expiationlogs | In walks the villain of this tale (closed)

Entry tags:

In walks the villain of this tale (closed)

Who: Fandaniel, Octavian, Dante
Where: The Aetherochemical Research Facility
What: Fandaniel starts to process the fact that previous Chosen lost their souls.
Warnings: Violence, death, gore, suicidal ideation

[In a dark room sealed off from the glowing corridors of the Facility stands Fandaniel. Before him, stretched on a table with his arms and tail in shackles, lies a Rumpiturian. The snake creature stares blankly at the ceiling in a daze, unaware of the metal cage holding his torso open, revealing heart and lungs.

He is alive but only barely. Fandaniel watches the reptilian eyes and trembling heart, eager to see if there is any sign of the scalekin seeing beyond the void, but there is nothing. There is only an empty, glassy stare from a being that doesn't have even a trace of aether.

The Ascian looks back over his shoulder at Octavian who is, quite literally, haunting his laboratory.]

Nothing. Nary a trace of a soul.

[He grimaces, unsure how to feel.]

If this creature ever was a Chosen, it is little more than data now. 'Tis no more real than the street lamps of Aldrip.

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[This place feels... alien, almost. The architecture, the lights, the patterns, the displays... Like K Corp's facilities but twisted, its colors bathing its insides in neon blue. It's one thing to see a place like this on a screen, another thing entirely to be walking around inside.

Dante grips the chunk of quartz in their coat pocket tighter. The little robot that greeted them at the entrance is welcoming enough, and it's not like anything in here has been outwardly hostile (not that there's a whole lot of people in this facility to begin with), but there's something... off here. In a way they just can't put their finger on.

And as they step into the doorway of that dark room and lay eyes upon the vivisected snake man strapped to the table, their stomach turns. Not at the gore, no. They've seen more than enough of that to last a lifetime on the WARP train alone. There's just nothing good that can come of any of this. Not in their experience.]

< Should I... come back later? >

[Octavian, haunting the laboratory as one does, has a little notebook in hand while he lingers (hovers). His note-taking style is incredibly arcane, that is to say, he has very scratchy handwriting and forcing a physical pen and paper to continue to acknowledge him makes it worse, but whatever he's writing is probably useful. He's been hanging around occasionally humming with interest while Fandaniel "works," briefly just staring at the vivisected man whenever he seems to twitch more interestingly than before.

The violence of this thing they're doing doesn't bother him; that this man is most probably going to die kind of does, but...

Well, technically he's only taken notes. It's fine. He glances over when Dante enters, giving them a little wave. Hiii.]

You've already come in. [so why bother leaving now..... anyway, danny and the snake man,] Do you think the soul is what corrupts. When she changed them it was already too late.

[Fandaniel leans forward against the table and groans.]

"She?"

[Octavian thinks of the AI as a she?

Never mind, it's not important.]

Ange told me the corruption was already taking hold 'ere we performed the reset. Were I to dare to hope I'd say mayhap it has now been purged.

Should it come again, however...

Corrosion of the soul would turn the Chosen into meager data, tools to attend to the next round.

Yes. It makes some sense, I suppose. Our souls are anomalous to this world. Everything else is but ones and zeros.

[The Final Days erase the soul as well, so maybe this fact shouldn't bother him but it does. At least in the Final Days, he knows he brought everyone down with him in a fiery whirlwind of panic and despair. For one moment, for one heartbeat, all of Etheirys felt his pain before dying horribly. That is poetry. It's theater.

It also allowed Fandaniel to die as he wanted to. For all of his long life, he'd known the fate that awaited him if he did nothing. The Unsundered might succeed in their Rejoinings and he would become a gestalt creature, both Hermes and Amon. If he endured, maybe he would grow to be more Hermes over time. That would be the only identity the Unsundered truly valued.

...And if the Unsundered failed and he died to the might of a great hero, he would be swept away into the aetherial sea and reborn.

Either way, if he did nothing he knew the man who would end his story would not be the one who began it. He's determined to be the one who ends it.

When he steps away from the table, a mad cackle peals from his throat with a sound like cracking ice.]

