Tasha and Gabriel are awakened a bit abruptly when Hakeber bursts into their tend and starts shaking their shoulder. "Get up! Get up! Something's shown up!" she all but barks.
Tasha's up in, if not a flash, with rapidity; years of life aboard ship has instilled in her a snap-to reaction to danger, since danger could mean plummeting from the sky or dying messily in a raging inferno if not handled promptly. On the other hand, she's been decidedly hands-off in ship handling lately and she inwardly curses her dulled reaction as she rises. Rubbing her face and reaching for her sword, she asked, "Where, what, and, ummm, is it hostile, Hake?" She continues to get ready, rising.
"It's talking, I think.." Hakeber says, while Gabriel also leaps up and grabs a knife.
"Well it beats shooting ..," Tasha mumbles as she stalks out of the tent, sword and scabard in her taloned hand, free hand rubbing her face. She vanishes beyond the tent flap.
Half of the camp is still trying to wake up, except for the Confederates, who are standing near the bug-buses. Yue is standing next to Dr. Broom, who is still wearing pajamas. At the edge of the clearing, more or less in the direction they were heading when they stopped, is a strange but familiar figure: a Stonecutter. It's mantle of tendrils actually move on their own, as it hisses and clicks and growls to Nessus, in what is presumably Galactic Six. The Naga replies in kind, but is looking a bit frustrated.
"So they're letting the thief talk?" Tasha thinks to say the choice isn't a good one, but technically she is also a thief. Instead she flicks her free hand up, then forward, when she thinks Yue is watching her: Follow me. Without waiting to check for compliance, the hybrid woman makes her way towards their visitor.
Yue steps up next to Tasha, and says, "Celestial is loosely based on Galactic Six. But this avatar has an odd dialect, so I'm having some issues with parts of it." And while Tasha doesn't know Galactic Six, she does know when someone is repeating themselves. The apparent Stonecutter repeats what it just said, causing Nessus to say something slightly different than he said before.
"An automated message, then?" Tasha had suspected as much. While meeting an actual Stinecutter wasn't beyond expectation, she considered it a remote one given the state of their world. If anything, she'd expect an antediluivian Stonecutter to meet them at some place of power and control, somewhere safe and meaningful for them, not in the middle of simulated woods to ... "It's challenging us with a ritual? A speak-counter sort of phrase, or something we're supposed to do?"
When the avatar finishes talking, Nessus turns away from it. It's generally difficult to read Naga expressions, but a gaping mouth and twitching is usually a good indication of feeling emotionally overheated. "It isss a ssstupid challenge-ressponce interface!" the man finally hisses.
Tasha nods slowly. Having some familiarity with these things, it's not her first time for religiously enwrapped basic challenges.She's even a bit surprised that they appear so often given the complexity of their source civilizations, but then she decides that it's not complexity that's needed, it's ritual. There's something solemn and menaingful in going about things in a pattern, exchanging the pattern, she thinks. "Hokay," she breathes, sounding a bit tired, still waking up, "What's it saying, or what's your best guess to what it's saying?"
The Naga actually rubs his forehead. "The dialect iss.. difficult," Nessus admits. "Firsst, it assks to be pressented with those sseeking.. assscendance-communion with T'thogga. Asssk it anything and it then assks for those sseeking audience with Fessus. And it keepss repeating, no matter what you sssay back to it. I do not know what it wantsss to hear."
"Tell it Aldara Tash-- There probably isn't a translation of my name, is there?" Tasha bites her lip a moment, and thinks. She needs a simple name for herself; she could use her titles, the literal translation of her name, or even her geneology and relations. All of that migth work, but she decides as per Yue's lesson about the Numbered Languages, simple is usually best for first contact. "Tell it the Seeker desires ascendant communion and an audience with Fessus."
"And then point at me," Tasha finishes, pointing at herself indicatingly.
"We have no idea what either of those optionsss entail," Nessus points out. "Maybe jussst the audience?"
"Agreeing to anything could be considered a binding contract," Yue explains.
"Technically you're here for Samael," Gabriel adds in.
"They may be the same being." Tasha shrugs a little when looked at: It is what it is. "Besides, I'm already under contract." With a superior power. Still, she considers a moment. "It'll be bad if this is my own and only chance to make a decision about this, but we don't know that, and T'thogga may not be what I'm looking for. Alright, Fessus only then."
