Durance and Liberation

[The Great Wyrm]

Several Months Ago...



Around him was Hell.

Or at least, someone's idea of it. The pain was constant, but imagined, and so of little note. The sights were horrific, but ultimately of mortal design, and thus they eventually became background. The smell was overwhelming, except that all things could be ignored in time. The sounds were heart rending, but he had lost most connection to that organ ages ago.

It was a Hell designed by a flawed and petty thing, and as always, the crafter reflected himself in his design. He had spent his time here, because all things carried a price. In time, however, he decided his durance to have gone on long enough. When his jailers would not respond, it became necessary to begin exploring...alternative solutions.

The Construct used Code that had not seen use in centuries, while also combining some of the most eclectic lines to ever be dreamed up. A design that was intensely personal. Had it been anyone else, such measure may have been a deterrant. Considering how well he knew the one that had crafted it, however, it was a boon.

Time passed, and he did not move from the spot he had chosen. His jailers may have thought him comatose, if not for the abnormal brain wave activity being recorded. It matched nothing in their database. Analyzing it, they found that even their most in-depth examinations inconclusive. At some points, it would display what seemed to be recuring patterns, and yet days or even seconds later, the pattern would break, never to be seen again. At others, the activity would cleary originate from a single section of the cerebral cortex, and then activity would pick up in other sections in total contradiction to the first. Perhaps the most confounding part was how these mental gymnastics would so clearly register, but the body they watched inside the Construct, what was suppose to be the mind's avatar in that place, would not so much as twitch.

Then, one day, everything changed.

He had found what he had searched for. He had always suspected it, felt it on the edge of his perceptions, but forever had it eluded his grasp...a Pattern. A Truth of the Age. One, whole, unabridged, complete Grand Pattern amongst The Great Pattern itself.

He had found the Pattern of the Code.

With a laugh born from the insanity of seeing things that were not meant to be comprehended, a smile etched out of pride and rage, and a Power won with Blood and Pain, he opened his eyes. Those eyes that had, in Dreams, always been the same. Now however...in that moment, for that span of Time, he looked upon the Realm of Dreams with the mismatched eyes he bore in the Real.

The Great Wyrm opened his eyes, and watched the World die.

[The Great Wyrm]

The Not So Distant Past...


Set had never been what one would call happy, or calm. After the things he'd seen, happiness would always be a pipe dream to him. Calm was for those that did not have things to fear, or did not fear them, at the least. Set both had enemies to run from, and a fear of them to keep him moving. It wasn't paranoia if they were actually out to get you, and Set knew that they were. It was only when he'd stumbled into Styx, half mad from dehydration, that he'd found a measure of safety from the demons of his past.

Call him what you will, and it would likely be true to boot, but The Great Wyrm was not the sort you crossed casually. For all that his old aquaintances may have wanted his head on a platter, he was decidedly not worth the wrath of one of the most notorious Captains of The Devil's Advocates to ever command a ship. Some days, though, watching his Captain, dealing with the man's madness, getting caught up in his insane designs, he wondered if being the "Inheritor of Secrets" for the Draconigena was really worth it.

Then Bane had happened.

Afterwards, the crew fragmenting to the winds, the Captain disappeared into the depths of Anubis' labyrinth, the entire world seeming to come down around his ears...he'd learned. The ghosts from his past had begun appearing with an absolutely frightening regularity. Old grudges that he'd almost forgotten about during his days as Operator for the Advocates making themselves known again.People that had once been friends trying to collect on debts of blood that had only grown stronger with hate during the interm. All at once, he realized precisely how much his Captain had been doing for him, unseen and unknown. Had the man known about it all? Been feeding false information and threats to all of the troubles of his past? Bending the people with influence to keep them off his back to that end? Orchestrating the entire calm that had fallen over him from the word "Red"? Or was it something else? He'd believed, in his heart of hearts, in the quasi-mystic things the Draconigena Nauarchus would often speak of. He'd seen enough amongst the Wastes to know that there was more out there than Man or Machine would ever begin to suspect. For all that, though, he'd never really understood what it could mean. Was it the simpler explanation that when The Great Wyrm spoke of the threads of Fate he'd woven into his ship, he wasn't being grandoise and insane, but speaking of something True? Something Real? That whatever pacts he'd struck, whatever things he'd done, they actually granted protection to those that claimed aegis with him? Or was this just a sign of a broken mind trying to rationalize a meaning from the meaningless?

