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Something Out Of Nothing (Yu)

Started by Eckhart_Von_Musel, April 10, 2017, 07:37:16 AM

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Eckhart_Von_Musel

"Come on, work damn it!" Emilia muttered under her breath. She had been fiddling with this magic particle emitter for roughly half a day, and she was beginning to get sick of it. She'd stolen the device- meant to to create a decorative stream of colorful sparks- from a party that was being thrown by one of Darken Vei's richer barons. Of course she had been spotted, and she had holed herself up in a damp cave in order to escape the guards who pursued her.

"I feel like a fucking primitive." Emilia though angrily. She was trying to get the particle emitter to emit antiparticles, but she wasn't having any success. Of course, the only tools she had to work with were a few toothpicks, a needle, some string, and a fork, so her ability to fine tune the device were already severely limited. "If I can get antiparticles, and get them to collide with the regular particles, the energy it releases may restore my powers. The particles are minuscule, so the blast should be relatively small. E = mc2, after all." Frowning, Emilia ran a hand through her once silky blonde hair. "That is, if I can get this damn thing to do anything apart from change the color of the sparks."

After another hour without success, Emilia screamed in frustration. Throwing the device on the ground, she began to snap the toothpicks apart in a fit of rage. "Why wont it work?" she asked nobody in particular. Suddenly, the particle emitter began to shake violently, causing Emilia to look up in shock. "Is it working?" she asked as she picked it up. Upon closer inspection, she laughed triumphantly- it was working. "Yes! I still got it!" she laughed as the particles collided with each other.

The blast sent Emilia flying backwards into a stalagmite. It hurt, but Emilia didn't care. Immediately she attempted to summon her old powers back to her. Nothing happened. After a few seconds she tried again, to no avail. Emilia's eyes narrowed. "No! No! After all of that, nothing? That can't be right, I was sure it'd work!" Looking up at where the explosion had been, Emilia saw what appeared to be the smallest of wormholes disappear, leaving something behind. Confused, she began to slowly walk towards it...

Wac_432

In the dimness of the cavern, almost invisible behind the afterimages left by the flash of annihilating matter, a figure unfolded itself.

"What's this?" Queried a voice in a radically archaic elvish dialect. Not that it mattered, for the voice was inaudible to the ears of most living mortals. "Where am I?" The figure cast about, blinking in the dimness, taking in the surroundings.

Underground. Not the Chaotic Realm, or the plane of the Unending Maelstrom. Nor D'Or Oolim, at least not it's scorched and blighted surface. The figure waved an arm and a faintly glowing orb materialized from the air. In it's light, the countenance of a Elfmaid of indeterminate years was revealed. She was of jet-black hair and pale skin, washed of all color by the light of the magic she had summoned.

Irihi gazed at her reflection in the ghastly mirror oGhoul'shoul's Eye. Her thin fingers traced the runes inked across her brow. "What the kevak is this??" She asked no one in a voice still inaudible to the living. Then the runes seemed to twist, and her attention moved on. The mirror shifted to a spyglass with a wave of her hand, and with it she looked across the leagues, through leaf, bough, stone, and flesh.

No, this was not a realm she knew. There was nothing. No sign of the Legion of O'olam. No crystal cities burning in the midday sun. No blighted farmlands or mountains cracking and falling into the dark waters. No sign of the Monban, the Greater Fiend with which her coven had battled, just moments ago.

Moments? It did not feel like moments. It felt like ages... and...

...Loss

Loss so sharp and so unbearable that she sagged against the boulder beside which she stood, overcome with inexplicable grief.

Then the runes upon her brow shifted, and the feeling faded. As one waking from a nightmare, to find that none of it had been real, Irihi felt her grief lifted like a great dark cloud thinning to allow light and breath to return. The Elfmaid touched the tears upon her cheeks with confusion.

What had troubled her so? Something, a memory perhaps, at the edge of realization receded back into oblivion. Before she could think on it overlong, the runes twitched again and drove the thought fully from her mind.

"Where am I?" She queried the air again, silently. A cave, apparently. She looked about. Where was the battle-scarred farm upon which they had confronted the Monban? Where was the great rift in the earth her coven had opened, to dispatch the fiend back to the Unending Maelstromestrom?

Gone. It was all gone. Only she remained. Here, in this relatively peaceful land.

Now what?

Irihi allowed the Ghoul Eye to dissipate. Something had changed. She tried to take stock. Her connection to the UneMaelstromestrom was gone. Only an ashen trace remained. How had that happened? She could not sense the Destroyer of Worldes, could not tell if it had returned to the chaotic plane, or still rampaged in the ordered world.

At length, with the Eye no longer obscuring her sight in the physical planes, the Elfmaid took note of the presence of another in this damp sanctum. "Oh... hello." She squinted at the woman, still speaking in inaudible and probably incomprehensible Elvish.

