Arrival - Orha Who: Orha Duren, Albel Nox, Gerald Tarrant Where: From outside the city to within its fringe (When: Day 3 - Tues. 11 Dec.)
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His breath was shallow. He could feel the sticky warmth spreading down his front from where Carian had rent him through, even through his near-drugged senses. Sounds echoed dully, and it took an effort to focus on them individually. A word, a phrase, the keening cry of his raven. He could see Serina kneeling in front of him, bloodied and battered but still alive - but for how much longer? And it was all that he could do to force his hand to rise to her face. The Rheuma had finally come to claim him.
He did not fall. His legs were already turned to stone.
"My lady," he breathed because it was too hard to put enough force behind words to voice them. "It's already begun for you, too. You.."
"Don't you dare leave me now," she snapped, but there were tears in her eyes. Her attempts to heal him had failed. Her hands were balled into fists, but she wrapped her arms around him, instead.
It came as a shock to him - he saw Amila too easily in her face, especially now - but everything had slowed down too much for him to show it. He started to bring his own hands up to return the gesture, though he did not know why, but she'd already pulled back by the time they moved and they only just brushed her shoulders. "You should go to him." You haven't much time left yourself. "Calintz."
"Orha," she said, and there was too much behind it for him to read her. And then her face was gone and everything turned muddy. He closed his eyes. There was nothing more he could do.
But then he was falling, and he could feel his feet again just as he landed on his side. The pain in his chest was excruciating, but the dullness everywhere else had gone. He let loose a bitter, aborted laugh.
Serina came back again; he could hear her, though her words were still muddled even though they were no longer slowed. Strong hands turned him onto his back, and soft ones pressed to his chest where they slid and stuck against skin and fabric. They felt gentle; he imagined them to be hers as he felt Chi sweep into him. But it was too little - or too late. The wound did not reknit fast enough even with her great strength.
When he opened his eyes, it was both Amila and Serina kneeling next to him as a single person, their hands pressed to him. Their words tumbling past his ears. "My lady," he breathed again, but she hushed him. He could just make out the face of the Human kneeling next to her. Calintz. The Third Man was dead. The Tree of Light was destroyed. Both of their kind could now live free. "Take care of her," he managed. Calintz acknowledged his request and was silent; Serina wept. Both of their kind could now live in peace. "Peace." His purpose as a weapon was complete.
And then he closed his eyes again as everything faded. Even the pain was gone, and the soft snuffling of the Sister-Queen. It was peaceful.
He drifted for a long time. Perhaps hours had passed, or days. Or eons, or an eternity. There was no reference and no need for one - only the complete absence of anything. He drifted in peace.
But then there was a tugging, like the ebb and flow of a tide pulled this way and that by the moons. He still drifted, but now and again it was as if he changed course. And then even the drifting stopped as the nothing whorled and crashed, waves upon waves pushing him toward something and breaking over him and through him. Something with mass pressed against his back. It felt dense, but shifting, and the waves turned cool.
One crashed over him. Another. He coughed as it filled his mouth and nose and lungs, and through their chill, his muscles finally respond and he turned on one side as he struggled for breath. It was a minute more before he pulled himself away from the waves, and then he collapsed on his back again, exhaustion still dragging him down. But it had begun to fade.
Finally, he opened his eyes. Instead of nothing, Orha could see the sun shining down. He felt sand against his back, and it stuck to his bare skin. Water continued to sweep over his feet and legs as each wave crashed onto land. He could smell salt in the air and heard the wind sweep down to meet and mix with water. He could feel Chi all around him. It was old, very old.
Nude and alone, Orha rose to his feet. His injuries were gone; the gaping hole in his chest was healed as if it had never been. Mismatched eyes swept their gaze around him.
Surely he was dead. And so this was surely some form of afterlife.
The emptiness around him almost seemed an assent. The waves moved, under the impulse of gravitation tides. The sky above was almost colorless, with a hint of rose. The sand clinging to him, and under his feet, was volcanic black and it sparkled.
