03-20-2023, 04:29 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-20-2023, 02:58 PM by Marcus DuBois.)
Marcus yawned to pop his ears as they descended into the depths. With the web of spirit extending his senses, he could feel the air compress, could sense they had gone deeper into the bowels of the prison. The motes and flickers of energy those threads picked up triggered what he interpreted as scents, which, after a surprisingly short period of time, somehow became associated with feelings: terror, despair and pain. It felt heavy and oppressive, clouding his mind. It was hot, down here, too, strangely. At least, he was aware of heat even if it somehow didn't touch his flesh.
The guard's leaden steps finally stopped when they were in the boiler room. There was heat here- real heat- along with the sounds of metal creaking and of natural gas burners, the smell of rust and must, of oil and dirt. The ground was dirty, oil stains on the concrete puddled near some of the machines. The two fluorescent lights gave off a sickly flickering buzzing light that made shadows jump about. The guard had stopped, pointing to a corner. Marcus focused sent his threads into that corner, probing, looking for whatever had been there, whatever had killed the man, leaving his fingers black.
Ryker's words cut into his concentration and he spoke absently in response. "I don't know. I just..." He frowned to himself as he tried to answer the question to his own satisfaction. "There are things out in the world. What we might call monsters or whatever." He paused, remembering his time in the tunnels, the swarm of creatures like a colony of ants or cockroaches rushing at him. This wasn't the same. And yet..."Something has changed at this place. I felt it as soon as I entered the building. And now...." With the Force web before him, he could sense it. A wrongness that bothered him at a level he couldn't explain. "It feels like....a rent in the fabric of reality. Like something- or more than one something- is coming or has come through."
When he was a child- maybe eight or nine- after he and Andre had been shuffled between more than a few foster homes, he had start having nightmares. Books or plates on tables and chairs, pilling precariously higher and higher and higher, and somehow he was going to get into trouble if they fell to the ground. It wasn't something he thought about often. It was just a dream. But even so, he distinctly remembered the feeling of panic and fear he felt. The imagery was incongruous with the terror. It was like the number of items kept multiplying, growing faster than anything he could imagine, and each moment his panic grew as did his certainty that he wouldn't be able to keep the collapse from coming. It was chaos- and not the beautiful and fascinating chaos theory of mathematics, of Wolfram metamathematics and automata, the ruliad from which the computational multiverse emerged.
No it was terrifying and overwhelming and destructive, a swarm of malevolence that grew out of control. He remembered waking with tears in his eyes, heart pounding and fists clenched, desperate for relief.
And now, here, as a grown man, in the flesh, he felt the same kind of panic, the same kind of fear. It was as though there was a tear through which disorder and unmaking poured through. It gnawed at him. All he wanted to do- needed to do l. Had to do!- was stop it, to restore order to the world.
He probed deeper, shaving his threads finer and finer until he felt with a myriad of microscopic "fingers" over the air and surface of ground and wall, feeling for something, anything, to indicate what was going on. The quiet- the sounds of shuffling feet and the boilers seeping distantly into the background- seemed to grow, larger and deeper, and he felt that warmth expand around him, as if he was sinking into his blankets back in his bed. The room seemed to have dimmed as well. It was like a cocoon. He felt muffled, He turned his head- or at least tried to turn his head- it felt like he was moving through honey or something- and opened his mouth to speak.
[[**a fearsome and foreboding shadow of black mist is coalescing around Marcus. He is unmoving for at least a minute.**]]
He felt...something, try to slither down his throat. He bit down, clenching his teeth, pressing his lips together, but it felt like whatever it was had becoming microscopically thin and somehow was able to squeeze through them.
In desperation, he pulled at the Force- which had become a trickle, he realized, the web having dissipated away. It was like holding on to a slippery thread and he held on as tightly as possible, careful not to let it loose. Slowly, concentrating, he pulled in, one small bit at a time, hand over hand. The thread thickened into a rope and it became a bit easier. He kept going, the Force slowly filling him, growing. His pulling sped up, the thread becoming a cord becoming a rope that turned into a torrent, enough that he had to let it out. With no energy for intricacy, a single flame of file bloomed and grew with each draw, brighter and brighter. This time, he did feel the heat, real heat, not the stiffling muffled blanket from before.
