After her talk with Mage Geezel of Shadow, Tasha tries to find Yue and Mage Zwouf. When she finally finds the tent they're in (it's the only one marked with the symbol for the Sphere of Mind), she can't help but feel a bit.. oversized. Everything in the tent is scaled to its Aelfin owner, whose childlike stature makes him (or her) even shorter than the already petite Dr. Sen. At least Yue isn't trying to sit in the tiny chairs - she's lying on one of the many overlapping floor rugs, hands folded across her chest and eyes closed with an oddly colored crystal tetrahedron on her forehead. It might be pink.. or yellow.. or green. Or all of them at once.
"Wow," goes Tasha as she enters, immediately stunned by the pint-sized decor, "I've never felt tall before ... " Her head shakes as she savors the experience; As one of the shortest of Vartans, she's always had to endure teasing and figurative belittlement to go along with her mother's literal version. Even for a Karnor she isn't exactly tall; Her avian kindred easily dwarf her.
The feeling makes her smile.
Unfortunately she's oblivious to anything else for the brief few seconds she looks but doesn't really see, but at length she asks, "Am I interupting some sort of crystal-based, um, well, whatever you do with crystals." She pauses, then adds, "Hopefully not to include the crystal trying to murder us. Me. Again."
The diminutive Mind Mage is kneeling next to Yue, and staring in bewilderment at Tasha. He or she then pulls out a pocketwatch (likely Chronotopian) and checks the time. "This isn't right," Zwouf notes. "I'm not scheduled to hallucinate for another 87 minutes."
"I'm not a halucination! I'm a demon from dark space here to ruin Yue's life and eat her sooouuulll~" The threat of imminent -- or possibly delayed, slow, or rain check soul eating as she doesn't specify -- is accompanied by sinister hand raising and finger wiggling, and then Tasha walking over and laying her hands atop Yue's head so she can rest her own head upon them.
"Hi, by the way," she greets the Aelfin, smiling down at the Mage.
The mage watches this, then taps at the watch and holds it to one of many ears. "It's still running. Are you sure you aren't a hallucination? And you shouldn't touch the subject during testing. I don't remember why that is, but I think it's a general rule."
"She'd probably be very annoyed too, and I think she can beat me up. In fact I'm sure of it." And so Tasha gently sits back up again, walking over and plopping herself down on the carpet nearby before stretching out and laying on her side. "This is so much better than the cold, dusty outside," she notes, then turns her gaze back to Zwouf Mage. "I'm Tasha, Yue's-" she points at the Human, "-companion. Aldara Tasha Argentine. You're Mage Zwouf, of the Sphere of Mind. An Aelfin. I am not a Nohbakim, whatever I look like. I'm a Vartan hybrid. It's nice to meet you."
"It is?" the Mage asks. "I haven't met many Vartans, for obvious reasons," Zwouf admits. "I try to avoid people that might step on me. Now then.." the Mage checks the crystal, which is definitely more pink than green now.. or isn't. "What is it that is nice about meeting me? Is it my scent? Karnors like my scent. They say it makes them think of bread. Or beer. Something with yeast in it, in any case. Are you also here to be tested?"
"Well I do love beer, so that makes you a wonderful person by itself," notes Tasha. Feeling increasingly comfortable -- and thus decreasingly desireous of moving -- she strains as she reaches forward to clasp a pillow as she then answers. "I'm here to find Yue, so I have to wait until she's done. I wouldn't mind being tested, but I'm also very curious about your Aelfin language and its connection to the Sifras."
"My language?" the small mage asks. "What connection? I use it for casting my spells, of course.. but every mage uses the language they're most comfortable with."
"I'm not really sure," Tasha explains as she straaains to hook the pillow, finally nabbing it triumphantly and scootching it under her head, settling like a blanket made of feathers, fur and contentment. "It's something I heard and it goes together with a great deal I'd also heard, so I strongly suspect there's some truth in it. I also suspect Aelfin did not appear at the time of the Ark's arrival on Sinai, and that they may have arrived earlier. Or, hm, something else? Anyway, do you have a copy of your language, or would you mind reciting it and its details for me to record?"
"Reciting the details..?" Zwouf asks. "I.. have no idea how to do that. What are the details of Vartan? What's this about an Ark? Which Ark? I admit to not being very up-to-date on world history. I had my training in my village, which was under forced isolation.. and then when it wasn't, myself and a few others sought out Guild training. I was one of the few that wasn't in Babel at the time of the Boomer, but I've only recently left Caroban. I haven't traveled much.."
The young hybrid woman sits up, raising a brow. "Um, well, I was hoping you'ld know. Mages, scholarly, that sort of thing. I'm more about 'fetching' research than doing it, but sometimes I must." She puls herself closer to the Mage using her legs, sliding her upper body, head, and pillow with her until she's closer. "Well, how about this? When I can, I'll send a man named Eli Zerachiel to come talk to you. he can help you work out the details for our record. You'll love him, he's very smart and knowledgeable. As for travel, well ... " She throws her hands wide from her head, as if to gesture at, and encompass, the universe. "Welcome to the scary and exciting adventure! Be careful of losing yourself, the alure of power, revelations that may shatter your brain, bla, bla, bla. So, what's the test and if I can't, can I take a nap here?"
"Adventure?" the mage asks, then gestures to the (sleeping?) woman with a crystal on her forehead. "I test people for potential in Mind Magic. They come to me. This one is my second testee. The first one said that if I ever wanted to visit New Zion, to look him up and he'd make me rich if I modeled for a 'line' of plush toys. I mainly want to help people who have odd habits or disorders or fears they want to get rid of." The mage then smiles and looks at Tasha again. "You seem moderately insane.. is there anything you'd like help with in that regard?"
"My appearing insane is just the outward appearance of knowing too much. I may know more about some parts of magic than you do. I've spoken to beings from oitside our reality, seen the mind of machines, been a giant robot, and stepped between the stars. In the last few months, and most of that I spent recovering after blowing myself up after a ... uh ... a god ... He tried to enslave me." The young woman bites her lip as she recalls Abaddon, thinking for a moment the Aelfin really would make for a comforting plush toy -- and that she could use one right now. She heaves a sigh a moment later, then drops back to stare at the ceiling. "Maybe? Do you know how to endure the fear of touching a mind that's greater than yours? Alien? How to get rid of memories?"
