《Polyrhythm Time -- A Bard's Tail》2.7-Seeing Red

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Mistake number one: I got mad, and decided to fight, instead of leaving. I’m a drummer not a fighter, but this chick pissed me off. So I saw red, and I didn’t run like I should’ve.

I come around the corner of the hill at over a 100mph, right after she turns and throws a fireball at the noise I just built. I’m 20 yards away, behind her, just standing there, as she’s looking around for me. I’m waiting and ready to move when she eventually, 3.7 seconds later turns around to look back at me.

Mistake number two: I looked. Melissandre turns out not to be some old ugly fire-witch. Instead, she’s a dead ringer for Jessica Rabbit. Long bright red hair. Not just ginger, too. Skin that’s somewhere between white and pink. Lips painted cherry, and eyes the size of golf balls. My god she has a vavoom like I've never seen. It's supermodel meets plastic surgery plus CGI. Can adults have a sixteen inch waist? I think her fire engine red dress is slit up the side to her belly button.

And when I looked, my concentration faltered. Faltered: like cut out; static on the broadcast; brain-fart; Oh my god, what’s your name, my name’s Lyle. It’s a bit tricky to engage in combat with Aphrodite when your brain is leaking out your ear and your jaw is scraping the ground.

The fireball heading towards me awoke me from my dong-matic slumber, and I started heading to my left, prepared to leave Ishtar and her igniting ways far far behind me. I’m fucking glad she wasn’t inviting folks close before nuking them. I’d have been such a pile of ash.

Mistake number three: I assumed the fireball had to go straight. I headed to my left, and the fucking fireball curved to follow me. I'm fortunate in that I’m still faster than it is, so I outrun it to the left. Of course, at that point she lets loose another one. It flies at me from the opposite direction.

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Speed is the only thing keeping me alive, so I reach into my pocket while playing dodge the fireballs. If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a fireball? Once I get a little room, I chuck another three baseballs. This time, they’re at her, and since I don’t have good balance while I'm running, they’re only going maybe three hundred. On the other hand, my aim didn’t get any better. And while she’s shocked by three balls heading in her general direction at bullet train speeds, she only has to move twelve inches to avoid the ball that was going to clip her shoulder.

Finally I get a piece of good news: when she moves, she loses control of her fireballs and they plow into the hillside. Bad news: She immediately builds another and tosses it. It starts slow, then begins chasing me again. I lead it in a big circle, and then charge her.

Mistake number four: I thought I could get close. I ran towards her with a fireball chasing me, hoping she’d turn it off, and when I got within a dozen yards, not only did the fireball keep coming, but she went up in flames. At this point, she’s looking less Jessica Rabbit, and more Te Ka, the fire form of Te Fiti from Moana. Well, she’s definitely hotter than that. Ha! Sexier. Like cross Jessica Rabbit with a demon.

I take a hard right, and sprint for the hills. Not interested in fighting volcano-lady. Not even interested in staring at her hotness. Just interested in running. I take off heading over the hills.

Mistake number five: I forgot about my stamina. I’m not built for long fights. I can’t sprint for long enough to keep away from her damn fireballs. I’m able to put four hundred yards between us before I start to slow down, but then the fireball starts to catch up.

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I have very little desire in becoming Texas barbecue, so I take a sharp turn, and jog away. The fireball has something that looks like momentum, at least, and curves more like an ice skater than like the RoadRunner. Beep beep.

Mistake number six: I lean too much on my echolocation. I take a quick look behind, just out of old habit, and dive to the right. Turns out that my searing doesn’t see fireballs. They’re not solid. They don’t reflect sound, just distort it. I’ve been running primarily off echolocation for most of five months now. I assume it will tell me everything I need to know about what’s near me. And this time it didn’t.

Now I have to run checking behind me, like the old videos of Usain Bolt's races. Good news is that I can check in front of me with echolocation, so the terrain isn’t going to trip me up. I dodge and weave, and get ready to go around a hill to lose line of sight on the succubus, and I find three fireballs headed my way from different directions. Ohshit! No good options left, the fireballs head towards me, and when they’re three yards away, I go flat on my belly. She can't see me, so here's to lady luck.

Mistake number seven: I wasn't paying attention to proximity. Lava doesn’t have to touch you to burn you. Just being nearby is enough to get crispy.. The three fireballs colliding and exploding in midair four feet above me is kinda like lava being close. My exposed skin is burnt. Worse than a bad sunburn. Here's to hoping I have first degree burns. Also, turns out that hair isn’t that different from paper and burns at about 451 Farenheit. I had to turn off echolocation, and throw dirt on my ‘hawk.

On the other hand, I’m far away from her, on the ground, and she can’t see well at this distance. I wait five seconds looking in her direction, before I jump up like a poptart in a toaster, and race off.

Thirty minutes, thirty miles later, I find a river, and dive in, hoping the water will help with my burns.

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