Ataraxis
06-02-07, 03:16 PM
Since the night she had first seen the violet blazon that unfurled over the land of Raiaera, after weeks spent crossing the tortuous crags that littered the mountain range from Dawn to Dusk, strange whispers have brushed over Lillian’s mind, beckoning. Her first few hours beyond the Twilight Pass and through the walls of Valinatal were spent in well-earned repose, barely disturbed by either the inquisitive garrisons stationed at the stronghold or the odd murmurs that came with the fall of night. There, her heart thumped in giddy expectation, excited by what intellectual riches she would uncover in Anebrilith, where lay one of the oldest repositories of knowledge in Althanas. It was a gem amongst gems, one she could not miss; and already was she yearning for the rugged touch of an ancient tome and the cracking sounds of lore-laden pages that had greeted her in Ankhas.
Strangely, beyond the elfin vanguard, the whispers had caught an empowering breath, but the girl did not catch on to their unsettling presence. They proceeded to their mysterious work, unseen and unheard, stealthily turning the gears of an unknown machine. Once they were wordless noises in the back of her head, but now, strange fragments were freed inside the temple of her mind, coming and going as she looked out from the voyaging caravan to see the verdant plains trail behind.
When she neared close to the capital of the elves, her thoughts had lost their focus, her longing for knowledge blurred by a shrouded instinct, and the word shards to which she was subjected were succeeded by curious dreams. The single most vivid mare had been hours prior to her arrival at Eluriand. In the heart of night, her eyes had snapped open; but instead of the jute cloth which should have covered the wagon, she saw a murky shroud enfolding her, eating away the surroundings as sullen clouds do the sky on tempestuous days.
Removing the crude weave of the quilt in which she was enswathed, she let a shriek escape, finding herself in a mystifying nudity. Cursory glances were given every which way, but her blue eyes could not pierce the gloomy veil. Oppositely, she was certain that something was scrutinizing her from head to toe, from skin to soul. Out of thin air, fiery lights egressed into existence, tracing in the black canvas some arcane sigil never before seen, and from the worrying warmth it emitted sprung a giant of a hand, its black fingers coiling around her meek frame, robbing her of heat, of breath, of life.
~
“Don’t look at me!” came her sheepish yell as she sat up in haste, ignoring the splashing ruckus in her rush of modesty. Quickly had her face turned a carmine shade, and her arms were snugly wrapped around her chest as she strangled a most embarrassed squeal. ’Wait…’ The white frills of her dress pushed against her forearms, and the cold softness of its fabric could still be felt. Relieved, she sighed. ’Oh, merciful Suravani! It was all just a bad, bad dream.’
Overjoyed that the most embarrassing moment of her life had not yet come, Lillian unwound her muscles, letting her senses awaken to the surroundings, fully expecting to see the faces of other travelers, either snoring lightly or giving her uncouth stares for her loud lack of consideration. It came as quite a surprise when all she could see were the faint outlines of a dimly lit corridor, and she was less than enchanted by the moldy quality that tinged the air, like the blotchy insides of some centennial coffer that had recently been trawled from the watery depths.
Suddenly, wet sloshes sounded near her; only now did Lillian realize she had taken the weight off her feet in shallow waters, but instead of shivering from the cold that suddenly seeped into her exposed legs and squelched inside her ankle boots, she found herself more alarmed by the presence of a stranger, looming closer and closer . “Who’s there?” How she hoped her stutter had gone unnoticed.
“Lollipop? That you?” Gruff was the voice, and it was heavily thatched with a sandy accent, reminiscent of a northerner’s. The girl’s features softened as the wrenching in her chest was allayed by its unusual musicality, one she had become so accustomed to during her travel through the elfin country. Lillian was glad to know that, though she was trapped in this alien locale, there was at least a familiar presence to keep her company.
“Milin!” Following the sound of her joyful outcry, the beast of a man waded through the turbid waters as any common-sized man would a puddle. “So you were taken from the wagon too? Do you know where we are?” Fur-cinched booths splashed as he walked, loudening with every step until he stopped in his tracks, towering over Lillian by three or four heads, and at least twice as much from her perspective.
