At the Meadow of Madness ~ Open...

    He had forgotten about snow. How it drowned all things in an icy coating and hid-away the pleasing colors. How its cold temperature drove the flesh-welps to dress in heavier cloth and avoid the outdoors. It was disgusting.

    Knell stared with disappointment out at the meadow. He could no longer enjoy the natural beauty of the place do to the wretched snow, and his steady supply of lonely outcasts to torment would most likely be gone too. All that was left now was some strange idol made of snow and sticks.

    It was definitely made by human hands, considering the terrible quality of the frosty statue. Three balls of snow of increasingly smaller size had been stacked on top of one another with thin tree-branches sticking out of the middle ball on both sides. Adorning the top sphere were pebbles arranged to roughly imitate a human face. What really caught the attention of the gaseous god was the fancy top-hat that adorned the idol’s ‘head’. He knew hats such as that used to be worn by humans of a higher status in the past, so the fact that someone had offered it to some sort of pagan-totem instead of a literal god filled him with annoyance. He decided something would have to be done about this. 

---

    He took one quick glance around to make sure no one was watching before reaching out and delivering a backhand slap with his metal arm to the poor snow-thing, ruining the upper-half of the insulting totem. With a satisfied chuckle he spun on his heels to leave, only to be shocked to find two more snowball-totems sitting before him. “Peculiar, I would have usually picked up on the emotions of some worm-mage daring to to play a trick on me, so either I’m dealing with a summoner with long range capabilities, or that snow-thing was sentient and I just murdered it in front of its family. I kind of hope it is the latter.” To the god’s surprise he actually received a response to his ramblings, the voice emanating from the two snow idols.

    “Tis neither my child, we are the Frosty Guardians of the Seventh Plane and we have come to deliver a warning,” they said in unison, their voices sounding like a squirrel that just huffed a tank of helium. “Due to your wicked behaviour and complete disregard for the feelings of others, you wi-.”

    Knell delivered two more backhand-slaps, one for each of the Frost Guardians. “Come again? Not sure I heard the warning quite right, but it sounded an awful lot like ‘blah blah blah Almighty Lord Knell blah blah blah we are annoying blah blah blah please kill us,’ which would just be an absurd thing to say!” He said before cackling like a hyena. His laughter slowly turned into one of nervousness when he noticed the army of Frost Guardians behind him, all brandishing various forms of weaponry and welsh dressers. “...T-Those dead snow-worms behind me? I found the that way.” He was given only another moment before they fell upon him, drowning him in a sea of pain and fine carpentry as he shrieked in horror.

---

    He bolted upright from the bed of snow, his non-existent vocal cords screaming for reasons he could not quite recall. While dusting the snow off of him he noticed markings in the snow that indicated he had been flailing around, not unlike a fish out of water, and the ruins of the once-proud snow totem. While he did not know how exactly he got on the ground when he had just been staring staring at the idol, he seemed to have achieved his goal of destroying it. The Limbo lord just hoped no one had played witness to said-destroying... 

What the gaseous being probably didn’t notice about the snowman’s metaphorical eyes were that they were the literal eyes of another. They were still rock in design of course, but they weren’t quite as coal-like as most snowmen were depicted. On brief overview, the gemstones’ emerald colour could easily be mistaken considering that they were merely small sections of the gem being exposed.

Regardless of what the eyes of the construct were in actuality, it was Knell’s actions next that really matter. By destroying the snowman, the impact of the blow was enough to awaken something else in the snow. The emeralds began to glow slightly, though it would be hard for the creature from limbo to pick that up considering that they were completely buried in the mass of snow that used to make up the totem.

Tem couldn’t quite remember how she got into the position she was in. All she could remember was that she was fighting some sort of cat creature in the forest and now she was waking up in the snow. She had no clue how many days it had been since she was last awake, but by the way she felt, it could have been an entire week. That only meant that her power was at its peak though. Her bonded sand particles were scattered, she could at least feel that. All she needed to do was pull them toward her.