Nessus attempts to get this through to the avatar, and even includes gestures. This prompts the thing to repeat its two questions again. The Naga gives up, and tries to push Tasha up in front of the avatar then. "Repeat after me," the frustrated reptile says. "F'sshrr scaa tic!ka Fessus ssaa."
Tasha lets herself be manhandled, raising a hand to a vague wave to the avatar when pushed before it. She eyes it inspectingly thereafter, peering at its design, its way of moving, the interetsing tentacle hair. "F'sshrr scaa tic!ka Fessus ssaa," she repeats, wondering if her Karnor head and long tongue help or hinder the sibiliant language. Well, she managed Vartan, and that's for beaks.
The avatar looks alive.. but so did the ProgMat avatars on Orpheus. It also just stares at Tasha in silence after her answer to its question for a few moments. Then it hiss-spits something else at her.
"It's asking for your name," Yue says, putting odd emphasis on name. "That is.. I suppose it means proper name."
"What did it say?" Tasha asks, leaning in a little and really getting a good look. She's particualrly facsinated by the tendrils, which she's only ever seen on Outsiders. She wonders at the connection, if any. "Oh. Well." She straightens and tries to look more proper about things, pointing to herself as the figure inspects her. "Aldara Tasha Argentine."
Another moment passes, and the avatar asks the same question again. Yue and Nessus go into a huddle to try and figure what it actually wants.
Meanwhile, Tasha resumes her inspection and tries her other names in case one suits. "Winged-Gift? Rustpuppy? Red?" She then looks back at Yue, shrugging. "Maybe it wants something deeper than a name? They're big on eyeballs and tentacles and body parts, maybe it wants blood or a retinal scan?"
"Okay, try this: Aldara Tasha Argentine a Karnor ab Human ab Eve," Yue suggests, "or Aldara Tasha Argentine a Vartan ab Khattan ab Mafdet."
"Am I picking sides? I feel like I'm picking sides." Tasha looks back to the froglike alien immitation and clears her throat, needing to prepare for this one. "Aldara Tasha Argentine a Vartan ab Khattan ab Mafdet." She does, after all, at least know where Mafdet is and that she's ostentesibly on her side, if may not for this and also sort of part of Atum now. Morever, she's stated to be Khattan and thinks changing alliegance infront of the group now would raise even more suspicion.
The avatar raises its tendrils and wraps them around Tasha's head briefly, then turns and sort of waddle-hops into the forest.
"I think I've been booked. I'm going to follow." And so Tasha does, turning to side-walk and wave back to everyone. "It's probably best if I go alone, since no one else volunteered." Her look is very dubious, but then she sticks her thumb to her nose and wigglers her fingers in a exagerated insulting gesture Gabriel and Yue are familiar with, given it's Terran.
"We're still a thousand kilometers from the temple-city," Gabriel points out.
"I'm sure they have transportation or something." The young woman shrugs her hands, as if to say it's out of her hands. That she has no idea. "If he melts in to the ground or nothing happens, I'll come back."
Instead, the avatar/guide hops behind a tree and vanishes. But then the trees start to move aside, opening a road that heads for a mountain that wasn't visible before.
"Well, that's like half a correct, right?" Tasha stares bemusedly down the road, shrugs all over again, and then waves everyone to follow as she begins walking.
Instead of following, camp is broken down and loaded back onto the bugs, which then catch up easily..
The mountain is deceptively near, or else is being moved or grown as the caravan approaches. By the time they actually reach the base, it towers above - but there's a large cave entrance at the end of the road. "So, do we just go in?" Dr. Farfle asks.
"Maybe we should check in with the hotel first?" The young woman makes an exagerated effort to look around, then shrugs to the Doctor. "How uncivilized, not even someone for our bags. Or anything! At all." Her hands fall and she thumbs back towards the looming cavern. "It's all of us go in, or just me, and everyone else camps out here and enjoys the mountain made for our convienece."
"We all want to get to the city," Yue reminds Tasha. "This is an archaeological expedition, after all."