Eckhart_Von_Musel

Upon seeing that the wormhole had left behind a living, breathing creature, Emilia became very exited- only to discover that it wasn't remotely close to what she'd hoped for. "An elf?" She recoiled in disgust. "Gross." The creature seemed to be in a bit of a trance-like state, so Emilia began to snap her fingers to get it's attention. After about thirty seconds, the elf finally looked at her. "Well, it's about time."

Emilia smirked when knife-eared freak began to flap it's lips wordlessly. "I'd be speechless too if I was the first thing I saw after coming out of a portal." she said smugly. "Why not take advantage of this situation?" she thought with a grin. "It's might be useful."

"I was the one who summoned you here." Emilia told the creature. It wasn't a lie- Emilia had summoned her- so there would be no reason for the Elf to disbelieve her. "I'm in a bit of a bind you see, and I need some... help in order to get out of it." Emilia had wanted to say "I need some pawns", but common sense help her back. "Elves are stupid, but they're not idiots."

"My name is Emilia Black-Hearth, leader of of the Black-Hearth Citadel and voidmancer extraordinaire. Who might you be?"

Wac_432

How bizarre. It was a uman woman. Irihi had not met many of them, nor did she care to, uncouth barbarians that they were. It had nattered something offensive at her in a strange dialect of Common. Then it introduced itself. Irihi was fairly surprised she could understand it at all. She hadn't spoken Common in... well basically never.

Irihi tried to answer her in kind. "My name is Irihi." and was shocked at how easily the words flowed. She'd only book-learning of Common from her years before...
...
...Best not to think of then...
...
...From when she was a child, then.

Yet here she was, conversing in the low speech as if she had years worth of conversational experience. Of course, unbeknownst to her, her voice continued to be inaudible to mortal ears.

The Uman said she had summoned Irihi. Summoned? as if Irihi were a Djinn? Well, it was not impossible, and perhaps the language barrier was distorting Irihi's understanding. She conjured the Ghoul Eye and turned its baleful stare upon the woman.

Irihi laughed silent and dismissive. No, no. This hairless baboon was as mundane as they came. She was as powerless as a newborn. Whatever had brought Irihi here, it was certainly not this barbarian.

The Uman wanted Irihi's aid. Probably needed her help starting a fire or skinning a rat or whatever Umans ate.

Ugh. No.

"Well, goodbye." Irihi said with silent airieness. She needed to find a Person to interrogate about this strange Land in which she found herself.

The sorceress breezed past Emilia, headed for the cave's entrance.

Eckhart_Von_Musel

Emilia's eye twitched as the elf proceeded to wordlessly dismiss her. She balled her fists. "Outrageous. Simply outrageous. How dare you ignore me?" Emilia began thinking of all the ways she could have killed the elf had she still had her powers, but stopped herself. "No. This creature is obviously an invalid, it wouldn't be fitting of someone such as myself to simply destroy it. Waste of effort."

Glaring at the Elf, who was now attempting to leave the cavern, Emilia decided to try again. "The antimatter explosion must have fried your brain, leaf-licker. Do you even know where you are?" Taking a few steps towards the woman, Emilia crossed her arms. "Can you tell me what would happen if a mage went to Connlaoth? Or how people would react if you badmouthed dragons in Adela?" Now smirking, Emilia began to follow the elf out of the cave. "If you want to wing it, play it by ear, be my guest. But if you didn't..." She paused for effect before continuing. "I'm right here."

"You'd better not ignore me this time you pointy-eared twat. I'm fucking sick of being ignored."

Wac_432

The Uman woman continued to prattle on about things, places, and customs about which Irihi neither knew nor cared to know. She gained the cave's exit with the chattering baboon still dogging her heels, now hinting at offering it's useless services as some sort of cultural escort. Geh! Irihi stopped.

Blowing a strand of coal-black hair from her eyes in annoyance, she turned. "I care nothing for the customs of Men." She said, silently.

Should they stand in her way, she would eat their pitiful corrupt souls and flatten their cities of mud and twigs...

Woa, where had that thought come from? Again Irihi's crown of tatoos shifted slightly, and the sharpness of her ire dulled. "And yet..." She regarded the woman before her. This Uman was only trying to help. What had driven Irihi to be so dismissive of her? The inkblack runes upon her forehead settled into a pattern that almost seemed contented with itself as Irihi's attitude underwent a radical swing.

"...You are right, I know not where I am." The Elfmaid admitted. Though her words were inaudible, the change in her demeanor would be evident to any observer. Her body language was suddenly, if not deferential, at least not as haughty and dismissive as before.

Irihi began a bit of a soliliquy detailing a bit of her background and peppering Emelia with silent questions. It would quickly become apparent that the Elfmaid had no idea that her voice was inaudible... or that she had become a bit transparent where the sunlight shafting into the cavern fell upon her.

Eckhart_Von_Musel

A smile played across Emilia's face when the Elf's demeanor began to shift. "Well, it's about damn time. That took far, far too long." Her head tilted to the side as she tried to read the elf's lips. "Okay, so she... she's not from this... this reflection?" she thought, confused by her own interpretation of the being's mouth flaps. "She wants... corn and soot? What?"