The emptiness was shattered as something cried overhead. Wings spread, the curve holding the air, as dark as the sand.
Startled - though by all rights he shouldn't have been - Orha looked up. The shadow slipped across pale blue, its mirror chasing across the sand. A second cry echoed in the emptiness, and he smiled.
As comforting as it was to feel the Chi around him again, it was nothing in comparison to feeling the link with his familiar. It was like warm feathers brushing against his very soul, the touch soft and silky and - somehow - more tangible that it'd ever been when he were alive. He raised his arm. The immense raven circled and wheeled, then dove to land on his forearm. Without the protection of his leather gauntlets, the bird's talons scraped the surface of his skin and tiny red droplets beaded up.
"So this is where we both go?" Orha murmured, drawing his free hand down the raven's throat. "Is Roxy here, too? Have you found her Steelheart?" It crooned in response, but offered no explanation.
The waves washed the sand, giving no better answer than the raven, The wind picked up, a little, coming in from offshore.
Somewhere, out beyond the whitecaps, nearer the horizon, something indistinct, and huge, breached and dove back down.
Orha followed the motion of the thing, far out past the cape; his raven turned its head to eye it, too, then stirred on his arm. "Fly," he murmured. He didn't need to speak to the familiar, so closely linked were they, but he did it anyways. The raven took to the sky again, circling and wheeling around overhead as if loathe to leave its master behind.
The wind felt cool against his skin. It'd nearly dried him by now, though the sand still clung to his legs and back. He brushed some of it off absently, uncaring of his own nudity beyond that with the evening hours it would likely grow cooler. Turning his back on the water, Orha started up the rise and away from the inlet.
The raven returned as Orha crested the rise. It had seen from above a habitation, though communicating the details of scale were vague rather than precise. What it had seen was vast. Vast, and empty. An hour's travel would bring Orha to the edges of it.
Pausing at its apex, the Yason took his time to scan the horizon in all directions. His vision was not as keen as his familiar's, but he was able to confirm what it had seen easily enough. There was a shadow on the distance. It was a different shade than even the black sand, and its unfamiliar architecture rose to pierce the heavens.
The terrain between the rise and the city beyond was not harsh. He started forward at an easy pace, marveling at how freely his muscles moved and the way the Chi seemed to flow, unhampered.
His travel to reach the city would not be without adventure. The land was wild. And there were inhabitants. Animals and insect life, some familiar, much not so.
Black stand gave way to dark soil - covered with grass and brush that was just a shade different than anything he remembered. He picked his path through it, avoiding where the briers were thick or the ground littered in stone shards even if it meant taking a longer route to bypass it. The dead had an eternity, after all.
His raven continued to soar overhead. Orha had let it know that it was dismissed, but still the familiar lingered; when pressing further, the raven seemed to believe that it couldn't disperse and phase away, unsummoned. The raven did not seem surprised, nor did it question this new change. It simply Was.
As trees broke the lay of the field, first many groves of small saplings and then dominated by great hardwoods, Orha found the trek forward easier. The understory was thin beneath the canopy. Though his weapons had been left behind with his life, he made do with a length cut from a fallen limb. With a sharp rock, he skinned enough of it for an easy grip. It wasn't much, but it was certainly better than nothing in case some strong beast crossed his path. He continued forth.
The lands around where the buildings commenced were wilder, almost as if things had escaped from the city and to some extent settled closer around it. With his raven's help, Orha was able to avoid the larger predators. When he found the first wall it was overgrown, but the substance of it showed no signs of age. By following it, he found a gap, or what appeared to be a gap.
There was something odd about the gap. There was a smooth path going through it, disappearing into the wilderness on this side, and on the other, curving towards the buildings. But the gap itself... shimmered a little.
