<The Honorable Member from Ohio>

Excellent solution, thank you. Also, I think you should consider running for US President in four years.

I'm Canadian but it's been dispiriting to witness such a seemingly low rent election with so much animosity. Where is the dignity? In the past, even fiercely contested US presidential elections seem to maintain a certain level of dignity and respect for basic American institutions, a respect that seems lacking this go round. Also I don't like either candidate, but curiously, nobody from the American press has asked me for my opinion, so you can't really go by me.

<Ohio> I don't understand why someone would be calling you a witch in the first place. Seems a little odd.

Could it be a Halloween prank?

Good heavens...

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User: Capa Valley <Capa Valley
Member since Jun-11-16
Fun fun funny Mr. Iwasclimbingmounteverestthatweek fun fun funny really nice try ;p

http://www.musiclipse.com/wp-conten...

SwitchQuy you are a miserable @#$% your girlfriend too cheers ;p>

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With regard to <Captain Valley's> weird account info-

I refuse to click on the link this lunatic stuck in his profile. If I want to see something obscene I can look for that all on my own- I don't need any "surprise help" from clinically insane malcontents. I haven't clicked on it but I'll lay money down that it's something obscene. Just a feeling...

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Remember how weird some of those "blue letters" accounts were when we started looking at the actual profile information?

That's what this account info reminds me of.

Going by unreliable memory- things we saw such as-

All over the Daan Polytemple Complex of ruins, ghostly monks sat down in lotus positions and began chanting. They blinked in and out of phase with Tera and the Dark Realm, disappearing and materializing in both realities simultaneously.

Inside the Folded Connection’s Chamber of Branches, Lili finished with her final instructions.

‘Ok so here are the tasks.’

‘First is to neutralize Lima. Bodhi are you listening?’

‘Yes, Lili, in my tabcom, while I’m beheading the darklings in front of me. I’m supposed to issue a Challenge to Lima once I get into the Dark Realm.’

‘OK. In case that doesn’t work out, Pana could try to shoot her in the eye at any opportune time when Lima is distracted.’

Pana shrugged. ‘I’d love that, but she would really need to be distracted. Lima is a high Dan darkling; and I can’t handle them if they’re on guard because they can block my arrow. I would have better chances with the second task.’

‘Right. Second task is closing the Folded Connection. I’ll be making a deliverable Closure spell, which you’ll shoot into the Origin Portal.’

‘Now that I should be able to do,’ Pana affirmed.

‘OK. Third task is to abduct and execute Kuot without physically damaging his brain, in order to gain access to some of Ihap’s memories, which I believe she herself loaded into Kuot. Bantay, Luto, and Lupad will initiate a surprise attack with the aim of disabling and then forcing Kuot into an Insertion Portal.’

‘Yeah, but if Kuot resists effectively, which I’m sure he will, then it might be easier to execute him first, and then abduct his corpse after,’ Bantay added. ‘We might botch this one though. We may be combat avatars but we are not Salig commandos, and we may not be able to overpower him without causing serious head injury. Pana?’

Pana smirked. ‘No problem. For task one, I serve as the Demonya killer in a plan B in case plan A fails and Lima escapes Bodhi. I do task two, delivering Lili’s spell to Close the Origin Portal. Finally in task three, I fatally disable Kuot so that Bantay, Luto, and Lupad can kidnap his body.’

‘No need to act so smugly superior, Pana’, Bantay said. ‘If I may say so, that is your job. Critical combat missions in the Dark War always had your kind around to rely upon.’

Pana bristled and opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Lupad interrupted. ‘Gisaligan, meaning the one we rely upon. Gisaligan Pana, Bantay is right; no offense intended.’

Lili ignored the usual avatar altercation. ‘Fourth is to save Aya by investigating Ihap’s retrieved memories, and retrieving her Aspect Adjustment command. This depends on a successful task three.’

Both Walay and Tala looked askance, but they maintained a disciplined silence.

Lili shrugged. ‘I’ll repeat. All of you Household avatars are closely linked metaphysically to your Seal, which happens to be on my forearm. When I was in the Convention Center, my Sun and Sky Seal sensed something of Ihap in Kuot. That’s why I told Alwana not to slay him yet. We can discuss explanations later. No other questions? OK, let’s go!’

