Anathema Device - Eternity - Gareth J

Email: anathema@endoftheline.chaosdeathfish.com

Anathema Device is rarely seen in public. He is the proprietor of the Maze, an ever-changing series of intelligence tests, puzzles and hideous deathtraps bordering the Renaissant and the Glorious Equation. Competitors try to make it through alive and preferably with their skins relatively intact; however, the large number of fatalities is what brings the spectators. It's far from unknown for a survivor of the Hero Pits to be carried through the city by the crowd of spectators and dropped into the Maze. Successful competitors have a rare private meeting with Anathema; little is known about what is discussed, although apparently it involves tea and cake.
Anathema himself rarely gets involved in City politics, and seems to exist on the borders of the Renaissant and Glorious Equation more through habit than any particular desire.

The gleaming silver body it operated was silent as it worked, moving the large cluster of plant life and the fragile mechanical core into the waiting, unobtrusive airship, one of three that had been making a point of travelling through the space between the planet and the city in a the last few days.

+++Core Anchored+++
+++Exchanging power supplies+++

The vegetable mass fell away from the gleaming metal and wires as it was plugged into a glowing blue generator. The body turned back to the pilots chair and started towards the City. A City full of the necessary resources to rebuild and strengthen itself.
Down below, the Puzzlemaster waited to speak to him, soon they would leave to pursue the Prisoner, but first he would have to rebuild.

Ardan sighed over his notebook and turned to speak to his travelling companion.
“OK, calculations are complete we can begin to unfold this dimension again. Do the usual sweep for survivors and we should be good to move onto the new mess.”
“You may it sound like we'll be done in a month or two”
“I wish, we're getting faster but this sort of process takes a lot of time, for us, and for whatever is causing this.”
He dropped the stylus and stood, shaking out his arms.
“How are you doing on finding the next one along?”
“Finding a dimension the size of this room, which disappeared 20 years ago. How do you think it's going?”
“You found this one, and the last one. And just think, if there are survivors they may know where it went next.
“True. I just wish I could see the pattern it's following, why it's collapsing these world's in the first place.”

Strange sigils appear in the air above a shattered world, a glowing circle of runes and symbols that drops to the ground. Two figures step out; the girl, slight but poised, holds a katana ready to strike; the boy holds a stick of charcoal in one hand and glances at a mechanical device, his nose wrinkling at the smell of sulphur and burnt rock. Both have a faint glow to them.

“There's supposed to be a city here”, he says, looking about at the shattered remains of buildings. “It's not supposed to be like this!”

The girl looks around, eyes darting in all directions. “This is recent. Something has been here. Look at the sky!”

Above them, the sky is on fire. It looks strangely beautiful, but they both know what this means. They feel the rumbling in the ground below them and know the end of this world isn't far off.

As if on cue, a break in the burning atmosphere allows them a glimpse of a monstrous machine, descending toward the surface of the world, blades the size of buildings slashing back and forth.

“We need to leave”, says the girl. “We need to leave NOW!”

The boy stops staring at his machine and takes out his charcoal, drawing a circle in the air and filling it with incomprehensible writing. The two of them vanish just before the machine hits, tearing apart what remained of the city.

Only one is left to witness the death-throes of this world. Watching from above, the Anathema Device feels a sense of satisfaction as it tears reality apart.