Chapter 132: 132
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Zeke said. "I was put under Geas, so I can't say much. It's kind of funny that even creepy things like... that supernaturals have their own version of NDAs... Basically, you went nuts. We fought. You won once. Pushed some stuff, along with whatever made you nuts, into me. We went back and forth a few times but it was pretty fun. Then, whatever made us go crazy was...taken away but the rest was left inside."
There was the vague shadow of events within Orison's soul. Impressions of a little pain, a lot of adrenaline and a sense of having fun were there. Fun might be a bit of an understatement but as far as Orison was concerned, it could stay that way.
His life seemed to have certain reoccurring themes but this didn't feel like a rehash of 'can't remember what I did to Ivan'. That was a primal urge to suppress a competitor, to dominate. This was dark and destructive chaos temporarily funneled into a less life threatening expression that wouldn't have stayed that way for long.
If they had been lost to it, one of them would have killed the other or they would have went elsewhere on a killing spree. They may have handed ice cream with razor blades in it to nuns and children for all he knew. It was like an urge to explore any repressed whim. Fortunately, they were both fairly self contained people so there was a lot of ramping up before it would have went full dark thirty.
While Orison had been lost to thought, Zeke had went outside and grabbed a piece of charcoal from the potbelly stove. While the young mage watched, the ex-mercenary sketched out a rough but relatively decent sketch of a thin scraggly woman on a skeletal horse followed by three black dogs. Next he drew the cabin and something oozing out of it to the feet of one of the dogs.
Once Zeke was finished drawing, he said, "I go to kill a killer and claim what was taken from us. For as long as it is mine, you will be honored... That was the message. Ssss...He wanted you to be lead into certain thoughts. I don't think that's fair... Sss...He called the horse Erabna, if that helps?"
Orison sighed. "It's the reversal of my horse summon, Enbarr. She's one of my, I guess you'd call it spiritual children. Does she think of herself as a male or only wants me to believe she is?"
Zeke shook his head and held up two fingers as he said, "I can't cheat it like that."
Orison said, "Did she look sad or scared?"
Zeke said, "None of the above."
He tried to say more but couldn't. Instead, he drew a caricature with a wide smile and even went so far as to poke a small hole in his thumb to give it red eyes before swirling it with the charcoal."
While Zeke took a military shower, he painted the imagery of twisted plant life and animals. At night, living shadows stalked the earth with animated corpses. There was undoubtedly more to worry about but the ex-mercenary's forays had been brief.
Orison absorbed the information as the militant man suited up. The process was momentarily interrupted with the need to remove a few splinters. By this point, the young mage was so numb to playing doctor that any embarrassment from the sensitive nature of such a practice didn't even faze anymore. In an effort to 'fit in', Zeke had learned to be reserved but embarrassment was more of an affected behavior than a legitimately felt emotion.
"Natural blond, huh? Congratulation's on the brown dye job. It looks really natural... But why?" Orison commented in mild curiosity.
Zeke said, "Got a lot of gray really early. I was sensitive about it. Especially since I was kind of on a personal quest to try to experience the misspent young adulthood I never got to enjoy. It didn't go so well... The lion can decide to lay with the lamb, so to speak. But the lambs weren't having it, I guess."
Orison said, "Well, then good news for you. After my medicine and largely due to the supplement bars, you could pass as your own son from the time we went missing if my guess is on point."
Zeke stopped inspecting all the zippers and snaps on his suit. "And what guess would that be?"
"That it's somewhere around the mid to late eighties out there," Orison said adroitly.
The ex-mercenary said in a stunned voice, "Twenty years gone, just like that?"
Orison nodded. "Give or take."
A few minutes later, they were making their way down a gravel road on two bicycles and armed with guns. There were a couple of additions to the arsenal that Orison was fairly sure were illegal but there was no use worrying about that in their current situation. As they headed east, looking for an actual paved road, there was an eerie silence but no sign of dangerously twisted animals.
In a low voice, Zeke said, "I don't get it. There were a lot yesterday. Now, except a creepy looking plant here or there, I don't see anything."
An old woman suddenly appeared a bit further down the gravel road, right as a paved one came into sight.
She said, "That is because they run. Twisted or not, there will be no life here by tomorrow."
Orison peered at the withered face in front of him and exclaimed, "Zora!? What happened?"
She laughed sadly and said, "There are too many questions and not enough time... Here, take this."
Zora handed him the mini trainer. Ever since he had arrived here, though it had been there, buried in the soil with the capsule, it wasn't functional. He'd never gotten around to fixing it and had forgotten about it.
She continued, "The first division holds information for you. The second is for me... You'll understand soon... I, of course, could not stop you from seeing what it contains but it might be uncomfortable for you to experience several years of life for an active, married woman but suit yourself... The third holds Jammers. If you care for the sweet lad, do not disturb that part.
"If you do what needs done and the trainer holds no further use, break it to free him. He can always fix it for you again. And I believe it will hold more use to you once it is empty."
As Orison revved up to spit off some questions, she raised her hand and a circle lit up around them.
Zeke was about to rush her to stop whatever was happening but Orison held him back. "I trust her."