Ahahahahaha!

All of us, brought here against our will only to, in time, become mere objects, our essence reduced to naught more than data in the dreams of a machine!

It's--

[He twirls in place and finally sees Dante in the doorway.]

...Are you aware you have a clock for a face?

[The eyes that gaze upon Dante are wild. Fandaniel isn't insane but he certainly seems to be going there in a mad hurry.]

[...Yeah.

Yeah, they came at a bad time. ...And what's Octavian doing here?]

< I, uh... Yeah. Yeah, I'm... aware. >

[The ticking accompanying each halting, translated word comes slower and slower.

It's not just the observations that Fandaniel is making. That gnawing feeling in the back of their head that something's about to go wrong is growing stronger--along with another, familiar feeling. One that surely couldn't be possible here. Right?

They pull the chunk of quartz from their pocket and hold it up, shifting from one foot to the other. Maybe if they're lucky, one experiment will shift to another, and all this will be forgotten?

...Probably not.]

< I brought the crystal you were looking for. Um, your robot let me in. >

[Their head turns slightly in Octavian's direction, flames flickering. There's no expression to read, but they hope something about them manages to signal the ghost for a little help.]

[Octavian hums an affirmative, although vague; it's hard to guess what he's quietly agreeing to over there in his haunting spot as he dutifully jots down another note ('meager data'...). It's the "she" part, actually, because yes he does—if only because Root seemed to be running with it, and he rather likes Root.

He glances up from his note-taking as Fandaniel... carries on a bit more, around the cackling; that's probably a concern, but then again, it tracks just enough with what Fandaniel had told him of his origin before, and so: he can have a little cackling, he deserves it.]

...

[He's still taking notes. Hold on.]

...Catastrophizing rather quickly about it. Our base incompatibility with this world could be... hm. Weaponized.

[A raised eyebrow, like, maybe? If the soul truly was the thing that corrupted before, surely they could reverse it somehow and use their own essences against the machine dream. It's a big maybe; he's not really a computers guy.

But alright, alright, he sees and acknowledges the Look. Pivoting,]

What is the crystal for.

The crystal is, I hope, a way to avert catastrophe!

[Fandaniel sways up to Dante and daintily plucks the quartz from their hand.]

I am of the mind that we must begin preparations for another corruption as soon as possible.

The quartz, properly charged, may be able to resonate with my soul. If so, it could be used to contain my aether and my memories as a mmm... backup, of sorts! Or as a potential weapon.

[At this, he holds a hand out to Octavian. He's about to launch into a monologue when a low hiss fills the air.

Looking over his shoulder, Fandaniel sees the Rumpiturian's reptilian eyes blink. The serpentman writhes as the anesthesia starts to wear off.

"Releassssse me..."]

My goodness, there is so much happening.

Ah, give me but one moment, pray!

[He smiles at Octavian, then Dante, then spins on his heels and walks back to the table. As he approaches it, all cheer fades from his face. His eyes grow as dark as the space between stars.]

Terribly sorry! Normally I would love to sit a moment and converse with a fascinating creature such as yourself but, alas, I simply do not have the time for you.

[Without waiting for a response, the Ascian seizes a scalpel from the table and drives it through the softer scales under the serpentman's jaw. The Rumpiturian is twitching and hissing a death rattle as Fandaniel turns back to Octavian and Dante again.]

Right then, where was I?

< ....... >

[The clock ticks, but no words accompany it.

There are many things Dante doesn't know, and many more that they don't remember. But if their time in the City has allowed them to learn one thing, it is this: how to identify a killer.

Fandaniel's moves had been simple, quick, and precise--almost automatic. A single move with an improvised weapon. It's the sort of "art" they can picture Ryoshu appreciating, when combined with the gruesome vivisection the snakeman had already gone through.

They're not... surprised. Not really. For all the sympathy they'd had for the man when they first spoke to him, they'd been able to tell almost immediately that there was something off about the guy. But this does put them in significantly more danger than they were in before.

...They also can't help but notice that Fandaniel only mentioned himself when it comes to this "backup" plan.

And that Octavian still isn't worried about all of this. The perks of being dead...]

