Castle of a Thousand Illusions [Private Plot]

[cityship]

[This is for Team 1: Lash, Zetta, Martha, Howard, Doctor, Chell, Doc, Sumeragi. The first shore leave / observation deck post is here where they can say goodbye to others.]

As they arrived and landed, there was just a small track of land with one large wooden boat. A man, clothed in black, ushered them in. He didn't answer anything, in fact from the way he squeaked from rust, it was easily to see he was mechanical. Even the water didn't look that deep until near the end, as what looked like sharks swam around them menacingly before disappearing abruptly as they arrived in the middle of a black obsidian castle. The landing wasn't gentle, and everyone was pushed against each other, as the boat lifted itself up and dropped them all together on top of stacks of hay.

There were two rooms leading out. One had carved in "YOUNDER MALE OR WHATEVER SPECIES" and the other "YOUNDER DEM BEAUTIES". Inside, each would find leather outfits, and white underwear so there would be no chaffing. They could use their plantsuits for that too. Soft moccasins for their feet too with a note that while it was not era-perfect, they figured they would appreciate not having too many bruises on their feet (at least for now). The leather was pretty fresh from the smell and looked to have been made just the right size for each person too.

Kinda really creepy when you thought about it.

But that wasn't the worst of it, oh no. The doors would not open until everyone was fully clothed. For those that still refused, ghostly white hands came out of the walls and did the deed for them, removing all weapons and putting them in the appropriate attire before giving a thumbs up and disappearing again.

As the second door opened, with a red glowing orb turning green, they could see many doors leading around twisting, moving stairs that somehow didn't quite seem possible.

The sound of a gong going off somewhere. Again. Three times. Suddenly the weather shifted to sunset (and never changed) and one could swear those ghost hands were now throwing plastic seagulls in the air, as they mostly flew for a few seconds and crashed into the walls. Seawater was blasted off from tiny little spray bottles.

A large scroll appeared, dusted itself sending dust bunnies flying into the air and unwounded before them.

ATTENTION CONTESTANTS! WELCOME YE FAIR OF MIND AND BODY, TO THE GREATEST PHYSICAL CHALLENGE IN ALL THE UNIVERSE!

After what sounded like someone thinking about it, coughing, a few more words appeared.

PLEASE HOLD ON WHILE YOUR HOST GREETS YOU, IN JUST A FEW MINUTES. THIS IS OUR PLAN, WHICH WE ARE TELLING YOU, THE CONTESTANTS.

Comments

[cityship]

ROUND 1 CLEAR!

"Good job stranger! Here's the guy!" The camera slowly walked to the badly dressed man, who reached and...through the screen, gave Hit Girl a wooden key.

"Here, take it stranger. You'll need it." With a pat on her arm, he goes back to the game...before a shootout happens. Tables are tossed to the side, and some of them fall out, as do bullets, one scraping her pretty near, but not touching her (it's just the automatic video part after all).

Funny how two additional video screens light up on the arcade now. There's more to see, and the entire salon can be viewed.

"Darnit, those vermits are trying to stop you from moving stranger! You gotta shoot em all!" He tries to shoot an outlaw that comes in, but is, sadly, shot to death.

3...2...1...

Your turn, Hit Girl. Try to stay alive.

[hit-girl-mindy.livejournal.com]

"Sweet!" Hit girl muttered, pausing to blow the imaginary smoke from the gun, and nabbed the key. Smooth sailing so far.

And, of course, she thought to soon. Suddenly the game turns super crazy, and Hit girl barely has time to duck before she gets assaulted with MORE shots and now there are two more screens to look after. She shakes her head, muttering, "And I was liking that old guy too."

Oh well. If anything, this was just like the showdown at D'Amico's place. Too bad for them she was MUCH faster now.

"It's fucking clobbering time!" She exclaims, taking aim and firing precise shots to take out the guys in the other screens.

[cityship]

The score ranks up high, and with the second round clear, even more pieces of the televisions screen light up, past over her head and around her in rapid succession until it has formed a sort of cabin around her. The terrible grainy film continues, as the main character runs to the jail, finding the sheriff their.

"I'm grateful stranger! But we ain't out of the woods quite yet! They trapped most of the women downstairs..." He loads up his pistol (silver). "Darn! I only got six bullets on myself, too. Bad time--"

Oh there came Mad Dog's gang again, this time from the back and front. The bullets zoom past her in all directions, going out of one screen and into the other. Another plastic gun, this one blue, appears on the other side of the first arcade, indicating that Hit Girl might want to take this one too.

3...2...1...

"We gotta defend the ladies, stranger!"

START!

[hit-girl-mindy.livejournal.com]

"Nice, double points!" Hit Girl exclaimed, but that temporary glee only last a minute before seeing all of the screens started to appear. Now, Hit Girl looked a little pale. It was one thing to take those guys out on a few screens, but all these with one gun? No way.

And the bullets came and Hit Girl did the thing she knew how to do best next to shooting: getting the hell out of the way and dodging. She saw the second gun though, and grabbed it just as a few bullets came close to getting her.

"That's more like it!" Hit Girl exclaimed, and she flicked the guns at the screen to reload, then closed her eyes, recalling where she'd seen the gang.

Two on the left third screen. Three on the 2nd right. Two on the left first screen. Four on the right first screen. Ok. You can do this.

No time for words.

She was up, and one shot each made its mark, the positions in her mind still fresh. Boom. Boom. Two down. Boom. Boom Boom. Three. Again and again, Hit girl wasting no time.

[cityship]

One of the bullets grazed her on the side, but considering the carnage on the screens, she'd defiantly dealt out more.