"Well, I was mostly worried that anyone who didn't speak their name would get eaten by the ground-walls-buildings-question-and-answer guide, trees or, you know, everything. But," she steps back, spreading her hands to indicate the cavern. "It's probably safe to go inside, right? It is a city, so it must be for lodging? Maybe they expected travelers would have an entourage?"
"I think an old-Galactic patron would definitely bring clients along," Yue says. "And the entrance is big enough for the vehicles.. so I think it'll be safe. This isn't the city itself after all, just a cave or tunnel."
"This is so much easier when it's just me any the only one I have to worry about being eaten by things is myself." She'd have gladly gone alone, if not for the multitude of problems that would have made that unfeasible-to-impossible. "Well, lets head inside. I'll be glad to see something other than the same trees, and the lack of being able to fly is just unfair."
The bugs move in, and bioluminescent light illuminates the very bland walls. It's clear that the road is still going.. which makes it odd, since the mountain came into being before their eyes. The light doesn't reach the end of the tunnel, either - but the bugs have antennae feelers to prevent them from running into obstacles. "I hope we don't need resupplying while we're down here," Hakeber says.
"Maybe we should leave a team at the entrance. One bug and its crew, to fire flares and collect supplies?" It seems like a decent idea to Tasha, but her attention is primarily absorb by the wall of darkness ahead of them and what presumably lurks beyond. Alas, Vartan vision is of no help penetrating the dark.
"We're being monitored, clearly," Dr. Farfle notes. "I suspect this is another ocean event, now that the system knows where we are headed and why."
Tasha nods to this, though she doesn't turn away from her path. "Oh, sure, I mean we made the journey, met the guide, spoke the names, and now we follow the road to the holy city. I wish-- um, nevermind." I wish my earlier adventurs had been so easy, I could have really gone for a free road or a nice wind to get me places.
"I have to wonder if this is typical though," Yue says. "It's been easy so far. Does that mean it gets harder? Or is the system just lonely? Maybe it's used to dealing with thousands of people coming at the same time.."
"Maybe it's curious because it doesn't know what we are," Hakeber offers.
"Maybe it's not about challanges but about thinking about the journey. This is to meet a wise man and a god-mentor, it's not like other visit-and-pray sites that are just there to be seen and remembered. It's not a monument, or just one. This is interactive. It's a place for answering questions and seeking an end or a transition. The kind of holiness is different, as much about you as where you're going, don't you think?" Tasha thinks her idea is as good as any, and she thinks the otehrs may be right as well. They're certainly a strange bunch for a millions plus year old religious site computer, who likely hasn't had a visitor for ages.
"If it's about the journey.. well, we probably can't, or at least shouldn't try to turn around," Yue notes. "Always move forward.. into the unknown. The very dark and quiet unknown."
"I think if we try to leave, really try, we won't be coming back. Maybe they won't kill us, but they'll decide we're not serious and maybe they won't let us try again." And then they'll kill us. Tasha drops her voice, so only Hake, Yue and Gabriel can hear. "Well, I can't leave without what I came here for. I'd rather risk their wrath than his. He's a lot more dangerous than he likes to seem, and I think his power eclipses what these people have. All of everyone here."
"What do you think it meant by ascension-communion?" Farfle asks. "That term does not make sense to me. One is rising above, the other is coming together. And who are you talking about?"
Eeee," Tasha notes to Hakeber, cupping her hands over her ears Eeee-ears style and making a face before turning to Farfle. "Just my patron. You didn't think I was unsponsored, did you?" She then rubs her nose a moment, plants a hand on her waist, and thinks. "As for the ascending-communion thing, if the statue means anything, it could mean he eats you. I've heard of cults that consider eating or being eaten as holy. It might also mean psychic communion, coming together with the god's mind. Or, well, maybe you just sit and talk?"
"What about the ascension part though?" Farfle asks. At this point the bugs are just driving themselves, since there's only one direction to go.
"Well if a god eats you you're technically part of that god so you ascend that way." But Tasha shrugs with her hands. "I know, it sounds like a bad deal, right? But the statue's seemed to suggest it, and there are cults like that. It could also mean it eats you and spits you out as, um ... " She gestures vaguely at the nearest wall. "That stuff. Their, um, FrogMat. But, well, it's not like there's only one route to ascension. There's probably as many roads to ascension as there are gods, or at least some significant fraction there-of. My own sources say it might be similiar to Outsider religions, and those probably have their own ways. Have you ever met a Harrower? They can move planets, maybe the more advanced Outsiders can make gods -- uplift -- just as easily."