< You were... talking about making a backup. Not that I know how you'd go about making a backup for a soul, much less how to shove it in a piece of quartz. >

Ah! Yes! Right!

[Fandaniel wags a finger, first at Dante, then at Octavian.]

A soul is composed of two parts: aether and memory. So if I can copy my own into this quartz a "backup" of my essence should be possible!

Admittedly, this is all theory. It will, in all likelihood, be dangerous. I may die or fall comatose but my soul, at least, should remain safe.

[Then he addresses Dante's second concern, though without knowing.]

If I can find a way to copy my essence into crystal and do so safely, then I should be able to do the same for others, if they wish for it.

A brilliant plan to circumvent total annihilation, would you not agree?

[—Ah, there it is, the murder. Octavian drifts closer to the now dead subject, lingering there and looking down at him as the other two continue about the quartz. He's listening, he is, but soul or no soul, he does feel it's, hm, at least passingly considerate to spend a moment acknowledging this man neither of them intended to see leave with his life.

He doesn't write any notes about this, lifting his gaze back to the others once he's spent enough time trying and failing to reconcile the expected death with the "he didn't have a soul left anyway" concept. Well, he's already joined the team, so - alright. Quartz.]

You believe a copy of yourself is real.

[It's a question, because Fandaniel had just briefly lost it over their shared fate as empty data shells, or however it works. Octavian moves over to peer at the quartz, then, tapping it with the end of his pen. Hmm!]

How do you place the soul into a new body.

[How in the world does anyone know what a soul is made up of to begin with? Does it even count if all of them have been digitized?

They can't help but feel the gap between their knowledge and those two's growing into a vast expanse...]

< That's... actually a good point. And if everyone ends up unconscious or dead, how do you get them back out? >

My, my! I was not prepared to be met with such doubt!

[Fandaniel looks back and forth between his two companions and blinks.]

Soul extraction and implantation is not an unknown science on my star. I am something of an expert in the field, in fact.

'Tis the containing of the soul that is the most...delicate.

[For a moment he is silent, staring into the middle distance as he rolls Octavian's comments around in his mind. Is a copy of himself real?

He wordlessly turns to walk back over to the dead Rumpiturian.]

As for the realness of a copy...

A copied version of my soul shall have to suffice if the me who exists now fades away.

I do not fear oblivion. No... I welcome it!

[As he speaks his voice lacks the darkness one might expect. It is light and airy as if he were telling a joke. Like most cosmic jokes it seems to be at his expense.]

But my life's work was not done just so I could whither and forget who and what I am.

[Somewhere within the depths of his fiery mind, Fandaniel feels something snap like a steel trap.]

There is but one rule for the final act of my tale: I must be the one who takes the final bow 'ere the curtain falls! Not Hermes, not some distant creature who might have once been me but me.

[He as he is now. Fandaniel, the sundered Ascian who had lived a mortal life as Amon.]

So... Containing my soul has to be enough and it has to work. I cannot become this-

[He gestures at the Rumpiturian.]

It must not end this way. I will not allow it.

[When he looks back over at Octavian and Dante, his throaty voice still has its usual playful lilt but his eyes are too bright with barely contained laughter to be sane.]

[Octavian shrugs; not doubt, not necessarily, but confirmation - he supposes. Generally he would like to know the steps before committing to them, particularly when it comes to matters of the body and soul, of which he is direly lacking in the one department. So.

Okay, maybe it's a little doubt. Still.]

Admirable dedication. Dedication does not guarantee results. Alas.

[Still, he's not opposed to the concept. He waves a hand.]

Your stance is not so outlandish that none could relate. [Like, literally, he himself is only still here because he was too offended about dying before he finished his own work to actually leave-- he does get it, on that level. He looks at Dante, gesturing at the dead creature on the table.]

What do you think. To be put in a rock or to die a hollow thing.

[A familiar feeling begins to blossom within, distracting enough that they startle at Octavian's question--which distracts them from that nagging feeling in turn.]

< Huh? Oh... I... >

[What would they choose?

What is a soul, really? If memories make up part of a soul, can they have been said to have lost theirs the moment they gained this clock of theirs?]

