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City Center
[member="Vaylin"] [member="Maghr Hu"] [member="Ithnan Cryo"]
Something moved under the desk Vaylin's fingers hand come to rest on. Like something dragging itself, and then a soft mewling sound. When they looked, the first thing they saw was the reflective shine of eyes. Too many. The shadows took a few moments to resolve, looking at it. It was confusing, like looking at a hidden picture puzzle until-
It wasn't one creature.
It was three.
Or was it only one?
There were too many hands, too many eyes, too many heads. As it stood, the creature as it was meant to be had all of those problems but this dipped into the nauseating in how it melted together. Two mouths still remained from where three skulls were slowly melting together. The hands there pushing and tucking, as if they could help the process of making the three into one. The mewling started in one mouth, then bled to the second as the heads tilted. Flesh flowed like tar, and things shifted, moving beneath the skin as bones restructured to the new necessity.
But where had it come from?
Wasn't it obvious?
It was whatever had crawled out of the three people in the alley, drawing together as the stone had on Pho Ph'eah once put too close to each other. Only this wasn't drips of jet obsidian. These were creatures. The natural end point if the Pho Ph'eahens hadn't removed the materials from their cocoons too soon.
Three, slowly merging into one. In this moment, during the merge itself, it seemed small, weak. Disoriented. It whined pitifully, as if the process might be painful. Or perhaps that was just the sounds it made. Difficult to tell. For the moment, it was no threat. But how long would that last?
[member="Heca Foliou"]
She reached the lift without incident, hand slapping, the door closing behind her. Her breath, hard and ragged, echoed in the quiet. Here, the glow of the light from the buttons flickered green, faint and wane. But enough to see the blackness on her fingers. Had it shrunk, from a moment ago? Has she succeeded in rubbing some of it off? Yes, that must be it. Surely?
The lift shuddered and started to rise. Whatever power issues seemed to only be affecting the lights, so that was a blessing. She looked down and around....
The foot prints that had initially led them here marked the floor beneath her. Actual boot marks (no way it could be what was down stairs but wait, how did she know without seeing that whatever that was, it was certainly not humanoid? No, but something in the back of her mind, shivering just beneath her skin, knew it was beautiful).
The door opened to the second floor, and the owner of those foot prints was clear in the light coming through the window. A curled heap on the floor. Shuddering. Heaving. As if something were pushing out of her.
Something was.
That low mewling (oh the sweetheart, she needs help) and Heca knew that didn't mean the human. Heca wanted to help the form escaping the human, yes, she did.
Science Lab
[member="Cerbera"]
A pulsing, an opening. Yes, yes, welcome and
more. For so long, it had been welcoming others into the fold. Up until here and now, however, it had never been allowed to keep them. On Gravlex Med they had died, stillborn beneath the mountain. On Pho Ph'eah they had been violently taken, turned into crystalline dollops of their intention and capacity. Those then had been taken, absorbed by the Star Weird in the center of the Scintilla Nebula. Each time, its efforts had come to nothing.
It was perhaps why the Sith had never been able to discover the true nature. How can you tell the truth of an adult creature from nothing more than an embryo after all?
Here, the presence offered living children to the Galaxy. And the family needed to grow.
After all, without family, what are we?
There was something in it that was familiar to Cerbera. An echo. Not something she had seen herself, not directly. But it had been touched by something she had touched.
The after image of a
spirit, tall and terrible, (a mountain dear force that mountain and what it had protected) flashed in photographic negative and Cerbera
knew. Perhaps not the what.... but at the very least.... the
where of its genesis.
The Netherworld. And just why it had started to seek ways out of it when it had. In a way.... it had Cerbera to thank.
Catacombs
[member="Matsu Xiangu"] [member="Imogen Daniels"]
It wasn't clear just how large the creature was until it perked up slightly and pulled up. If at first it had appeared like a small dog, it was obvious as the shadows shifted and it drew up its back straight to regard them that it was in truth much larger. Its head would easily reach the diminutive Matsu's shoulder if it padded beside her on all..... fours.
Could you count the hands coming from it's head?
Perhaps that question was purely academic.
Tail (tails?) flicked back and forth. There was certainly a divide there. The mind alien in a way that simple touch could not banish. But there was something else behind it. Beyond it. There was a way to find a connection, one that would allow it to speak.
After all, somewhere above, someone had found just that.
But here and now any possible response was muted. Oh, but it knew what was needed.
A whine, two of the hands wiping down its snout and the head shaking, sending the fingers skirling through the air like autumn leaves in a halo around its head. Standing up, it turned slowly. Glancing over its shoulder. One didn't need anything as simplistic as language to see the
follow? there.
It headed through the catacombs. Confidence in its gait. No. Confidence in
them. They'd been called and come. Of course they would take the last steps to where that was. To where they needed them. Their help.
It was a polite game of follow the leader. It seemed conscious of where they could fit easily and where they could not. Once or twice a new route taken after a pause as it realized just that. The black, tar like substance on the walls grew thicker, more like moss now. Something living, moving- if too slowly to watch.
They would feel it before they reached it. A gap. A hole. Not down. But up. A blackness in the ceiling above them. Beyond that, the sense of breath. A slow inhale and exhale. Dozens of creatures, just like this one, in a circle beneath the space. They were the only things here, in this time and place. But the sensation of presence, of more, could not be ignored.
A hole.
A gate?
Not yet. But it could be one. Now it was too small- how they knew that was unclear. From above them, it dripped, slow, black molasses that oozed along the floor, the walls. Aphotic fingers that stretched like mold through the catacombs. Up into the city above.
From Beneath You, it Devours.
But here they were, beneath the beneath. The creature didn't return to the circle of its kind, instead, stopping again and looking back at them. They had enough cocoons. That wasn't what it wanted. It mewled, one hand coming up to scratch behind its own ear. There was a way to communicate deeper. If they risked it. But then, now that they were offered a view of a gate (to where to where?), did they need to?
Dreams
[member="Vestille Thumahra"]
Up until now, it had only created family. So much of it, snuffed out before it's time. Before it was given a chance to grow. But here on Thule? The presence had found a fertile soil. It's children had been allowed to grow. Not buried beneath the earth, or torn too soon from their cocoons, or taken and eaten by Weirds. Life was fragile and vicious. Here, though....
It thought that they could thrive.
With their lives, its connection to this place grew stronger in turn. But it still could not come through.
Perhaps, perhaps....
There was a need here. A place for him to belong. If he wanted. Where he was wanted. Not simply as a new brother or sister, not part of the quietly mewling children. Beneath his feet, the path had honed to a knife's edge, the expanse silent and abyssal beneath him. But the hands steadied him, held him up.
Can you help us open the gate?
The hands whispered, tone hopeful.
Can you help us come through? Step carefully, we do not want you to fall.
If he fell, some part of him knew, he would wake up. Cold, alone. The warm embrace and gentle voice gone. Home in his bed. And his door would not be shadowed further.
There was, after all, always a choice.
The door was not what he expected to find. No door in truth. Ahead of him, instead, was a pit. The razor path led to a plateau, and in the center, something bubbled. Black tar, slow and viscous. The sensation that had accompanied the stones from the start.
We cannot fit through. But perhaps.... perhaps.... if you go through first.... you could light the way? Open the door?