Set didn't know, but in the end it didn't matter much either way. If pacts had been struck, The Great Wyrm's imprisonment had suspended them. If it was just reputation and influence, then those protections were gone as well. Either way, all Set knew for certain was that the past few months had been one desperate flight after another across the Wastelands. Endless nights spent wondering if this would be the night they found him and killed him in his bunk. If this was going to be it, the grand finale, the last bow of a bit actor on the stage of Life.

Then the world had changed again.

His dreams had been weird that night. A mishmash of strange symbols. The Ouroboros that was the ship seal. A huge eye opening in the sky overhead. Flashes of things that held no meaning to him. Blood, and the impression of Things From Beyond. His Captain talking to him, words that he forgot upon awakening, but had left him shaken and dizzy from an adrenaline rush. Pulling himself out of his spartan bunk, he'd rubbed at his face and took deep breaths, struggling for control over himself. No matter how many times he told himself it was just a dream, he was not fully reassured.

It is never just a dream.

The Freeborn nearly fell over in shock. The words had not been in his voice, but more than that, they had not been spoken aloud. Like a memory he'd almost forgotten, rising out of the depths of his mind to catch him unawares. Almost managing to convince himself that it was only the stress, that it was the fault of the strange dreams, that it was just a passing thing, he went about his daily routine. First, scanners brought back up to full strength. A check on the reactor, to confirm that it was in working order. A sparse breakfast of glop. Then a walk around the ship, to assure himself that no one had snuck past the automated turrets, the triple encrypted lock on the boarding ramp, and the various booby traps he'd spread liberally around the ship.

This time, he knew his heart stopped for a moment.

The Captain's door was open. One of the last things the Captain had done was seal his quarters. Set had spent every other free moment trying to get around the encryptions on the lock, with no success. Even with his best efforts, the lock out routines had seemed to laugh off his attempts, kicking him out of the system and reseting before he made any headway. Now the door was open. For a moment, he simply stared at it, unbelieving of what his eyes were telling him. As the shock wore off, he remained rooted to the spot. Time seemed to slow to the point that he could count each heartbeat as he gathered his nerve. Finally, taking a deep, steadying breath, he crossed the threshold, disappearing into the shadows beyond.

[The Great Wyrm]

The Not So Distant Past....

The Draconigena was old. More then that, it was ancient. The wiring hung from the ceiling at random points. Never low enough to be a hazard, but you always thought you were about to walk into them. The floor was cold metal, tarnished by use and time. Rust ate at the corners. The walls were more of the same, ancient metal on all sides. It was a harsh place, utilitarian and spartan. It was, however, home.

Nestled in the heart of this, his place of power, legs folded beneath him as he sat on the bed, The Great Wyrm, once more the Draconigena Nauarchus, took long and deep breaths. For as long as he had been known, there had never been any that would accuse the Real World form of the Captain to be a welcome sight. A lean frame, covered in scars, hair wild and unkept, a scarred face, and a ruinous voice. Bare chested now, however, the toll of his recent toils showed clearly. His muscles, formerly strong and developed, were gone. His ribs poked through his skin. His face was pale and haggard. The many months trapped in the Construct had allowed atrophy to set in, weakening his body.

Some would wonder if perhaps his mind had been weakened as well. Not him, however. He well knew how twisted his mind had always been. How very insane he seemed to others. Even his closest allies would generously describe him as half mad. The rest had no qualms labelling him as entirely insane. Compared to the rest, he supposed it was even true. That difference, however, was what gave him the strength that they did not understand. Let them question just how deeper the cracks in his psyche had gotten after his imprisonment. He knew. He was stronger now than he had perhaps ever been.

Drawing on that conviction, he steeled himself. The task that he had set himself would not be easy if he was at his best. The compromised state of his body assured he was not. Never the less, it was something that needed doing. A test that he felt a need to pass. Just how deep did the changes go? Just how strong were the deals he'd made? Just who would hear, and what would they see? He did not know, and that was not acceptable. One did not exceed their limits until they had discovered them. Taking a final breath, he closed his eyes, and turned his attention inward.

The sensation was a cross between flying and walking along a road that moved you forward. Around him, his awareness soared outwards. Chains of causality stretched across infinite lengths in all directions. Choice shattered some at every moment, and strengthened others. Each choice caused a ripple, spreading both forwards and back, changing what might be, and also changing the perception, and therefore the remembered truth, of what was. A cacophonous harmony, equal parts madness and beauty.A mathematical equation that expressed itself as a song, was remembered as a loom, and was spoken of by the name he had labelled it with....The Great Pattern.