In the time that Knell had been rolling around in the snow and screaming, Tem was collecting herself. Bits of sand began to shoot out of the snow and converge to the location of frosty’s demolished body. When she had enough to build a body, the sand golem rose from its resting place. The titan’s trifecta of eyes gazed upon the student that she probably owed her rude awakening for.

Flicking the top hat off of her ‘head’, she idly eyed the area around her to try and deduce where she was on the campus grounds. Once she got her frame of reference, she stared back at the creature below her. “Your race’s affinity for clumsiness never ceases to amaze me, human” the golem grumbled. She assumed the student was human, most of the students were regardless of what form they were in. Either way, she probably had to check in at her work station, so she immediately disregarded the creature on the ground. She carefully attempted to step around the creature on the ground, like a person trying to avoid squashing a bug.

    As far as Knell knew, something BIG was about to step on him. He had been attacked by people armed with guns and knives on occasions, and usually made out no worse for ware, but this was something completely different. This was not some measly human attempting to harm internal organs in a being that had absolutely none, a stomp from a monster like that would crush Knell in his entirety. He was not sure he could actually recover from something like that. Those worms occupying the school certainly could not.

    The Limbo Lord could think of only one possible course of action. He had to preserve his own existence and that of the worthless species he called dibs on, which meant he was going to have to cripple the stupid beast. ‘Those maggots owe me BIGTIME for this’ he thought bitterly as he sacrificed his breakfast, lunch and dinner in the name of divine kickassery.

    The energies within his metal arm began to convert into the the mysterious and nonsensical Limbo Energy™, and using that Knell unleashed his greatest and only form of attack, the god-arm. His metallic appendage quickly warped from its normal coloration to that of darkness solidified as the chaotic power of the abyss took the place of conjured steel.

     With that out of the way the shade held out his transformed limb at an upwards angle, trying to make contact with one of the behemoth’s feet before it could reach the ground and presumably him. Hopefully his amazing god-punch would be powerful enough to send it flying a short distance, or even blow a whole limb off, but after the attack was finished he was not sticking around to find out. He would dissipate into the ground below, and get as close as to the academy as possible before he ran out of energy. Then all he had to do was warn the idiots in charge of the monster, and it would no longer be his problem.

As Tem’s large stump of a foot passed over the child that had freed her from her previously frozen state, she absent mindedly thought about how long she had slumbered for. That thought was quickly erased as her leg was suddenly blasted apart by some force below her. She didn’t feel it, not being able to feel in the same sense as humans did, but rather noticed that a ton of her sand particles were blasting upwards for some reason and she immediately lost balance and began to tip over like a half chopped tree.

If she could roll her eyes, she would. Stupid humans putting themselves into danger. As she began to collapse to the ground, she sent out a series of pillars from her mid-section and attempted to prop herself and prevent all her weight from crushing the human underneath her. Because of course if the human did something stupid and got injured then she would be to blame. One of her emerald eyes sunk into her body and then re-emerged at her lower section in order to spy on what the gas creature was doing. “I have a hard enough time avoiding killing you fleshy things on purpose, I don’t need your help to do it on accident” the grumpy golem bellowed. As her eye observed though, the target of her comment was missing completely.

As the sand golem sprouted a new limb, she carefully investigated the spot where the human was last located and the surrounding area. Nothing to be found. Did the being explode or something? She didn’t know they could do that. The thought of their fleshy water-based bodies popping like balloons was quite an amusing image though.

Tem merely shrugged it off and continued her stroll back to her office until she saw the student again in the distance, running off like the cowardly creatures tended to do. She had to say that she was impressed by how far the thing was capable of fleeing. “Hrm… I should report back to my post…” Tem mused to herself as she triangulated on the boy’s location and the trajectory required.

At her mid-section though, a series of holes began to form and out shot clumps of sand that sailed toward the gaseous creature’s location. She had a job to return to, sure, but the boy was already proving to be an annoyance and should probably be taught a lesson accordingly. She had enough power reserves to split off and her current bodice wouldn’t be fast enough to keep up with him.

