Monday, June 24, 2013

Angeland

Once upon a time, when we flew on wings of steel and nested like termites; when every man, woman and child could consult the wisdom of ages. An ancient race came to Urf and built a castle on an island. The walls of this castle reached further than the eye could see, and it would take a man half a year to circumnavigate. Assuming he could walk on water, for the moat of the castle was the sea itself. The castle was called Angeland.

The people of the day, sick with fear and pride, cursed the ancients. They used their wings of steel to hurl fire and hate against the castle, but their wings were torn from them. Swarms of men crashed against the castle, up the walls and into the sea, but their hate fell from the sky and boiled their flesh.

Then one day the door opened. The sun beat cruelly and the land scorned their pleas, so the men and women were hungry and entered Angeland.

= Floor 0. Eden.

Lidar and Oogle were free for the day. Their teacher, Feo Rosefelt, had entered the Maze yesterday and their school hadn't managed to arrange a substitute.

(They explore and discuss the Maze)
(They wander into a forbidden area and the walls begin to move. They hear faint cries and sacrifice their chance to leave moving towards them. They find a suspicious girl called Anghun.)
(They begin to explore the Maze. They are hunted by giant boar in a forest, nearly freeze crossing a mountain pass in a blizzard and are betrayed resting in a city of charcoal. Throughout this, hellish creatures pursue them and occasionally tear each other to pieces, although the children successfully evade them)

(The number 235235 becomes a theme, through puzzle solutions and chance arrangements of features. Usually it requires conferral to discover the full number. Many other six-digit numbers also crop up, all under 240000)
(Eventually they reach the end. 24-hour news plays on vidscreens on the walls; two years have passed and their home has been obliterated by war. A large crystal glows in the center of a vast room, condensation streaming down the sides. Periodically individuals or small groups go up to the crystal, place their palms on top and disappear.)

(Lidar and Oogle want to use the gate at 23:52:35, but Anghun refuses. Reluctantly, they enter on time and reach the next floor.)
(They are immediately faced with an angel. The angel offers them a devil's choice: serve the ancients together, or rule the Maze but forget each other. They choose to serve and are graduated to Maze Architects.)

= Floor N. Prime.

They meet Buds, who communicates through text message rather than remove his headphones. Buds introduced the timestamp system, intended to encourage only those who could agree to enter the gate together. An unfortunate side-effect is of encouraging those who enter solo to take the lower choice. They begin to watch maze runners and take particular interest in a pair not unlike themselves. Unfortunately, Anghun, transformed into a demon, has retained enough intelligence to find ways around the rule against demons directly harming runners. She taunts the boy into hunting her, then scares the girl into searching for the boy. While they are divided, she steals their food or equipment and they are eaten.

???
Lidar and Oogle become magical ponies and spread rainbows everywhere. The ancient ones finally die out, satisfied the universe is in good hooves. The End.