< ...The rock, I guess. Not that I'd want either one, but at least something could be done for me if I was in the rock, right? And I'd kinda prefer to keep on living... >

[The feeling grows, a dull ache at the back of their head. It's almost as if...

...Resonance? Here?

Octavian seems to be acting like normal (as far as they can tell) but, Fandaniel...]

Splendid! I am delighted to see you both agree.

[Fandaniel walks back to the middle of the room, idly bouncing the quartz between his gloved hands.]

"Put in a rock" is so misleading, though. Remember I did say a copy of your soul would be implanted into a stone. You will continue to live your life.

...If the backups must be used we may all lose our memories of the circumstances leading up to the corruption but I'd prefer that over losing everything.

[He smiles a wild smile and turns his attention to Dante.]

Are you quite alright, my clocked-faced friend? You seem perturbed.

< I'm more worried about you right now, to be honest. You got pretty intense there. >

[And if he keeps going...]

< Why don't we sit somewhere else for awhile? Talking about all this in the same room as a dead body's probably not helping us out any. >

[Once again, they look to Octavian for support]

Put in a rock, [Octavian says again, mildly, because that's what it does sound like to him. There's also the part where the awareness of the copy is immaterial to the immediate awareness of the original, and he doesn't take nearly as much comfort as Fandaniel seems to in the idea that some version of himself will theoretically continue on.

Like, so what? He cares about this version the most, actually! But whatever. Dante is troubled; Octavian stares at them equally as mildly for an extra beat, before he clues in that they want him to say something like-]

The body is a distraction. True. Let us retire to someplace with fewer dead people in it.

[ha ha.]

Oh, I am sorry. I got intense?

[Fandaniel feels a giggle bubble up in his throat.]

I suppose I must take this situation less seriously for the good of my heart. Yes, let's...

[The giggling rings from his lips with a sound like glass shattering a mausoleum floor as he walks out of the room.]

Let's step back into the light of the Facility, shall we? Let's turn our minds from the corruption that may take hold in the AI's code at any moment and...and talk about something foolish instead!

[Before he can say more, laughter sweeps over him at the absurdity of everything. Here they are, trapped in a simulated world where nothing is real except their souls and even those might eventually decay. And he can't stop laughing.]

Ahahah...

AHAHAHAHA!

[The laughter rises into a full cackle that bounces off the gleaming walls of the Facility. It burns his chest and throat, his eyes water and in the back of his mind, he sees flashing red text. Error. Error. This is the world where his long existence may end, not with the grandiose spectacle he wants but slowly and quietly. And his companions want him to be less intense.]

If--If--haha--if we can't take th-this with the utmost seriousness of--of-HAHAHA

Excuse me, one moment.

[He places one hand against the small of his back, bows forward elegantly then screams. He screams long, loud, and hard until he empties his lungs. The shriek fills the Facility with a harsh echo.

After waiting a few heartbeats, he rises from his bow and falls silent, waiting to see if more laughter comes. It doesn't, but his eyes have gone dark with madness.]

No, no, I think my reaction is reasonable.

Edited 2024-10-13 04:21 (UTC)

[It's as if Fandaniel's scream has torn a hole in the world.

Golden light gathers behind, bright but not so bright as to be blinding, coalescing into a nebulous portal--a door open to all present, but beckoning only to one.

And as they witness this all-too-familiar sight before them, Dante's ticking quickens in pace]

< No, no, no... Not now. Not now! >

[Well.

A lot of things are happening at once, it seems. Octavian is content to move to another room, has already started to drift towards the door, when it seems as though the other two both have some differing kinds of mental collapse at the same time.

The screaming is a lot. The door, upon turning back, is bizarre. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, considering) Octavian's ability to feel truly shocked has mostly left him, in his time as a spectre, but he does still look concerned as he sidles back over towards whatever this is.]

Well. One of you is going to have to explain.

[Fandaniel looks toward the portal's golden light feeling strangely transfixed by it.

Not long ago he'd been running laps around the hot springs without a scrap of clothing on. He'd felt less naked then than he does now, with his eyes locked on the glare.