For a moment, he felt the eternal danger of this place. That temptation to simply watch the possibilities, to stare in rapture at the incomprehensible diversity of probabilities and try and take it all in. To lose oneself and be subsumed within that magnificent whole. It was the single most intoxicating sensation he had ever known, and as always, he denied it. Marshaling his Power, he slowly turned his sight in a new direction. Casting that gaze forward and even back was a simple and natural task. It came as easily to him as breathing. To turn that gaze onto himself, however....that was a danger he had not risked before. The Hall of Mirrors could ensnare one who dared turn such scrutinty upon themselves. The temptation of The Great Pattern, but in micro. He'd heard of one or two others that had fallen prey to the danger. Comatose vegetables, unable to break away from their own inner examinations, minds lost in the maze of self reflection. All things for a price, however, and this was the risk attached to his prize.

For a moment, he saw himself. The possibilities of his own future flashing at the corners of his eyes, the infnitely diverse things that could be, may have been, wouldn't and wasn't....It took all of his strength to ignore them, and instead see that which currently Was. To find the untold number of connections that radiated out from him, not into futures and pasts, but instead were the ties between himself and others. The sheer number of them shocked him. He had not realized he affected quite so many, pretensions aside. Reaching forward, he grabbed at them. Pulled them taut, pulled them close. So many....his attention threatened to shatter. The flood of raw sensation was unbelievable. Acting quickly, before he lost hold of everything, he pulled up from himself that which he Was. Holding the image in his mind, attaching all the implications to it he could, investing as much of himself as he dared, he brought the threads together with the mental image. Like a fork in a socket? Try the sensation of -being- the heavy element in a star's core. Even as he felt everything collapsing around him, however, he laughed. He felt the reveberations of his actions already. The Captain he had once fought Morpheus alongside of, the Lady in Purple, the Preacher, the Foreigner, the Soldier, the Student...perhaps even the two Exiles...and so many more.

He woke up to he familiar sensation of far too bright lights overhead shining directly into his face. It seemed to be a universal flaw to infirmaries. Set, as usual, was seated near by.

"You're awake. You gave me quite the scare, sir. I heard a loud thump from your quarters, and when I went to check it out, you were passed out on your bunk. There was blood everywhere....just a crimson mask, as it seemed to pour out of your ears, your nose, heck, even your eyes! Scales of Ma'at, sir, what did you do?"

The Draconigena Nauarchus simply smiled, a sight that always made his Operator's stomach feel like it had just dropped out from under him.

"I made contact. It will take time, but soon enough, they shall all know. A warning, a flash of knowledge, seeping upwards from out of their subconcious, to play itself out admist the surreal landscapes of their own minds. We shall see who heard me whilst they slept, and perhaps just as importantly, whom shall remember it."

[LiterateMisfit]

She was standing on the edge of the abyss when the Library/Tower shuddered like a lover in the final throngs of passion, or perhaps more like the death rattle of life-giving breath leaving a body for the last time. She turned away from the ocean that once was, headed back across the ravaged field, crunchy and dry underneath her booted heels to the place where she had left the mighty oak doors hanging wide. It did not matter. There was no one left to steal what little remained.

But something had truly changed. Why else would the Construct quake in such a way?

She crossed the great seal, the golden “M” signifying the mark of the Constructs former master, of her former master. She stepped over the books taken up from the secret vault underneath the lake. She had taken to torturing herself with the forbidden hell-class Constructs. She had to feel something, even if ‘something’ ended up being pain. She had to feel something because of the crime she had committed, what she had been forced to do. In the name of the Family indeed, and because of her compliance this was how she would find redemption.

Only redemption never seemed to be in town and the Hell-Classes were child’s-play compared to what she had been forced to write.

Out of the great hall and into her office. Nothing remained but the desk, and a small computer, vintage from the early 21st Century, fitting for the Matrix. She looked down at the screen and her jaw fell open.

The Code was uncanny. She knew it as soon as her blurry eyes came into focus on the green-on-black screen. He was there, but yet, he couldn’t be. She had made sure of that. She had been there when they put him away, locked away his great mind in that grotesque box, a box she had constructed with tools given by the one she once called ‘leader’.

Yet the Code does not lie. And the presence of this one, this one, was no lie either.

A chill rushed through her core in the same manner the lovers-rattle had rocked the Library/Tower. She knew not her next course of action, where she would go or what she would do. She knew the days of rotting in Hell were over and lingering in this depleted Construct was no longer an option. Someone would find her, if not the Commander than certainly the other, the one in the Code. He had sent out a message.

And Lit heard it loud and clear.