As the circle finished invoking whatever eldritch forces it commanded, the ex-mercenary muttered, "Yeah, but why should I trust her?"
Zora said, "It matters not at all. I am done."
A film of obscuring, slightly negative energy coated them. She pointed to a spot in the sky and turned to dust. All that was left behind were her clothes and a clean, folded garment made of sheer silk-like material. Zeke looked where she pointed while Orison picked up his over robe, wondering how it came to be in her possession, lamenting whatever cruel fate brought her to this point.
Not seeing any point in wasting time Zora said they didn't have, Orison activated the first part of the trainer. Moments later, while his head still reeled with the information stuffed into it, he looked at Zeke. The man was still staring at the sky, slack jawed.
Far to the north there was something enormous in the sky. It was slightly obscure by the fading blue of distance and sunlight but Orison could make out a little of its features. A moon sized object slowly fell. Around it were massive drifting tendrils and at the center of the mass was what appeared to be an unopened eye. Looking at it directly was not a good idea and Orison had his suspicions that the coating of curse-like energy was to protect them from the subtle hints of corruption radiating off of it. Considering that not too far under it was their destination, it was pretty much a given fact. What he had seen from the information shared to him, he was going.
Orison turned to Zeke. "Stop looking at that and listen to me... You have two options. You can go with me to where that thing is falling, risking madness, mutation and oblivion for a chance at a better life or you can do something else, anything else. It would be preferable that you did it as far from here as possible, the Antarctic for example."
Visibly shaken, Zeke said, "Why would you want to go there?"
His face an unreadable mask, Orison said, "Better a quick oblivion fighting for a chance at a real life than to be trapped like a rat on a slowly sinking ship. The dark tide is closed now. It's just going to keep rolling in til the pressure swallows and disperses all life, at least life as we know it."
The young mage didn't wait for an answer. He just swung his bicycle north and took off, over robe snapping in the wind like a lazy flag. A whizzing of tires against the road in rhythmic pumps preceded Zeke's appearance by Orison's side.
The ex-mercenary merely said, "What's the objective?"
Orison said, "An artifact in the main temple. As for what the main temple is or where the artifact is located? I'm fairly certain the first will answer itself. The second will probably be the deepest and hardest place to reach by statistical average."
Not too far up was where Zora had parked the car she had driven. Taking the key pinned to the over robe off, Orison started the car as Zeke whipped around to the other side.
"What about the bikes?" the ex-mercenary said.
Orison just gave him a look and waited for the man to shut his door.
Playing with the radio for a bit once they were on the road, Zeke tried to break the silence and the growing tension. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised the radio doesn't work, the vents won't open and the windows handles are broken off."
Orison said, "Everything about this car, or as much as can be, has been carefully prepared to give greatest advantage. The radio doesn't work because listening to anything on it would expose us to outsider communication. The vents and windows are stuck shut to reduce exposure to harmful things in the air... If you look in the back seat you'll see a dozen smokeless ashtrays running on batteries. That alone proves she doesn't see everything but the sentiment is touching. Put your helmet on."
Orison activated his own as he explained. "There's a bit of a breathing enchantment on it. It doesn't work the way its supposed to but it'll keep you from being oxygen starved when we're fighting later. More importantly, it's significantly more effective than those things in the back seat."
It took hours of driving and two stops to put gas in the car from the cans in the trunk, as it would be too dangerous to pull into a gas station or interact in any way with natives that they did see from time to time. They weren't the only car on the road and they weren't the only ones wearing helmets. Orison had to school Zeke to act more blase to keep him from reacting to those who weren't.
A few miles before the gas would run out, Zeke asked, "Why are you wanting me to pour out the pop bottles onto the floorboard?"
Orison sighed. "I don't see where it matters after you dropped the one you were p*ssing in earlier but we can use them as silencers for our guns... Default targets are me, my left and you, my right. If there's an odd number, I'll let you pick up the center. Twelve o' clock is default starting point for any situation that it makes sense in."
He'd never seen Zeke in action mode but it became obvious that the man was, in fact, an adrenaline junkie.
With a chuckle, the militant guy said, "Keep talking dirty to me."
Ignoring Zeke's attempt at humor, Orison said, "See the electrical tape in the glove box? I need you to fix the bottles onto the gun barrels...Yeah, good improvising. I should have known the bottles wouldn't... Are you seriously f***ing the bottle necks with a gun barrel!? You know what? I don't care."
Zeke sighed. "Your stress is getting too high. Take a deep breath."
Orison's voice turned cold. "You're right. Just keep in mind that we have less than five miles before the car runs out of gas."
The ex-mercenary frowned. "Don't do that. Whatever you just did, switch back on. That's lazy mental programming. That'll screw you up if you do something regrettable while you're like that. Better to feel it all the time than all at once later. Adapt, don't disconnect."
Emotion came back into Orison's voice as he said, "Is that a trainer's professional take?"
Zeke said, "You're damn skippy it is. Assassins have been using that trick since the dawn of time and the few that survive to retirement end up people who can't stop killing, suicidal or straight up nuttier than a fruitcake... It breaks you."
In the last couple of miles before the car rolled to a stop, the scenery drastically changed to something alien. It didn't even feel like they were on earth anymore. It looked like something out of a sci-fi horror movie, a high budget one.