"Personal uplift, instead of an entire species?" Farfle asks, and seems to consider this as he watches the dark walls pass. "A huge city, but no way to support that many living beings.."
"I always assumed it was temporary, or maybe the people inside didn't need support. If they were made of FrogMat and purely digital, for example. The world can probably move resources underground, too, shifting their material to make infrastructure. I'm sure it's all very advanced and efficent." Tasha wiggles her fingers, indicating it all. "And sure, why not? Maybe Fessus was a 'persona' uplift. I've heard of ancients--" she doesn't say 'Progenitors', "-- with the power to uplift species all by themselves. One being can't be harder."
"Feed yourself to T'thogga, become Wellstone, like Tasha suggests," Yue offers. "But as yourself too. An immortal body to live in a magical city where everything you want is just a thought away? This could be meant as a sort of heavenly afterlife. Only your friends can come and visit."
Tasha nods to Yue. "They definitely not the only ones to try and do that. And not the only ones to merge with another being for a kind of immortality, either. I think they're both possible. But, I still think there must be something more. If it was just a afterlife, Nessus wouldn't be here and neither would Samael. They'd have their own structure, for people asking questions. Well, unless Nessus is 'dead' -- became FrogMat and retired here."
"That's assuming Fessus was ever alive," Yue notes. "Same for Samael. You were just told he's 'buried' here."
"We almost never deal with beings that can be called alive or dead," Hakeber laments. "At least we can hope these will be made of matter."
"Oh, right, Fessus. Nessus is our thief-snake." Tasha wonders how the coincidence occured, what the universe is thinking and if, perhaps, it's teasing her somehow. She wouldn't put it beyond her surly goat contractor to shift things for his own amusement. She nods to Hakeber, head shaking. "It's confusing, isn't it? Even this world feels unalive, like the opposite of undead. Living without life. But if Fessus is a corpse, how would I have an audience with him? Or, maybe the system is so broken it can't tell anymore?" It wouldn't be the first time Tasha has talked at a corpse, or a ghost or spirit for that matter. "My associates are weird."
"It doesn't help that Nessus chose his name from a Terran mythological figure," Yue says. "He did it to try and tease me."
"Well he's succeeded in teasing me." Tasha turns to Yue and arches her brows. "What does Nessus mean, anyway? Or Samael, or Fessus, if you know? Hake-bear explained something about my patron, so maybe he used names meaningful to me or what he forsees I'll have reason to find out."
"Nessus was a centaur - a mythological creature that had the body of a horse but with a human torso growing from the shoulders.. no relation to Vartans," Yue says. "He carried the wife of a demigod hero across a river, then tried to.. eh.. have his way with her, as centaurs were wont to do. So the hero shows up and kills him, but before he dies he tricks the woman into keeping some of his blood.. and anyway the blood ends up poisoning the hero and killing him, but he was accepted into the city of the gods afterwards. Terran mythology can be pretty weird. But our Nessus chose it to claim that the only way I could get 'to the city of the gods' - that is, to a really good First Ones find - first was over his dead body."
"I did not know the significance of the name," Farfle notes. "But.. it may suit his character. Are you certain you were not meant to be the wife he carried?"
"Fairly sure," Yue claims. "Anyway, another old Terran poet had Nessus guarding the River of Violence in Hell."
"That is weird." From what little Tasha knows of Vartan mythology, it's all been fairly straightforward and deals with the things Vartans value or do, which also tend to be fairly straightforward. "Well if he tries having his way, I'll be happy to chop him up for you. You know, because we're friends." She pats the hilt of her sword. "Hopefully he won't be guarding anything, but we should keep an eye on him anyway. I know thieves, and we're-- uh, they're always looking for an advantage, a mistake, some way to get something. If he's here, he may try to seize whatever power is here."
"And that might be bad for us," Tasha adds, brows lifting.