Whatever it was had let go, the air- real air, he realized, gasping- flooded his lungs. A shadow lurched toward the guard and an unnatural scream tore through the room. The man jerk and then ran, disappearing down through one of the doors. Marcus breathed in the sweet wonderful air of the dank dirty boiler room, as his thinking finally returned to him. With a shake to clear his head, he looked at Ryker, trying to understand. "What...?" He looked down the door. His mind was his own but he still had to focus on words. "We need to get that...thing."
The guard's leaden steps finally stopped when they were in the boiler room. There was heat here- real heat- along with the sounds of metal creaking and of natural gas burners, the smell of rust and must, of oil and dirt. The ground was dirty, oil stains on the concrete puddled near some of the machines. The two fluorescent lights gave off a sickly flickering buzzing light that made shadows jump about. The guard had stopped, pointing to a corner. Marcus focused sent his threads into that corner, probing, looking for whatever had been there, whatever had killed the man, leaving his fingers black.
Ryker's words cut into his concentration and he spoke absently in response. "I don't know. I just..." He frowned to himself as he tried to answer the question to his own satisfaction. "There are things out in the world. What we might call monsters or whatever." He paused, remembering his time in the tunnels, the swarm of creatures like a colony of ants or cockroaches rushing at him. This wasn't the same. And yet..."Something has changed at this place. I felt it as soon as I entered the building. And now...." With the Force web before him, he could sense it. A wrongness that bothered him at a level he couldn't explain. "It feels like....a rent in the fabric of reality. Like something- or more than one something- is coming or has come through."
When he was a child- maybe eight or nine- after he and Andre had been shuffled between more than a few foster homes, he had start having nightmares. Books or plates on tables and chairs, pilling precariously higher and higher and higher, and somehow he was going to get into trouble if they fell to the ground. It wasn't something he thought about often. It was just a dream. But even so, he distinctly remembered the feeling of panic and fear he felt. The imagery was incongruous with the terror. It was like the number of items kept multiplying, growing faster than anything he could imagine, and each moment his panic grew as did his certainty that he wouldn't be able to keep the collapse from coming. It was chaos- and not the beautiful and fascinating chaos theory of mathematics, of Wolfram metamathematics and automata, the ruliad from which the computational multiverse emerged.
No it was terrifying and overwhelming and destructive, a swarm of malevolence that grew out of control. He remembered waking with tears in his eyes, heart pounding and fists clenched, desperate for relief.
And now, here, as a grown man, in the flesh, he felt the same kind of panic, the same kind of fear. It was as though there was a tear through which disorder and unmaking poured through. It gnawed at him. All he wanted to do- needed to do l. Had to do!- was stop it, to restore order to the world.
He probed deeper, shaving his threads finer and finer until he felt with a myriad of microscopic "fingers" over the air and surface of ground and wall, feeling for something, anything, to indicate what was going on. The quiet- the sounds of shuffling feet and the boilers seeping distantly into the background- seemed to grow, larger and deeper, and he felt that warmth expand around him, as if he was sinking into his blankets back in his bed. The room seemed to have dimmed as well. It was like a cocoon. He felt muffled, He turned his head- or at least tried to turn his head- it felt like he was moving through honey or something- and opened his mouth to speak.
[[**a fearsome and foreboding shadow of black mist is coalescing around Marcus. He is unmoving for at least a minute.**]]
He felt...something, try to slither down his throat. He bit down, clenching his teeth, pressing his lips together, but it felt like whatever it was had becoming microscopically thin and somehow was able to squeeze through them.
In desperation, he pulled at the Force- which had become a trickle, he realized, the web having dissipated away. It was like holding on to a slippery thread and he held on as tightly as possible, careful not to let it loose. Slowly, concentrating, he pulled in, one small bit at a time, hand over hand. The thread thickened into a rope and it became a bit easier. He kept going, the Force slowly filling him, growing. His pulling sped up, the thread becoming a cord becoming a rope that turned into a torrent, enough that he had to let it out. With no energy for intricacy, a single flame of file bloomed and grew with each draw, brighter and brighter. This time, he did feel the heat, real heat, not the stiffling muffled blanket from before.
Whatever it was had let go, the air- real air, he realized, gasping- flooded his lungs. A shadow lurched toward the guard and an unnatural scream tore through the room. The man jerk and then ran, disappearing down through one of the doors. Marcus breathed in the sweet wonderful air of the dank dirty boiler room, as his thinking finally returned to him. With a shake to clear his head, he looked at Ryker, trying to understand. "What...?" He looked down the door. His mind was his own but he still had to focus on words. "We need to get that...thing."