Sortie
| The sphinx has the body of a cheetah, lean to the point of looking sickly, with uneven, patchy fur, caked with dry filth. On her back are folded a pair of pigeons’ wings, grey feathered and spattered with what looks like dried tar. With no background to compare her against, you have no sense of the sphinx’s size. She seems at once the size of a house cat and the size of a house. She regards you with cool, intelligent-seeming eyes. |
There is a twisting wrench of motion and then suddenly...you are. You just...are.
You find yourself nowhere, or somewhere very much like nowhere. There is no sky, no ground, no walls. There is only a mangy-looking sphinx and a scuffed-up white door.
| The wooden door looks like it belongs inside a house, rather than out here in the void. The simple, brushed-steel knob has no lock or keyhole. The white paint on the door has seen better days, showing scrapes and scuffs. Despite thorough attempts at cleaning, the faded memory of an ancient scrawl of purple crayon is still visible on the lower half of the door. |
“Thus, thy sortie begins…” the sphinx says. The profundity of her words is contrasted by the profound boredom in her voice. “This breach will hold for 96 hours and no more. Beyond that door, the Earth is thine, doomwright.”
You respond...