"Now Samael.. the name means 'Venom of God' in an ancient language," Hakeber notes, since she's more fluent in ancient religions. "The archangel of death.. known as a destroyer, accuser and seducer - and somehow both good and evil. And.. he resided in the Seventh Heaven, but was the chief angel of the Fifth Heaven."
"I hope it's not the /same/ Seventh Heaven." Tasha has, after all, been there in person. She has found that these tails tend to /exagerate/, or at least /misinterpret/. She suspects there's some wishful thinking, too, as she's also prone to do. "But if it /is/, we might know what know Samael's nature. The name fits with how the /others. identify themselves, but that he's working for my 'patron' would be /very/ interesting. They don't /do/ that. And, well, wow, archangel of death? ccuser /and/ seducer? He does /sound/ like someone the old goat would hire."
"But you know," and here Tasha tilts her head, "there are other beings from the Seventh Heaven, and they have been called angels. Running in to one of them would be a surprise."
"He's also described as so tall it would take five hundred years to walk the distance, and covered with eyes. Also he took up with Adam's first wife, Lilith, and spawned a race of demons," Hakeber rattles off. "So, you know.. all these traditions sort of overlapped a lot, and got applied to different things. Not sure we should read too much into it.."
"If I've learned anything, they should definitely be taken with caution. There's usually something to them, but whatever that is can be impossible to know until you get to the end." As Tasha did. "Well, lets keep going. Maybe there will entertainment and food?"
After dull hours of nothing but darkness, the tunnel opens up rather abruptly. And once the bugs are out in the open, the mountain begins to sink away behind them. There's no forest here, and the orbital ring is barely visible on the horizon - it's not as useful a guide to latitude as Sinai's Procession, which is a proper planetary ring instead of a skinny little rail. Ahead lies the only other city-like structure on the planet, suspended over a forty-kilometer wide hole in the ground by slender roads. It's a dark thing, darker than the stone of the equatorial city, and with a far less traditional sort of architecture. There are arches and helixes and a lot of asymmetric forms that seem especially disturbing, especially when mixed in with some far too organic looking ones. But it does almost resemble, in abstract, the squatting squamous frog-god T'thogga, if it were squatting at the center of a giant spider web.
So absorb in the peculiar site of the city as she is, Tasha doesn't notice the exit vanish right behind them. Instead she squints at what she sees, not for vision but out of a mix of interest, puzzlement, and alarm. The archiecture reminds her most of that common to Outsider cults, which doesn't come as any surprise considering an Outsider requested she come here as part of their bargin, to find its servant whom she also suspects is some form of Outsider. It is, however, different enough to warrant pondering its peculiar merits, or lack-there-of, and that it's so unwelcoming certainly puts Tasha more on edge. She wonders, too, that if she fell, would the world strike her down for trying to fly?
Ominous indeed.
"I like it, maybe we should redecorate the ship in this style? We don't have enough disturbing pillars," she remarks. No need to let anyone see her sweat.
"Are those flying buttresses or giant legs on that one.." Hakeber starts to ask, but then a flare is fired off from the other bug, where Gabriel rides. "Letting everyone know we're here, and getting more supplies before we cross into the city and wake up the others," he calls over.
"Okay!" Tasha then blows him a kiss, because she can't think of a single reason not to. She leaves him to his work, hoping their supplies don't end up taking a very slow trip to the center of the planet via the pit. "So, um, where do these giant holes lead? Do you think they throw people down them? Or that they have some industrial or religious significance? Maybe exhaust for their power system?"
"We'll definitely run tests as we cross," Dr. Broom notes. He's on the ground stretching his.. well his arms more than his legs. "They're just black pits from orbit, so who knows how deep they are. At that size, there should be weather in them, but.. weather on this planet is apparently managed."
Hakeber and Yue climb down as well. The cabins are a bit cramped after all.
"I kind of want to fly in one, but I feel like the planet would punch me." Tasha's been punched by a great many species, but a planet isn't one of them and she suspects it's out of her weight class. "Well, I'm going to go get a look at the bridge itself. Maybe something will happen if I approach it? Do you think Fessus has an itinerary?"
"I'm sure he's got an open schedule," Hakeber says, and follows most of the way. It's Yue that actually keeps pace with Tasha - a spacer isn't going to be afraid of heights, whereas Hakeber sometimes gets dizzy if she stands up too fast. The bridge is a thin ribbon - the material can't possibly be what's holding up the city. There aren't any railings or other safety structures, but it's wide enough for the bugs to go single-file across. It runs for fifteen kilometers before it reaches the suspended city itself.