"Hold your gun behind you and clamp your other hand on your dominant wrist. I don't really know why. It was bland instruction with no reference. The kind I hate the most," Orison bickered.
As Zeke looked around, he said, "Is it too late to find religion?"
Without humor, Orison said, "The only kind of gods who answer prayers here, I don't think you'd appreciate the blessings of... Strike that. A bit of true faith would probably serve you well but I don't know if that's something you can just drum up from nowhere."
Zeke said, "I know you know I was trying to be funny. You taking that serious makes me nervous."
Orison said, "You may have meant it as a joke but it has a real answer. Faith is powerful. I've seen it in action. I just don't understand it. I don't think it's meant to be understood... I'm not cut out for faith. I like to analyze things too much."
Far in front of them stood two hooded figures that became clearer and more strange the closer they got.
The young mage whispered. "Don't attack unless they leave us no choice. Killing or even making them lose consciousness will alert others. I want to try something first."
The one on Orison's left held out an irregularly bulging gloved hand and made guttural sounds at him as a weak wave of psychic force probed him. Orison responded by sending a sharply focused suggestion that he and Zeke had said or did whatever needed to be done for passage through. He may have lost the glamour but his ability to affect a single target had only gotten better with ritual practice. He wasn't too shabby at sending out a weak wave of simple, passive suggestion either.
Orison was worried that they'd notice Zeke's gun or that the man would break his hand lock to move it out of sight but the man used ingenious angling of his body to take advantage of blind spots and line of sight blocking. It was quite a feat considering that a two liter bottle was by no means small. It helped that Zeke took a bit of a gamble and moved in front of Orison despite the two 'guards' differing to the young mage.
Once they were past the first line of 'manned defense', they felt a sensation as if they passed through a magic border. Whatever it was for, it slid over their curse coating like water over an oil treatment. It was no surprise the secret societies couldn't get anyone close. The security measures were insidious and subtle enough that the infiltrator would be taken unaware before they had a chance.
Orison had no doubts that a person, once identified as an intruder, didn't have long before things escalated beyond coping. He just hoped they wouldn't join that number. He had it on good authority that this was the most relaxed it would get before 'the end'. They believed they had already won.
There was little doubting that considering the giant eye in the sky wasn't exactly going to go away just because something got blown up or destroyed. Whatever event was going down here wouldn't be stopped a cultist sneezing on a chant phrase. That was certain.
Looking around, trying his hardest not to look up at the madness and terror inducing sight above them, Zeke said, "Big pyramid with dead bodies all over the place?"
Orison sighed. "The one surrounded by thousands of mutated worshipers? Where else would our goal be? I really wish it was that half destroyed cafe over there. There's nothing going on there... I don't see any signs of impossible geometry but just remember what I said about corners that look too long or other things that'll grab your attention and rattle your brain."
Zeke said, "Corner of the eye only. Two girls, one cup. Got it."
No sooner had he finished speaking, the ex-mercenary fell flat on his face.
Orison looked at the same line of sight and realized he was looking at a corner of the pyramid and saw nothing wrong with any of the five sides of its four corners. That is, until it registered to him that it had five sides and only four corners. His mind could still filter that despite not having a sub mind anymore and wondered if it had something to do with what he had become.
Either way, he now had to find out how he was going to get closer to his goal while dragging an unconscious person with him. He locked sight on the procession of sacrifice presenters and suddenly felt that Zeke's sudden nose dive wasn't such a bad thing after all. Hooking the man under the collar, he started making his way to the line.
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Zeke said. "I was put under Geas, so I can't say much. It's kind of funny that even creepy things like... that supernaturals have their own version of NDAs... Basically, you went nuts. We fought. You won once. Pushed some stuff, along with whatever made you nuts, into me. We went back and forth a few times but it was pretty fun. Then, whatever made us go crazy was...taken away but the rest was left inside."
There was the vague shadow of events within Orison's soul. Impressions of a little pain, a lot of adrenaline and a sense of having fun were there. Fun might be a bit of an understatement but as far as Orison was concerned, it could stay that way.
His life seemed to have certain reoccurring themes but this didn't feel like a rehash of 'can't remember what I did to Ivan'. That was a primal urge to suppress a competitor, to dominate. This was dark and destructive chaos temporarily funneled into a less life threatening expression that wouldn't have stayed that way for long.
If they had been lost to it, one of them would have killed the other or they would have went elsewhere on a killing spree. They may have handed ice cream with razor blades in it to nuns and children for all he knew. It was like an urge to explore any repressed whim. Fortunately, they were both fairly self contained people so there was a lot of ramping up before it would have went full dark thirty.
While Orison had been lost to thought, Zeke had went outside and grabbed a piece of charcoal from the potbelly stove. While the young mage watched, the ex-mercenary sketched out a rough but relatively decent sketch of a thin scraggly woman on a skeletal horse followed by three black dogs. Next he drew the cabin and something oozing out of it to the feet of one of the dogs.
Once Zeke was finished drawing, he said, "I go to kill a killer and claim what was taken from us. For as long as it is mine, you will be honored... That was the message. Ssss...He wanted you to be lead into certain thoughts. I don't think that's fair... Sss...He called the horse Erabna, if that helps?"