“Don’t know no better than you, kid. All I remember is a hand popping out of thin air and grabbing me dead where I sat.” So their visions had been the same. For a moment, she explored the idea of asking him whether or not he was naked at that time, but then decided against it, figuring that it was a door she did not want opened. With a tiring deal of effort, she drew herself to a stand, the soggy weight of her gown drizzling and dripping in thin drops and wide streams. The trailing cold sent shivers up her spine, but soon she stood in a pensive stillness, trying to make sense of their unusual situation. “Bummer too; the caravan was only minutes away from the gates of the capital.”
“Where in the Nine Hells is this?” Both spun on a dime, directing their stares to the opposite end of the hallway, blue and green optics surveying the area for the source of the shrill and perhaps flimsy exclamation. Alas, the darkness was too thick for the daggers of his eyes to pierce through completely, and he could only see a light blur in motion, the same way he saw at night the silent shadows of wolves, stalking the northern woodlands.
“There, Millie, near that stone plinth.” Without a wait, Lillian scuttled forward, fording through the frigid pool that lapped below her calves. “I think it’s one of those famous song-mages!” How she could pinpoint the location of the elf with such accuracy in an almost pitch black darkness eluded him; he couldn’t even see the pedestal, let alone suppose its composition.
His ears perked, however, at the rustle of cloth and the crimp of leather, while the sting of sweat had pricked his nose. Though his vision was only slightly above average, no man could ever hope to rival the hearing and sense of smell of Honon Milin, the best Beastmaster of the North. “There’re plenty more, kid – at least eighteen, not counting us two, and they’re closing in as we speak. Be careful.”
Where an unnerving silence once ruled, voices began to arise into faint chatters. Some, like the elfin song-mage, had announced their confusion in the common tongue, either on their own or to companions that had been stolen from their beds as well, all in varying states of intelligibility. Others, however, were shouting in foreign languages, their curses and indecencies partly understood by the bookish girl, though she was quite certain that those she didn’t comprehend were not exchanging pleasantries.
And when everyone had become aware of each others’ presence, gathered in a crude circle around the stone pedestal, everything went to hell in a hand basket. Invectives were thrown without rhyme or reason, accusations were arbitrarily shot from the most menacing of faces to the most innocuous. In a matter of seconds had the dissension worsened; threats had been thoroughly dispensed and the tension had grown so tense it felt as if it could physically snap. Milin hoped to coerce them all into temporary truce by his deafening bellows and ground-rumbling roars, but try as he could, short of knocking some sense into their thick skulls by means of a well placed slug on the nose ridge, it was all vain work; and Lillian’s tremulous voice did not even begin to rise over the bickering din.
One thing, however, did. In the heart of the plinth, the faint shimmer of crystal had flickered, emitting a shrill drone or raspy buzzing that irked the ears, but as the seconds passed, the sound lowered in intensity and became a rumbling hum. All eyes were now set on the strange artifact that had hitherto gone unnoticed, and soon they were gathered all around it, observing it as the bluish glow inside it swirled and whirled, until the noise it produced changed a final time to a sound that startled them all.
Welcome, my valuable friends.
It spoke, but something was off. They all heard the same thing, the same voice, they had understood the same meaning; but oddly, they had not heeded the same words. The thing, whatever it was, had spoken directly into each of their minds, as though the low hum the crystal broadcasted was processed by their brains into a language they could comprehend. Their only certainty, however, was that no living creature in this world, man or beast, could ever produce such an outlandish tone, an alien voice.
You are gathered here today to turn into tons and tons of fun an otherwise dull, dull day.
Listen closely, for I will not repeat myself.
This is a standalone plane of my making, locked from your world in all but two places.
The first is the passage you have taken from your respective lands to this realm.
It is useless to backtrack, for it is only one-way.
The second is the exit, which, I presume, all of you must be eager to find.
But don’t fret, and enjoy yourselves as you search for it; this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to explore a world beyond your own.
The voice had ceased speaking, thereby quelling the shrill drone of the strange machine that had kept running in the backdrop. With this, the captives had resumed their nettlesome prattling, even more confounded than they were before these explanations from an otherworldly being. ’I suppose that’s it for the instructions. This seems harmless enough, and like it said, this could be interesting!’
