Cloud of Unknowing

[Vereshin]

t H e M e​

​

The afternoon reached an early darkness on Bastion. Vereshin napped on the details of a young man plagued with visions and restless nights who sought the sorcerer's assistance in deciphering his personal anomalies. With a cigarette balancing between his fingers, a wrist hung over the side of the bathtub as he tried not to drift away in the steaming water. He woke slowly and anticipated the welcome of tea to arouse his mind. Runes and equations floated on the tiles beyond the bounds of his imagination as he conjured the appropriate design for his client's plane.

Ana, his servant, knocked twice and alerted him to the arrival of the young man he was due to meet. Raising his neck wearily from the water, he stood delicately, a shake in his legs and he became accustomed to moving around. He stepped out of the bath and wrapped a fluffy towel around his waist and rubbed another over his hair. Rubbing his dry hands and face in a softening serum, he slicked back his hair and dabbed a cologne on his neck to hide the smell of cigarette smoke. Vereshin wrapped a towel over his thin shoulders and exited to the adjoining bedroom.

"Ana, please make tea. Black." He called from behind the door as he heard the footsteps of his servant. While she greeted the guest downstairs, Vereshin selected a dark grey shirt and suit pants and dressed. He buttoned a black cardigan over the top and slung a silver chain with an amethyst pendant around his wrist. The thin tattoo of an inverted triangle displayed in contrast on his pallid ankle. His bare feet padded across the floorboards as he traveled to the lounge room downstairs. On the coffee table lay an overturned deck of cards and beneath the window stood his desk.

The tea was already served while Ana greeted Auron in the entrance corridor. Vereshin rubbed his finger on the crystal hanging from his wrist and stood beneath the door frame as Ana lead the young man inside. "Hello Auron, my name is Vereshin. You may call me Vi." The sorcerer brushed over his shiny hair in a sheepish manner and dismissed the servant with a wave of his hand. "Please sit down and help yourself to tea." He invited Auron to sit on the lounge while he took his own seat at the armchair at the head of the coffee table.

"Tell me about the dreams you have been experiencing, so I may design a plane which corresponds to you exclusively." Vereshin offered as he raised one finger and levitated the teapot over his cup. Without spilling a drop, he poured the dark liquid halfway and placed it down. His cat purred in a deep sleep on the far end of the lounge. He reached over and added one drop of milk and a teaspoon of sugar. As he stirred the tea, Vereshin combed the young man's Force presence for any disturbances and made note of the pattern of the energy he emanated.

[member="Auron Song"]

 

[Briah Song]

An unusual quiet rested over the Bastion capital, the heart of the Sith Empire, as Auron made his way through the eery streets of its residential zone. Yet, at the same time, things was oddly calm, not to the extent that he had anticipated. But everywhere around him, he could feel the hammering of the Sith's pulse, the very energy that pulled this culture together. It was intimidating, alien to him, but he was not without protection. He reached up to feel the amulet under his shirt and vest that his mother had given him before he departed, imbued with attributes of Force-dampening. Someone trained would be able to feel his sensitivity and inclinations, but it would prove a challenge for surrounding threats to understand his true allegiances and alignments. Time would prove how useful it would be.

The city was ugly in ways he could not articulate. Sterility and decay lived in equal measure alongside one another, battling an unconscious, unspoken war against one another and manifested in silence. But behind every wall, in every corner, somewhere in the eyes and hearts of everyone here, was screaming; an unknowable darkness that Auron could not entirely fathom. Yet, this was why he had come. Fear had embraced him, and with it came only darkness and pain. Thus, his path had lead him to one Vereshin, mystic and seer into the unknown. His ways were unconventional, unbefitting of a Jedi, and yet he knew he would not find the answers he sought on Kashyyyk or at his home on Voss. Reading old texts on Jedi moralism had grown severely boring to him, meditating on infinitude became obsolete, dull and meaningless. He had to try a new method, for that which plagued him showed no signs of relief.

The house was impressively built outside and in, and Auron wondered its age. Its architectural was not one he was accustom to, but he understood enough to recognise its beauty. The servent, Ana, reminded Auron much of his own servant Iris, and as she welcomed and took his coat, his eyes took in his new environment. The calm voice of a refined gentleman came from beyond, and Auron turned.
"Sir [member="Vereshin"]. Vi. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me," he spoke calmly, extending his hand in greeting. His voice was soft but slow, for he had grown tired and wearing in the last year, and that expressed itself in more ways than one. Now that his image had been exposed in less than the half-light of the early evening, one could see a dullness in Auron's face that had once held a warmth, and a continuous distraction in his eyes that had once held calm and confidence.

As they moved into the lounge, Auron took the time to examine some of the various trinkets and ornaments that were scattered around the room; statues and skulls of peculiar beasts, clocks and watches of endless styles, wands, lamens, crystals sigil stones and runes, all flanked by small piles of manuscripts and tomes. Fascinating, he thought. He had never encountered such diversity of practice. Finally, he sat at the mystic's invitation. The tea was greatly welcome, and as he took his first few sips, it warmed him a great deal. After a while, he took a deep breath, placing the cup down once more.
"It happens almost every night now. The setting is often an abstract blackness. Difficult to fathom. But I always hear screaming... Screaming of my father. He's calling my name, calling for my help, constantly, over and over again. For you see, he has been missing for... nearly two decades... But I'm unable to move, as if tendrils are wrapped around me." He breathed slowly. "Finally, I hear a word, just one word. I think it's a name. 'Gevurah'. It's all I ever hear. Gevurah, and with it, I feel an immense pain, an immense fear all around me. So much so that I am paralysed. Then I wake up... and it is the same every night. Sir, is this familiar to you at all? Is there truly any way to help this?"