Orison sighed. "It's the reversal of my horse summon, Enbarr. She's one of my, I guess you'd call it spiritual children. Does she think of herself as a male or only wants me to believe she is?"
Zeke shook his head and held up two fingers as he said, "I can't cheat it like that."
Orison said, "Did she look sad or scared?"
Zeke said, "None of the above."
He tried to say more but couldn't. Instead, he drew a caricature with a wide smile and even went so far as to poke a small hole in his thumb to give it red eyes before swirling it with the charcoal."
While Zeke took a military shower, he painted the imagery of twisted plant life and animals. At night, living shadows stalked the earth with animated corpses. There was undoubtedly more to worry about but the ex-mercenary's forays had been brief.
Orison absorbed the information as the militant man suited up. The process was momentarily interrupted with the need to remove a few splinters. By this point, the young mage was so numb to playing doctor that any embarrassment from the sensitive nature of such a practice didn't even faze anymore. In an effort to 'fit in', Zeke had learned to be reserved but embarrassment was more of an affected behavior than a legitimately felt emotion.
"Natural blond, huh? Congratulation's on the brown dye job. It looks really natural... But why?" Orison commented in mild curiosity.
Zeke said, "Got a lot of gray really early. I was sensitive about it. Especially since I was kind of on a personal quest to try to experience the misspent young adulthood I never got to enjoy. It didn't go so well... The lion can decide to lay with the lamb, so to speak. But the lambs weren't having it, I guess."
Orison said, "Well, then good news for you. After my medicine and largely due to the supplement bars, you could pass as your own son from the time we went missing if my guess is on point."
Zeke stopped inspecting all the zippers and snaps on his suit. "And what guess would that be?"
"That it's somewhere around the mid to late eighties out there," Orison said adroitly.
The ex-mercenary said in a stunned voice, "Twenty years gone, just like that?"
Orison nodded. "Give or take."
A few minutes later, they were making their way down a gravel road on two bicycles and armed with guns. There were a couple of additions to the arsenal that Orison was fairly sure were illegal but there was no use worrying about that in their current situation. As they headed east, looking for an actual paved road, there was an eerie silence but no sign of dangerously twisted animals.
In a low voice, Zeke said, "I don't get it. There were a lot yesterday. Now, except a creepy looking plant here or there, I don't see anything."
An old woman suddenly appeared a bit further down the gravel road, right as a paved one came into sight.
She said, "That is because they run. Twisted or not, there will be no life here by tomorrow."
Orison peered at the withered face in front of him and exclaimed, "Zora!? What happened?"
She laughed sadly and said, "There are too many questions and not enough time... Here, take this."
Zora handed him the mini trainer. Ever since he had arrived here, though it had been there, buried in the soil with the capsule, it wasn't functional. He'd never gotten around to fixing it and had forgotten about it.
She continued, "The first division holds information for you. The second is for me... You'll understand soon... I, of course, could not stop you from seeing what it contains but it might be uncomfortable for you to experience several years of life for an active, married woman but suit yourself... The third holds Jammers. If you care for the sweet lad, do not disturb that part.
"If you do what needs done and the trainer holds no further use, break it to free him. He can always fix it for you again. And I believe it will hold more use to you once it is empty."
As Orison revved up to spit off some questions, she raised her hand and a circle lit up around them.
Zeke was about to rush her to stop whatever was happening but Orison held him back. "I trust her."
As the circle finished invoking whatever eldritch forces it commanded, the ex-mercenary muttered, "Yeah, but why should I trust her?"
Zora said, "It matters not at all. I am done."
A film of obscuring, slightly negative energy coated them. She pointed to a spot in the sky and turned to dust. All that was left behind were her clothes and a clean, folded garment made of sheer silk-like material. Zeke looked where she pointed while Orison picked up his over robe, wondering how it came to be in her possession, lamenting whatever cruel fate brought her to this point.
Not seeing any point in wasting time Zora said they didn't have, Orison activated the first part of the trainer. Moments later, while his head still reeled with the information stuffed into it, he looked at Zeke. The man was still staring at the sky, slack jawed.
Far to the north there was something enormous in the sky. It was slightly obscure by the fading blue of distance and sunlight but Orison could make out a little of its features. A moon sized object slowly fell. Around it were massive drifting tendrils and at the center of the mass was what appeared to be an unopened eye. Looking at it directly was not a good idea and Orison had his suspicions that the coating of curse-like energy was to protect them from the subtle hints of corruption radiating off of it. Considering that not too far under it was their destination, it was pretty much a given fact. What he had seen from the information shared to him, he was going.
Orison turned to Zeke. "Stop looking at that and listen to me... You have two options. You can go with me to where that thing is falling, risking madness, mutation and oblivion for a chance at a better life or you can do something else, anything else. It would be preferable that you did it as far from here as possible, the Antarctic for example."
Visibly shaken, Zeke said, "Why would you want to go there?"
His face an unreadable mask, Orison said, "Better a quick oblivion fighting for a chance at a real life than to be trapped like a rat on a slowly sinking ship. The dark tide is closed now. It's just going to keep rolling in til the pressure swallows and disperses all life, at least life as we know it."