Without fully turning his attention to Dante he says...]

...Yes, my dear clock.

Please do explain.

[Is it too late to run? ...Knowing their luck, it probably is. The door to the Fathoms isn't likely to close on its own, either.]

< It would take a long, long time to get into it, so... >

[How to put this in a way that would leave them in the least amount of trouble?]

< To make a long story short, that door leads to what we call the Fathoms of Ego, and it, well... I guess you could call it a projection of a person's mind? It happens in my world sometimes, for, um, reasons we're not entirely sure of. >

[It's not totally a lie. They don't know why or how the Golden Boughs react as they do. They're just... not mentioning the cause.

Especially not when, as far as they know, there's only one Golden Bough here.]

[Octavian considers the glow and then Dante in turn, not nearly so transfixed as their other companion. It seems like an interesting thing, rather, it seems far more interesting for how Dante did not like seeing it turn up. Who could blame him for being more curious about this lovely golden door when the only person who knows what it is seems very opposed to its presence?

Something to touch. He would like to touch it. He hums. First,]

Dreadful response. Vague nearly to the point of offense.

[Dante you will never be a scientist. Anyway, he turns to Fandaniel,] We were going to relocate anyway. Shall we.

A projection of the mind, you say? How fascinating!

[The light of the portal reflects in Fandaniel's silver eyes, making them appear gold-ringed and demonic.

He smiles and waves a hand ahead of him.]

Well! We cannot simply ignore such a brazen invitation to explore the depths of my fabulous mind, can we?

[And with that, he prances up to the portal, gesturing for Octavian to follow him.]

I can think of no better place to converse away from the ears of the dead.

---

[What greets Fandaniel first is total darkness. If not for the feeling of rock beneath his boots, he'd think he was in a void. Then he notices lights flickering on far off in the distance, like stars dotting a night sky.

He walks toward them, not caring if he encounters a sudden chasm and dangerous drop in the inky black. Such a fall wouldn't be deadly for a man who can fly, anyway.

He walks for what feels like hours, but is only a couple of minutes before he arrives at the source of the first light: a metallic slab of ruined wall lit up with glowing neon patterns. It sticks out an angle from the ground where it is half-buried.

The area around it is illuminated enough for Fandaniel to see thick layers of clay at his feet and jagged cliffs overhead. He knows where he is before his mind recalls the name "Azys Lla".

When the others reach him, he is knelt in the clay, clearing clumps of it away from a large, spherical object buried near the ruined wall.]

< Wait! >

[They reach out, but the two have already entered. And though some (very frustrated) part of Dante would like nothing more than to throw their hands up and leave (and they should! This situation is dangerous enough without there only being three of them!), somehow they find themselves dashing after, disappearing into the Bough's golden light.]

---

[It's as familiar yet different as ever, and yet somehow it seems a little darker in here than what they're used to. They can only imagine what the Sinners would have to say if they were here with them now--have to imagine. For as much as they've been trying not to rely on them as much, especially now, when it's just them, Dante can't deny that their expertise would be more than welcome.

But Octavian and Fandaniel are researchers within a researcher's mind. So surely that has to count for something. And while it doesn't mean the three of them are safe, they don't sense any Peccatula nearby either.

They'll take it.]

< What are you looking for? >

[Octavian has no expectations for what they'll encounter walking into this place, but what seems to be a void is... hmm. Perhaps unsurprising, after Fandaniel's bottomless pit of a laughing fit mere moments ago. He drifts along at a slower pace, since someone ought to linger behind a little and wait for Dante to follow them both in here.

But only, like, a little. He considers the cliffs above and then the half-buried wall, and wonders if perhaps the rest of the walls of this structure are up there somewhere? How literal is this palace of the mind? Should they be waiting for a metaphor?

Ultimately it's Fandaniel's landscape to give meaning to, so after Dante asks their question, he comes to crouch nearby Fandaniel and watch him dig in the clay. He sticks a finger in the clay himself; it's certainly "real" to all of them, isn't it... hmm. Another big dang orb though, huh,]

Second question. Was this another laboratory.