"I think this is my longest bridge," Tasha asides to Yue conversationally. "I can't be sure though, I never got close to some of the others." She edges her way to the side, then drops down on her belly and leeeeeans over to get a look down the pit. She could stand, but she doesn't know what's in the pit, isn't sure she'd be able to fly out, and doesn't feel like taking any chances.
"I think the orbital ring counts as a bridge without ends," Yue notes, and looks over the edge as well. There's.. darkness. But it's an oily sort of darkness, with hints of rainbow color swirling dimly. There's no way to tell how deep it is, since the walls are just as black - it could a thousand miles or a few inches.
"Maybe there's a big Gateway at the center," Yue suggests.
"This is a really strange hole," Tasha notes, then reaches a hand down and waggles it around. "I can't even tell how deep it is, and I have no idea why it's got so many colors and looks like this. It's not a normal hole, anyway." She looks up now, ears perking. "You think so? That would be interesting, a Gate inside a planet. It does explain why they don't have any ships sitting around: They're all parked down below, around the Gate. It could also hold Samael, Hake did say he might gigantic. Of course," her eyes return to the hole, "I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to carry him back, if that's it."
"I suspect some sort of spatial distortion," Yue says. "It's.. tugging a bit at my psi sense. Gravitational warping tends to do that." Of course, Tasha is also familiar with that, to a less subtle degree, from her visit to the Titanic.
The memory makes her jerk her hand back, then scramble away from the pit. She eyes the hole with so small amount of apprehension, then hauls herself up, dusting herself off needlessly and straightening her outfit. "Hokay, that--" she points right at the pit, "-- is dangerous. Really dangerous! I know the tugging feeling, I've felt it before. There is this god-artifact back, uh, home. In a derelict. It pulls at your mind, your being, but what it does ... It flattens space-time. It chews up souls. Anyone who fall in is going to be gone."
Yue steps back, and rubs the back of her neck. "So.. earn immortality by giving up your soul?" she asks Tasha. "This doesn't feel that strong. But falling into it.. maybe that's the purpose. Sacrificial pits? Maybe this is the ascension-communion part.."
"That would mean the god is the planet itself, or somehow down there." Tasha takes another step back, just to be away from that soul-rending hole. "Maybe that's just where they toss people who fail, or maybe they use it to sunder a soul for other reasons. It doesn't feel as strong, that could be important, but you might be right that it gets stronger as you go down. Whatever it's for, the city being here isn't a coincidence. It could even be part of a cage that holds Samael, since normal restraints don't work on their kind. This--" she stabs a finger at the gaping maw of a hole, "--- this maybe could."
"Awful lot of effort to imprison something," Yue notes. "But.. we still don't know what controls the Wellstone. Spirits of the air, water and earth, right? Something non-physical.."
"The powers the Outsiders have -- especially the really powerful ones like Ogdru-hem and the beings above them -- can give civilizations control and influence beyond what they can do themselves. He-Who-Moves could relocate planets, and he was just a low-level Outsider. They're not all physical either, the Ogdru-hem have their specialties, their own powers. Samael might run this whole planet, that seems like a small part of what they can do." Tasha doesn't add her suspicions about what Thotep can do, not wanting to scare Yue -- or herself. She suspects, and that alone is unnerving. Well, better with me than against me. Though she isn't even certain of that thought. "I guess we'll know more when we head in to the city."
A shadow passes overhead from the supply drop parachute.. which doesn't look like it's going to fall into the pit of doom at least. "We'd better head back," Yue suggests. "Once that stuff is loaded up, it'll be time to cross the bridge."
"And we want to have our camp site on the other side." ... to avoid unnecessary trips across the bridge, Tasha also doesn't add. The pit, like that artifacts, scares her greatly, more so than the sum of its parts might normally. It's that fact she almost threw herself in, even if just by curiosity, that lingers in her mind. A warning, and a reminder. She had hoped to never see it again, save that she might need it as a weapon, and even then with great hesitation. To see what may be a world made of such a thing is disturbing indeed.