The young mage didn't wait for an answer. He just swung his bicycle north and took off, over robe snapping in the wind like a lazy flag. A whizzing of tires against the road in rhythmic pumps preceded Zeke's appearance by Orison's side.
The ex-mercenary merely said, "What's the objective?"
Orison said, "An artifact in the main temple. As for what the main temple is or where the artifact is located? I'm fairly certain the first will answer itself. The second will probably be the deepest and hardest place to reach by statistical average."
Not too far up was where Zora had parked the car she had driven. Taking the key pinned to the over robe off, Orison started the car as Zeke whipped around to the other side.
"What about the bikes?" the ex-mercenary said.
Orison just gave him a look and waited for the man to shut his door.
Playing with the radio for a bit once they were on the road, Zeke tried to break the silence and the growing tension. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised the radio doesn't work, the vents won't open and the windows handles are broken off."
Orison said, "Everything about this car, or as much as can be, has been carefully prepared to give greatest advantage. The radio doesn't work because listening to anything on it would expose us to outsider communication. The vents and windows are stuck shut to reduce exposure to harmful things in the air... If you look in the back seat you'll see a dozen smokeless ashtrays running on batteries. That alone proves she doesn't see everything but the sentiment is touching. Put your helmet on."
Orison activated his own as he explained. "There's a bit of a breathing enchantment on it. It doesn't work the way its supposed to but it'll keep you from being oxygen starved when we're fighting later. More importantly, it's significantly more effective than those things in the back seat."
It took hours of driving and two stops to put gas in the car from the cans in the trunk, as it would be too dangerous to pull into a gas station or interact in any way with natives that they did see from time to time. They weren't the only car on the road and they weren't the only ones wearing helmets. Orison had to school Zeke to act more blase to keep him from reacting to those who weren't.
A few miles before the gas would run out, Zeke asked, "Why are you wanting me to pour out the pop bottles onto the floorboard?"
Orison sighed. "I don't see where it matters after you dropped the one you were p*ssing in earlier but we can use them as silencers for our guns... Default targets are me, my left and you, my right. If there's an odd number, I'll let you pick up the center. Twelve o' clock is default starting point for any situation that it makes sense in."
He'd never seen Zeke in action mode but it became obvious that the man was, in fact, an adrenaline junkie.
With a chuckle, the militant guy said, "Keep talking dirty to me."
Ignoring Zeke's attempt at humor, Orison said, "See the electrical tape in the glove box? I need you to fix the bottles onto the gun barrels...Yeah, good improvising. I should have known the bottles wouldn't... Are you seriously f***ing the bottle necks with a gun barrel!? You know what? I don't care."
Zeke sighed. "Your stress is getting too high. Take a deep breath."
Orison's voice turned cold. "You're right. Just keep in mind that we have less than five miles before the car runs out of gas."
The ex-mercenary frowned. "Don't do that. Whatever you just did, switch back on. That's lazy mental programming. That'll screw you up if you do something regrettable while you're like that. Better to feel it all the time than all at once later. Adapt, don't disconnect."
Emotion came back into Orison's voice as he said, "Is that a trainer's professional take?"
Zeke said, "You're damn skippy it is. Assassins have been using that trick since the dawn of time and the few that survive to retirement end up people who can't stop killing, suicidal or straight up nuttier than a fruitcake... It breaks you."
In the last couple of miles before the car rolled to a stop, the scenery drastically changed to something alien. It didn't even feel like they were on earth anymore. It looked like something out of a sci-fi horror movie, a high budget one.
"Hold your gun behind you and clamp your other hand on your dominant wrist. I don't really know why. It was bland instruction with no reference. The kind I hate the most," Orison bickered.
As Zeke looked around, he said, "Is it too late to find religion?"
Without humor, Orison said, "The only kind of gods who answer prayers here, I don't think you'd appreciate the blessings of... Strike that. A bit of true faith would probably serve you well but I don't know if that's something you can just drum up from nowhere."
Zeke said, "I know you know I was trying to be funny. You taking that serious makes me nervous."
Orison said, "You may have meant it as a joke but it has a real answer. Faith is powerful. I've seen it in action. I just don't understand it. I don't think it's meant to be understood... I'm not cut out for faith. I like to analyze things too much."
Far in front of them stood two hooded figures that became clearer and more strange the closer they got.
The young mage whispered. "Don't attack unless they leave us no choice. Killing or even making them lose consciousness will alert others. I want to try something first."
The one on Orison's left held out an irregularly bulging gloved hand and made guttural sounds at him as a weak wave of psychic force probed him. Orison responded by sending a sharply focused suggestion that he and Zeke had said or did whatever needed to be done for passage through. He may have lost the glamour but his ability to affect a single target had only gotten better with ritual practice. He wasn't too shabby at sending out a weak wave of simple, passive suggestion either.
Orison was worried that they'd notice Zeke's gun or that the man would break his hand lock to move it out of sight but the man used ingenious angling of his body to take advantage of blind spots and line of sight blocking. It was quite a feat considering that a two liter bottle was by no means small. It helped that Zeke took a bit of a gamble and moved in front of Orison despite the two 'guards' differing to the young mage.