‘That stairs over there runs to the apex of the pagoda. There are windows there where you can shoot your arrow. Since dark energy from the avatars would have a psychic signature recognizable to darklings, you would have to use only the aural energy from us ghosts in your spell,’ Huna advised.

Pana silently nodded and ran up the stairs, instinctively taking point. Lili followed.

Back in the Dakobalud Resort, after the first salvo of ATGMs and explosive shells from both sides had destroyed or damaged resort infrastructure and left dozens dead and wounded, Colonel Sulong ordered for a methodical offensive. All unarmored Aide personnel were pulled back. T-17 tanks advanced confidently in a straight line toward the Convention Center a kilometer away from the South entrance, with robot drones hovering above them. Behind them a company of more than 200 Presidential Aide troops followed. They were covered by full battle armor that totally encased torso, limbs, neck, and head, rendering them resistant to small arms fire. With their brown helmets and darkened visors completely covering their faces, they resembled anonymous combat robots more than human beings. With them were a score of special forces operators that were clad in powered exoskeleton battle suits, impregnable to anything but a direct RPG or anti-tank missile hit. The suits possessed computerized target acquisition systems for in-built small arms, rocket propelled grenades, and guided missiles.

Kusgan was inside a customized Chameleon APC that functioned as his command and control center, near the projected front line 500 meters from the Convention Center. It possessed the most advanced stealth technology in Tera; and its computer could project holograms on its exterior that mimicked the colors of its environment, partially camouflaging it to the naked human eye. A driver, navigator, and radioman comprised his small team.

‘They haven’t spotted us,’ the Radioman commented. ‘Good thing DATA kept the capabilities of our new APCs secret, since we imported them from Cephalia last year when the terrorist attacks began to escalate. So far we’ve lost ten of our old APCs to the Presidential Aide’s drones and tanks, but none of them had stealth and camouflaged technology.’

Kusgan shook his head. ‘Yeah, but they kept their secrets too. We didn’t know anything about their robot combat drones. We are also unprepared, with no fortifications or trenches. We don’t have tanks. Our APCs have the latest passive and active protection systems but have relatively thin armor. Any tank that fires two successive shells or ATGMs will cook us good.’

‘Sir, if I may ask, where is President Tagas,’ the Driver asked.

‘Yes. The three Deputy Ministers, Lihok, Tigom, and Duso, upon my orders have evacuated President Tagas out of the Resort’s north entrance into an ambulance. General Kuot has told Colonel Sulong that DATA is staging a coup and has abducted the President. Unfortunately he is still unconscious, and can’t verbally oppose that claim.’

‘T-17s are at ten meters from the kill zone,’ the Navigator announced, looking up from his console.

Kusgan spoke into a DATA encrypted channel in his command and weapon console in the middle of the APC. ‘At my signal, go.’

On the beach, among abandoned resort cottages, were ten cloaked DATA APCs, at the ready.

‘T-17s at the kill zone.’

‘Go!’ Kusgan ordered. Then he pressed a button on the weapon console. The APC, located 30 meters away at 45 degrees from the column of Aide tanks, fired five anti-tank guided missiles, and then turned left, swiftly retreating back toward to Convention Center.

Three of the missiles went after three separate tanks. The tanks’ active protection systems detected them, and threw out hundreds of high velocity chaff from exterior compartments toward the missiles. The missiles exploded centimeters away from their targets, and the resulting blasts were unable to penetrate the tanks’ reactive armor.

Another missile landed near a platoon of armored Aides behind the tanks. The explosion knocked a dozen of them down. Ten got up, apparently unharmed; two did not. One in a powered exoskeleton suit, remained standing unfazed. The last missile struck another platoon of unarmored Aide troops further down the line. This time a dozen shredded bodies flew from the impact site.

The DATA APCs on the beach roared to life and promptly accelerated toward the column of Presidential Aide T-17 tanks, firing successive salvos of ATGMs.

‘Sir, active protection systems of the T-17 tanks kicked in. None of them have been disabled,’ the navigator announced.

Following suit, the other Aide tanks and drones let loose a continuous salvo of shells and missiles at the attacking DATA APCs. In less than a minute all of them had been destroyed.

The Presidential Aide troops advanced. The tanks blew up infrastructure used by DATA agents for cover. Aides in exoskeleton suits and battle armor waded in, unceremoniously shooting down unarmored DATA survivors with RPGs and machineguns.

‘Fall back!’ Kusgan shouted into his command console. The remaining DATA personnel scrambled back toward the Convention Center. The fight was turning into a massacre.

