CHOICE SIX (END)
You enter the covered area with caution, treading lightly and looking around you as thoroughly as you can so that you aren’t ambushed by any other strange icon makers with mustaches too big for their face.
The area seems clear of other people though and you give up on creeping about so that you can explore properly. The area was definitely a marketplace once upon a time. There are broken down and destroyed stalls in rows all around the flat area that was carved out for this once great city to do their trade. Time has caused it to rot, of course, but you’re still thrilled with the remains. You can see trinkets and wares littered on the ground, and you can’t keep yourself from pick up anything shiny that catches your eye.
There are lots of interesting textures that you find hidden under dirt and rubble and vines. You dust those off and put them in your pack. There’s no reason to let them go to waste here when you can just as easily use them yourself. Besides, that will give you an icon making edge. Textures that no one else has? Definitely something that will work in your favor.
You scavenge for quite some time, finding new and interesting things as you walk deeper into the heart of the market. The light is fainter the farther in you go, but you can still see the glint of something up ahead, and you pry yourself away from the small cache of fuzzy screencaptures to find out what it is.
You can see only part of it as you get closer because the rest is buried under ground, You bend down and use your hands to scrape away the dirt to reveal a lamp made of some sort of metal. What a strange thing, you think, to find here of all places. How could a lamp help with icon making? Did it shine some sort of special light that...did something helpful?
You turn the lamp over in your hands, stumped as to why you’ve found it here. It is a lovely thing though, you have to admit. It would be lovelier still if it weren’t so tarnished and dirty. You pull your sleeve down over your hand and use it to rub the lamp back to shine.
The zap that travels through your skin shocks you into dropping your find, and it blinds you with a bright glow as it falls to the ground. Through its spout, smoke trickles out and surrounds you, pulling and sucking at you. You claw at the air when you realize you’re being sucked into the lamp, but it’s too late. There’s nothing you can do.
You shrink down to nothing so that you fit through the lamp’s spout, and then you’re inside with no idea how to get out. You find, however, that you’re not alone.
A whole group of people look at you with varying degrees of amusement and disinterest.
“Bad luck finding the lamp, kid,” one of the older ones says, clasping your shoulder in commiseration.
“I don’t understand,” you reply, still reeling from being sucked into a lamp of all things.
“You know how some people collect icons for use or inspiration?”
You nod. Of course you know that. Who didn’t know that?
“Well, we’ve come to the conclusion that this lamp works the same way except it collects icon makers.”
“It collects...icon...makers?” You repeat their words with a shaky voice.
“And now you’re part of the collection. Make yourself at home,” they give your shoulder another pat and then leave you to sort out your feelings. You find that your legs are having a hard time supporting you so you let yourself collapse on the floor.
You don’t want to be collected.
But, as you look around you, there’s really no way out of your predicament. At least the lamp found you worthy enough to be collected, you reassure yourself as you pull your graphics program off your back and hug it to your chest.
It’s a small consolation at best.
THEME: PARTS OF A WHOLE
sodomizingjack | lemonzter | john_scorpy | vetica | sallyna_smile
The area seems clear of other people though and you give up on creeping about so that you can explore properly. The area was definitely a marketplace once upon a time. There are broken down and destroyed stalls in rows all around the flat area that was carved out for this once great city to do their trade. Time has caused it to rot, of course, but you’re still thrilled with the remains. You can see trinkets and wares littered on the ground, and you can’t keep yourself from pick up anything shiny that catches your eye.
There are lots of interesting textures that you find hidden under dirt and rubble and vines. You dust those off and put them in your pack. There’s no reason to let them go to waste here when you can just as easily use them yourself. Besides, that will give you an icon making edge. Textures that no one else has? Definitely something that will work in your favor.
You scavenge for quite some time, finding new and interesting things as you walk deeper into the heart of the market. The light is fainter the farther in you go, but you can still see the glint of something up ahead, and you pry yourself away from the small cache of fuzzy screencaptures to find out what it is.
You can see only part of it as you get closer because the rest is buried under ground, You bend down and use your hands to scrape away the dirt to reveal a lamp made of some sort of metal. What a strange thing, you think, to find here of all places. How could a lamp help with icon making? Did it shine some sort of special light that...did something helpful?
You turn the lamp over in your hands, stumped as to why you’ve found it here. It is a lovely thing though, you have to admit. It would be lovelier still if it weren’t so tarnished and dirty. You pull your sleeve down over your hand and use it to rub the lamp back to shine.
The zap that travels through your skin shocks you into dropping your find, and it blinds you with a bright glow as it falls to the ground. Through its spout, smoke trickles out and surrounds you, pulling and sucking at you. You claw at the air when you realize you’re being sucked into the lamp, but it’s too late. There’s nothing you can do.
You shrink down to nothing so that you fit through the lamp’s spout, and then you’re inside with no idea how to get out. You find, however, that you’re not alone.
A whole group of people look at you with varying degrees of amusement and disinterest.
“Bad luck finding the lamp, kid,” one of the older ones says, clasping your shoulder in commiseration.
“I don’t understand,” you reply, still reeling from being sucked into a lamp of all things.
“You know how some people collect icons for use or inspiration?”
You nod. Of course you know that. Who didn’t know that?
“Well, we’ve come to the conclusion that this lamp works the same way except it collects icon makers.”
“It collects...icon...makers?” You repeat their words with a shaky voice.
“And now you’re part of the collection. Make yourself at home,” they give your shoulder another pat and then leave you to sort out your feelings. You find that your legs are having a hard time supporting you so you let yourself collapse on the floor.
You don’t want to be collected.
But, as you look around you, there’s really no way out of your predicament. At least the lamp found you worthy enough to be collected, you reassure yourself as you pull your graphics program off your back and hug it to your chest.
It’s a small consolation at best.
THEME: PARTS OF A WHOLE
sodomizingjack | lemonzter | john_scorpy | vetica | sallyna_smile