Meanwhile, the cannonball-like glops of sand began to scatter around the fleeing student, likely not being able to hit him due to his intangible body. That was not the end of their presence though. As they impacted against the snowy ground they began to morph into scorpions and scuttled after the child. A small army at that. A couple of them attempted to launch themselves at his feet once within range, though it was difficult to say if that would trip him up. “Typical humans, always running after they throw the first punch” the voice stated from one of the many arachnids chasing the student.

While her minions were doing their best to slow him down, Tem’s main body slowly trudged after him. He was on his way to her office, so she could easily kill two birds with one stone.

    Judging by the fact that he still existed, this plan was going swimmingly. Knell had had enough power to get himself about halfway to the buildings ahead, and his darksight(!!!) revealed that the stupid monster had practically tumbled over in the time that it took to get here. There was only one problem.

    The more he ran, the more he noticed he was losing speed. To most others this was a natural process due to strange acids within the muscles of worms, but for the gaseous goon it was unheard of. One quick glance towards his shoes confirmed what was really going on, he was slowly losing control of his limbs. His gait was becoming increasingly uncoordinated the more he pushed himself forward. It was possible his legs would just give out altogether at this rate, should he not concentrate on moving them.

    Unfortunately for Knell he would not get the chance to focus on his footwork. Though his conventional senses too were starting to weaken, the sounds of things scuttling through the snow drew ever closer. The terror he felt before was back and only grew when whatever was behind him proved capable of speech. That fear proved to be the the final nail in the coffin of the god’s balance, and he began to trip.

    He was not given the privilege of falling over on his own accord, though, as the thing behind him had apparently launched itself at him like a torpedo. The combination of tripping, monster flying into the back of his legs, and general loss of mass from energy withdraw resulted in a lighter than average Knell being sent on a journey several meters up into the air. His trajectory sent the shade flying face first into a snowdrift.

    “...There are no words to express my displeasure for all of this,” he muttered as he futilely tried to pull himself free with weakened arms. Unable to escape or warn the fleshbags about the impending danger, one last thought flashed through his head before the shade resigned himself to oblivion. 'You know, this whole dying thing is not so funny when it's not someone else.' 

Much to Tem’s surprise, the gas based student was capable of being hit and her scorpion scout proved so by aiding in tripping him up. So, the creature was solid enough to touch. That was good to know. In the process of tripping the child, he seemed to have face planted into a mound of snow, making his escape even more difficult. It was also somewhat comical, the sand golem had a brief chuckle about it as its massive body was encroaching ever closer to the one that had attacked her.

The army of scorpions began to collect themselves around the cowardly child and as they recognized that he had no feasible escape, they broke themselves down into a collective mound of sand. Out grew a tentacle-like appendage that ensnared around the creature’s ‘ankle’ and began to tug the student out of the snow and did so much more effectively than the boy’s limbs could ever do. Should the student not fight back or lack the strength to, the tentacle would raise the tiny being into the air, allowing him to dangle upside down from his ankle like a ragdoll would.

The student’s height off the ground matched the tallness of the golem, which would be ever more apparent when the three-eyed monster approached the escapee. She locked eyes with the student, though couldn’t recognize him from past memory. “I thought you would put up at least a bit more of a chase” the giant grumbled.

With that, the golem began to shrink and her overall appearance became much more compact. She reverted to her human disguise, a rather plain, but equally stern countenance greeting the gaseous boy as he was lowered to match her new height. She ensured that the outfit she molded onto herself was one that most would commonly associate with the campus security for the sake of getting her class status across. “Either way, using your powers to attack other students and staff of Foresta is strictly prohibited” the sand monster growled.

“I urge you to give me a reason to not expel you right here and now for your violent and unprovoked attack” she viciously interrogated. Tem wasn’t so much upset about her being injured by the boy, in fact she hardly felt a thing when he exploded her foot. On the other hand though, if there was a regulation to be followed, Tem was going to enforce it by any means necessary. “If you do not comply with a satisfactory answer, I will arrange for your flight back home effective immediately, just point me in the right direction.”