Orha could feel the strange Chi as he approached it. It wasn't the same as the type that he felt so strongly in the woods, and it seemed to bend the other forces that surrounded it. Whatever it was spanning the gap in the wall reminded him of some barriers that he had known in Yason-Roven .. only not at all. His raven fell back at a wordless command. Orha stepped forward, the stick outstretched to pierce its faintly shimmering surface; his other hand was outstretched to match it if it proved safe.
Through the stick, he felt a vibration and the sense of something... viscous. The nothing in the gap shivered. But the stick didn't burn or sizzle.
Spinning his stick in his grip and letting it drop to his side, Orha reached forward with his free hand. The barrier felt cool as soon as his fingertips touched it; it shimmered and wavered beneath them. He pushed his hand forward.
The vibration became a tingle. It was a little unpleasant but it didn't burn, didn't harm. So far.
Growing bold, Orha took a step forward, plunging his hand- his arm- into the barrier.
The same vibration, tingle. The longer he stayed in it, the more unpleasant it became.
Withdrawing his hand, he cast an appraising glance over where it had been submerged. There seemed to be no damage in spite of the uncomfortable sensation, and the flow of Chi had returned to normal. With a signal to his familiar, the raven swept forward to scout the length of the wall, and what it contained on the far side.
With a cry, the bird wheeled upward, circling on the near side of the stony barricade until it had crested its top. It took several tries for the raven to cross it, though - as if the barrier itself extend toward the sky and deflected the familiar's approach. Even Orha could see the slight bending of the light when the raven swept close and was turned away, and he could sense its frustration through their link. But the barrier was old, and weathered. In some places it was thin, and in others it was as if time had eaten portions of it away. In those places, the raven could pass easily through and back again.
With one last appraising glance toward the sky, Orha stepped forward again, this time completely through the gap. He did not linger or hesitate along the path.
It was good, the not lingering. The vibration and tingle would have eventually made him sick with vertigo. But once through, there were no lingering effects.
It was less a barrier, and more a deterrent. But a deterrent running now without reason, without directive, and only because the power source it drew from was immune to time itself.
There were building and pathways between them, smooth paved, as unseamed as the wall had been.
Some buildings were close up tight, oddly shaped doorways sealed. Some were open, and utterly empty.
Some were... half gone. As if destroyed by some horrific force, but the remains removed, rubble cleared, missing spaces left empty. So empty.
But energy hummed here and there, through structures. Not above, but underground. Far far underground. The energy below was immense beyond measuring. Like the time that the city had lain empty.
Finding no life, and nothing that stood out at first, Orha wandered almost aimlessly between the buildings. Up close, the architecture was even more foreign than it had first seemed at a distance. It was completely different from any city in Efferia had been, within Yason-Roven or without. The lines were more angular, the windows and doors wide and sharp. Almost at random, he entered one that had not yet been ravaged by time or other unknown forces.
Rows of tables or counters - smooth and heavy and almost graceful in shape. There were as many triangles as rectangles.
Recessed into one wall, a panel, frozen, half open, exposing a recessed area beyond. Inside the recessed area, a pyramid shaped object, inverted, resting on a stand.
Dimly aware of his raven still circling without, Orha moved deeper inside. The floor felt cold and gritty beneath his feet; in spite of that, the surface itself was impeccably smooth, as if hewn from hard rock by magic itself. He made his way to the strange pyramid to try and discern its purpose.
It simple rested there, but something about the holder suggested it could be picked up, held. It would fill one hand if her reached inside to take it.
It wasn't even heavy, but somehow so incredibly solid.
Taking it in hand, Orha tested its mass. It, too, felt smooth to the touch, though there was a thick layer of dust covering its surface.
The cleaners had missed this one, half concealed in its broken enclosure. It was odd how a thing could feel dense, without being heavy.
As he held it in his hands, it woke. Lights played along the side, seamless and flush with the pyramid's surface.
Turning it over, he watched the light spread, waxing along all of its edges. He could feel the Chi within it, feel the way it drew from and bent the Chi surrounding it. It felt as foreign as everything else in this afterlife did, but he could find no greater purpose for the pyramid. He scanned the chamber around him.