One more thing...
You have six hours to find the exit.
Were you to remain behind after the allotted time, you would most certainly die – if it was not already the case.
Enjoy.
’Rats.’ This might be a potential pothole in her fascinating venture into the unknown.
The plinth was hit by a blue-tinged light, filling the crystalline receptacle upon it with a shimmering fluid. There, it flowed outwards, in concentric circles, each pulse growing larger and more intense, until the whole room was flooded with an eerie blue glow. Specks of fluorescent blue interspersed the now-lit walls of their location, which was in fact an immense dome of benighted stones, its surface engraved with countless designs of orphic nature, glyphs that surpass human understanding in their sheer complexity and depictions of wraiths and eidolons no mind, no matter how twisted, could ever have imagined. What befuddled the librarian the most was how the dark walls of the dome seemed to change with every fluctuation of the crystal at its heart, which itself boasted and inconsistent quality.
Rather than the unquenchable curiosity of a searcher, however, the girl was overcome with a terrible sensation, that of reaching a place that was never meant to be seen, of witnessing the numinous work of those who stand above all, and even beyond. Were she dead and allowed into a sanctuary of the afterlife, then her heart would not be so troubled, but she was still alive, wasn’t she? ‘This must be what it feels like, to trespass on the land of gods.’
Deciding it was best not to pursue this train of thought, Lillian shook herself back into composure, trying hard to breathe in the noisome air and quell the beating of her heart. This was no time to succumb to her old habits. ‘Vidyaa mitran pravaseshu,’ she repeated with religious zeal the old saying from her sand-raught homeland, using it as if it were a pacifying mantra. ‘Knowledge is a person’s friend in foreign lands.’ Lillian had sworn she would no longer be weak and falter at the sight of the unknown; only irrational fools fear that which they do not understand. So that her qualms may forever dissipate, the only thing she needed to do now is to know more about this place and understand its purpose – understand the Voice’s purpose. If, in the end, this realm truly was to be feared, then at least it would be rational.
After quick glances around, while ignoring the ever-changing shapes that snaked and whorled over the benighted walls, Lillian counted four identical corridors that shot outward from the dome, each perpendicular to the next. As she did so, the librarian also tallied that they were exactly twenty to have been captured and thrust into this bizarre dimension. “Five per corridor would be the best bet.” Though they were meant as surface thoughts, they had unmindfully leapt from her lips, and caught the full weight of their attention. How sad; her newfound determination was already starting to crumble.
'Double rats.'
Strangely, beyond the elfin vanguard, the whispers had caught an empowering breath, but the girl did not catch on to their unsettling presence. They proceeded to their mysterious work, unseen and unheard, stealthily turning the gears of an unknown machine. Once they were wordless noises in the back of her head, but now, strange fragments were freed inside the temple of her mind, coming and going as she looked out from the voyaging caravan to see the verdant plains trail behind.
When she neared close to the capital of the elves, her thoughts had lost their focus, her longing for knowledge blurred by a shrouded instinct, and the word shards to which she was subjected were succeeded by curious dreams. The single most vivid mare had been hours prior to her arrival at Eluriand. In the heart of night, her eyes had snapped open; but instead of the jute cloth which should have covered the wagon, she saw a murky shroud enfolding her, eating away the surroundings as sullen clouds do the sky on tempestuous days.
Removing the crude weave of the quilt in which she was enswathed, she let a shriek escape, finding herself in a mystifying nudity. Cursory glances were given every which way, but her blue eyes could not pierce the gloomy veil. Oppositely, she was certain that something was scrutinizing her from head to toe, from skin to soul. Out of thin air, fiery lights egressed into existence, tracing in the black canvas some arcane sigil never before seen, and from the worrying warmth it emitted sprung a giant of a hand, its black fingers coiling around her meek frame, robbing her of heat, of breath, of life.
~
“Don’t look at me!” came her sheepish yell as she sat up in haste, ignoring the splashing ruckus in her rush of modesty. Quickly had her face turned a carmine shade, and her arms were snugly wrapped around her chest as she strangled a most embarrassed squeal. ’Wait…’ The white frills of her dress pushed against her forearms, and the cold softness of its fabric could still be felt. Relieved, she sighed. ’Oh, merciful Suravani! It was all just a bad, bad dream.’