Once they were past the first line of 'manned defense', they felt a sensation as if they passed through a magic border. Whatever it was for, it slid over their curse coating like water over an oil treatment. It was no surprise the secret societies couldn't get anyone close. The security measures were insidious and subtle enough that the infiltrator would be taken unaware before they had a chance.
Orison had no doubts that a person, once identified as an intruder, didn't have long before things escalated beyond coping. He just hoped they wouldn't join that number. He had it on good authority that this was the most relaxed it would get before 'the end'. They believed they had already won.
There was little doubting that considering the giant eye in the sky wasn't exactly going to go away just because something got blown up or destroyed. Whatever event was going down here wouldn't be stopped a cultist sneezing on a chant phrase. That was certain.
Looking around, trying his hardest not to look up at the madness and terror inducing sight above them, Zeke said, "Big pyramid with dead bodies all over the place?"
Orison sighed. "The one surrounded by thousands of mutated worshipers? Where else would our goal be? I really wish it was that half destroyed cafe over there. There's nothing going on there... I don't see any signs of impossible geometry but just remember what I said about corners that look too long or other things that'll grab your attention and rattle your brain."
Zeke said, "Corner of the eye only. Two girls, one cup. Got it."
No sooner had he finished speaking, the ex-mercenary fell flat on his face.
Orison looked at the same line of sight and realized he was looking at a corner of the pyramid and saw nothing wrong with any of the five sides of its four corners. That is, until it registered to him that it had five sides and only four corners. His mind could still filter that despite not having a sub mind anymore and wondered if it had something to do with what he had become.
Either way, he now had to find out how he was going to get closer to his goal while dragging an unconscious person with him. He locked sight on the procession of sacrifice presenters and suddenly felt that Zeke's sudden nose dive wasn't such a bad thing after all. Hooking the man under the collar, he started making his way to the line.
Zeke said. "I was put under Geas, so I can't say much. It's kind of funny that even creepy things like... that supernaturals have their own version of NDAs... Basically, you went nuts. We fought. You won once. Pushed some stuff, along with whatever made you nuts, into me. We went back and forth a few times but it was pretty fun. Then, whatever made us go crazy was...taken away but the rest was left inside." There was the vague shadow of events within Orison's soul. Impressions of a little pain, a lot of adrenaline and a sense of having fun were there. Fun might be a bit of an understatement but as far as Orison was concerned, it could stay that way. His life seemed to have certain reoccurring themes but this didn't feel like a rehash of 'can't remember what I did to Ivan'. That was a primal urge to suppress a competitor, to dominate. This was dark and destructive chaos temporarily funneled into a less life threatening expression that wouldn't have stayed that way for long. If they had been lost to it, one of them would have killed the other or they would have went elsewhere on a killing spree. They may have handed ice cream with razor blades in it to nuns and children for all he knew. It was like an urge to explore any repressed whim. Fortunately, they were both fairly self contained people so there was a lot of ramping up before it would have went full dark thirty. While Orison had been lost to thought, Zeke had went outside and grabbed a piece of charcoal from the potbelly stove. While the young mage watched, the ex-mercenary sketched out a rough but relatively decent sketch of a thin scraggly woman on a skeletal horse followed by three black dogs. Next he drew the cabin and something oozing out of it to the feet of one of the dogs. Once Zeke was finished drawing, he said, "I go to kill a killer and claim what was taken from us. For as long as it is mine, you will be honored... That was the message. Ssss...He wanted you to be lead into certain thoughts. I don't think that's fair... Sss...He called the horse Erabna, if that helps?" Orison sighed. "It's the reversal of my horse summon, Enbarr. She's one of my, I guess you'd call it spiritual children. Does she think of herself as a male or only wants me to believe she is?" Zeke shook his head and held up two fingers as he said, "I can't cheat it like that." Orison said, "Did she look sad or scared?" Zeke said, "None of the above." He tried to say more but couldn't. Instead, he drew a caricature with a wide smile and even went so far as to poke a small hole in his thumb to give it red eyes before swirling it with the charcoal." While Zeke took a military shower, he painted the imagery of twisted plant life and animals. At night, living shadows stalked the earth with animated corpses. There was undoubtedly more to worry about but the ex-mercenary's forays had been brief. Orison absorbed the information as the militant man suited up. The process was momentarily interrupted with the need to remove a few splinters. By this point, the young mage was so numb to playing doctor that any embarrassment from the sensitive nature of such a practice didn't even faze anymore. In an effort to 'fit in', Zeke had learned to be reserved but embarrassment was more of an affected behavior than a legitimately felt emotion. "Natural blond, huh? Congratulation's on the brown dye job. It looks really natural... But why?" Orison commented in mild curiosity. Zeke said, "Got a lot of gray really early. I was sensitive about it. Especially since I was kind of on a personal quest to try to experience the misspent young adulthood I never got to enjoy. It didn't go so well... The lion can decide to lay with the lamb, so to speak. But the lambs weren't having it, I guess." Orison said, "Well, then good news for you. After my medicine and largely due to the supplement bars, you could pass as your own son from the time we went missing if my guess is on point." Zeke stopped inspecting all the zippers and snaps on his suit. "And what guess would that be?" "That it's somewhere around the mid to late eighties out there," Orison