Chapter 2 - Quizzical?

↤Chapter 1 - An Introduction to Godhood
Imagination was a mystical place, a world in an alternate dimension to ours with such a small population that they had barely scratched the surface of their planet. There was little pollution, resources were bounteous and fresh, pure metals were found abundantly and just added to the wealth of the dimension.

One problem with the dimension was its inhabitants, the Abstracts, warlike peoples who frequently found no better joy in life than being in a fight, sword in hand and sweat dripping down their backs. The Abstracts were widely known for starting small wars with individual planets in Terra, the dimension we reside in.

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Quizzical Aphré dodged the strike and snarled, baring her terrifyingly sharp teeth at her adversary. A tall Novan man loomed over the small woman with murderous intent smouldering in his murky eyes. Quizzical bounded and spun at the man, springing over a kick meant to sweep her legs from beneath her, she landed like a cat and used the inertia from her spin to send a kick of her own whistling through the air towards the Novan’s head.

The monster’s head made a glorious crunch as it splattered pieces of silverish gore over her boot. The alien’s head had cracked sporadically, but it wasn’t out for the count just yet, it barked out an uneven laugh and barrelled into Quizzy. It grappled her around her stomach before smashing her into a wall with a tremendous force that nearly shattered the Abstract’s ribcage, she gasped for air and struggled in vain before being thrown to the ground again.

The Novan placed his heavy boot on her chest for a moment and grinned as if he were pondering how to deal with the poor Abstract. It lingered a little too long, Quizzical found her breath and used what remained of her strength to twist around on the floor and shove the tree-trunk legs out from beneath the alien. The abstract quickly jumped and cracked her heel off the back of its head, shattering silver-made bone and forcing the Novan to lie still.

“You’re terrible at this, Quizzy!” came a mocking shout from the stands.

“You’re forgetting I won’t be going into it without my sword, Ukey!” Quizzical replied, kicking the body on the ground. Thankfully, it wasn’t a real Novan, a golem made to act and feel like a Novan giant.

Quizzical looked up at where the shout had come from. The source was a young man with bright green hair almost identical to hers. He an eyepatch over his right eye that she knew he didn’t need, and he had no clue know how to properly sit in a chair, he had his feet over the armrest and one arm casually slung over the low back of the seat. She couldn’t see from here, but she knew his one visible eye was forest green too, a massive comparison to his ashen white skin.

Quizzical shared his green hair and his height, but that was the reach of their similarities. Quizzical’s skin was light grey, and she had deep, purple eyes compared to his white skin and green eyes.

She gently flicked her hair out of her face with a dismissive finger and stared up at her older brother. “You want to try me with a sword?” She shouted up to him, fighting to stop herself baring her teeth in a mock challenge.

“No, because I’m clever enough to know that you’ll win. And I don’t particularly to be finely diced this evening.” Ukedideka replied with his weaselly voice, standing up rather clumsily from his odd position on his chair, “Want your knife back?”

The other Abstract smiled, holding a small silver cylinder up between finger and thumb. The tube was Quizzical’s sword, nearly every Abstract in the military had one just like it. Quizzical nodded and Ukedideka tossed it down to her, she caught it and slipped it back into the holster on her hip.

“What do you think about the king bringing you Guardians into the fight?” Ukedideka asked as Quizzical walked up from the arena floor towards him.

“Take a guess, we’re at war with the what is probably the most powerful civilisation in Terra. If you think I’m overjoyed, you’re wrong.” Quizzical snapped, picking her jacket up from the seat next to him and slipping it around her shoulders. “No, I don’t like it.”

Ukedideka nodded, “Understandable, although most of the Novans we fight out in the field don’t like the war either.” He muttered as he followed his sister.

Ukedideka had a rather odd way of moving. Like some illegitimate cross between a cat and a spider, he slunk along the ground. “From what I’ve heard much of the Novans were grateful for us slaughtering those politicians the other day.”

Quizzical shrugged. “Considering I’ve never been to Nova, I wouldn’t know, would I?”

“Well, I think you’ll love the place, full of tall buildings you can jump off.” Ukedideka replied, fiddling with his patch.

“Still with the jumping off the buildings, it was one time Ukey.” Quizzical growled at him, then added, “And I caught the damn P’paiak.”

“Yes, yes, you did Quizzical. Oh and take this for me.” Ukedideka piped up again, holding a small silver disc up in the palm of his hand, Quizzical held her hand out and he dropped the flawless coin-like object into her palm.