"Well.. I would prescribe alcohol for most of that, but the effects are only temporary," Zwouf says. "In Mind Magic, new memories can be created, but erasing a memory isn't really possible. But whenever you recall a memory, that memory becomes editable. So for traumic memories, we arrange for you to re-experience them in a controlled mood state, so that gradually they lose their traumatic aspect."
Tasha snorts. "If alcohol worked I'd already have forgotten that and probably everything else," she points out. The young woman then waggles a hand at the Mage, head shaking. "You know what? Don't worry about it. I can handle it. I have to." Her head stops and she eyes toy-like man (or woman) and then asks, "If you wanted to try and reach the mind of something else and talk to it, but you didn't know what kind of mind it had, or even if it was comprehensible, but do know how you might reach out to it ... What would you recommend?"
"Well.. if it's something that talks, there's the Tongues ritual," Zwouf says. "It sets up a sort of automatic translation between the mage and whoever else is involved, one-on-one. It's hardly ever used though - it was meant for talking to Exiles before they got processed. But as far as direct mind-to-mind stuff.. we don't do that. It's one of those 'do not cross' ethical boundaries. Spirit Mages get away with stuff like that though... well, similar to that."
"That's disappointing," sighs Tasha, who then rolls over on her belly, hugging the pillow closer. "It looks like I'm on my own then. Well, I have ideas anyway." She sniffs, then scratches her nose idly before saying, "That's all I had to ask, though I do think Aelfins would make the the best plush toys. Sooo ... Wake me up when Yue is too?"
"Can I ask why you're curious about linking to another mind?" Zwouf asks. "Because you should know that it is dangerous. Losing your sense of self is a possibility, along with lots of odd side effects. You haven't already done it have you?"
Now in the process of pushing herself closer to an especially large pile of comfortable looking rugs, Tasha answers, "Oh, many times. In a way, I already lost myself. What I gained was worth it, though. Now, I'm everything I've touched and more ... Maybe less?" She pauses to shrug, then resumes her trek towards a place to curl up at. "How many times has it been ..? One ... Two ... Three, four, five, six ... Maybe seven times."
"I see.." Zwouf says. "I would like to examine your mind sometime." The Mage then goes back to watching the triangular crystal on Yue's head. It's gone from pink and green to purple and green.
"I'll be sleeping here if you're bored. Don't let Yue mess with me when I'm sleeping." And with that Tasha arrives at her destination, curling up in a bal of feathers and fur and tucking her head under a wing and on her pillow. She gives a little wave, and then that's all from her for a while.
For whatever reason, Tasha dreams of bread and beer. Or bread drinking beer before she can. There is eventually some nudging though to stir her.
"Stooop steali' m'beer bread ... " The affending poker gets swatted out, then Tasha promptly rolls over.
More nudging, and a voice this time. "Tasha?" It's Yue.. who Tasha pictures in a beer-maid costume. "Wake up, you haven't been drinking."
"Go bread your own Yue beer," is Tasha's sleepy and incoherent retort. She does, however, burst in to a flower of stretching limbs and yawning muzzle a second later before rolling on to her back and blinking at the woman. "Hi," she says, sounding no more awake, then asks, "Did I grow bigger?"
"Not sure, I'd have to submerge you in a giant beaker to make certain," Yue says. She's on her knees, with a slight triangular depression in her forehead, while Zwouf is doing something in another part of the tent. "Also, it seems I do not have a talent for Mind Magic, but I do have resistance to it. Of course, that could be the result of many factors and could just be temporary.."
"Well, at least I was able to hire the services of Yue-know-what," the younger woman notes, looking more awake after having heard the status report. Tasha sits up, the rubs at her face a moment with a hand before glancing towards the exit. "We're all done then, aren't we? I hope we didn't miss the train. It'll be a while before the next one comes."
"Heading back to the Pit then?" Yue asks, then looks over at the Aelfin. "Zwouf told me comes from a little valley in the mountains of Ai. And all of his kind come from there."
"I'd heard that too, from him and others. It's on some of the old maps I've looked at." Tasha follows Yue's gaze, head tilting as she considers the small person. "It'd be nice if I could stop by or send a team, but I don't think I have the time. Ai is a completely different continent than where I'm going, and to get that far inland past those mountains I'd need to go south from Ashdod or Saskanar. There just aren't many ship routes that way, so it might have to be overland. The whole trip could take more than a month."
"I figured you'd just fly everywhere on your own," Yue comments, and pokes one of Tasha's wings. "How long do you think you'll be away on Sinai?"
Tasha folds her wings inwardly protectively, rubbing where she was poked despite it not hurting her at all. "I'm a good flier, but I can't fly across whole continents without exhausting myself. At least, I've never tried too. It'd be dangerous. Hrrm." Her muzzle scrunches up as she considers the idea a moment, especially the idea of simply flying north out of the outter Gateway region and heading north without a ship. As she considers the possibility she answers, "About a week at least. It's hard to know how long or how successful it will be without getting there first."
"Hopefully your bug-eyed friend will have the info we need by then," Yue says. "Zwouf wants me to return in about a week as well, to retest me. It'll give us an idea of how long it takes for the Sifran 'system' to integrate me, I think."
"Integrate. What a creepy way to put it." Tasha's sticks her tongue out at the idea before looking down and brushing herself back to some semblance of decorum. "I wonder if the old angels are even paying attention to us ... Oh well. We should get going. If we miss the train, we'll have to wait for nightfall. I want to spent the night with Gabriel if I can, before I leave." And with that she rises. "Ready?"
Yue bids farewell to Mage Zwouf, and the two women make their way back to the train depot. There isn't much time for looking around Gateway, unfortunately.. they reach the train as it finishes refueling and turning around, and have to get box lunches from a vendor - a Naga that seems to be smiling all the time.
Tasha walks up to the ticket vendor and shows her JEF ID, which is simply a PHTO ID with some additional symbols and notes. Yue can see it lists her as, "Cadet Aldera Tasha Argentine." Given her change of appearance, the half-Vartan had to have a new one made, and so the object is quite shiny, clean and official -- at odds with its owners general 'rough and ready' young punk appearance. After some back and forth, she's holding their tickets. "Back we go," she bids her compatriot.