 

[Vereshin]

Vereshin smiled coyly to Auron as he addressed him as sir and dismissed the title with a slight wave of his his hand. The other young man's discomfort resonated from his features as he sat down. Even one as detached from human emotion such as Vereshin could sense his weary demeanor. The sorcerer continued to comb his presence through the Force and hovered one hand above the deck of cards. He gently rotated one finger as he stirred his tea with a gentle telekinetic movement, leaning over to set the spoon down and bring the cup to his lips. Vereshin savored the lusty taste of Assam and welcomed the revitalizing effect of the tea.

"Auron, do you mind if I smoke?" With the edge of the cup leaving his mouth, Vereshin asked his guest out of courtesy as he itched for a cigarette. He placed the teacup down and stroked the silver case inside of his pocket. As Auron regaled the details of his visions and restless nights, his host listened intently and recognized the signs as something he had personally experienced. After abusing his powers distorting reality, Vereshin experienced dreams between the state of wake and sleep during which he could not move.

"I am familiar with these kinds of dreams. Do you experience them during the period between wake and sleep or immediately before waking?" The sorcerer spoke as he placed down the teacup with a discrete clang. He reached for his glasses hanging from the collar of his cardigan and set them over his ears. "During these dreams, do you feel paralyzed and unable to breathe?" Vereshin asked and related Auron's descriptions to his own dreams. He allowed the young man space to think while he rose from his chair and moved to his desk. A human skull and all manner of crystals and stones etched with runes lined the shelves surrounding his paper work. He procured a large sheet of imbued paper and drawing tools with which he began to design a geometric chart.

"What happened to your father, Auron? If you do not mind my asking." Vereshin inquired as he traced the design, the roll of his scratching listlessly beneath the purr of his cat. He compounded the spell for the plane to correspond with Auron's signature in the Force exclusively. Joining each line with the points of conscious thoughts, Vereshin designed a window into his past to clear his memory of unknowing. He set the pen down for a moment to return to his chair. He picked up the deck of cards and shuffled them before placing them in front of Auron.

"Your dreams can be controlled and ceased, but this requires directly confronting the recurring memories which are triggering them. I will create a plane which will clear your memory of disturbances and allow you to interpret your past with coherence." The sorcerer explained and waved a hand over the cards, causing the colour and imagery above them to ripple with energy. "This is a simple test to prepare you for witnessing the plane." One the front of each card, aspects of the Force and the limits of it's energy were depicted and corresponded with whomever selected them. "Select three cards and turn them over." Vereshin instructed and allowed Auron to select the first card, the image corresponding to his past, before the second and third to represent his present and future.

[member="Auron Song"]

 

[Briah Song]

"Not at all," said Auron, appreciating his asking all the same. As he observed his host begin to scrawl workings onto parchment, he strove to understand what it was he was looking at. Esoteric symbology and mysterious imagery were such beyond the normal levels of understanding of what he been trained in... yet he yearned to learn more about them. Silently, his eyes followed the pen as it scratched along the paper's surface until further questions came.
"I had never really thought about it, but I suppose these experiences happen before I wake, and yes, I can never move, never speak, and I struggle to breathe each time." He shuddered a little at the thought of it, and yet he had already begun to grow accustom to this new lifestyle, as nightmarish as it had become for him.

Thoughts came to his father, and the numbness that came with it. It had been a while since he had given the full attention of his mind to what had happened so many years ago.
"When I was still a babe, my father was sent of an... expedition. But he did not return. Most thought he had died, or... fallen. My sister believes him to be dead. But I am not so sure. She does not see what I see... I feel perhaps someone had acted against him. You see, we have some level of fame, our family..." he admitted sheepishly. It was something he was once proud of, but recently he had grown apathetic towards such facts. "It feels impossible to know, though. But I feel like these dreams... Maybe they are telling me something important." The single name that would recur over and over again in his dreams began to cycle at the forefront of his mind. Gevurah...

Auron examined the spread of cards before him for a while. He had heard of such magical rituals before, but knew very little about them. Perhaps his father would have been vehemently against them. His uncle, Goro, most certainly would have been, and yet he felt compelled towards it, and understood that this perhaps would be the only way to elucidate what he needed. He chose three cards accordingly. The feel of such cards resonated curiously with him upon contact, in ways he could not entirely explain. Slowly, he turned each card over. The left-most card depicted a mourning pilgrim, draped in black and bearing an empty silver chalice lined with black gems. The pilgrim, leaning on a staff, appeared lost in the darkness that threatened to consume him. Secondly, the centre card showed a lord adorned in velvet and gold as he lead an army into an unfathomable unknown; a black portal overhead wherefrom demons were born. Lastly, the right-most card appeared the most disturbing, for it depicted only fire and blood and no discernible image beyond such. Did he draw it wrong?


[member="Vereshin"]