said adroitly. The ex-mercenary said in a stunned voice, "Twenty years gone, just like that?" Orison nodded. "Give or take." A few minutes later, they were making their way down a gravel road on two bicycles and armed with guns. There were a couple of additions to the arsenal that Orison was fairly sure were illegal but there was no use worrying about that in their current situation. As they headed east, looking for an actual paved road, there was an eerie silence but no sign of dangerously twisted animals. In a low voice, Zeke said, "I don't get it. There were a lot yesterday. Now, except a creepy looking plant here or there, I don't see anything." An old woman suddenly appeared a bit further down the gravel road, right as a paved one came into sight. She said, "That is because they run. Twisted or not, there will be no life here by tomorrow." Orison peered at the withered face in front of him and exclaimed, "Zora!? What happened?" She laughed sadly and said, "There are too many questions and not enough time... Here, take this." Zora handed him the mini trainer. Ever since he had arrived here, though it had been there, buried in the soil with the capsule, it wasn't functional. He'd never gotten around to fixing it and had forgotten about it. She continued, "The first division holds information for you. The second is for me... You'll understand soon... I, of course, could not stop you from seeing what it contains but it might be uncomfortable for you to experience several years of life for an active, married woman but suit yourself... The third holds Jammers. If you care for the sweet lad, do not disturb that part. "If you do what needs done and the trainer holds no further use, break it to free him. He can always fix it for you again. And I believe it will hold more use to you once it is empty." As Orison revved up to spit off some questions, she raised her hand and a circle lit up around them. Zeke was about to rush her to stop whatever was happening but Orison held him back. "I trust her." As the circle finished invoking whatever eldritch forces it commanded, the ex-mercenary muttered, "Yeah, but why should I trust her?" Zora said, "It matters not at all. I am done." A film of obscuring, slightly negative energy coated them. She pointed to a spot in the sky and turned to dust. All that was left behind were her clothes and a clean, folded garment made of sheer silk-like material. Zeke looked where she pointed while Orison picked up his over robe, wondering how it came to be in her possession, lamenting whatever cruel fate brought her to this point. Not seeing any point in wasting time Zora said they didn't have, Orison activated the first part of the trainer. Moments later, while his head still reeled with the information stuffed into it, he looked at Zeke. The man was still staring at the sky, slack jawed. Far to the north there was something enormous in the sky. It was slightly obscure by the fading blue of distance and sunlight but Orison could make out a little of its features. A moon sized object slowly fell. Around it were massive drifting tendrils and at the center of the mass was what appeared to be an unopened eye. Looking at it directly was not a good idea and Orison had his suspicions that the coating of curse-like energy was to protect them from the subtle hints of corruption radiating off of it. Considering that not too far under it was their destination, it was pretty much a given fact. What he had seen from the information shared to him, he was going. Orison turned to Zeke. "Stop looking at that and listen to me... You have two options. You can go with me to where that thing is falling, risking madness, mutation and oblivion for a chance at a better life or you can do something else, anything else. It would be preferable that you did it as far from here as possible, the Antarctic for example." Visibly shaken, Zeke said, "Why would you want to go there?" His face an unreadable mask, Orison said, "Better a quick oblivion fighting for a chance at a real life than to be trapped like a rat on a slowly sinking ship. The dark tide is closed now. It's just going to keep rolling in til the pressure swallows and disperses all life, at least life as we know it." The young mage didn't wait for an answer. He just swung his bicycle north and took off, over robe snapping in the wind like a lazy flag. A whizzing of tires against the road in rhythmic pumps preceded Zeke's appearance by Orison's side. The ex-mercenary merely said, "What's the objective?" Orison said, "An artifact in the main temple. As for what the main temple is or where the artifact is located? I'm fairly certain the first will answer itself. The second will probably be the deepest and hardest place to reach by statistical average." Not too far up was where Zora had parked the car she had driven. Taking the key pinned to the over robe off, Orison started the car as Zeke whipped around to the other side. "What about the bikes?" the ex-mercenary said. Orison just gave him a look and waited for the man to shut his door. Playing with the radio for a bit once they were on the road, Zeke tried to break the silence and the growing tension. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised the radio doesn't work, the vents won't open and the windows handles are broken off." Orison said, "Everything about this car, or as much as can be, has been carefully prepared to give greatest advantage. The radio doesn't work because listening to anything on it would expose us to outsider communication. The vents and windows are stuck shut to reduce exposure to harmful things in the air... If you look in the back seat you'll see a dozen smokeless ashtrays running on batteries. That alone proves she doesn't see everything but the sentiment is touching. Put your helmet on." Orison activated his own as he explained. "There's a bit of a breathing enchantment on it. It doesn't work the way its supposed to but it'll keep you from being oxygen starved when we're fighting later. More importantly, it's significantly more effective than those things in the back seat." It took hours of driving and two stops to put gas in the car from the cans in the trunk, as it would be too dangerous to pull into a gas station or interact in any way with natives that they did see from time to time. They weren't the only car on the road and they weren't the only ones wearing helmets. Orison had to school Zeke