The guns stopped to glow and from the ceiling a carbine descended, still as plastic as the other two. Bright pukey green.

ROUND 3 CLEAR!

"Good shoot'n stranger!" the sheriff said, suddenly appearing next to her and giving Hit Girl a pat on the back, before going back into the screens. "We've got two places left to do; first we gotta go secure the dynamite storage that Mad Dog's gang have taken over. Then we need to go kill that damn varmint himself. You in?" Of course she was, it was an automatic video. The camera nodded for her.

"Good!"

It cut to them climbing into a horse. There was clanking, and suddenly the floor under her opened and she fell on top of what was probably the most terrible looking wooden horse ever, with yarn hair and painted eyes.

"Neigh," it said in what definitely did not sound like a real horse. It moved back and forth to sort of show off that yes, this was totally immersive.

"You ready stranger? We'll have to pass by some Indians and they might try to attack us!" Oh look an arrow next to them. Right on cue.

If she turned to the back, the display screen showed a bunch of Indians following them.

"Dammit we've got to move. Shoot em all and make sure you stay on your horse!"

3...2..1..GO!

[hit-girl-mindy.livejournal.com]

Flesh wounds. Ha. She had kevlar, that shit was nothing. She wasn't going to bitch about a gazing. She WAS, however, going to grab that gun, though carbines weren't the best in a situation like a shoot. It was why she was pleased that the scenery changed, even if the horse sounded like it was on the rag and didn't like it one bit.

At least the sheriff was back, with all that good ol' boy twang, and now she was going to be riding against Indians and shooting them down. Not the most politically correct scenario, but since when did Hit Girl care about that? An enemy was an enemy, and if they were hers they were going down!

Once they started, she saw it was made harder for her: a carbine was NOT as easily adaptable as a gun, and it tended to have an ill effect in accuracy when riding a moving object. Hit Gil, however, was up for the challenge: she merely waited for the Indians to get close, though it required her moving and dodging more quickly than the last time. By the time the dust settled Mindy was victorious, but out of breath and hit on the shoulder.

[cityship]

"This is it!" The sheriff told her with a grin. "We're at Mad Dog's hideout and he's got at least forty men with him." He moved his hand so that the camera would huddle down with him, and the horse Hit Girl was sitting on slowly retreated back into the ground from where it had come.

"You can's use a gun like that for this," he told her, and pulled out a Winchester rifle from the package he had been carrying on top of his own horse, and handed it to her.

This time it looked real. There wasn't anything plastic about it at all. In fact...

Nothing looked fake anymore. The walls had seemingly melted, and the screens were gone. It smelled like forty guys who hadn't cleaned themselves in days. The stench of dirt, blood and sweat coming from both her and the guy. There didn't seem to be a camera anymore because Hit Girl WAS the player now.

"This is the final round," the sheriff told her. "Them or us. You ready for this?" Before she could answer, someone in the gang noticed them and began to shoot in their direction, sending the man's horse falling to the ground, dead. The animal twitched before it was silenced permanently.

"Dammit!" he cursed again. "Hide behind the animal for cover," he warned her. "And the trees too. We've got to shoot the entire gang out for Mad Dog to show his ugly face!"

[hit-girl-mindy.livejournal.com]

"Oh shit." Now EVERYTHING was real: the gun was real, and she had only a few minutes to work out how it was used. It was a model 1892, so it could handle stronger bullets, and she'd have to work that to her advantage. She thought that the game would stay that way, but a part of her had been expecting things to go south eventually. Her magic was gone, she didn't have Zetta's gun OR her butterfly knife, so she'd have to cut through these guys like butter.

OK. Focus. She'd only had a little time to see them, but first thing was thinning out the herd, and that included the guys that were shooting at her from the closet range. These guns were older, so taking someone down from a distance would be harder, especially if she were moving.

She started with three on her right, five paces from the tree. Boom. One, down, move to a closer spot, two-boom, three! She secured a spot behind the tree. Now they were coming at her a little more steadily, but she had extra cover now, so it was all about trickery. She reloaded, then took a few more steady shots before switching her position again, narrowly avoiding getting a shot in the shoulder. She checked: three more down, and then she took a chance, jumped into a visible spot and then took a few shots, getting grazed near her ear.

But it paid off. Four down, that left thirty. They were used to taking out bigger targets, not a little girl, and they never expected her to be BETTER than them. Those were points in her favor.

She had to make sure they counted.

[cityship]

There were so many shots being fired, the otherwise music-less area echoed with explosions and dust being sent in the air. But she was doing good. Lesser players had fallen in this challenge much faster than she had.

As a man fell from the sheriff's shooting, the gangster's two guns were in her line of vision, but it would require quick steps and a good coordination to get there.

"Damn where is Mad Dog?" her partner cursed, more to himself than to her. "We've got three more minutes before the carvery arrives!"

[hit-girl-mindy.livejournal.com]

Hit Girl expected nothing less for herself: if anything, she expected more, But she knew that the gun was still a limiting factor, so her accuracy had to be on point, with no hesitation. It was a little easier to avoid the men now, because of how fast she'd become, at least.

Three minutes? Ha. She would do it in two. She closed her eyes ten seconds, see the bastards in my minds eye, take out those main guns, waste no time. Fifteen seconds: ready the gun, be fast. Twenty second: stand up, assess, shoot.

GO.

And she was up, shooting, shifting movement out of the way, arranging herself and shooting again. She had to be in several places at once, she had to move effortlessly. It was as if the world around her was shifting, and everyone was moving too slow. It didn't mean they couldn't kill her: it simply meant she had the upper hand. And the more she moved, the closer she was getting to her destination, the two guns, until she finally hit her mark.

Two minutes, fifty seven seconds.