"I think my sandwich is still moving," Yue comments as she checks her lunch before boarding. She doesn't complain later when it's time to actually eat it. The ride back is hot, noisy and anything but smooth. For a change though, there's some activity outside during the wastelands transit - a 'herd' of rotbiters, trying to keep up.. but being left behind.
"I hate those things," Tasha mutters as she looks out the window, back at the dwindling herd of rotbiters. Her Karnor hand moved to her gun ever since she saw them advancing and only now does she remove it as she slides back in to her seat. "Their venom is toxic. They're a menace within the Pit and everywhere else besides."
After another transfer at Expedition City, the duo arrive back at the Pit of Himar. With all the travel done that day, they are a bit sore. "I never had much of an ass, but what I do have hurts," Yue complains. "Someone could make a fortune selling seat-cushions at the depot, I wager."
"I know I'd buy one, and I have an ass." Rubbing the aforementioned and somewhat bruised part, Tasha walks away from the depot with Yue beside her. "Sunset. We should get back to the PHTO building before nightfall. If we have to, I can fly and carry you, but otherwise I'd prefer not to. Anyway, the Pit can be rough, especially at night." She turns, shielding her eyes as she peers down in to the crater-like valley as it's slowly eveloped in gloom, lights beginning to flicker on all across the city. "It's good to be home, though. I miss the Pit somtimes, when I'm gone. I have a soft spot for the place, even if I'm still a stranger. C'mon, the elevator will had down soon."
"Aww, I might like being flown about," Yue says. "Do you have any riding dragons at least?" the woman asks as they take the large elevator, along with a truck full of supplies.
Tasha turns to eye Yue, head tilting and avian eye glinting in the fading light. "You might, huh?" She gets a sly look, then holds her hands out and wags her fingers inward in a 'come here' sort of way. "No dragons though, at least, not what I think you think is a dragon. Pteras, maybe? Don't ride them if you don't want to break your butt. The best mounts are Raktors, which are birds, so, really, birds are the way to go!" She wags her fingers more insistently.
Yue steps forward gamely. "You can really carry me?" she asks.
"We'll find out!" Tasha ducks down, expecting Yue might have mysterious secret spy weight, and thus prepares for the worst. With a heave she steps forward and tries to scoop the woman up!
She isn't any heavier than she looks - so no metal bones at least! "You don't even have seat-belts!" the woman says. "So please don't drop me."
"Too late to turn back now!" Tasha grins a wicked grin, then pivots in place. "I guess we won't be needing the elevator after all!" She calls over to the truck, then slips her grip on Yue long enough to give the driver a mock-salute before she turns and sprints!
At an increasing pace she hurtles towards the edge of the elevator, running straight off it with nary as much as a hop. At first it looks like they'll both be plummeting to their messy doom, but soon Yue can feel Tasha's wings catch the air and, after she wobbles briefly until she has a steady trajectory, she and her 'ride' are gliding across the valley straight for the heart of the city.
"It's like hang-gliding, but being felt-up by the hang-glider!" Yue says, sounding younger than she looks.
"I'm not doing it intentionally!" Now that Yue's mentioned it, she can certainly feel a shift in Tasha's emotions to match. Prior to this point, Yue never felt the younger woman was really attracted to her; Confused being more accurate. This seems to be her common reaction to Humans in general, as she felt the same impulse before whenever the hybrid was confronted with another one. Whatever Tasha feels about Humans, it's never been attraction -- although the comment seems to elicit it and the shiny black undersuit certainly got a rise out of her. In particular, the mention of someone named Katie or Katherine makes her brain practically short out. "Just hold on and don't squirm!"
It helps that Elamoore doesn't have any tall towers, and the various power and communication lines that have been strung up don't go higher than rooftop level. The courtyard of the PHTO Council building is clear of them though, making landing easier.. and without any mishaps, like falling over into a tumble. Then it's a short walk to their rooms - Yue is staying in Eli's vacant room for now. When Tasha enters the room she shares with Gabriel, she smells the remains of his dinner - some sort of bread-wrapped meat pie. "Wow, you made it back in the same day, almost," Gabriel notes, looking up from the old log book he'd been reading from and smiling.
The smile gets returned by his dusty, travel worn and Yue-smelling mate. "What can I say, I'm getting good at traveling around our cold, gritty red ball of a home." Without further comment she walks over and promptly sits herself right in his lap. "Sharing the adventure," she explains, leaning her head back so that he's now smilign down at her upside-down noggin. "And besides, I wanted us to have one more night together before I have to go again."
"Well, if your bottom isn't too sore from all that riding.." Gabriel says, before taking the hybrid in his arms.
Traveling alone has some advantages. Mainly, that Tasha doesn't have stick to purely 'civilian' transport. Once she got to Abu Dhabi, it was easy to get aboard a boat heading for the New Elamoore mines bearing luxury items (such as fruit and fabric and salt) to exchange for iron. And not having to stop and rest or clean up shaved almost a day off of the travel time, even it does leave her feeling and looking a bit hungry and scruffy when she reaches the mining town.
Feeling more Titanian than usual, and using her halitool like a walking stick, the exceedingly scruffy and travel worn young woman walks in to town. After exchanging some words with a street vendor closing up shop -- and repeating this with a few others to make sure she's not being had -- she decides on a course of action by evaluating the recommendations given. First, she reserves a top-level, private room in one of the nicer taverns in the city. Being alone, she can afford a higher quality of lodging and as she is alone, she decides she really needs to rest somewhere she can trust. Next she plots out where to supply, making a note of it for the next day so she can stock up before heading out. And, finally, with everything else done she's on her way back to the tavern and a much needed rest -- but not before winding down by talking to people along the way.
Down in the common room of the tavern, Tasha finds a talkative Vartan (at least once he has a drink or two in him). "Oh yah, Storm Keep bit news. Like Paradys or Lost City.. went from legend to there it is, right there a little while ago. But people from it, they just a bit backwards sorta. Like.. they can't hold their drink y'know? Lightweights!"
