IC 2077 Pt 2
-
IC 2077 Pt 2
-
[Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes somewhere]
“The painted man visits me here from time to time to pass on news of the real, and I occasionally meet travellers such as yourselves who have inadvertently come to this place. Most do not stay long, none leave unchanged. You have been warned of the risks, no matter how strong your will their whispers are insidious…they will try and worm their way in to your minds, picking and prying at those hidden desires, lost loves…they are hungry…”
#102
-
“Heh heh. None of ol’ Al’s desires is secret. An’ if’n I was inna market fer love, reckon I’d know where ta find it. So I expect I’ll be okay.”
-
Sian
Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes somewhereSian smirks a bit at Al’s response but keeps her own counsel. She had been a bit disturbed by the creature’s warning about the whispers and she realizes that she may have been close to falling into a trap set by the voices that continue to bombard her mind.
293
-
Though he may have been immune to their enticements, Al could still perceive the incessant whispering of the freaks across the chasm. Even as they conversed with their new friend, their susurration soughed across his soul. The one thing that made it tolerable was that he couldn’t understand a word of it. If it was words. Words undergirding this quiet creaky cacaphony would be like bones skeletizing a slug. The whole ceaseless hum of it was starting to annoy.
Worse, the inability to make out any clear meaning put him in mind of things he’d have preferred to forget. Another time when words had been heard but not understood. It was an affliction that had been common in a life lived adrift, but one soon remedied with time. All but once. The one time that had mattered. The one time that the whispers brought to his mind now. Mao and Bruce, Chop and the Captain.
Shrike was saying something to LB the cyberspirit. Al turned and watched himself walk to the edge of the chasm and step off. He walked over to the edge and watched himself fall. Looked peaceful. But stupid. It wouldn’t bring them back. But why was he watching himself?
He shook his head. Focused. He was right at the edge, toes extending past the precipice, hanging above space. He was no longer falling, or he’d fallen out of sight. But of course that hadn’t been real. It was the whispers. It was a suggestion. One that he’d been able to see.
He shrugged and walked back to the conversation. Chuckled to himself. How stupid could these freaks be? If they wanted to tempt him, surely they could think of something more seductive than throwing himself off a cliff to his death.
-
Sian
Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes SomewhereSian barely notices when Al wanders away towards the chasm edge as she is involved in her own issues. Perhaps her small doubts had provided a way to her, or perhaps she has a weakness she does not know about. In any case, she is somehow transferred to the blighted landscape of the great waste outside the great city on the eastern edge of the Empire. At this point of her life, she knows with a certainty that if she proceeds further, she will be lost to her homeworld, to her Princess, to her very people and everything she knows. If she returns, she can weave a convincing story of having lost the trail of the Vecni traitors in the ruined landscape of the waste. Things will go back to normal. She will be honored. The promises make it all so real and she knows that the tale she tells will be believed. She is promised that none of the others will survive to return and tell the truth.
Sian is barely able to contain herself and wanders off. The whispers become an ever stronger stream of promises and visions of what her life will be as she rises to the very top of her caste. All she has to do is turn back and return to the city and her Mistress. Having found a chink in the Simpiri’s emotional armor, the Horrors across the chasm push onward to even greater promises. The seductive nature of what she is seeing and what she is told claws into her inner psyche, leading to even more temptations.
Home. That is the magic word. Some part of the vampire wants to return home, perhaps a very large part. But part of her remembers different things. Remembers the blight of the land of the waste and how much it resembles what this planet had looked like at the end of the Fourth Age. Remembers the slaughter of innocents by Horrors too awful to even describe. Remembers the burnt out landscape of the world when she emerged from the hidden fortress. She also remembers her oaths. She owes a debt to her Simpiri Mistress, but she has taken another as Master in this place. He has entrusted her with so many of his secrets and elevated her to the position she holds now.
No, she has a purpose here that is not yet complete and she cannot return home until it is. Besides, she has found companions that seem to trust her, even though she represents something that is grave and terrible here. Sian begins to speak in her native tongue, one that has been heard little on this planet. She uses the techniques she has learned as a samurai, as a Buddhist monk, and as a servant of a Great Dragon and begins to fight back against the whispers in her mind. The process seems slow, but actually only last a couple of minutes, but Sian clears her head of the false promises and begins the journey back.