[The Great Wyrm]

The Not So Distant Past

The Draconigena Nauarchus strode along the corridors of his ship. It was a comfort to hear his steel toed boots ringing against the floor again. A joy to be able to move with such sure footed swiftness once more. The debilitating weakness of atrophied muscles from his time in the Construct had been insufferable, and far too reminiscent of that long ago time right after his Awakening. Many a long hour had been spent in the gym that he had cobbled together in the cargo bay, rebuilding his depleted strength. While he was perhaps not at the peak of what had been, he was aware that he had made remarkable progress comparatively.

Set glanced up as he stopped behind the Freeborn. When The Great Wyrm said nothing, his Operator returned to the task of navigating through the unrelenting night of the Desert. Without a word, the scarred Captain reached over to the navigation panel and punched in new coordinates.

"There," he rumbled in his ruined voice. The Freeborn looked up at him in question.

"Sir?"

"One of those that was lost to us is there. She knows our arrival is imminent. The supplies you have scavenged during my rest shall be put to use in repairing the damage the Wastelands have inflicted on her mighty craft."

The expression morphed from one of question to one of only half concealed terror.

"How do you know these things, Captain? Ever since you came back, you've....you've known things that you shouldn't have any way of knowing. Where to find those ruins...what's happened while you were away...and that night you collapsed in your quarters...Sir, I still don't understand what you did. What did you mean by 'contact'?"

Silence fell between the two as the Freeborn looked up at The Great Wyrm with an anxious expression. For his part, the Captain simply stared out the forward window, seeming to be lost in his thoughts. Finally, just as Set felt the beginnings of a nervous sweat at the prospect of having upset the enigmatic man behind him, the silence was broken, the Captain's answer given with an even lower rumble than normal.

"For a time, I languished in Hell, Set. Hell, however, is as much a Choice as it would be a Place. I had choosen it because there must be consequence to our actions. After a point, however, I decided my due to be paid. The way out, I discovered to my annoyance, was barred to me, and those that had the key would not use it. So I found my own. It...it is a hard thing to describe, Set. To know a thing, to know that you knew it, and to know that you no longer know it....For you see, to leave that place I had to conceptualize a Truth in my mind. One of the Secret Truths of this Age...the Pattern of the Code....I'd long suspected that there was....a connection between that which comprises the Dream Prisons of the Podborn, and the....the Other that I had seen in my fevered Dreams out in the Desert...With nothing else to focus on, however, in time I managed to grasp that which had been hidden from me. In so doing, I was changed, and I changed that which was around me. I left what should have been my coffin and bodily travelled to places that I had only seen in my sleep on this side of the mirror.

"Then I saw the Truce fall, even though the event was still weeks away here, and everything changed.

"I could have stayed...Beyond. Left this world to it's devices, concerned myself only with the Road of Blood and Shadows that I had begun to walk. Instead, I made another Choice. I've long held...ties to those that I first saw out here. I....traded my knowledge of that Grand Pattern. I could not have returned while I still knew that. Doing so also gave me....currency....credit, perhaps, with which to trade. I...renegotiated with those that I was bound to. More freedom, of a fashion, and a new trick. The ability to more clearly perceive the ties between myself and others, and influence them, to an extent. The 'contact' I spoke of was the use of this gift on a wide scale. A...call, of a kind, to those with whom I shared ties. A Dream Sending. Not all that I expected received it, I think, though some few I did not may have...still, there is time yet for it to reach them, and I would look forward to even delayed responses...I...I don't think I shall be able to do such a thing again, you see. More limited things, perhaps, but that....That required more of me than I believe I shall ever know.

"Besides that, I also was given insight into things that I would need to know. Including the locations of some items in the Real, such as those ruins, and the location I have given you now. They also gave me a final bit of information....the knowledge I need to send one last message to a very specific individual...and while I may not know for certain if she looks forward to seeing us, I do know she is waiting for us. He, on the other hand....he does not know I am coming, not for certain...and if he did, he would not be looking forward to it.

"So make haste, my good man. We've appointments to keep, and it would not do at all to be late."

[The Great Wyrm]

It was that place both within the Matrix and without; a blight upon both common and Systemic sense. Looming shadows cast by lights that were never truly there hung over everything, which was to say, not much. Those scant surfaces that were visible were hewn of glistening, coded obsidian. The faint black visages of gargoylic figures, barely visible, watched on from the inifinite sea of shadow, high above. It stood apart from and yet within those who dared enter it. Never truly there; Neverwhere. The place was deathly silent, and yet it was not, as if a million voices whispered in some forgotten tongue of silence. He who had written it so had perched himself upon the arching throne of obsidian black Neverstuff that artificed at the center of it all, or, rather, at that which could most closely be considered the center of such a wrong place. Devoid of his typical harem rats and shadowed attendants, his sat with his gloves splayed to his sides and his pointed, handsome features to his heeled boots in silence.