"Are any of them here?" Tasha asks, head popped up on her Vartan hand as she watches the otehr Vartan with as much interest as her tired body can muster. "Is Storm Keep still populated?"
"Yeah, some here, looking for work, or passing through," the man says and takes another drink. "But they no gots treasure or anything. Big disappointment. I not see old people or kids, so must still be someone up there."
"Maybe I should stop by," Tasha murmurs, suddenly feeling the urge to adventure despiote her exhaustion. She'd feel a lot safer in Storm Keep, but with night falling she isn't sure she can navigate without flying in to a mountain side. Making the rough calculations of time, distance, and remaining light, she decides he might just make it.
"Thanks," she bids the Vartan man, passing him another shekel for one more drink on her before she stands up.
After getting part of her deposite back and grabbing local vendors before they head home, Tasha has her investment and enough supplies for twice the journey she expects -- enough to get her to where she's going and with a buffer as well. Looking up in to the darkening sky, her belief she can make it to Storm Keep slowly dies -- but she does have an alternative in mind!
Soon she's in the air. The smell of it makes her feel more confident about using the midway point she had in mind: The Dragon Cave she discovered last time she was out this way. The air smells humid, like rain, and given the name of where she hopes to be a storm is the last thing she wants to be flying in, especially in the dark.
Angling, she follows the waterfalls and searches for the lost cavern.
There are a lot of waterfalls, but her luck wins out over exhaustion. She locates the cave just before the sun sets, giving her a semi-dry place to recover. The mist from the waterfall keeps the place cool.. but she might be able to get a fire going deeper in. At least this time there isn't a dragon ghost.
Deeper sounds good to the hybrid. She has a tent as well, her cloak and bedding, and more high-tech travel supplies she brough that can endure the high SPF levels. Compared to previous journies, her access to resources, training, and experience have prepared her well. "Doesn't stop the damp though," she murmurs as the echoing of thunder rolls in from the entrance. She can't really be mad at the coming rai, though; In truth she misses it. It was only anoyance in her old life, soaking her, making her whip useless, drownign out her commands, and otherwise making her miserable on the deck of The Rake. Now, her travels has shown her what a treasure rain truly is -- and what its lack can mean for a world.
Trudging along, she heads deeper in the hopes she can find a nice, dry, spacious area to set up camp where her fire won't draw attention.
Once the fire is going, the cavern comes alive with reflections. The dragon collected shiny things - not necessarily valuable things. There are chunks of lightning-glass next to uncut gems, pyrite or shiny rocks, along with bits of metal and old coins, mostly copper Shekels. It's all a bit dazzling still.
Deciding the dragon really had a Vartan's taste in art, Tasha smiles. "Rest in peace," she offers, a Terran prayer she once heard from Gabriel. After a moment of silence -- something she also learned from her mate -- she begins setting up her tent.
The tent, being a modern military affair from Abaddon, is quick to go up and spacious as only a purpose-built-for-Vartans tent could be. As she lays her bedding down the young woman can't help but think of herself as having become the new dragon, here to sleep upon a pile of treasure. Her chuckling echoes through the dim, flickering light. Soon she's down, halitool by her side and mind reviewing her day as she tries to drift off to sleep.
"No wine," a voice says in Tasha's ear. "What sort of treasure hoard doesn't even have wine? My hoard was better than this." Instead of a dragon ghost.. Tasha seems to get a Blackwings ghost instead. "So this is how you live now? A tent.. inside of a cave? You're getting soft."
"Gahhhhhh ... " goes Tasha in pure disgust as Blackwings materializes before her. She immediately rolls over and covers her head with a wing, hiding herself and complains. "I'm tired you old bird! I don't have time for your dead pirate jerk-assery Blackwings. Go haunt a ghost ship or buried treasure or something!"
"Ah, but I'm stuck haunting you, puppybird!" the transparent pirate says cheerfully. "I'm a part of you now. At least when you're in a good spot for bringing me out. Don't you want some company?"
"Company is good, you're a demon that's come to torment me." And then tasha's pulls her blanket over her head!
A few seconds later she peeks out, making a face.
"You're not leaving, are you?" Sighing, the young Vartan finally gives in and sits up, looking at Blackwings with a tired, flat stare. "Fine. Talk. Be company, if you even know how. What's next? I'm soft? Weak? Didn't kill and flay enough people on my way up here? What?"
"You're going to go talk to a monster," Blackwings notes. "Why?" she asks.
"Oh you can read my mind now, too? Wonderful." Tasha sneers, then turns to stare at the darkness as it seems more palitable. "Because I need to. It's a Harrower. My ship runs on a Harrower. A ... a weaker one. There's more, um, old things. Very old. Beings from outside our reality ... uh ... Ogdoad. And other things. can't you just read my mind?"
"What's the fun in that?" Blackwings asks. "Besides, I am your mind, sort of. I'm not myself anymore, certainly. I only know your goal because you were thinking of it when I woke up. Even if I am just a figment of your imagination now.. I could be the last person you ever talk to, you realize."
Tasha turns back, raising her brows. "What?" She demands in a flat voice. "What do you mean? You think the Source is going to kill me?"
"It marked you last time, didn't it?" Blackwings asks. "What will it do this time? It wants things from you, after all."
"It didn't ask for things before. In fact all it wanted was information. It seems content to remain where it is and learn. You think it has other motives?" Tasha inquires, now scootching around to face Blackwings more fully.
"It wanted to know things, sure.. but it changed you," the ghost claims. "You think it's happened with each of these beings you meet. What if it doesn't like that you've been talking to others?"
"Jealousy? I don't think they get ... Well ... I don't know ... I mean ... Urgh." Balling her taloned hand, Tasha thumps it knuckles-first against her foreheadm squinting. "I don't know. I know next to nothing about them! Or any of them! Progenitors, Harrowers, Sifran ghosts, Old Ones, First Ones ... Almost nothing. All I can do is try to learn more. But they can all crush me like I'm nothing. All of them."
Desperately needing a change of subject, even if it's just less awful, Tasha quickly poimnts out, "The change doesn't do anything! It's just a mark, you're ... You're probably just being paranoid!"