    ‘I am not sure what the phrase ‘left-hanging’ means, but you would think it would be saved for situations such as this’ Knell wondered as he was stuck literally hanging while the giant made its way over to him. When the thing had finally reached him it muttered about expecting more of a chase, all while trying to intimidate the gaseous student by looking him in the eyes. He opted to just glare at the creature in defiance, until it did the most unexpected and comical thing he had ever seen.

    The imposing, horrifying goliath morphed into the shape and size of a human being, female by the looks of it. He could not think of anyway to make it anymore unintimidating, save for the shapeshifter breaking out into song. The thought of it singing the song of its people forced to Limbo lord to hold back his own laughter, not wanting to provoke it and make his death even more drawn-out. When he finally got back to focusing on his current situation, he picked up on the creature threatening to expel him from the academy and throw him off the island.

    It took him another glance-over to notice that what the thing was wearing was a campus security uniform. Now he could not, and would not hold back his laughter. The vocalizations caused him pain, but the thought that this mighty creature would even want to pretend to be a worm was much too amusing to stop.

    “P-Please forgive me,” he said after managing to suppress his cackling. “It’s just, well, I was so sure you were some mindless beast with how careless you were back there, but now I know you are actually a proud, strong wor-...human being.” He managed to hold back the laughter, but he could currently do nothing about the smug grin that was making up a large portion of his ‘face’. “I mean, who other than your average human would create a major issue for themselves and others, and then blame said issue on someone else? Surely you must of practiced for a while to get THIS good at being a hindrance to others!”

    Mouthing off to the monster was probably not the best idea, but at this point the god did not give much of a damn. “While I am having a blast being in the company of someone as bright as you, can you just throw me already? Any place with a decently sized populace will do, I am pretty much starving to death and your ‘show of authority’ is wasting precious time. Or perhaps you want me to die for the high-crime of not wanting to be stepped on, I honestly would not be surprised.”

Tem wasn’t quite sure what to make of the chuckling smog creature, but by the looks of things she might be at this for a long time. Or a short really, depends on if the creature proved to be too much of a nuisance. Either way, a section of her huge ponytail lobbed itself off and quickly morphed into another tiny scorpion creature. The small section of her being raced off to the school’s main building and continued to morph and drift into the air to make its travel all the faster. She decided that multi-tasking would be a good idea, so she could easily sign in at her post whilst dealing with the student.

The sand golem didn’t exactly melt into a puddle of gratitude once the being began to grovel. It was such pathetic tripe. The fact that it was being spoken with laughter didn’t make her buy into his attempts at covering up his own hide. “Flattery will get you flattened, vermin. And don’t compare me to your feeble race of meat bags” the sand creature interjected rather plainly.

The sand beast laughed off his attempts at trying to pin the blame on her of all people. Her eyes dwindled back on the scene where she had been reawaken, more specifically the ground where it looked like a wild boar had been rolling around in and the snowman that he had toppled over. “I think you were making a big enough scene of your own. My apologies for overriding your pathetic excuse for attention by merely walking” the campus police sarcastically remarked.

If only more students were like this one. He was actually asking to be thrown half-way across the island. It most likely wasn’t to be taken seriously, the chuckle head had a hard enough time speaking without laughing. He didn’t seem to have a grasp on the gravity of the situation. While, sure, any could argue that what he did was on accident and was probably not a worthy offence to seek out. No offence was too little for Tem though, the student had to be shown that his trigger-happiness was not to be tolerated and that he would think twice the next time he would use his power to harm the residents on campus. Not that she cared that much about the residents on campus, law was law.

“Pft, you creatures hold time so precious, while I laugh as you all die of old age. I have plenty of time to waste, regardless of how precious you see every second as” the sand creature mocked as she turned back to the gaseous being. She lobbed off more of her ‘hair’ and tossed it at the tendril that held the student in place. The mass of disguised hair broke down into sand and strengthened the shackles so that it would be even more difficult for the boy to leave. Better yet, it made its ability to throw even stronger.