She shakes her head as she removes her helmet and turns back to where the others are standing. She is covered in sweat and her mind is still in a slight flux. The last thing she remembers of the whispers is a slight laugh, as if they knew that they had made some progress and would be back to continue the assault on her. She begins to strip off her armor, exposing her skin to the relative coolness of the cavern air. “Well, that was a bit uncomfortable. I was seeing visions of my homeworld and the whispers were promising to return me there and telling me that I would be rewarded for going back. I have resisted that call for now, but I believe that they will try again, so I hope that we finish this sooner than later. Right now, I need to let my skin breathe a bit and I need some nourishment. I will go over there to avoid upsetting anyone.”
Sian is a bit unsteady as she steps out of the armor and takes up her pack, walking to where a slight outcropping of rock can give her some privacy. She carefully removes one of the life-giving packets of blood from its container and consumes it, feeling strength and determination flow into her as she does.
294
-
I knew exactly when it was beginning. The Horrors could not catch me with fear and they had little success with love. I had loved all my wives. Each was unique in her own way – and the fact that I suddenly could remember them all should have been a warning in and of itself. For a moment I felt confused. My love for them felt curiously diluted. Spread among so many, each individual barely registered.
I must have stopped talking mid sentence just after I said: “Yes, we know it’s dangerous, but…”
The cyberzombie looked at me with curiousity.
And then the Horrors homed in on my true desire, something I hadn’t actually known I possessed. I saw myself, executing a simple maneuver, like I had done before a thousand times: Distract Burnout/Lethe by pointing in the opposite direction, take a step into their blindspot while still pointing, hook their left foot, grab their shoulder and execute a throw, hurling the monstrosity into the abyss.
He horrors would show me where to find their followers, allowing me to execute them. All of them would be less worth to them than to get rid of Lethe. Afterwards, I’d be welcomed home. Lofwyr would reward me, would express that he was proud of me…
Blood rushed to my cheeks. That was my secret desire? Pathetic… And still, that daydream – or probably vision – had felt just so real and good, I felt my fingers twitching. But the horrible void in me, the sarcastic, caustic voice that accompanied practically everything I thought or did, that had been drilled into me to compensate my lack of fear made me hesitate.
“…we need to get out of here.” I finished the sentence with enormous difficulty and what felt to me inhuman willpower. -
Watching Sian strip does wonders to ground Al, though he contents himself with an initial lustful glance…he does not care to follow her, guessing what she’ll be up to.
Almost as soon as he turned back to Shrike and LB the whispers dialled up the volume. He shook his head. Maybe they should just make Sian spend the rest of the job without her clothes on…. but even that wouldn’t keep the voices at bay forever.
LB had been down here for a good while. Al figured if he was going to spend any more time in here, he’d best take Shrike and the cyberweirdo at their word, start taking this whisper crap seriously. Passive resistance was going to do it – he’d need to get proactive.
But he wanted to be moving first. Always moving.
He slapped at Shrike’s shoulder with the back of his hand and was about to speak when Shrike beat him to it, saying they should leave. “Well, if’n ya gotta then ya gotta. Me, I’d rather git some o’ these clues we come for, especially since the mirror angle’s already in play.” He silently congratulated himself on his instrumentality in that. “Tell ya what, once Vampirella there finishes drinkin’ her snack, what say we keep movin’? Reckon we learned what we could from LB here. Once we’s in motion we’ll feel better, decide ta stay a while or go.” Then he steeled himself and put out hand to the possessed cyberzombie. “Appreciate yer service. An’ the advice.”
-
Sian
Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes SomewhereThere is no real way to express in words just what the consumption of blood can do for someone and Sian usually takes her time to savor the taste and sensation the act brings her, but she barely pauses in her drinking, even slurping the last few drops. She places the spent container to her forehead and sighs in relief. The whispers seem to have decreased……………decreased, but not gone away. She opens her eyes and looks into her special container, rapidly calculating how many packets she has remaining and trying to decide if she can spare another one right now. Shaking her head, she decides to leave the rest as they are since there is no real way to know how long they will be down here and when she can replenish her supply. She chuckles as she imagines the responses from either Shrike or Al if she had to ask to drink some of their blood.
Instead, she picks up her pack and walks back to where her armor lays on the ground. She does note that her mind is clearer and her gait more sure for now. She looks over to where Al is shaking hands with the creature and shakes her head. Now she has seen almost everything and Al must be roiling inside. First, he has accepted her, an elder vampire, into his circle of acquaintances and now he is making friendly with the cyborg guy.
She finishes dressing in the armor and moves up to the others. “So, are we staying or going? If we are staying, what is the plan? And, do we wait for the other three of our team?”
295
-
Attempts to hail the other half of the team proved fruitless. Their comms were apparently dead in this place. With Shrike eager to leave and Al wanting to stay a while, they decided that they at least needed to go back in the direction the others had gone. For a while, anyway. They couldn’t abandon them here without a word. And maybe they’d find some hint of what they were here for on the way.