"Paranoia kept me alive.. for the most part," Blackwings says. "I'm just here to remind you that just because you can't comprehend the motives of someone, doesn't mean you can trust them any more than a person whose motives you do understand."
"I don't trust them! I mean, I do, I mean ... I give them the benefit of the doubt. That's what Nora would say. Maybe it's just easier to feel like I trust them because I understand them so little -- unlike you who I knew very well and so I knew all the ways you can and would betray me." Blackwings gets glared at, then Tasha turns and promptly drops back on to her bed and stares at the ceiling, arms folded. "I'll be fine," she insists, rather petulantly.
"I'm just trying to help," Blackwings claims. "All that's left of me depends on you not dying in order to exist, after all. Anyway.. get your rest. Be wide awake when you go into the lair of that thing."
"Well ... Thanks. I guess. Even if it is just to save yourself, as always." Tasha rolls over, pulling her blanket over her head. She scootches back in to her tent. A minute or so passes by, but at length she finally offers a reluctant and cold, "Good night," before drifts off to sleep.
Tasha is damp by the time the keep comes into view, due to having to fly through the cloud layer that circles the mountain peaks. The Keep's drawbridge is down, and there aren't any noticeable lookouts on the battlements. The place seems very quiet.
Just like before, Tasha muses as she circles above the Keep, recalling the last time she was here with Gabriel, Hakeber and their guide. The defenders were absent that time, too, off below attending to their ceremonies. The yong woman suspects that might be the case, but as circumstances have changed drastically for the Storm Riders, she can't feel confident about assuming anything.
Deciding a direct approach is the best way -- she knows they can see her and it won't smack of deceit which she knows her people to find in general distaste -- she angles in and attempts to land smack dab infront of the adiminstraive building of the inner keep.
From there, signs of life are more obvious as someone pokes their beak out of a window. They vanish a moment later, and then the door opens. The page is younger than Tasha. "Hello?" he asks in Vartan, looking uncertainly at Tasha. She's changed a bit since her last visit, after all.
"Hi," Tasha greets the page, her Vartan hand lifting as she gives a little wave in greeting. She also smiles, trying to look friendly in case there are a lot of bows pointed, just out of her sight. "My name is Tasha. I was here before, months ago. I, well, I didn't look exactly like this," she gestures at her face with the hand that had been waving, "... but I think your elders will still recognize me. I'd like to speak to them."
"Well.. ah.. come with me?" the boy asks, holding the door open for Tasha.
"Thanks," Tasha offers, ducking her head before she follows the boy inside.
The large chamber has a sole occupant when Tasha is brought to it, the Vartan she only knows of as 'the speaker' who seemed to lead the council last time. "Bird of Hermes," he says, sitting in his high backed chair. "You have become more bird, it seems. We had not expected you to return to us."
"Blowing yourself does funny things to you," tasha admits with a nervous chuckle as she steps fully inside, offering the elder a bow of her head as she moves out of respect. After a quick glance around, she tucks her arms behind herself and explains, "I had always planned to return; I know the change you've had o endure is my fault for interfering, and I take responsibility for it. I was worried, too, about how your Clan would endure. It just didn't seem appropriate to say so at the time and I didn't want to insult you or cause further problems."
"The outside world is open to us now," the elder notes. "Those of age venture out, to either find new lives or new blood for the Clan. Is this what you came back to learn?"
"It's what I hoped I would find," Tasha says with a smile, albiet a somewhat sheepish one. She rolls her shoulders in a shrug and admits, "I just didn't want to seem like I was hovering over your shoulder. If the worst had happened, though, I was going to return and try to help. I'm glad you don't need me, though. However," and here her smile falters as Blackwing's warning echos in her mind, " ... That's not all I came to see. Nor whom." Rather than explains, she just lifts her taloned hand and points down.
"The K'hu'an have not shown themselves," the elder notes. "We no longer use the assembly hall, but the passage has not been blocked."
"Then with your permission I'll be heading down to speak with them. I think they already know that I'm here," Tasha says.
"You do not need my permission," the elder notes. "You are not part of our Clan, after all."
"No, of course not." Tasha ducks her head again, then glaces back towards the door. "If I don't return, would you please send a letter to a place called Gateway, addressed to the JEF and the PHTO Council? Tell them I vanished here, in the caves. My friends will know what it means."
"We do have paper and ink now," the man notes. "Let me know if you do return then. I'll wait a few days otherwise."
"Thank you, Elder." And with that Tasha disappears in to the building. Her memory may be damaged, but the recollection of this place shines brightly to her -- or perhaps darkly would be a better descriptor?
After finding the empty assembly-hall, Tasha enters the lone passage at the back of the stage..
There are K'hu'an here, but Tasha only gets glimpses of them in the side passages as she makes her descent, using one of her green chem-lights. There is the whispering, of course, like the beats of insect wings.
Having made contact with other Harrowers -- and even having entered D-Space itself via a Confederate ship -- Tasha feels more confident about taking a guess as to what her surroundings mean, including her hosts. As she walks, the familiar unease creeps along her spine, but she fights it off by working on analysis. Suckers, eyes, teeth, tentacles. I've seen these a lot in conjunction with the Harrowers, maybe they're symbolisim? He-Who-Moves appeared as a ball of writhing serpent, among other things. Maybe the Source appears as these things, or, they're symbolic of the ways it tries to reach us? Vision, taste, touch ... More literally, this could be what the K'hu'an look like, but I doubt it. They avoid light and observation, like the Source. They may be like it, made from dark matter and gravity and not effected by space anf time the sasme way I am. Observation and light may injure them, too ... And so she continues, keeping herself company in the unsettling place with observation and reasoni
ng.
The tunnel opens onto the pit chamber, with the carved tentacles flowing inward towards the maw of the central hole. The whispering has stopped, leaving only Tasha's own sounds to fill the space.
Tasha peers in to that hole. A part of her can't believe she's here again, like she's watching the whole thing from afar and she'snot really here. But I am here, she reminds herself, shifting uncomfortable by the opening. No use waiting. I can't leave, I can't run away. If I don't do this, I have no business doing the rest.// She nods a little to herself, feeling the sense of seperation close as she resolve to move forward. As she approaches, she recalls the warnings provided her last time: "Be respectful," "Don't clench your ***." She still isn't sure what she's not supposed to clench, so she makes sure she isn't clenching anything as she moves right up to the edge.