Overjoyed that the most embarrassing moment of her life had not yet come, Lillian unwound her muscles, letting her senses awaken to the surroundings, fully expecting to see the faces of other travelers, either snoring lightly or giving her uncouth stares for her loud lack of consideration. It came as quite a surprise when all she could see were the faint outlines of a dimly lit corridor, and she was less than enchanted by the moldy quality that tinged the air, like the blotchy insides of some centennial coffer that had recently been trawled from the watery depths.
Suddenly, wet sloshes sounded near her; only now did Lillian realize she had taken the weight off her feet in shallow waters, but instead of shivering from the cold that suddenly seeped into her exposed legs and squelched inside her ankle boots, she found herself more alarmed by the presence of a stranger, looming closer and closer . “Who’s there?” How she hoped her stutter had gone unnoticed.
“Lollipop? That you?” Gruff was the voice, and it was heavily thatched with a sandy accent, reminiscent of a northerner’s. The girl’s features softened as the wrenching in her chest was allayed by its unusual musicality, one she had become so accustomed to during her travel through the elfin country. Lillian was glad to know that, though she was trapped in this alien locale, there was at least a familiar presence to keep her company.
“Milin!” Following the sound of her joyful outcry, the beast of a man waded through the turbid waters as any common-sized man would a puddle. “So you were taken from the wagon too? Do you know where we are?” Fur-cinched booths splashed as he walked, loudening with every step until he stopped in his tracks, towering over Lillian by three or four heads, and at least twice as much from her perspective.
“Don’t know no better than you, kid. All I remember is a hand popping out of thin air and grabbing me dead where I sat.” So their visions had been the same. For a moment, she explored the idea of asking him whether or not he was naked at that time, but then decided against it, figuring that it was a door she did not want opened. With a tiring deal of effort, she drew herself to a stand, the soggy weight of her gown drizzling and dripping in thin drops and wide streams. The trailing cold sent shivers up her spine, but soon she stood in a pensive stillness, trying to make sense of their unusual situation. “Bummer too; the caravan was only minutes away from the gates of the capital.”
“Where in the Nine Hells is this?” Both spun on a dime, directing their stares to the opposite end of the hallway, blue and green optics surveying the area for the source of the shrill and perhaps flimsy exclamation. Alas, the darkness was too thick for the daggers of his eyes to pierce through completely, and he could only see a light blur in motion, the same way he saw at night the silent shadows of wolves, stalking the northern woodlands.
“There, Millie, near that stone plinth.” Without a wait, Lillian scuttled forward, fording through the frigid pool that lapped below her calves. “I think it’s one of those famous song-mages!” How she could pinpoint the location of the elf with such accuracy in an almost pitch black darkness eluded him; he couldn’t even see the pedestal, let alone suppose its composition.
His ears perked, however, at the rustle of cloth and the crimp of leather, while the sting of sweat had pricked his nose. Though his vision was only slightly above average, no man could ever hope to rival the hearing and sense of smell of Honon Milin, the best Beastmaster of the North. “There’re plenty more, kid – at least eighteen, not counting us two, and they’re closing in as we speak. Be careful.”
Where an unnerving silence once ruled, voices began to arise into faint chatters. Some, like the elfin song-mage, had announced their confusion in the common tongue, either on their own or to companions that had been stolen from their beds as well, all in varying states of intelligibility. Others, however, were shouting in foreign languages, their curses and indecencies partly understood by the bookish girl, though she was quite certain that those she didn’t comprehend were not exchanging pleasantries.
And when everyone had become aware of each others’ presence, gathered in a crude circle around the stone pedestal, everything went to hell in a hand basket. Invectives were thrown without rhyme or reason, accusations were arbitrarily shot from the most menacing of faces to the most innocuous. In a matter of seconds had the dissension worsened; threats had been thoroughly dispensed and the tension had grown so tense it felt as if it could physically snap. Milin hoped to coerce them all into temporary truce by his deafening bellows and ground-rumbling roars, but try as he could, short of knocking some sense into their thick skulls by means of a well placed slug on the nose ridge, it was all vain work; and Lillian’s tremulous voice did not even begin to rise over the bickering din.