“What is it?” Quizzy asked, the disc was about the size of a ten pence piece. Small enough so that it could easily be hidden.

“Universal translation… thing.” Ukedideka mused, he didn’t really know what to call the piece of Novan technology. “I requisitioned a few from one of the unfortunate Novans, without their permission, of course.”

“You can just say that you stole it Ukey.”

The siblings took themselves outside where the sun shone high in the sky to illuminate the Abstract capital city, Perception. The city was vast, probably the same size as London and twice as complex to get around in. The city was built up from layer upon layer of winding streets and twisting, maze-like paths. Splitting the city almost directly in half was the crystal-clear waters of the river Edder. Nobody had ever found the source or mouth of the river; the abstracts had given up hundreds of years ago after a group of explorers had gone missing while searching for the mystery.

The city itself was a fascinating mess of architecture, tall wooden and stone structures sprawled out like the roots of a vast tree to create the somehow interconnected web of infrastructure that all the Abstracts relied on. The city was also held up by a connection to the Candelaum, the curtain between different dimensions. Abstracts had an integral connection to the network and could manipulate it in amazing ways; one way that they could use the Candelaum was called stepping. That was where an Abstract could move partially into another dimension and make themselves intangible – only relative to speed though. An Abstract could step through a wall, but not a bullet that had been fired at them. An Abstract could also step into the Candelaum and cross great distances in moments.

The most impressive way that an Abstract could use their connection to the Candelaum was through an action, they called sweeping, a practised motion that allows an Abstract to create a gate between two different dimensions that they and others could pass through.

Some Abstracts could use the Candelaum to turn invisible or increase their strength tenfold too, although that required hundreds of days of practice and tutoring so most didn’t bother learning such skills.

Ukedideka bid his farewell to Quizzical when they got outside and demonstrated stepping, his body began to flicker like he was on an old VCR before taking a single step forward and vanishing from his sister’s side. Around Quizzy, there were a few other Abstracts heading in and out of the building behind her, flickering and stepping in and out of the air like ghosts.

She allowed a small smile to grow on her lips before stepping into the Candelaum too, an infinite number of colours flew at her and she dropped out of the other dimension in front of her guild’s hall.

Quizzical was a member of the most respected guild in Imagination, the Guild of Guardians. They established her membership at birth when her Sigil was revealed.

Each Abstract had a sigil somewhere on their body, an oblivion-black or heavenly white mark that told them which guild they were to be part of in life.

The sigil that adorned her left eye was a black crescent, it slashed across her face as if a great beast had raked a claw down her cheek. Quizzical didn’t like the black mark, treating it more like a scar than the status symbol it was. Although she knew that the mark was something nearly every Abstract would think of as the epitome of beauty, she really wished that she could daub grey paint over it to blend it into the rest of her skin.

Quizzical walked up towards the guild, hesitating a little as the Abstracts standing either side of the great wooden door drew their blades on her. Quizzical turned to both of them, showing them the black mark that adorned the side of her face. The pair nodded and bowed to her, returning their swords to their holsters. It was rather surprising that they hadn’t recognised her; Guardians were considered celebrities in Abstract culture.

The guild hall was a regal building, a castle-like structure adorned with beautiful stained-glass windows depicting glorious battles that the Abstract Guardians had won. Four lofty towers speared the clouds with their spires, constructed from dark grey stone, four walls joined the towers and were intercepted by the gatehouse that Quizzical was walking up to.

She pushed the large wooden door open; It was heavy enough but the counterweights on the other side helped pull the door open. She stepped forwards through the door and began to walk into the castle grounds. Dangling above her head was an intricate but terrifyingly heavy portcullis, eight thorns that’d drive themselves into the ground if the metal gate was dropped hung dangerously above her head. Whenever she had walked under it, something in her had told her she should be ready to leap to the side at a moment’s notice in case the heavy gate dropped.

Now inside the walls, Quizzical was as disappointed as ever. While the exterior of the guild was so very grand and regal, the inside was monochrome and boring. Her shoes were quickly slicked with the mud from the ground; it wouldn’t kill the Guardians to put grass down or at least gravel over the ground. She’d said that they’d be much happier if they put a lawn down, even more so if they were to plant some flowers.

Unfortunately, the other Guardians were less interested in looks than Quizzy, only particularly caring about the newest and fastest way to make something stop breathing. She began walking towards one of the stone buildings built in the castle's corner, the general meeting place of the Guardians, she wanted to know what her peers felt about the call to arms.
Chapter 3 - Listen to your Lords↦