The Portal Games 2022: The Results of Boredom
#1 of The Portal Games
Welcome, one and all, to the start of the Portal Games. I have quite a show for you with this, but before we get started, let me give you this little intro. Six promos are soon to follow, introducing the first half of our competitors, with the second half to follow next week.
What are the Portal Games? Well, the fuller introduction will come in a few weeks, when the players meet the host. Until then, suffice to say that I am bored, and I need entertainment...and I'm calling those that are willing to provide it, consciously or unconsciously.
Should you win? Well, I give you a pocket of reality of your own, to mold as you see fit. If you lose...well, no great loss, you'll simply be returned home...eventually.
Now...let's see...who to introduce first?
The Portal Games
Introduction: The Results of Boredom
"Hmm. I want to watch a reality show."
If anyone had been in the room to hear the black dragon say those words, they would have scurried up the walls and out of the room as soon as they heard them. As it stood, several layers of dust in the corners of the room tried. They made it halfway up the shelves that lined the walls before he gestured at them, the particles of sand, powdered ceiling, and other bits of debris slowly floating back to the center of the suddenly vibrating chamber.
"Ah ah...Not so fast...I need some substance for this, after all."
Draconicon smiled, gathering it together in an orb between his fingers. Already the details were emerging, the possibilities, the ideas for what he could do for his new piece of entertainment. It always happened this way; once a new door was located, his imagination was all too eager to leap through and see what was on the other side.
"Yes, yes, a game," the dragon muttered, cutting the ball of dust and powder into five different shards, each one flattening out and reshaping itself. Three-dimensional maps rose, ranging from jungles to ice sheets to tall mountains, with the fifth becoming something special. Something truly, truly special. "A game of survival...but what else?"
He tossed his hand out, and the five maps floated from his hand to the center of the room even as the furniture fled to the far corners of the room. They grew, pulling at the other bits of substance that were loose on the floor and in the ceiling, even taking bits and pieces from his own scales where things had come loose. As he watched, the maps grew, taking on more life, more movement, more stuff, and he bent at the waist to watch them.
An island surrounded by a sea of monsters, with beaches and warm jungles that divided the two halves from one another.
A savannah of long grasses and rare trees, where the grasses whistled with movement beneath the eyeline.
A long, white expanse of wind chill and endless white death for those that were not careful, dotted with the ice statues of 'former' competitors.
Those were the start, but he was already editing, already thinking of what he could put there, in the fourth zone, in the fifth, but more, thinking of who he would send.
Not those that lived in the tower with him. They were protected, his students, his friends. They were not to go through this, not without volunteering. However, there were endless other options.
A reality show. If anyone had heard him say it, they would know what he meant. Draconicon was not one to be satisfied with a mere TV show with competitors pursuing some idle distraction for the sake of an audience. He didn't want to see some small conceit that was put together for those that were on the other side of the screen. No, no, that was too small.
No, he wanted a reality show, where reality itself would bend to make something more interesting.
Of course, for that, he needed competitors. Turning his attention from the developing maps, the black dragon lifted his hands to the ceiling. Fires as dark as his scales slithered from his fingers, twisting and knitting themselves together until they formed a portal through space, then deeper, through reality and its various levels.
"Show me," the dragon whispered. "Show me the best...those most interested...those most willing...those most interesting."
The portal shivered, barely able to handle the vagueness of his request, but the dragon's eyes narrowed, white light peering through the black expanse of his face.
"Show me, or serve my boredom yourself."
There was no better command than that. The portal shimmered, and images of all sorts of sentient beings played before him. Draconicon waited until one caught his interest...and plucked it, sending the first competitor falling through a portal in their world. They'd arrive in the game, soon enough, but they would not be the last. He needed twelve, and twelve he would have.