“You want populated? How about the ocean? There’s plenty of fish in there. I don’t know what you are, but given your previous actions, I say you might be a fish out of water” the sand golem stated rather coldly as she turned about to gaze at the horizon to further emphasis where he was headed.

    Knell watched patiently as the security personnel made sarcastic remarks and threats, all the while smiling contently. "Fish out of water? Oh yes, you must be trying to kill me with cheesy lines like that," the he rolled his eyes, and then twisted his torso in a way that would be almost impossible for a human so that he could take a look at the school. Just as he suspected a small crowd had began to form in response to the commotion, but what really caught his eye was a vending machine sitting silent yet functional against a courtyard wall...in the middle of winter. He turned back around to the security personnel with only a single pained wince due to his own movement. His grin had morphed into a smirk.

    "You and I are going to play a game, puppet. There is no name for it, but you should no it is decidedly high-stakes." A chuckle escaped him. "Higher stakes for me of course considering I am disintegrating at the moment. The game is about actions and the consequences that can arise from them. More specifically, it is a game about your actions and the negative consequences of your endangering of my not-life," as he explained the shade's voice gradually began to shift from one of amusement to that of a scholar teaching a child some important life-lesson. He really had nothing to fear at this point, he doubted someone on the security team would intentionally kill him regardless of their intelligence,but should the shapeshifter actually go through with it then the observers would undoubtedly consider it a murder and her life would be taken for a ride of the horrible-side. He would win no matter what, and that made this whole situation all the more bearable. 

    "Now you don't seem the intelligent sort, so I will lay out the obvious potential courses of action for you. You could simply let me go and we both forget this whole fiasco ever occurred, though I doubt you would opt for that. On the other hand you could simply kill me and be done with it. Throwing me into the ocean is a good way to inconvenience me. You could wait out the clock and have me just fade away on this spot. Or you could take me to someone of authority AND intelligence, and the issue could be discussed in a civilized manner." 

Tem’s countenance remained rather unaltered as the gaseous boy set forth his ultimatum. With how big a smirk the child held throughout his explanation (and the majority of the conversation for that matter), it was incredibly difficult for her to trust a single word that he said. As he noted though, there was a crowd gathering, which she hadn’t took notice about until it was pointed out to her. How bothersome. Didn’t they have better things to do with their limited time?

She didn’t give her thoughts on the matter much consideration. If the brat really thought that he was dying then she supposed she had to bend to his will in this instance. She gazed over at the nearest window on the academy and as though she had telekinesis it sprung open, though in reality it was the blob of sand that she had sent inside not too long ago. Her vision fixated on the gaseous boy once the deed was done. “Spare me your theatrics. Perhaps if you stopped giggling and smirking like an infant your health concerns would be taken more seriously” Tem replied simply.

Her human form quickly disintegrated into a mound of sand began to whip up into the wind. “I will escort you to the Nurse’s Office if your death is truly imminent. If you are a registered student they should have your medical record there and provide you with what you need” the dissolved entity further explained as the sand stream circled around and broke Knell off from his leash. Should he let himself fall into the rush of sand, he would be carried by the current into the opened window that Tem had provided.

    Knell was pleased that the lumbering cretin finally took notice of the crowd. That satisfaction then turned to curiosity as the golem seemed to be focused on something in the direction of the school. Curiosity morphed into dread when the golem turned some kind of nightmarish whirlwind while he still dangled there helplessly, all while the shapeshifitng moron made more stupidity fueled accusations. The god of Limbo was not sure what Foresta was thinking when hiring this creature.

    "I know what you're thinking, 'should I drop him into this nifty sand tornado thing I just made?'" the limbo god said as he tried to think of a way to free himself from his current predicament. "Well the answer might surprise yOHSHIT," was all he could manage to say as he was dropped into he vortex below. Luckily for him the current did not launch him into the stratosphere or rip him to shreds, instead merely carrying him through a window he had not noticed was open. "If I had a stomach I would almost certainly be nauseous right about now, Knell rates your traveling agency a mere 1 star."