What's this? Sensible, logical thinking from my subscribers? Skylar shook his head and chuckled. Maybe they all got hacked. Still gasping with exertion from his use of the Devari's power, he struggled away from the wall he'd been leaning on and tried his best to make his way silently back to the door he'd seen the other man investigating. Hope I don't get lost. Well, even more lost than I already am.
Skylar paused, mid-wobble from one sewer doorway to another, and blinked. Huh. That's... actually not a bad idea. Well, I can at least try to contact the other Devari, at least. He slunk into a cul-de-sac and closed his eyes, trying to contact the blasphemous presence which had been invading his mind just moments before. Let's see. Timurus? Can you hear me? He tried a few more times, but only silence answered him; he pondered, trying to recall the names of the other Devari. What was it? Uh... Vesuvius? No, wait. Virsus. Yeah, that's it. Virsus? You out there, buddy?
He tried a few more times, but didn't know the names of the other Devari and it didn't look like any of them were listening regardless; it might be something unique to Timurus, if s/he is the only one who can manipulate dreams and sensations. So I'm not actually hearing his/her voice -- just having an auditory hallucination. Great.
He might have staggered around the sewers forever, but at one point a whistling breeze caught his attention; following it to its source, he found himself staring at a five-foot hole in the thick masonry of the sewer wall, with a cold breeze and a horrifying thousand-foot drop on the other side. Note to self -- do not trust structural integrity of areas near the breach. He tensed, realizing that the Professor might still be nearby; but a quick listen informed him that there wasn't anyone else within hearing distance, at least. Better make this quick then.
He scuttled over to the door, but his efforts immediately ran into a sizeable roadblock; not only was it locked, but the keyplate for the lock was a blank shield, with no place to even introduce a key or a lockpick. That's weird. Maybe it can only be opened from the other side? He crossed his arms, thinking.
Skylar pondered the door, scowling; was this going to be those "telling a lie so convincing the universe believes it" magic systems? He pondered trying to use Weir against the door -- maybe I can convince it it's unlocked? -- but the thought immediately sent a pulse of nausea through him and he had to fight viciously on his knees to avoid vomiting for nearly a minute afterwards. Okay. Fine, got it. No more magic for a bit.
He looked around for the bag the Professor had dropped, but there didn't seem to be any sign of it; maybe he bailed? However, a quick search near the Giant Death Hole turned up a shard of glass with a few droplets of purple liquid still preserved in its upright concavity; maybe I can use this.
Picking it up was nerve-wracking enough; but carrying it to the door was even worse, with the gut-wrenching fear that he might at any moment drop it and maybe disintegrate the floor underneath his feet. But his luck held; he was crawling on his knees for additional stability by the time he reached the door, and he held his breath as he ever-so-carefully tilted the shard of glass to put the small bead of purple solution up against the brass lockplate. Sure hope he doesn't choose exactly this moment to come back.
Astonishingly, however, everything worked out perfectly; the tiny drop of solution hissed and reacted exothermically with the door (as Skylar scrambled pathetically to get away while not getting anything on him), and in a few moments the door's entire lock apparatus was exposed, with about half of its constituent elements eaten away by super magic space acid or whatever this vark was. Skylar squinted into the smoking, blackened hole, carefully triggered the lock catch with the shard of glass, and gently pushed the door inward. Frickin' sweet. Oh sweet, I can say 'frick'.
The room within looked like a heavily secured storage room; he saw a large assemblage of gear piled up on the floor directly near the door (almost blocking it, in fact) and rows of shelves full of boxes, mostly cardboard-like crates; he pulled one towards him and was hit by an intense fungal smell. Dried mushroom. Well, guess they don't have too many trees.
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The boxes were all labeled, but the writing was completely unfamiliar to him; swirls and loops mixed with sharp angular contours that seemed alien and strange. Great. I can't read the language here, even though I can apparently speak it. Learning to read all over again will suck. Carefully, he closed the door behind him -- don't want the Professor spotting me here if he doubles back -- and began looking through the boxes for anything of interest.
Yeah, maybe there will be some clothes in here. My options are pretty limited, though -- I need the coat for Darkvision and not-dying-of-stab-wounds, and Aymon said that just wearing black wasn't enough to really get me in trouble. But it might be nice to have some options. Unfortunately, none of the first few boxes he rifled through contained anything of value -- it seemed primarily to be unreadable papers and rusty, bloodstained knives or clubs of low quality. Weird. What is this place?
Finally, his search bore fruit of a different sort; one box contained a number of papers showing the interior mechanisms of the lock of a large safe, and was accompanied by a small rolled-up leather kit. Immediately upon seeing it, Skylar's fingertips began to itch; he could barely contain his excitement as he unrolled it to discover a set of sharp, well-oiled lockpicks and other thieves' tools. Sorbnek jackpot. He rolled it back up and stuffed the entire kit into one of the jacket's inner pockets without hesitation; now I'll have a lot more options if I get locked up again, or need to get through any OTHER doors. Although that still doesn't explain why I feel so drawn to thief stuff...
As the thought drifted across the feed, Skylar's body locked up; he felt himself stop breathing, and had to force himself to relax. As awful as it sounds, that's possible; taking over somebody else's body would explain the situation I found myself in, as well as all this newfound affinity for larceny and acrobatics. Good luck finding my old body, though -- Re:Inc probably burned it after yanking out all the organs worth anything. Come to think of it, I haven't even seen my new face; wasn't there a mirror or something in that box a few rows back?