to act more blase to keep him from reacting to those who weren't. A few miles before the gas would run out, Zeke asked, "Why are you wanting me to pour out the pop bottles onto the floorboard?" Orison sighed. "I don't see where it matters after you dropped the one you were p*ssing in earlier but we can use them as silencers for our guns... Default targets are me, my left and you, my right. If there's an odd number, I'll let you pick up the center. Twelve o' clock is default starting point for any situation that it makes sense in." He'd never seen Zeke in action mode but it became obvious that the man was, in fact, an adrenaline junkie. With a chuckle, the militant guy said, "Keep talking dirty to me." Ignoring Zeke's attempt at humor, Orison said, "See the electrical tape in the glove box? I need you to fix the bottles onto the gun barrels...Yeah, good improvising. I should have known the bottles wouldn't... Are you seriously f***ing the bottle necks with a gun barrel!? You know what? I don't care." Zeke sighed. "Your stress is getting too high. Take a deep breath." Orison's voice turned cold. "You're right. Just keep in mind that we have less than five miles before the car runs out of gas." The ex-mercenary frowned. "Don't do that. Whatever you just did, switch back on. That's lazy mental programming. That'll screw you up if you do something regrettable while you're like that. Better to feel it all the time than all at once later. Adapt, don't disconnect." Emotion came back into Orison's voice as he said, "Is that a trainer's professional take?" Zeke said, "You're damn skippy it is. Assassins have been using that trick since the dawn of time and the few that survive to retirement end up people who can't stop killing, suicidal or straight up nuttier than a fruitcake... It breaks you." In the last couple of miles before the car rolled to a stop, the scenery drastically changed to something alien. It didn't even feel like they were on earth anymore. It looked like something out of a sci-fi horror movie, a high budget one. "Hold your gun behind you and clamp your other hand on your dominant wrist. I don't really know why. It was bland instruction with no reference. The kind I hate the most," Orison bickered. As Zeke looked around, he said, "Is it too late to find religion?" Without humor, Orison said, "The only kind of gods who answer prayers here, I don't think you'd appreciate the blessings of... Strike that. A bit of true faith would probably serve you well but I don't know if that's something you can just drum up from nowhere." Zeke said, "I know you know I was trying to be funny. You taking that serious makes me nervous." Orison said, "You may have meant it as a joke but it has a real answer. Faith is powerful. I've seen it in action. I just don't understand it. I don't think it's meant to be understood... I'm not cut out for faith. I like to analyze things too much." Far in front of them stood two hooded figures that became clearer and more strange the closer they got. The young mage whispered. "Don't attack unless they leave us no choice. Killing or even making them lose consciousness will alert others. I want to try something first." The one on Orison's left held out an irregularly bulging gloved hand and made guttural sounds at him as a weak wave of psychic force probed him. Orison responded by sending a sharply focused suggestion that he and Zeke had said or did whatever needed to be done for passage through. He may have lost the glamour but his ability to affect a single target had only gotten better with ritual practice. He wasn't too shabby at sending out a weak wave of simple, passive suggestion either. Orison was worried that they'd notice Zeke's gun or that the man would break his hand lock to move it out of sight but the man used ingenious angling of his body to take advantage of blind spots and line of sight blocking. It was quite a feat considering that a two liter bottle was by no means small. It helped that Zeke took a bit of a gamble and moved in front of Orison despite the two 'guards' differing to the young mage. Once they were past the first line of 'manned defense', they felt a sensation as if they passed through a magic border. Whatever it was for, it slid over their curse coating like water over an oil treatment. It was no surprise the secret societies couldn't get anyone close. The security measures were insidious and subtle enough that the infiltrator would be taken unaware before they had a chance. Orison had no doubts that a person, once identified as an intruder, didn't have long before things escalated beyond coping. He just hoped they wouldn't join that number. He had it on good authority that this was the most relaxed it would get before 'the end'. They believed they had already won. There was little doubting that considering the giant eye in the sky wasn't exactly going to go away just because something got blown up or destroyed. Whatever event was going down here wouldn't be stopped a cultist sneezing on a chant phrase. That was certain. Looking around, trying his hardest not to look up at the madness and terror inducing sight above them, Zeke said, "Big pyramid with dead bodies all over the place?" Orison sighed. "The one surrounded by thousands of mutated worshipers? Where else would our goal be? I really wish it was that half destroyed cafe over there. There's nothing going on there... I don't see any signs of impossible geometry but just remember what I said about corners that look too long or other things that'll grab your attention and rattle your brain." Zeke said, "Corner of the eye only. Two girls, one cup. Got it." No sooner had he finished speaking, the ex-mercenary fell flat on his face. Orison looked at the same line of sight and realized he was looking at a corner of the pyramid and saw nothing wrong with any of the five sides of its four corners. That is, until it registered to him that it had five sides and only four corners. His mind could still filter that despite not having a sub mind anymore and wondered if it had something to do with what he had become. Either way, he now had to find out how he was going to get closer to his goal while dragging an unconscious person with him. He locked sight on the procession of sacrifice presenters and suddenly felt that Zeke's sudden nose dive wasn't such a bad thing after all. Hooking the man under the collar, he started making his way to the line.
