[LNH20/LNH-ELSE] Bite-Size Tales of the LNH v20 #10: 'Sir Lancelot's Masticator' [HCC35]

[Andrew Perron]

On Sun, 10 Mar 2013 02:01:23 +0000 (UTC), Saxon Brenton wrote:

> Bite-Size Tales of the LNH v20 #10
> 'Sir Lancelot's Masticator'
> By Saxon Brenton

YES MORE SAXON GOOD

>     The Professor gave her a mischievous look and said, "The movement's 
> easy.  Think of them as a type of water wheel.  Only in this case the 
> 'water' is the passage of time."

...isn't *everything* powered like that, in the end?

> Using the 
> pencil as a lever, he prised the gear away from contact with the rest 
> of the assemblage.  The separated gear fell away from the others, hit 
> the table, and lay still.  The others kept grinding away.

Damn. Interesting.

>      The Professor picked up the gear and placed it back into contact 
> with the assemblage - but this time rather than orientating it so that 
> it was upright he placed it so that it was horizontal.  It made no 
> difference.  As soon as it was in position to pick up movement from the 
> teeth of the adjacent gears it simply locked into place and continued 
> on as though nothing had changed.  "Hmm," went Penumbra.  "Interesting."

Damn! DOUBLE interesting!

> And that actually makes it a bit more 
> interesting, because in theory you could use it to grow new gears of 
> magically de-natured orichalcum.  But the point is they grow is size 
> and number, and when they're massive enough you get a serious risk of 
> crushing.  Took Sir Lancelot's right arm off, according to Murray-Mead."

Hmmmmmm. o.o Ouch.

> And because these are profession story tellers that 
> we're talking about, they just ignored any facts that didn't fit, and 
> generally made up crap.

That's how I do it!

> The inhabitants of the island 
> had a legend that in the remote past the island had hosted a colony of 
> @lantis, and it was with their wisdom of the ancients that they had 
> built the engine, which the later arrivals had never learnt the 
> workings of."

Ahhhhhhhh. <3 <3 <3

>      "Then one day Sir Lancelot arrived on the island.  He hears about 
> the engine and the efforts of the people of the island to keep it from 
> growing out of control, and apparently he decides it's diabolic in 
> nature.  He went to the tower, but despite Lancelot's repeated efforts 
> couldn't find a way to deal with it decisively.  And then, being 
> Lancelot, his frustrations got the better of him, and he went berserk 
> and started attacking the engine with brute force."
>      Granny sighed.  "Yes, that sounds like Lancelot."

It really does. `-`; Did you know that Monty--

>      Penumbra nodded absently.  "Mmm.  A lot of people don't realise 
> how accurate the characterisation of him in _Monty Python and the Holy 
> Grail_ was.

Oh. You did. Okay.

>      "How did he keep from bleeding to death?" asked Granny, curiously. 
> "Was this early enough in his career that he could use his state of 
> grace to heal himself?"

Just like Wolverine!

> He closed the book.  "Murray-Mead theorises that Lancelot eventually 
> learnt to use a sword left handed and thereby retained his position of 
> the most powerful knight of the round table.

'Tis just a flesh wound!

> And the moral of the story is: 
> keep a close watch on your magical engines."
>      "I thought it was that writers make up stuff if the truth doesn't 
> suit their purposes," Granny said.
>      "Well, that too."

Both very relevant.
      
> Second part. This part is LNH Elsewhirl.

Oooooooo.

>      Can-Handle-Any-Type-Of-Change-Except-For-The-Ultimate-Ninja-Wearing-
> A-Cape Lad walked through the devastated Net.ropolis.

YES

> The situation 
> didn't involve Ultimate Ninja wearing a cape, so CHATOCEFTUNWACLad could 
> look upon the death of the Looniverse without breaking down into a 
> sobbing basket case, but that didn't mean he didn't feel a sense of 
> immense loss.

Yessssssssss <3

> So when the seeming young man looked up and saw Can-Handle-
> Any-Type-Of-Change-Except-For-The-Ultimate-Ninja-Wearing-A-Cape Lad, 
> and smiled an open smile that for all the world looked like a benevolent 
> joyful zest for life, it did not fool the Legionnaire.  "Hey there!  
> Glad you could make it."
>      "Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, Messenger of the Outer Gods," 
> Can-Handle-Any-Type-Of-Change-Except-For-The-Ultimate-Ninja-Wearing-A-
> Cape Lad said, almost formally.

Oh. I thought it was Kid E. `-`

>      And at that point Fourth Wall Lass ripped open the wound in reality 
> left over from the Omaha Project and the Looniverse shredded faster than 
> the speed of plot.

Ooooooooh. o.o Which reminds me of a vague idea I had to use some sort of
vague cosmic being involved in the Omaha Project called "Omaha" as a bad
guy in an homage to "The Three Doctors", because the way they pronounce
"Omega" in that sounds remarkably similar.

...but I think I'm going with a different bad guy.

>      Nyarlathotep died.  And because he was a *single* poly-dimensional 
> entity existing across multiple universe and multiverses and multiversal 
> clusters, *all* of him died.  

Ooooooooooh.

>      The stories Nyarlathotep appeared in were abrogated.  The events 
> they depict never happened.  They are now lies.  Yes, even the Lovecraft 
> originals.
>      Not that this will stop the writers.  Because story tellers just 
> ignore any facts that aren't convenient to them, and are always making 
> up crap. 

Niiiiiiiice. <3 <3 <3

>      Written for the 35th High Concept Challenge: 'Ruined Forever!'  
> Submitted very late; certainly too late to be voted on.

Interesting. Why didn't you just submit one half of it? Well, I guess there
was a necessary thematic link...

> Normally I at least 
> get an idea for the HCC, and it's sheer laziness on my part that keeps 
> the story from being written. 

SAME

> There 
> was the possibility of writing something featuring Vile Lamer (the Kyle 
> Rayner Green Lantern expy that Tick and Badger created when DC tried 
> to get rid of Hal Jordon during the 1990s trend of replacing their 
> characters with younger, hipper versions; surely as thematically 
> appropriate to Dvandom's core Concept as you could hope.).

Ah, yes. When the problem was that they were creating too many new
characters. x.x

>      All in all: Curse you Dvandom!  May you be tied to a chair and a 
> swarm of vermiMACS nibble off your naughty bits!
>      [grumpgrumpgrumpgrumpgrump]

MWAHAHAHAH

>      Anyway.  This doesn't really hold together very well as a story; 
> it's more a collection of exposition dumps strung together with an 
> common theme.  Barely even qualifies as a shaggy dog ending.

Oh, I dunno. It's a strong theme, at least.

>      Nor does the cosmological setup hold up to scrutiny.  There are 
> far too many fictional settings with cosmologies where Lovecraft's Great 
> Old Ones - if they could exist at all - would be relegated to being just 
> another bunch of powerful interdimensional monsters.  At best, you might 
> be able to limit it to a case of 'only one Nyarlathotep per multiverse'.  
> Which is cool.  Because that means I've only offed one of them, and 
> another iterantion can still turn up - under his net.pun guise of 
> Nyarlatho.text - at some future time.

Screw canon, I have ideas!

>      The bit about Fourth Wall Lass being able to, in extremis, rip a 
> hole open all the way to Real Life and simply obliterate an opponent 
> is an idea I've had sitting around in the back of my head for over a decade.

<3 Of course, it also obliterates the universe. Which makes sense.

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, seriously thought the second part was
strong on its own.