After taking a deep breath, exhaling, and closing her eyes ... She steps out in to the void and falls.
It isn't clear how far she falls, but she lands on the odd soft-hard moving mass of writhing parts that make up the body of the Source. The snake-bugs swarm over her, assaulting her with a thousand aromas. They seem especially drawn to her left hand and eye. Finally, the booming whisper chorus voice notes, "You have changed, Bird of Hermes. You have been to dark places, within and without. You taste of desperation, and fear, and wonder. You taste of strange seas and skies."
Tasha pulls herself to her feet, although she can't claim to know if she's sitting up or down by the time she feels she's collected herself. She feels like she's sitting up, but then, she isn't sure where up is down here.
But that's just a small part of the disturbing elementof this place. Even as she starts to think where she is is unsettling, she tries hard to press it from her mind; Tries hard to return to the steadiness of mind and purpose she had last time and not risk accidental rudeness by thinking the Source disturbing.
"I-I have changed, yes, Source. I was injured; I nearly died. One of the guardians of these worlds attacked me, but were were succesful in destroying it. It was ... It was a hard battle." Tash takes a deep breath, collecting her thoughts again, and then continues. "And I have traveled. I have been to space, the gulf between worlds in this reality, and I have met others like you. Fear ... and desperation. I, um, yes, I have those too. It is hard to endure touching beings so different than I am, or so much greater, and I have been hurt and seen strange new things. There is more to do, and that is also frightening."
"Others like me," the Source echoes. "The Lloigor persist then, and still take hold in this cramped reality."
"I don't know that name. Those that I met are only a few: He-Who-Moves and my ship, whose name I don't know. He-Who-Moves, I showed him that he was imprisoned, and we discussed that and we were able to come to an agreement. I dont think he is in this reality any longer, as he wished to leave -- to go home. My ship is different, it is smaller than you or He-Who-Moves. I have not spoken to it; I don't yet know how, or if it understands." The young woman then tilts her head, staring blindly in to the abyss. "Are ... you mad that I have met them?"
The disparate creatures that make up the Source continue to swarm across Tasha, like a river of flesh, flowing in one direction but not carrying her along with it. "We are all slaves. We all serve. We were made to. I know that I am held prisoner, although the term does not adequately encompass the truth. Did you tell He-Who-Moves of us?"
Tasha's fingers splay in the flow. She can feel the passage, but couldn't for the life of say what is passing over her. "I-I did, yes. I was hopig there would be some common ground. It is my connection to you that allowed me to speak to him at all, inside his prison. I was hoping showing that I knew a being like him would help diplomacy and maybe provide grounds for some understanding." The young woman bites hr lip, then spreads her hands in ap what she can only hope is a gesture of appeal towards the being she faces -- or is in. "I know so little about you! All of you! I don't know your rules, or what's happening to you, what happened before, or what where you come from is really like. I barely know anything! And so ... And so I stumble in the dark not knoiwng if what I'm doing is the right or wrong choice or what rules or games or what I am dealing with!"
"The one you hold in charge is not one of us," the Source claims. "Not of the Lloigor, or Harrowers as you call us. Its resonance in you tastes of the shallows, the Maelstrom. Closer to the Nephilim than to us. It is prey."
"Prey..? You know of the Maelstrom? What do you mean by prey, or are you being literal? What is the Maelstrom, or is it exactly what it seems?" Tasha asks, turning her head to follow the voice even as they seem to shift. She knows she's never find them, but the act of trying to helps her focus.
"And for the matter, who are the Nephilim? Why does that word sound familiar?" Tasha continues, searching in the dark in more ways than one. Nora? Where have I heard it ..? "Will you tell me?"
"The turbulent shallows, the tidal boundary between your island of matter and light and the greater ocean of darkness," the Source explains. "The Ogdoad took the simple creatures of the Maelstrom, and reshaped them into the Nephilim, to have servants that exist wholly in your realm. And the Nephilim spawned others, including the Xylphrim. Together they conspired to overthrow the Ogdoad. We are an early attempt at capture and containment. From us they learned. They learned to create their fortress, to lock our kind out."
"The Sifras ... The Old Ones!" Tasha's eyes widen, though if she beholds anything it is purely knowledge. Disturbing knowledge that jars her heart and mind, but also progress.
Answers.
"Grey beings ... Not of light, or Dark, but somewhere between ... Reshaped for the Ogdoad, made in to servants so they could have influence where maybe they couldn't go. I notice that your kind hide from the light, you avoid being seen. I thought that was for our benefit alone, but I think now it is also for you. That'd explain much." The young woman reaches up and rubs her temples, pushing erself to endure her presence here as long as she may. She can't leave, not with answers so close. "So my ship is a Grey being, a creature of the Maelstrom. Between. And the Xylphrim came from the Grey, being wholly of here. And your kind, the Lloigor, you are allies of the Ogdoad then? Prisoners of war? Their soldiers, or, servants ... Lesser beings? But not created ones? But why do you all care about our 'island'? What draws the Ogdoad here? What do you want?"
"We of the Lloigor are created by the Ogdoad," the Source contends. "The Nephilim spawned all life in your universe. It was their purpose. You speak of 'caring' about your reality though. This concept is not applicable. The island universes shine in the dark. They draw attention. They are different."
"So it's just ... Curiosity?" Tasha asks, ears perking and eyes widening. "But the Old Ones, they rebelled. They must have had a reason. And yet the Oldest killed the others, and continues to try to. You want to know of the Progenitors, but I'm not sure I should tell you if your presence and goals threaten our reality." She says it quite before she can think of the consequences: Denial. She openly suggested she might renege on their bargain, the consequence of which she doesn't know. Defiance was reflexive in the face of invasions, as she knows the Sifrans and their allies feared their creators -- or desired something else enough -- to fight them off. What she doesn't know is the motives, nor the consequence of her defiance.
"We have no goals," the Source claims. "Such things have no meaning to us. We serve. We cannot leave here, ever. We exist now within these four dimensions. We are on the wrong side of the fortress wall. Rebellion is not in our nature, but it is in yours."