In the Dark Realm, at the top floor of the pagoda, Lili chose a window that had a direct line of sight to the Origin Portal at the side of the Smoky Mountain. She began chanting and dancing a Closure spell. Aural energy from the praying ghost monks below in the first floor flowed up and powered her spell.

After a minute, she finished her spell. A round yellow bubblegum appeared floating in the air in front of her.

‘A bubblegum?’ Pana asked in a low dubious voice.

‘It’s just a virtual bubblegum made from the monks’ aural energy. It holds the Closure spell. You stick it on the tip of your arrow, shoot it into Origin of the Folded Connection on the side of Smoky Mountain over there, and it activates. The Origin starts Closing.’

Pana swiped it off the air, and stuck it on the tip of her arrow. ‘OK. It sticks. Looks tasty. Can I chew on it while waiting here bored for your go signal?’

‘Sure, just don’t swallow it.’ Pana promptly took it off her arrow and shoved it into her mouth, chewing at it thoughtfully. ‘Too bland. Add more of the sugary taste next time.’

‘Stop griping Pana, and listen carefully. It’s important that you not irrevocably terminate Kuot with a shot to the brain if you end up targeting him. That is if you want to talk to Ihap again; just immobilize him.’

Pana gave her a puzzled look. ‘I still don’t get it. Ihap’s program is superimposed on Kuot?’

LiIi sighed. ‘It’s too long to explain; just carry out my instructions. Wait for my signal, and shoot.’

Only a handful of other DATA agents were still alive to hear him. They assembled in front of the Convention Center, empty hands upraised.

Back in the Dark Realm, Huna pointed to a door on the side of the Tall Pagoda they were in. ‘That leads to an alley in this temple complex. We can approach them covertly from there. I’ll lead the way.’ Huna eerily glided across the pagoda’s floor, the avatars following closely behind. All around them, prayerful monks winked in and out of existence.

Silent as an owl flying through the night, Lili, Bantay, and Luto approached Lima’s party, using the complex’s buildings as cover. As they drew within a few meters, their movement changed to rapid cat-like creeping interspersed with immobile crouching. All around them, chanting ghost monks kept on appearing and disappearing. The darklings in front of them ignored the monks.

Behind the last huge piece of rock that could cover them, Lili checked the Origin Portal at the side of Smoky Mountain. She had a line of sight to it. It meant that electromagnetic communication from her prepped and powered-up tabcom could reach Bodhi inside Room 5 of the Shield’s Tower.

In Dakobalud Resort, Colonel Sulong approached the surrendering Minister Kusgan. ‘Minister General Kusgan. I am informing you that by order of General Kuot, you and your men are under arrest.’

A squad of armored Presidential Aides tried to enter the collapsed Convention Center. They could not do so because of the rubble. Three T-17 tanks bulldozed their way in.

In a clearing inside were Aya and Alwana, dancing to their deadly Fugue Fight. Two hundred meters away from them on a badly damaged stage were the Veiled Commissioners, still trapped inside their Bounded Pentagram, surprisingly unharmed.

‘Wait here sis. I’ll just end this interference and then we can get back to our duel again.’

Aya jumped and in a single bound landed in front of the T-17 tank in the middle. She whirled around and struck it a mighty blow with a flattened stiffened wing. There was an explosion as the tank flew off the ground and smashed into a second tank. There was a second explosion as the two tanks merged into a single flaming ball of fire.

The remaining tank, to her left, opened fire at her at close range with its 30mm autocannon; and 14.5, 12.7 mm and 7.62 mm machineguns. Aya walked right through the hail of metal, the projectiles pinging harmlessly off her skin. She climbed up the tank and grabbed the base of its main gun, then flew up with it out of the rubble that was the Convention Center and into the open. Wings aspread, she ascended five hundred meters up into the air carrying the 50 ton tank, and dropped it onto another tank. The two tanks smashed each other into a pile of flaming junk.

Next, Aya went after the Presidential Aide drones and in a few seconds had swatted all dozen of them out of the sky with her doble espada and wings.

Alwana, momentarily free, asked through her tabcom. ‘Anyone still there? What the hell should I do?’

Sugo replied. ‘Lili is busy. She’s in a Dark Realm to root out the cause of this. She has a plan. I suggest you delay Aya when she comes back, which should be pretty soon.’