Al kept his eyes peeled for signs of bridge building or whatever it was they were looking for. He still wasn’t particularly clear on what it would look like though, which allowed his mind to wander some. Far in the unmeasurable distance, on the other side of the chasm, he would see movements out of the corner of his eye, but it would always be gone the moment he tried to focus on it. Such a cliche.
And of course the whispers never stopped. He still couldn’t understand them. But then he started to think that maybe he could. Just not consciously. Maybe they were bypassing the language center of his brain and burrowing their insidious messages right down into his reptilian complex or something. Which was dangerous. Without his conscious mind to call bullshit on the deceptions and false promises, his animal mind was a sitting duck, prone to any sort of crazy suggestion and impulsive response.
Once again he watched himself veer off from his companions and walk off the side of the cliff. Once again he shifted focus from his projected self back to his immediate self, and once again he found himself at the precipice, this time left toes over the edge, balanced on the heel of his boot while his right foot swayed in space above eternal emptiness. He windmilled his arms and stopped himself stepping off.
Stupid pitch, asshole, he thought, unsure if he was chiding his faceless tempter or trying to educate his own id. He was still teetering dangerously on the dark trench’s brink. Like I done said last time, asshole, it wouldn’t bring them back.
Perhaps addressing them direcly opened some gate, invited them in. For the first time he could make out what the rustling of dry autumn leaves in his brain was saying.
Actually, it would.
And then he felt strong hands on his arms, Shrike on his right, Sian on his left.
-
Sian
Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes SomewhereThere is something noble about not wanting to leave companions behind, even those one has only recently met. Not that Sian would have advocated for leaving them behind, but she was glad that at least of her friends was feeling the same way. Sian kept her eyes open on the way back to where the two groups had separated, hoping to see some evidence of…………………..something.
The blood had refreshed her and helped keep the whispers at bay, but she can still feel them and they are getting stronger. The promises keep tantalizing her, although they have left off trying to convince her that she could go home. Whoever, or whatever, was on the other side of the chasm must have realized that Sian’s own code of honor, mutated somewhat by her samurai and Buddhist training, would be enough to prevent her from falling for that, so they changed tactics and began offering her rewards in this world. Riches, power over others, a seat WITH the Great Dragons, not merely some sycophant begging for scraps from their table. She shook her head; they still do not get it, but her honor would prevent her from doing such a thing. At least for now, but who really knows what she would do for the right promise or if she could continue to resist the battering she was going through.
Suddenly, Sian’s attention is grabbed by Al walking over to the edge of the chasm and balancing there, flailing his arms like some windmill of old. She leaps to his side and grabs an arm just as Shrike does the same on Al’s other side. The man seems lost, as if he may be thinking of actually doing something to himself at the behest of the whispers. At a loss for what to do, she tries something, hoping that it will bring him back. Leaning into the shorter man, she activates her throat mic. “Is this what Alyce would want you to do?”
She grabs onto his arm tightly and stands ready to use what of her strength she can to pull him back if he does not come back on his own.
296
-
Al allowed his coworkers to ease him back from the precipice a few paces before gently disengaging himself from them.
“Alyce? Heh heh. No, I don’t reckon she would want want me to. But she’d be better off if I did, an’ that’s a fact. Nothin’ ta worry about though, since the key fact o’ the matter is that I don’t want to. Them voices, they are wily, though, I’ll give ’em that.”
-
Sian
Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes SomewhereSian looks closely at her friend than nods slowly. “That they are, my friend, that they are. They are smart enough to switch tactics with their promises and they keep bashing at my willpower. I have found that some fresh blood does help me tone out the voices for a bit, but only for a bit, and I imagine that they will soon figure out how to get around that. I hope that we can find what we are looking for before that happens and I take a step off the ledge.”
297
-
“Yeah, well, a quick shot o’ the red stuff ain’t gon’ do the trick fer ol’ Al. But if you can take some solace in it, more’s the power to ya. How ’bout you, Shrikester? Ya holdin’ up?”
-
I had had trouble keeping track of the path – by now it felt like constant feedback from a badly tuned speaker was hammering my brain. I noticed Al’s straying from the path almost too late. Yeah, it was time to leave – hopefully the others had recognized that in time and moved out of the Fovea.
I gripped Al just as Sian was doing the same.