"'There are the rules, and that is all there is.' That is what He-Who-Moves told me. There are those that hunt your kind, and I see now I release one back in to the 'dark water' beyond our 'shore." More biting of lip, more staring in to nothingness. Mired in the abyss, Tasha finds she cans ee more clearly than she has in the light. She can almost feel the world beyond her own, that infinite dark upon which their island rests. "The Ogdoad decide the rules, then? The rituals, what are they? And do your creators have goals?"
"I cannot speak for my creators," the Source claims. "I do not know of the rituals of control. I was captured before such things came into play. Goals require cause and effect, past and future. Such things exist in your reality, but not in ours. Not as you would know them."
"You know us, but we don't know you ... " Tasha's head shakes. She doesn't know why that is true, but she has her suspicions and none of them are positive ones. "Well, then, you're trapped. You serve, but can you serve while you are trapped? Would you or are you telling your masters what we're discussing?" Although she says it, and she knows she does, deep down the young woman has a immensely hard time accepting it; More so, not running in fear of it. Inside she feels like she's two seperate people, one of them telling her to stop talking and politely leave as soon as she can, and the other one trying to wring information and hard bargain with gods. For a brief moment she considers that, too, and realizes ...
More than gods.
Tasha finds that even she has become incomprehensible to herself; She must be. Why, else, would she keep talking?
"If anything approaching a goal can be attributed to the Ogdoad, it is apparent in their nature. They are creators," the Source says. "I am alone. Not properly a Lloigor at this point in time. Isolated. When this reality decays, I will return to the dark ocean or I will crumble away with the rest of the light and matter. It is of no consequence to me. I will serve whom I may, when service is requested."
"So ... Anyone can ask for service?" Tasha asks, leaning closer to something that is everywhere and all around her, making the motion both successful and pointless in equal measure.
"Anyone may ask," the Source claims.
With only a possibility and nothing to confirm it except historical facts, Tasha cocks her head to the side and wonders -- wonders if she should push her luck. Testing the waters, dark as they may be, she asks, "Like what we did before? And they are told the price before acceoting? Why is there a price?"
"There must be a price," the Source says. "Service has no value without it."
"But you said you don't know goals, or do you just desire without a goal?" Asks the Cadet as she tries to piece together a puzzle made of other.
"Desire," the Source echoes, it's voices less synchronized. "I desired knowledge, and so entered a contract for it with you. The Marker was the price paid for that knowledge."
"So you do share something in common with us: Desire." Finally tasha finds a common ground, a link between her and the abyss if she has what she hink she has. "Or ... is it only you who desire?"
"It may only be me," the Source admits. "I am forced to exist in your reality. Those you seek are of a different one though. That interests me."
"Me, too. At this point I know more about your kind than theirs, though I am getting closer. Help me." Making her decision, Tasha rolls the dice and hopes the numbers are good. "The one you said I am in charge of, my charge, I can't speak to it like I do your kind. Do you know how? How to reach it? Speak to it?"
"It is prey," the Source whispers. "It does not speak. Would you talk to a fish?"
"It may be a fish to you, but you speak to me. Or am I somehow your equal?" The young woman arches a brow. She isn't exactly sure she expressed her meaning correctly, though the connotations are still unsettling; Is she equal? Oris she 'a fish'?
"You are not prey," the Source notes. "You can speak. That which cannot communicate is prey. It cannot form thought. It has no given purpose. It does not serve, save that it is prey."
"I see." Then that elimates that. Bumper's suggestion can be discounted; My Horse isn't sentient after all and isn't trying to fool us. It saddens Tasha, but there's nothing she can do about it. Ultimately she decides she will make due with what she has been given and appreciate ehr Horse for what it is. "Then I have purpose? I serve? Anther said that, too. That I am a tool, that I am guided. I guess that means we're not so different that way, either. Though, maybe you are more free than I am, because you have been isolated."
"Freedom is not applicable to me or mine," the Source says. "If you keep prey, be wary. For it is prey, and will attract predators. We are not alike. I was created as a tool. You choose to be one. You can choose to not be one."
"You make it sound so easy." Tasha then holds up a hand, though she isn't quite sure if the gesture will be understood or even seen. "No, don't tell me: It is easy, you must simply chose. I know. The choice is hard." The hand lowers, then she settls back and places her hands in her lap. "Can my 'fish' be made to speak, and if it could, would that save it from the predators..?"
"The Ogdoad created the Nephilim from such creatures," the Source claims. "You must do the same if you wish it to speak. And predators are little better than prey. They are simply bigger and more aggressive."
"That's easy to say when the 'predators' are being I don't understand and may be unable to fight. The Old One guardian nearly destroyed me, and I was sitting in the cockpit of the most powerful weapon I had ever known. It's hard to be so small; The predators are much larger than I am." Though somewhat exasperated, Tasha knows her complaint vents a fundamental fear of helplessness that has been gnawing at her ever since Abaddon showed her how powerless she really was. And though she can't do anything about it so far, it continues to eat at her and she knows she'll continue to voice the worry. Feeling that maybe she's simply complaining without purpose, she asks, "Can the predators be fought off? If I can reach them through my connection to you, can't I also hurt them? And tell me about the Nephilim; I don't think I've met them. I know I didn't hear about them ... Or have I?" The feeling she's heard the name also eats at her.
"Some can be fought, but they exist in the Maelstrom, and in the Maelstrom alone," the Source notes. "Evading them is simply a matter of leaving the hunting ground. The Nephilim were the first. The first to be alive. They are not of a biology compatible with your own. They are simpler, and colder."
"Simpler and colder? Can you explain ... um ... better? In a different way? You make them sound like snakes or Naga," Tasha requests, ears perking even as she fights the urge to flatten them as the snake-insect tide washes over her.
"Organic life is hot. The Nephilim are cold. They exist in vacuum, in the cold places between stars. Heat is their undoing," the Source explains.
