on, then Vetinari's gonna know about it."

[tiredcharmer]

Tyzias gnaws on the toothpick, getting used to the feeling of having flat teeth instead of sharp fangs. It's hard to feel her pearly whites with all of the calluses on her tongue now. She has no clue how humans eat anything like this. Taking the pick from her mouth and twirling it between her fingers, Tyzias nods, grimacing as she tries to work out a crick in her neck.

"Right then, sir. Let's roll. I'll pound some cobble, see what I can dig up. I can imagine that you want some privacy with your... family." It's still an alien concept to Tyzias.