[Fandaniel hears, and feels in Dante's case, the questions drift to him as if through a dream. For a long moment, he doesn't respond, he just keeps digging.

Finally, the sphere lights up and levitates into the air. Its glow casts light into the surrounding shadows and the sky itself, fully illuminating the landscape around the trio. They sits near the edge of a floating island, overlooking numerous other islands and rocks hanging in the sky. Black birds with long, forked tails wheel and dip through the clouds below.

Before them looms an airship the size of a small city; a twisting mass of inorganic material. On the horizon beyond it, a shimmering crystal tower reaches proudly into the sky.

There is a pervasive feeling of death and stillness no matter where anyone looks. Fandaniel's mind projects the image of a once well-loved civilization, a place where he drowned himself in his work, that is now long dead. Ancient machines, some still grinding through their programmed routines, are covered in thick layers of dust. Gleaming buildings sit half buried in wind-swept earth.]

It was a laboratory, I suppose.

[He says, rousing himself from his dream-like state. A small grin arches across his features and he lifts his arms, gesturing around them.]

Welcome, my friends, to the testing ground of creation at heavens' edge: Azys Lla!

[Only one other time has Dante ever felt so small--a tender in the middle of one of the Great Lakes; a massive, pallid creature; an eye like the abyssal night, as all-devouring as the creature it belonged to.

This is not the same. The Pallid Whale had left them with a sense of insignificance for that one brief moment before Ishmael's too-passionate orders had drawn them back to reality. This... This graveyard of air and steel, with its metal spectres wandering in circles lost to time, existing because there is nothing else to them but to exist...

Even knowing Octavian and Fandaniel are here as well, they cannot help but feel... alone.

Abandoned.

Hollow.]

< Testing ground of creation... >

[One whose days had long been left behind. A question forms.]

< Creating... what? >

Life, of course!

[He walks to the edge of the cliff and looks out at the looming shape of the tower.]

The ancient Allagans experimented in chimerobiology, melding the flesh and aether of different beings to create entirely new creatures.

[His voice drops into a low hum.]

And they experimented in creation itself, I suppose... For the greatest scientific minds of this facility discovered a means of creating substance from nothingness.

[At the time his heart had leaped with excitement when he learned the aetherochemical formula for creation magicks, which he had named the Genesis Expression. Now he wonders if Emet-Selch had pushed him toward that discovery somehow, gently guiding him to one day bring about a Calamity.

Fandaniel rolls his stolen sinewy shoulders in a shrug.]

In its day this was a thriving metropolis of discovery and research... Alas, Allag is no more as you can see. Nobody has walked these ruins in thousands of years.

[It looks like it... and it doesn't. Ancient and dead, yet surprisingly sturdy. Enduring, despite it all.]

< I'm not a scientist--as you guys have already made sure to tell me--but... is it really possible to make something out of nothing? There has to be some kind of cost involved, right? >

[As Dante and Fandaniel continue into the Fathoms, the scene around Octavian shifts. Skies darken and solidify into stone, stars streak together and become glowing crystal.

Octavian stands in a tomb with a monolithic stone sarcophagus in its center.]

[Fandaniel shakes his head and waves a hand through the air.]

The cost was aether, which exists across all creation in abundance.

'Tis almost poetic...

With the proper aetherochemical formula, something can be created from nothing and in the end to nothing it returns.

All of us, regardless of our origins, return to nothingness.

[As he says this, world around them shifts. Stone surfaces become jagged and knife-like, the lights of the lost civilization dim and the skies darken to night. Above them stretches an expanse of stars and looking over the side of the cliff shows another stretch of stars below. The islands of Azys Lla appear to float through empty space. What was the remnant of Allag is now a shattered ruin from a destroyed planet.

Fandaniel crosses his arms. The air around him and Dante feels heavier now. The Ascian doesn't speak, he stares ahead as if gazing upon something at the far end of the universe.]

[He isn't wrong. As much as they hate thinking about it, he isn't wrong.

People live and strive and lead their lives. And, in the end, they can be killed in an instant. By accident. On purpose. At the hands of an enemy or a friend or a stranger. The people close to them mourn... and life goes on, uncaring, dragging itself forward inch by bloody inch until that too will one day fade.