One thing, however, did. In the heart of the plinth, the faint shimmer of crystal had flickered, emitting a shrill drone or raspy buzzing that irked the ears, but as the seconds passed, the sound lowered in intensity and became a rumbling hum. All eyes were now set on the strange artifact that had hitherto gone unnoticed, and soon they were gathered all around it, observing it as the bluish glow inside it swirled and whirled, until the noise it produced changed a final time to a sound that startled them all.
Welcome, my valuable friends.
It spoke, but something was off. They all heard the same thing, the same voice, they had understood the same meaning; but oddly, they had not heeded the same words. The thing, whatever it was, had spoken directly into each of their minds, as though the low hum the crystal broadcasted was processed by their brains into a language they could comprehend. Their only certainty, however, was that no living creature in this world, man or beast, could ever produce such an outlandish tone, an alien voice.
You are gathered here today to turn into tons and tons of fun an otherwise dull, dull day.
Listen closely, for I will not repeat myself.
This is a standalone plane of my making, locked from your world in all but two places.
The first is the passage you have taken from your respective lands to this realm.
It is useless to backtrack, for it is only one-way.
The second is the exit, which, I presume, all of you must be eager to find.
But don’t fret, and enjoy yourselves as you search for it; this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to explore a world beyond your own.
The voice had ceased speaking, thereby quelling the shrill drone of the strange machine that had kept running in the backdrop. With this, the captives had resumed their nettlesome prattling, even more confounded than they were before these explanations from an otherworldly being. ’I suppose that’s it for the instructions. This seems harmless enough, and like it said, this could be interesting!’
One more thing...
You have six hours to find the exit.
Were you to remain behind after the allotted time, you would most certainly die – if it was not already the case.
Enjoy.
’Rats.’ This might be a potential pothole in her fascinating venture into the unknown.
The plinth was hit by a blue-tinged light, filling the crystalline receptacle upon it with a shimmering fluid. There, it flowed outwards, in concentric circles, each pulse growing larger and more intense, until the whole room was flooded with an eerie blue glow. Specks of fluorescent blue interspersed the now-lit walls of their location, which was in fact an immense dome of benighted stones, its surface engraved with countless designs of orphic nature, glyphs that surpass human understanding in their sheer complexity and depictions of wraiths and eidolons no mind, no matter how twisted, could ever have imagined. What befuddled the librarian the most was how the dark walls of the dome seemed to change with every fluctuation of the crystal at its heart, which itself boasted and inconsistent quality.
Rather than the unquenchable curiosity of a searcher, however, the girl was overcome with a terrible sensation, that of reaching a place that was never meant to be seen, of witnessing the numinous work of those who stand above all, and even beyond. Were she dead and allowed into a sanctuary of the afterlife, then her heart would not be so troubled, but she was still alive, wasn’t she? ‘This must be what it feels like, to trespass on the land of gods.’
Deciding it was best not to pursue this train of thought, Lillian shook herself back into composure, trying hard to breathe in the noisome air and quell the beating of her heart. This was no time to succumb to her old habits. ‘Vidyaa mitran pravaseshu,’ she repeated with religious zeal the old saying from her sand-raught homeland, using it as if it were a pacifying mantra. ‘Knowledge is a person’s friend in foreign lands.’ Lillian had sworn she would no longer be weak and falter at the sight of the unknown; only irrational fools fear that which they do not understand. So that her qualms may forever dissipate, the only thing she needed to do now is to know more about this place and understand its purpose – understand the Voice’s purpose. If, in the end, this realm truly was to be feared, then at least it would be rational.
After quick glances around, while ignoring the ever-changing shapes that snaked and whorled over the benighted walls, Lillian counted four identical corridors that shot outward from the dome, each perpendicular to the next. As she did so, the librarian also tallied that they were exactly twenty to have been captured and thrust into this bizarre dimension. “Five per corridor would be the best bet.” Though they were meant as surface thoughts, they had unmindfully leapt from her lips, and caught the full weight of their attention. How sad; her newfound determination was already starting to crumble.
'Double rats.'