When the elf had finally finished, Emilia crossed her arms. "Oh yes, I understand completely." she said, not understanding a word of what was said. "My first bit of advice is simple. See, we're all born with these things called "vocal chords". Utilize yours, please."

Wac_432

Rather than answer any of her questions, the Uman woman interrupted Irihi with some indecipherable turn of phrase. It took the sorceress a moment to comprehend. That Emelia was telling her that she could not hear Irihi's words.

Was she deaf? Maybe it was a better idea to eat this Umans soul, after all. It was not as if Umans were completely worthless sources of necromantic energy, just weak and disgusting. Like slaying the scum on a pond or a flock of carrion birds. Irihi gestured to draw out the woman's life force.

The leylines felt different. Not just different but finer, more distinct. She could sense a subtlety to them that she had never known before. Yet, when she tugged at them, drawing at the soul of the woman before which she stood, they barely thrummed. Only the ethereal metaphysical presence of the living being responded to her touch. Emelia's vitality was firmly anchored to her living body. While she drew breath, Irihi could not make use of it. Her Necromancy was effectively neutralized.

Again, she summoned the Ghoul Eye, and turned its gaze inward.

Irihi gasped. She was shattered; her blackened soul was aught but a shell, and now she remembered why. She had bound it to the Fiend, and then cast it into the Maelstrom, dragging the Monban back into the Chaotic Plane.

This made no sense. She, herself should then still be tethered to the Greater Fiend. Yet that leash was burned to ashes. She could sense the traces of it trailing from her metaphysical presence, but they were as torn cobwebs, trailing into the  ether. They went nowhere. Her connection to the Unending Maelstrom was gone. How had that happened?

Again, the runic tatoo upon her forehead writhed, and the question receeded from her consciousness.

She had no magic. She had no allies. She did not even have a voice. " Καλά με γλείφει. " She said, arms akimbo.

" You are worse than useless. " She said to the Uman. " Would you be so kind as to kill yourself so that I might gather up your soul, dear heart?" She asked, partially as a test to ensure she was completely mute, and partially because that WAS how this ape-woman could make herself more useful to Irihi.

Presumably getting a negative or no response at all, Irihi turned back toward the cave's entrance. As she did so, a shaft of late afternoon illuminated her. Almost immediately, she faded mostly from view.

" Oh, you're Καλάing kidding me! " As the sunlight drove her into the spiritual plane, the world changed. The walls, sky, ground all faded into darkness. Afternoon birdsong gave way to a deep and pervasive moaning, as if from a mournful gale blowing across high mountain graves. Streamers of black smoke skirled from rock and tree like obscene prayer flags flapping in an unfelt wind.

Irihi knew this place. She oft looked into this plane through the Ghoul Eye. She was in the land of the dead. Literally one foot in the grave. Through the dark landscape now surrounding her, luminous figures meandered; spirits of the departed, ghosts, remnants, malevolent spirits. There were always a great many more of them about than anyone would care to know.

Out of this dirgeful landscape came one point of light with greater purposful stride than the others. It headed straight for Irihi. Before the sorceress could react, it stretched out a luminous tendril toward her hand.

Irihi popped back to full physical presence in the physical world right before Emelia's eyes. And now she was hand-in-hand with a small being goblinesque in both stature and features.

" YICK!" Irihi jerked her hand away with a silent shriek.

The goblinoid had tears running down his craggy cheeks and snot dribbling from his elongated nose. " Oh! Oh! M'ilady, m'lady! At last I hath found thee!" He cried, fully audible to mortal and spirit alike.

Eckhart_Von_Musel

Emilia felt something odd in her chest as the Elf made a subtle hand gesture towards her. It was a very light tug- barely noticeable, but it was there. "Was that supposed to do something?" she sneered. "Apart from making it plain as day just how pathetic you are?" Inside, however, Emilia grew worried. "That was an attempt to take my soul- I've seen it before, it's unmistakable." Her eyes narrowed. "I need to be careful with this one."

The Elf flapped her lips some more and waved her arms, causing Emilia to laugh derisively. She was about to insult the lesser being further, but the knife-eared freak abruptly faded from view. "Oh, shit, an invisibility spell. An attack is coming." She frowned. "I wish I had my sword."

Emilia quickly scanned the cave for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon. She ended up settling on a rock by her feet, and she held it awkwardly in her hand. "Gah, I hate this. I look like a complete buffoon." she muttered. Emilia took a defensive position, waiting for the attack she was sure would come...

And then the Elf reappeared where she'd been standing before- with a friend. The small green... creature was possibly one of the most disgusting things she'd ever seen, and she ended up instinctively throwing her rock at it in disgust. "Ew! That's entirely disgusting, why did you bring it here?"

Emilia glared at the elf, who seemed to be just as offput by the sniveling creature as she was. "Dare I ask if this vile animal has a purpose?"

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