Aya flew down and landed in front of another Presidential Aide T-17 tank. She whacked it on the side with one of her wings and it flew up five meters into the air like a ball struck by a bat. It exploded in midair as the kinetic energy from her strike combusted the shells and missiles within the tank. She did a repeat on every tank in Dakobalud Resort, transforming them into flying hunks of exploding metal.

Then Aya went after a Presidential Aide agent in a powered exoskeleton suit. He commenced on shooting at her with in-built 7.62 mm machineguns located on the suit’s forearms, but the bullets just bounced of her skin and wings. She hovered in front of the agent and beheaded him, her doble espada easily slicing through armored cervical collar, skin, soft tissue, and vertebrae. She proceeded to implement the same decapitation procedure on all Aides in exoskeleton suits and battle armor, and unarmored ones that happened to hold firearms in their hands.

‘Hey stupid, we’re not enemies here; you’ve been betrayed by your leader. The Arch Wing is programmed to slay those holding weapons, so drop them before she chops off your heads,’ Kusgan suggested to the Presidential Aide troops in front of him.

Limpyoha was shaking her head. ‘The Possessed have no respect for human life at all. Our old Aya would disapprove.’

‘Even if she approved, her programing would prevent her from directly harming humans, just like the rest of us,’ Tenloa pointed out. ‘However, you’re right. Aya was always the kindhearted one among us Veterans; must be a side effect of her Healer Aspect.’

Bugsay beside her was observing the action clinically. ‘Notice how easily Aya destroyed the highly robotized tanks and the fully robotic drones. That accounts for my scant memories from the Dark War of armies relying more on darkling and avatar combaters than computerized war machines. This incident clearly shows that programmed robots are at a disadvantage compared to programmed avatars.’

‘Come on Bugsay, Aya is an Arch Wing; hardly anything is a match for her in physical combat - AI, robot, or human. This incident rather indicates that a highly centralized command structure is at a disadvantage if an insider turns components of the system against other parts of it,’ Koryen pointed out.

‘That’s right,’ Tahum concurred. ‘If Kuot did this in Tunga City, he could have staged a successful coup de etat. A centralized Unitarian government is always vulnerable to coups, revolutions, and other power grabs. From what I can recall, the extinct pre-Shift federated or confederated polities never had this problem. In order to grab power over all, you have to persuade all autonomous local governments to side with you.’

‘Yeah, but Kuot does not want a power grab in one Nation among a hundred others. He craves control of all of Tera, at least to the extent that Lima will allow him,’ Tukib opined. ‘Is it possible that they might be planning to do a regime change against the Veiled Commission itself?’

Noticing that no more armed human was loitering around, Aya flew back down the giant pile of rubble that used to be the Convention Center, to confront Alwana again.

‘Hello Alwana.’

Alwana sighed. ‘OK sis, let’s get on with it.’ The two without any ado resumed their Fugue Fight.

In the Tall Pagoda’s top floor, an orange light flashed on Pana’s tabcom. She took her bubblegum from her mouth and stuck it to the tip of her arrow.

Inside Room 5’s Folded Connection, Bodhi’s tabcom screamed an alarm. Her body began to glow as yellow as the midday sun. She grasped for the Tela with her Arch Wing’s mind, anchored herself on it temporarily, flexed her wings to cover her anterior, and abruptly accelerated forward with the force of an unstoppable tsunami. Darklings in front of her got run over, crushed and mashed. She burst forth from the Origin Portal at the side of Smoky Mountain and into the Dark Realm. An incandescent blue halo shone around her head like the fire of a supergiant star.

The darkling army retreated in confusion before her. The mighty blows of her fighting sticks carried the punch of kiloton tactical nukes; the low Dans she directly struck literally vaporized into their component atomic dark particles, the resulting explosions in turn shredding hundreds more of nearby darklings.

The darkling contingent negotiating with Lima turned toward Smoky Mountain. The winged ones leapt into the air and began to fly toward it, abandoning Lima’s party and their wingless lower Dan Pawns.

Pana shot her bubblegum-tipped arrow into the Origin of the Folded Connection behind Bodhi, thirty kilometers away, at nearly the speed of light. The Origin Portal vibrated in the Tela, and began to twinkle.

At Aya’s clinic in the Tower, Oisa promptly woke up. ‘Damn it, Henloa, you don’t have to shake me so hard,’ she told the majordomo avatar watching over her.