And so it does, to a sky with more stars than Dante has ever seen--real stars, not the ones they see when searching for their own. Diamonds twinkling on a field of black velvet. Clear and...

...and surprisingly cold.]

< And what's this place? It doesn't look the same as the last one. >

[Fandaniel continues to stare through the darkness between the stars in a daze. This... is a darkness he knows. It isn't just an absence of light, it is an absence of anything at all.]

Mmm?

[He turns and looks up slightly at Dante.]

We appear to be nowhere. This, my ticking friend, is the end of all things.

[Which raises a few questions.

He rubs his chin in thought.]

Why don't you tell me? 'Tis time to explain this "Fathoms of Ego" phenomenon in more detail.

Edited 2024-11-15 02:32 (UTC)

[His answer doesn't make much sense to them at all, but maybe it's one of those things that's not supposed to. Something symbolic, something wholly belonging to that person alone.]

< I can't tell you everything. But it's as I said before--a projection of your mind, in a sense. What drives you and defines you... What makes you "you." >

< We don't fully understand what makes the entrance to the Fathoms appear--or at least I don't. I've seen people break down with the Fathoms never appearing once, and I've seen people acting fairly calm only for an entrance to appear. >

[Of course, the word "acting" could be doing all the work in the world.]

< But I think I can say this: every Fathom I've been in has had a story it wants to tell. And it will make sure that story is heard. >

[A breathy sigh then he lifts his chin and looks at the sky as it continues to darken, stars slowly blinking out of existence.]

So, nothingness is what makes me "me", is it? How charming.

[But it's accurate.

Fandaniel's fatal nihilism, his despair, even his inherited memories from his first lifetime all come back to nothingness. Everything ends. Everything in time becomes nothing. No matter how vibrant a life or how glorious an empire's reign, it all ends. Generations pass, old lives are forgotten as if they've never happened. And the path to that ending is full of pain.

...What is the point to any of it?

His eyes drift to the side, watching the stone of the floating islands lance outward into violent, knife-like formations.]

Well, if we are about to witness my story 'tis bound to be brutal indeed. Brutal and odiously long. You've nowhere to be, I trust?

< About as many as you do. >

[An attempt at lightheartedness just as hollow as Fandaniel's own.

They aren't used to this sort of oppressive emptiness, this darkness that grows and slowly swallows all the stars in the sky. Even those Fathoms painted with death spoke to the existence of life that must have been before. But here... Could life possibly exist in a place like this?

They take it in one last time, commit it to memory, and turn to face him once more.]

< As for the brutality... I can handle that. Don't worry about me. >

[He probably isn't, but it feels like the right thing to say.]

You can handle brutality, hm?

My. What an unfortunate life you must have...

I know the solution to such misfortune...

[Die.

If Dante's life is so brutal, they should just die. That's what anyone with a brutal life should do. It's what Fandaniel should do, if only dying wasn't so difficult for Ascians...

Oh the horrors he's seen, oh the horrors he's committed...

As his mind drifts back across the centuries, the world around him and Dante darkens further. Stars vanish, and the lights of ancient machinery flicker and fade. After a few silent seconds pass, everything is veiled in inky blackness. Fandaniel lifts a glove but cannot see it. Once more, he feels like he'd be floating in a void of nothingness if not for the sensation of solid mass beneath his feet.

A chaotic sound suddenly cracks through the oppressive silence. At first, Fandaniel cannot immediately identify it. It seems to him like a baying of hounds mixed with a magickal hum and the grinding of machines. Then the cacophony forms into words; a single voice howling through many throats.

"You think me an aberration, do you!? Denials are futile - I can smell your vile thoughts!"]

Ah.

[He knows who this is.]

Dearie me, 'twould seem my dusty old memories are conjuring a phantom from my past. This woman will be a gruesome sight. You may wish to avert your eyes or...

Say, what do you see through?

Edited 2024-12-03 20:43 (UTC)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

In walks the villain of this tale (closed)

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cw: violence/death

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For Octavian

Sorry for the wait!

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