Skylar, hands trembling, made a quick half-turn and forced himself to remain calm as he opened up the box in question and retrieved the item -- a flat disk with one side polished and the other covered with concentric runes and a triangular projection. Kind of like a flat sundial. Wonder what it's for? He held the disk up before him, trying to catch his own reflection in the polished backing, but there wasn't enough light and his darkvision didn't reveal anything in the reflective surface. Fratz. Is there another exit with a little more light?
Half-turning, he started to head away from the door behind him; but his hand slipped, and the little disk almost fell to the floor. Luckily, his quick reflexes saved him; he snatched it out of the air, pricking his finger on the little raised triangular bit as he did so, and an electric jolt snaked up his spine without warning.
"Ow! What the... Agh!" Skylar doubled over and pressed his palms to his eyes as light -- warm, searingly bright light -- stabbed his retinas; he panted for breath, gasping and groaning, until his abused irises managed to recover and filter out enough of the ambient illumination for him to see again. He blinked, looking around -- did someone turn on the light? -- and halted in confusion.
He wasn't where he'd been a moment ago.
Instead of a dusty filing room, he was now on a large stone slab -- perhaps fifty feet across and twice as much in length -- looking down upon a huge battlefield. Elves, Loathborn, and other creatures he couldn't identify were locked in fierce combat -- slashing and stabbing each other with weapons, shooting and killing each other with arrows and slung stones, and even unleashing weird sorceries on one another -- in every direction around him. He spun in a circle, marveling; they're all trying to get to the center of this thing. Up this big hill...uh, onto the hill I'm on. Oh fratz.
He whirled, looking for somewhere to run or someone to ask for help, but what he saw only confused him more; the sun, unobscured by clouds and swirling with black-and-white lightning, loomed above him like the eye of an angry god; his face twisted in confusion as he tried to comprehend what he was looking upon. What the fratz? I thought Gram stole the sun a long time ago?
"Hey! Oh, you gomdak. Get down!"
Abruptly, a hand seized him from behind and thrust him forward onto his face; he had an abrupt awareness of a crossbow bolt sailing through the space where his head had been a moment ago, leaving behind a bright painful sear of injury across the top of his left ear. "What do you think you're doing, sakpa?" A familiar voice hissed.
Skylar blinked, half-turning; Levan was holding him down, growling as he glanced around for more threats; behind him, Skylar could see Reine and Aymon fighting some other figures in black robes, surrounding a tighter inner knot of some activity he couldn't see very clearly. "What? How did you know I was out?" he gasped before he could control his mouth.
"Out? Out of what?" The Loathborn spared him the briefest of suspicious glances, then leapt up to hack down a clawed thing -- all teeth and fur and long talons -- wearing a black robe. "Stop vishnat around and help us stop the ritual, Zuzan!"
The ritual? What ritual? He craned his neck, trying to see over the fighting, but it was impossible; he had to duck another arrow and was about to start running for cover when something completely impossible reached his ears.
There were two voices.
They were having an argument -- an argument that he felt he could almost understand -- but both of the voices were extremely familiar. One was a girl's -- low, urgent, and snarling with emotion -- but the other was flat and quick, snapping out responses like a whip. He'd heard it before, much more than the other voice, and knew it better than any other voice in the world.
Because it was his voice.
He whirled again, staring directly at where he heard the voices coming from, and what he saw strained his brains to their breaking point; himself, grabbing Amara by the shoulders and shaking her furiously, while she grappled with him and howled accusations he couldn't make out.
That's me. That's me, over there, but I'm me over here. What in the actual vark ...?!
Then, something shifted -- something huge and unknowable and both nearby and far away -- and the battlefield was split by a tremendous disruption which sent all the forces fighting below into an even greater frenzy. Skylar, looking around, at first didn't recognize it; but, after a moment, his brain parsed through the strange un-sound and recognized it as the voices of the Devari. But where they had been a whisper in the underground temple, they were now a roar -- howling, screaming, or shouting about something he couldn't understand -- and he clapped his hands over his own ears in a futile attempt to drown out a sensation that was neither physical nor auditory, like a knife cutting directly into his brain.
From overhead, there was a ripping, tearing sensation -- not a sound, but something more thermal or magnetic -- and he looked up just in time to see the sun, engulfed by black lightning, vanish out of the sky. The elves in the armies below let out a massive, despairing cry, and Skylar screwed up his eyes and clenched his fists at yet another assault on his senses. In doing so, his thumb came down hard on the triangular protrusion of the disk a second time.
Then, as suddenly as it had all begun, it was over; he was huddled on the floor of the dusty storage room again, gasping and trying to marshal his executive function against the crashing punishment it was repeatedly experiencing. How am I back here? Illusion? Timurus messing with me? But the wound on the top of his ear was very real, and still bleeding; he looked at the disk in his palm, trying to make sense of it. Was this what the Professor was after?
Angrily, he shoved the disk into the pocket of his trenchcoat and crossed his arms, trying to puzzle everything out. More questions. If I took over somebody else's body, why does my voice still sound the same? What was all that, a memory? Or did I get transported somewhere else and then put back? He pursed his lips. Amara said I should think about the fact that I can't know what I don't remember, but I don't know how much I trust her -- especially after what I just saw. Is someone -- maybe the Devari -- messing with my memories? But if so, how can I trust anything?
WHAT NOW?