‘Huh? I wasn’t shaking you! Rest, Oisa. Your skull is knitting up but your brain is still showing.’

Bantay and Luto rushed out from behind their rock covers, hacking and slashing at the remaining Pawns, trying to reach Kuot.

Lima faced them. She literally burst out of her robes. A huge 12 foot high black Demon stood in her place, complete with insect-like razor sharp wings, black twitching tail, huge claws sporting meter long talons, and too many spiked horns for humans to count. It still retained a semblance to Lima’s original face.

‘Yudiputa, son of a bitch,’ Lupad muttered beside Lili. ‘It’s a Demon Empress.’

Inside the Folded Connection, Oisa reached the Chamber of Branches, where Walay and Tala were on standby.

‘Oisa, you’re back!’ Walay pointed to a Branching Passage. ‘They’re there, in a Dark Realm.’

Oisa was trembling. Tala caught her in an embrace as the avatar suddenly fell over. ‘OK, let me rest a minute and feed on the dark energy in these Tunnels. I’m still dizzy,’ Oisa told them.

In front of the Small Pagoda, Bantay and Luto skidded to a stop. Kuot was right beside the Demon Empress. The avatars knew it would take Lima less than a nanosecond to tear their heads off their shoulders if they came any closer.

Lima grinned at them, mouth full of serrated fangs, pointed forked tongue flickering in and out. She casually took a step toward them.

From the side of Smoky Mountain 30 kilometers away, Bodhi projected a dark-powered voice that pierced the gray air. ‘I Challenge you Lima!’ She had paused slaying darklings. A hundred High Demon Kings had cordoned her in a half circle. At her back was the Origin Portal.

Lima faced her. She chuckled, her voice likewise powered by dark energy reaching Bodhi. ‘You wish to save your friends beside me? I refuse. You still outrank me. Only an Emperor of the Night is obliged to duel you. You have to go through an entire army of my allies to get to me. The Origin Portal is closing. You’ll be trapped here if you don’t leave soon, and you can’t maintain your energy-guzzling Haloed Arch Aspect indefinitely.’

Lima turned toward Lili, who was still behind her rock cover. ‘I sense you there pretty Tamawo. This is better than I thought. Of all the MDEs in Tera only you are a genuine threat to me. You’ll all be trapped once the Origin Portal closes, while I know how to open other passageways into Tera. I shall rule Tera one way or the other and consign those fossilized fools in the Veiled Commission to oblivion.’

Instead of answering Lima, Lili turned to Lupad, who was crouching beside her. ‘Lupad, at first opportunity, knock Kuot into the Insertion Portal in the Small Pagoda’s entrance door, and if conditions are right, bring his body to the Convention Center.’

Oisa staggered out said entrance door’s pentagram-shaped Insertion Portal behind her. ‘Lima? What the fu_k, you really are a Demon Empress!’ Part of her frontal lobe was visible through the hole on her right forehead.

Lima drew back, clearly surprised. Then she snarled and leapt at Oisa. Her fangs sank into Oisa’s neck. ‘Ouch!’ Oisa yelled. ‘I’ve had it with you!’

Behind them the Insertion Portal began wavering into translucency, as waves of Lili’s Closure spell reached it from the Origin.

Lili screamed into her tabcom. ‘Bodhi get back now! Tera needs you! Leave us.’

Bodhi looked at her and Oisa a final time and darted back into the Origin Portal behind her.

Simultaneously Lupad, blue wings extended, shot out of his hiding place beside her and hit the tottering choking Kuot square in the chest. They fell into the Insertion Portal on Small Pagoda’s entrance door.

Both Portals, the one on the Small Pagoda and the one on Smoky Mountain, winked out of existence.

Oisa turned translucent. Waves of topaz, sapphire, and jet scintillated across her body, the black crests growing larger and larger. She adducted her left arm and brought it up in a viscous upper cut to connect on Lima’s chin below her mouth that was biting her. Crack! Lima’s body flew up from the force of her punch and landed 10 meters away from her.

Black Oisa rose, ebony body beautifully shimmering. In her left hand was a black doble espada, dangerously glittering.

Inside the Folded Connection's Chamber of Branches, Lupad arrived dragging along Kuot’s floppy body.

‘Is he dead?’ Walay asked.