As the pyramid woke, there were flickers of other awakenings, not visible but something he could sense. Behind wall panels there were more of these. A few had woken.
The one in his hand blinked with more lights, in a seemingly random sequence, as if needy for his attention to return.
It did not have its wish granted immediately. Drawn to the change in Chi flow around him, Orha stepped across the room. The lights from his pyramid cast strange shadows that danced all around and made them shift across the ceiling above. He could feel the way that the flow changed beyond and pressed one hand to the near wall. Feeling. Seeking. In his hand, that within the pyramid stirred further until he turned his attention back to it.
The lights blinked in random sequence and then.. repeated. The repat made in not random any more. Just complex. The sequence repeated a third time.
A toy, for a very small Krell child, it waited for the unfamiliar hand that held it to transmit a thought. Vague thoughts were acceptable. Samll children's minds were unformed, after all.
Still unknowing its purpose, even as a toy, Orha turned it over. His familiar gave a faint tug at his mind; it'd been scouting the city nearby and it, too, had sensed the change in Chi flows. The Yason's own response was to find what else was nearby, what else was within the deserted city. The vague thought was sent freely to the raven, but still touched the pyramid in his hand.
The lights shifted sequence and then a series of sounds vibrated out of it. The repeated, along with the lights.
The inquiry was too vague and the toy perceived only a desire to explore. It shifted to saftey monitor mode.
Momentarily intrigued by its new actions, Orha studied the pyramid closer. The Chi had shifted again, but felt no more useful than before. If anything, it seemed more lethargic, like a thing sleeping or even like a great mountain standing at rest. "Hmph," he murmured to himself, glancing toward the building's exit. "A pity I found this instead of some clothes." Though the protection of fabric was slim indeed, he still felt exposed with nothing to wear. It'd become even more noticeable once night fell.
The little object seemed to wake back up. The corner that pointed towards the door began to blink.
Orha did not pay the blinking corner much attention at first. It wasn't until he'd moved across the room that he noticed that the light would shift from corner to corner - but always pointing in the same direction. Turning it over in his hand produced the same result. It was almost as if the Chi within it were drawn in that direction, like a magnet.
He started to follow the flashing beacon.
Once he stepped outside, the light again seemed to shift in its favored direction, though its pulsing never ceased. Keeping most of his attention focused on his surroundings - his familiar helping further - Orha followed where the pyramid led him through the city. It took him first up one street and then down another, past doors that were sealed shut and buildings that had collapsed into themselves.
Finally the light shifted from the corner to the middle of each surface. Orha was standing inside a building, of which half the walls were gone. There was no rubble, anywhere. It had all been removed eons upon eons ago. But in the intact half of the building, there was a cylinder, as high as Orha's shoulder, too large to put his arms around.
The pyramid blinked in sequence and the side of the cylander split, after a moment, and the two halves moved apart.
There was something within. Folded lengths of fabric, in different muted colors.
One eyebrow arched, the Yason studied both cylinder and pyramid alike. Neither lept up to attack him; there was no ambush or trap. Orha set down the device and his stick to take a better look at the folded cloth. He was mildly surprised at the texture of the fabric. The weave was strong, but it slipped between his fingers smoothly. There were several large pieces folded up, each cut in a disc of varying size and each with a circle cut out of the center. Though muted in hue, most of them seemed to be varying shades of grey and tan and brown - earthy tones.
Whatever their original intent, the Yason knew what he would make of them. Giving the pyramid one last appraising glance, he took a pair of like-sized cuts of warm grey fabric, each folded in half, and tied them at his waist so they hunt in front and back. A third, larger piece of a brownish-green he brought overhead; it fell to his knees and would do as a makeshift cloak. While not perfect, it was certainly better than nothing.
As Orha bent to retrieve his stick and the strange pyramid, he suddenly tensed. There was a surge of excitement sent back to him through his familiar link; his raven had spotted something interesting. It was near.