Tasha nods slowly to the information; She understands. In the recent past she'd heard her friends and companions talk about such things, beings that exist between the stars. She suspects one or more of them may be responsible for the Star Seeds, as it fits their intended task and nature as living between stars in the coldness of space. "Well, what about the mark you gave me, where you 'bit' me? Now I have two marks. What are they really? Why can the Titanians sense them, why do they let me talk to creatures like you? Is it because it's a link to you?"
"They make you easier for us to see," the Source says. "Others will see my mark, and know that you and I have a contract. What are Titanians?"
"But does that mean I have two contracts? My Horse can't make them, can it? Or was it He-Who-Moves, we did have an agreement ... " Tasha bites the inside of her cheek, thinking it must be the latter allowing her to sense the former. Her ship's resonance echoes in the mark, because her ship is prey and her mark is a predator. She can smell it, in a sense. Or so she guesses; She can only hope for an answer, and gives on as well. "They are organic beings, like me. They attenpt to remove the 'leftovers' from previous generations of Galactics and, well, others. Others like yourself. They can be very dangerous to your kind, which is why I volunteered to speal to He-Who-Moves, in an effort to save him from being destroyed."
"Whom do they serve?" the Source asks.
"Themselves, and a Progenitor named Vulcan. Vulcan, forge god. I might serve him too," Tasha answers, offering a little shrug. The shrug makes her aware of how at ease she's become in the last few minutes -- or what she thinks were minutes -- as the topic has shifted from overwhelming beings from beyond the shore of her reality to commonality and knowledge closer to home. She also realities she might pity the Source, though she also realizes the sentiment would likely go unappreciated and be unnecessary. "Some of them are my allies. I've been told we have things in common."
"They are not creators then?" the Source further asks.
Tasha opens her mouth to answer, but pauses. Instead she thinks a split second and then asks, "In what sense?"
"Do they bring new things into being?" the Source asks in clarification. "Do they seek to add to the future? Or do they only look to the past, and what was, instead of what could be?"
"I would say both, even if they don't know it. Some are more like creators than others. They do make, and they were created to be engineers; They can build remarkable devices that are very advanced. But, they are also caught in the past, continuing to do what they had been created for, even when the others had left them. Here, this is part of what you wanted to know, what you desire: The Progenitors are creators too. They came and found the Xylphrim had killed most other sentient life, as they had before, and so they made new life from what remained -- they made their own Nephilim and gave them tasks. That is where half of my kind came from: The Vartans. Together with the Titanians and one other race that is now long dead, they were told to clean the universe for the future," explains Tasha to the Outsider.
"Interesting," is the Source's simple response. "Were they too rebelled against?"
The yougn woman bites her lip even as she nods; The admittance makes her aware of a grim cycle. "If what I heard is true, some were. I've even heard that a few -- maybe many -- of them were killed. Killed by their own creations, or by each other. Some may have died fighting the Xylphrim, too. I can only guess at this part, but it seems the Progenitors were against what the Xylphrim were doing, or somehow came in to conflict with them over other reasons, and were able to defeat them. Otherwise I would not be here and there wouldn't be life for however long it toog to achieve sentience again -- and then to be destroyed by the Xylphrim," she answers.
"Why would the Xylphrim end other sentient species?" the Source asks.
"That's the question. I don't know, and I don't know anyone who does. Maybe the progenitors know, maybe they were afraid of something ... Or I shouldn't guess." Reahing up, Tasha rubs her face amidst the changing blackness. She's gotten used to it washing over her, used to the Source's presence once again. Though it represents much that is disturbing, she can no longer truly afraid of it. Unsettled, maybe disturbed, but in ways that wouldn't be out of place in the presence of beings from her own universe, if they were strange enough. And like them, she's learnd to get along. Maybe Fred is right, I do find a way to get along, she admits internally even as she works out how to describe the Xylphrim threat.
"I just don't know ... I'm trying to find out, though. It's vital that we find out. The problem is, I've never even spoken to a Xylphrim. I don't know where they are, how to reach them, what they look like, or ... Or anything about them other than they made these worlds, they were the Oldest of the Old Ones, that they killed the others and ... That their guardian hated us. Hated the current sentients and the Progenitors too. it tried to use me, to clean these worlds and attack the Progenitors."
"It has been a long time since the rebellion against the Ogdoad," the Source notes. "I have been trapped here. I know only the information that the K'hu'an gather for me, and what I can sense directly here in my pit. I have nothing to offer in regards to the nature or goals of the Xylphrim or Sifras."
"Well, you're not alone in that. Even the Old Ones I've spoken to haven't said anything. If they do know, they haven't decided to tell me. Maybe I'm afraid to ask." It would be one more potential horror to add to the pot but Tasha knows she must find the answer, sooner or later. Knowing the 'why' of the three ancient powers would go a long way towards fleshing out her map of what is really happening, and in that way, help her continue the mission she's been given -- and maybe find her own truth behind it all.
It's a lot to think about; More than she ever imagined she could, or could endure. And yet somehow she's still here, relatively sane and still talking. The young woman isn't sure how she's doing it, but she is.
Out of questions now, she feels herself winding down in the face of such tremendous revelations -- an awareness that immediately sparks a desire to record them before the stress and strain erode them from her mind. To this end, she says, "I thik that is all I have, for now. You've been a great help to me, so thank you for that. I hope the knowledge has been what you desire. I will keep looking, but for now I should record what I've been told so that I don't forget. And ... I need some rest."
Tasha finds herself rising upwards, borne aloft by a pillar of.. well, leather-snake-caterpillars forming ropes and columns with their bodies. She's soon at the lip of the pit. "Be careful," the Source tells her. "If you perish beyond the realm of Sifran space, the spirit I can conjure will not have all of your memories."
"If I perish ... Would you put me back together?" Tasha fidns hrself asking as she stares down the gloomy corridor, and somewhere beyond, the light.
"That is not within my power," the Source notes. "I have your blood, as you have mine. I can summon your spirit as it is recorded in the Sifran system, but that is all."
"Well, it was worth a shot, wasn't it?" Tasha continues to stare down the fall, the walk, like her future, straight in to a frightening and uncomfortable shadow. She's glad, then, that she isn't alone. "I'll be seeing you, I guess."
"Unlikely," the Source comments. "I live in the dark, after all."
"Don't we all." And without another word Tasha walks on.