‘Yes, asphyxiated, but the brain is physically intact. I can sense it. The corpse is not dissipating; instead the transformation is commencing. He is Infected, by Ihap’s dark quanta we hope.’

Huna suddenly appeared before them, her voice evincing an uncharacteristic urgency. ‘You two have better phase back into Tera now. This Chamber, which is nearly congruent to Teran realtime, is the only portion of the Folded Connection where you can do it without a Portal. The monks and I are holding the Connection open and extant, but it can’t last with its only Origin closed.’

Walay and Tala hastily phased back into Teran realtime, appearing in the Daan Poytemple ruins, in front of the worried Sayloha and Arangan.

Huna pointed toward the Branching Passageway to the Convention Center Insertion. ‘That’s where you need to go, Lupad.’

Lupad grabbed Kuot’s corpse and literally flew down the Tunnel.

In the Dark Realm, Lima hastily re-dislocated her broken mandible into its proper alignment. ‘Mercy, Lady First!’ she begged in Esperanto. The 12 foot tall Demonya fell on her knees before the 5 and a half foot tall winged figure of obsidian before her. ‘You can take this world easily with my help. I would swear a Compulsory Allegiance to you. You’re trapped here anyway at least temporarily.’

‘No she’s not.’ Huna’s translucent figure appeared wavering before them, pointing to a building 500 meters away. ‘There is still one Portal open, in that Tall Pagoda over there. We’re holding it with the will of our prayers and auras, but it won’t last.’

Oisa faced her. ‘Why should I return, little ghost? My treasonous little subaltern Lima is right; I could rule this world instead. Lili, please I want to talk to you.’

Lili stood up from behind her rock cover.

Oisa looked at her. ‘I now have the power to preserve the Sun and Sky Seal. You’ll be staying here with me. You are still under a Binding Compulsion to me, Lili. You need not worry. No darkling will dare to touch you, Bantay, Luto, or Pana while you are under my protection. We will rule this world together.’ Oisa raised her right hand. Dark energy from the darklings Bodhi had slain 30 kilometers away streamed into it and into her body. She pointed at Lili. Black lightning shot out of her left hand and doble espada into the blue and yellow Seal on Lili’s forearm.

Oisa faced Bantay and Luto. ‘That should lengthen the Seal’s lifespan. I could maintain it indefinitely. All I ask is that you all stay with me as my only friends left in this world. Lili has no choice of course. If you remember she had placed herself under a Binding Compulsion to do what I say after Father’s death.’

Bantay swore. ‘The hell! We are not Bound to you, Oisa’

‘We’ll still end up staying anyway, Bound or not,’ Luto pointed out. ‘You know well we won’t abandon Oisa, our House sister, in here if she decides to stay.’

Bantay opened his mouth to swear again, then stopped. ‘Yeah you’re right. If she stays, we stay.’ He pleaded at Oisa. ‘Sis, let’s go back to our world now! You don’t belong here. None of us do.’

Black Oisa hesitated.

It seemed to Lili that Oisa was calculating the possibilities that could ensue if the Sun and Sky Seal was left in the darkling world, and thus separated from the other Household avatars in Tera.

Lili continued. ‘And even if they somehow could survive, they will miss you forever, and Pana, Bantay, and Luto. You’ll break their hearts, and Guru Duro’s too if his essential soul is somewhere in the Tela looking at us.’

A flash of blue splashed across black Oisa’s body. Without any warning she moved at bullet speed. She grabbed Lili and Luto with her left arm, and Bantay with her right. She swiftly flew up the alley and into the Tall Pagoda where the last portal to Tera in the Dark Realm remained.

The astonished Lima looked up from her still groveling position on the ground. On the top floor of the Tall Pagoda, Pana muttered, ‘You’re going to pay for murdering Ihap and perverting Aya.’

Without consciously thinking of it, Pana instinctively flared into her Fire Aspect, using up all of her reserves of dark energy in an instant. In such Aspect, she knew that her arrow was now charged up so as to be able to slay the highest of Demons, but that a refractory period would inhibit her from firing her arrow again in the next few days.

She shot an arrow of fire as hot as a boiling neutron star into Lima’s left eye. The Demon Empress’ head exploded.

In the first floor of the Tall Pagoda Oisa flew into the Portal, carrying Lili, Luto, and Bantay.

Pana rushed down the stairs in huge leaps, trying to catch up with the other avatars, while transforming into her unarmored Child Aspect. The armor would only have weighed her down. On the first floor Huna sat in lotus position. The Portal behind her winked out. Pana stopped, trapped and dismayed.