I smiled beneath my helmet when I heard him ask me:
“No death wish on my part. The void keeps them from getting a true hold, but they are hitting me with static – images real and false. They are getting better too. Trying to find my trigger points, so my instincts take over. I wished I had the other Ninekillers here. Together we could shield each other…”
I noticed I had started to ramble. Gods, it was hard to keep a coherent thought, especially now that I started to hear music.
“We have to pull back and use drones to look for the others. They are sandblasting our minds. This is just the beginning.”
I pulled away towards the way we had come – or at least I hoped it was. -
Shrike headed off toward the way they’d come in. He seemed to know where he was going. At least Al had to assume he did. Because Al himself wasn’t sure. His sense of direction was, as a rule unerring. He had often been congratulated on it. Though not as often as he’d congratulated himself. Now, he was completely uncertain of their direction. Which was pretty odd – they’d been moving with the chasm on their left. Now, they were moving with the chasm on their right. Therefore….and yet, he was unsure. He looked around for LB. The guy should have been visible for miles here. But there was no sign of him. So Al just walking. And the whisperers, they kept talking.
-
Sian
Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes SomewhereSian nods to the others and the three continue along the path leading back to where they had split from the others. Her attention is caught by some colorful material hanging from the side of the cavern wall just ahead and she points it out. Walking forward, the companions reach the cloth and see that is it likely something left by Ilario. There is a small package attached to the end of the material, containing a message from the other three that they had found several hooded individuals performing a ritual of some kind and had broken it up. Two of the five people had fled into the tunnel created by Sian and the three teammates were in pursuit.
298
-
I frowned: “How did they manage to leave such a message in hot pursuit? Something stinks about this.”
I noticed that the whispers had died down but were still somewhat present. That was not good. Had we actually left their influence, or where we now captured in an illusion that led us round and round. I stoped to think and concentrated on my other senses to see if I could spot some imperfections of such an illusion. -
Al shared some of Shrike’s suspicions. For one thing, they’d been in a wide open expanse before, and now there were walls…but maybe that was just how this hippie place was….If the others were out into the corridor Sian had burrowed, would their comms work. Al tried his, but no go. He joined Shrike in looking around, trying to find some clear delineator between the real and the unreal. But, truth be told, he couldn’t really concentrate. The words kept ringing in his mind. An obvious lie, but one that couldn’t be disregarded…Actually, it would.
He thought about it as hard as he could. Even though such things were impossible, even with all this magic crap back in the world, what if the potentialities of this place were somehow wider, deeper? Hadn’t the never-dies talked about how the freaks across the chasm relied on much higher levels of mana? What if things arcane theory red-lit in the real world could be green-lit here?
And as if giving the idea credence called the voice back….Actually, it would.
Al felt something constrict in his chest. He knew no one could kill him, so he’d never given much thought to mortality. Now, the possibility loomed, pregnant with promise…All right, he thought, how exactly would that work?
-
Sian
Evening, Thursday March 25, 2077; Chasm, the Metaplanes SomewhereSian frowns. Now that Shrike has put words to it, the entire thing looks a bit off. She nods her head. “You are correct, my friend. And, besides, I do not recall this wall being here when we came this way. It would appear that the whispers across the way may have decided to take a different tack. At this time I am not sure that I know where we are or how we got here. Our companions are likely experiencing the very same problems and I think that we are on our own. Any ideas on what the next step should be?”
299
-
Al didn’t hear the alien vampire’s question. He was busy negotiating with a disembodied voice that was certainly lying to him. Or, almost certainly. And that was the trick wasn’t it? The almost. Because if there was even a chance. Any chance at all….
So you can bring ’em back?
Not ’em, the voice mocked. Apparently Horrors were sticklers for diction. You’ve only one life to trade. So you can get one back. How about the Chairman? He’s the one you’d save, isn’t he?
If’n I thought ya could do it. An’ would.
Our promises are indeed binding. You’ve been spending enough time with Satanists to know that this is true. And yes, we can. We already have.
Al saw him. Mao. Fat and happy as the day they’d met. He was wearing a good suit and his thick arms were laden with wrapped bundles and a bouquet of flowers, all in contast to the grimy Chinese street. He was looking at a modest house with several kids, none younger than maybe six or seven, playing in the front court. You made sure nothing was ever found. A sailor’s return from seven years lost at sea is by no means unheard of. We’ve even filled in his memories. Particularly the one where you convince the crew that there is only enough medicine to save one, and that it should be him. But what we give we can take away. Look, he’s crossing the street. You’ve got until he reaches the gate to be over that precipice or we yank him back to the Hell of the heathen unbaptized you know you doomed him to…You’ll have to be quick, or your friends may try to stop you…
Al started running.
Log in to reply.