Huna smiled at her. Her bright orange robes flared and she disappeared in a shower of stars softly streaming behind her, illuminating a shadow of the Portal. The shadow flickered a muted red one last time, and then blinked out of existence just as Pana desperately dove in.

She ran as fast as only a terrified child could. The Tunnel’s collapsing structure darkened behind her, chasing and nipping at her heels. Somehow its cross-sectional diameter was contracting and its length elongating, a rubber cylinder getting stretched and narrowed infinitely. There was only one Passageway left, no more side branches. She raced for the light at the Tunnel’s end.

In Dakobalud Convention Center, Lupad landed on the stage with a plop. In the destroyed hall before him, Alwana and Aya were dancing together in their never-ending Fugue Fight. The Commissioners were still imprisoned in the second pentagram. Miraculously, none of them seemed to have been hurt. All of them were sitting on the floor in semi-lotus, apparently in deep meditation, oblivious to the world.

Kuot’s corpse rolled away from Lupad. The cadaver’s chest heaved and it groaned.

The dead man did a sit up, and looked around bewildered. Its features had softened, now more feminine. ‘Inihap, execute your last order! Disremember!’ Lupad yelled at it.

‘Huo,’ it muttered in a soft feminine voice. ‘Yes, I must forget. I am not Inihap.’

The corpse’s hair fell off its head leaving it temporarily bald; and then dark blue hair began to grow out of its scalp at a stupendous rate. Salts and gas came out of the pores of its skin and its body began to shrink as though it was a snake molting off excess tissue.

It stood up, staring at Alwana and Aya, loose robes flapping around its slim but full figure. ‘What’s this? Why are Alwana and Aya in a Fugue Fight?’

Lili promptly turned to the creature that used to be a demonic Kuot. ‘Ihap or Inihap?’

‘Oh come on Lili. I’m Ihap. What the hell is going on? Are those the Veiled Commissioners?’

‘Aya is Locked and has been Possessed by a weaker darkling. Her essential dark quanta must still be intact and hibernating inside her. Give the Aspect Adjustment command now.’

‘How the hell did you know about that?’ Ihap still looked disoriented.

‘Ihap! Save our sister.’ It was now Oisa that was pleading.

Ihap frowned, trying to remember. Then she shouted at Aya. ‘Healer be Fighter, Demon be Angel.’

Aya collapsed in the middle of her perilous dance with Alwana. Alwana caught her in her arms. Aya convulsed. Waves of blue and yellow scintillated across her body. Abruptly she raised her head.

‘Hey, why are you carrying me Alwana? Let me down!’ Alwana set her down.

‘Aya?’ Alwana asked.

‘Yes, of course. I’m Aya.’

Alwana moved to embrace her. ‘Welcome back sis.’

But Aya was turning toward Ihap. ‘Is that you, Ihap?’

‘Yes, as I have just said, I’m Ihap. I just pronounced your Aspect Adjustment command, and saved you from Possession. Why is everyone asking who I am?’ The resurrected accountant held out her left hand. Her polearm weapon flashed into existence, sharp blue blade glittering at its tip. ‘See? Now someone please tell me how I got into these floppy robes?

‘Oh sh_t,’ Bantay cursed, looking around. ‘Where’s Pana?’

Pana raced for the end of the Tunnel. It drew nearer, but her movements seemingly grew slower. Five meters, three, two, one meter. She could see and hear the other avatars out of the Portal on the stage at the Convention Center. She shouted, ‘I slew Lima. I’m here!’

The avatars turned to look at the Portal. It had turned into a reflective surface, like a pond in the stillness of the moonlight. Pana was reaching toward them. Then the Portal cracked into a thousand slivers of silver and vanished.

Around Pana, the Tunnel collapsed into non-existence.

[Event "rated blitz match"]
[Site "Free Internet Chess Server"]
[Date "2016.11.21"]
[Round "?"]
[White "NN"]
[Black "Quylthulg"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2021"]
[BlackElo "2128"]
[ECO "B00"]
[TimeControl "180"]

I wonder if somebody (like Krabbe) has made note of what game has the most pins?

I just played a game yesterday at chess24 (my latest playing site), with the same theme... :)

I'm Black, and the opening wasn't a particularly successful novelty, but all's well that ends well! ;p