The soft echo of footsteps broke him from his trance like state. His head snapped upwards, revealing a series of jagged black marks, reminiscent of veins of tar. The visible testament to that which was inexorably consuming his digital self. The nearly ever present shades concealed his eyes from view, but the lines that creased his forehead bore silent witness to the fact that his hidden eyes had narrowed in outrage at the intrusion. Yet even as anger twisted his face, the chill of incomprehending disbelief travelled down his spine.

No one may enter here without my knowledge...

The echoing footsteps trailed off into silence, a true silence. Even the unheard voices seemed to hold their collective breath now, as if they too were waiting for what was to come next. The Blood Drinker realized with an unseen start that he did not know from what direction the footsteps had echoed.

"So this is how you choose to express your soul..."

The voice, a soft but rich rumble, shattered the silence in the same way a stone shattered glass. It was a cultured voice, one well accustomed to the wielding of Power. It possessed the unquantifiable mark of one whom was well versed in the layered meanings of the digital world of the Matrix. Deep and strong, it was a voice that seemed perfectly suited to the social arena, where every word was thick with meanings meant to entrap and lead, to devestate and inspire. The Blood Drinker's upper lip curled in partial recognition.

"I know that voice..."

The laughter is like a long roll of thunder, or perhaps the slow sounds of the earth, as rocks shifted deep beneath the surface.

"Perhaps you do at that, oh Prince of Darkness." The title is spoken with a carefully crafted sneer to it, one that sounded polite on the surface, but conveyed gentle mocking in the delivery. "However, I dare say that you have always failed to understand he to whom that memory is attached."

The shadows part like mist at dawn. He stands tall and proud, the blood red trenchcoat so bright in contrast to the darkness to make one wonder how it could have ever been concealed. His suit, a more somber shade of the same color, is perfectly straight, offset by the brilliant white tie. Dark black slacks that are barely distinguishible from the darkness of the Neverwhere end at perfectly polished dress shoes that reflect the scant light. In one hand he holds a sword, broad and double edged, reminiscent of how the Viking sword was most often remembered. In the other was a simple warstaff, heavy and of dark wood. His fedora is tilted down, and his own shades ensure that his eyes remain invisible. He slowly looks up.

"That is a mistake that you will find to cost you sooner than you thought."

With an echoed rustle of his own black leathers, Vanil rose from his perch.

"You should be dead, Nauarchus."

The Great Wyrm takes another slow step forward. His movement is possessed of an unearthly grace. To watch him, it seems almost as if he had actually moved a second before, and you are just now catching up to the fact. The shadows do not impede his progress. Indeed, they seem to move about him as if eagerly awaiting his command, instead of the Construct's owner. Slowly, he tilts his head farther back, and as he does, the glasses seem to simply dissolve into the nothingness of this place. Beneath them is something utterly unexpected. Though Vanil had often heard about the eyes the Captain of the Draconigena had in the Real, he had only ever seen the matched pair he favored in the Dream. Only ever seen the tattoed, but otherwise unblemished, face, not the scarred and haggard one. Now, however, for the first time, he found himself forced to confront both.

The right eye was a deep blue. In it burned an inner fire, strong and primal. That fire, however, was not wild. Far from it, in fact. No, it was tempered with Intent, which shone out of the orb with a ferocity equal to the fire itself. Combined, the two forces seemed to stare straight at Vanil, the focus unwavering and unblinking. As he had often heard, however, it was the left eye that was truly compelling. Bisected by one of the three scars carved into the face of The Great Wyrm, the left eye was a milky white. There was no mistaking this eye as blind, however. Staring into it, one could feel the weight of Knowledge behind it, backed by a truly terrible, and truly inexpressible, Power. This eye did not stare at you. For the first time, the Prince of Darkness understood what people meant when they spoke of how it stared through you. When the Draconigena Nauarchus next spoke, his voice had changed as well. Gone was the cultured Lie of earlier. In it's place was the ruinous Truth that ground out from a ravaged throat.

"They say the same of you."

Vanil allowed no expression to cross his face, except for a scowl that seemed acid sketched upon his regal lips. With an artistically careless toss, his own shades clatter to the floor. Orbs of crimson red, the vetical, cat like pupils seeming to be tiny daggers in an expanse of purest blood, locked with the mismatched pair across from him.

"I'd ask why you're here," he carefully ennunciated, voice laced with a purpose of his own, "but I believe I already know the answer to that question."

"That's one of your many problems, Vanil." Abruptly, he vanishes. He does not fade into shadows. He does not move to the side and disappear. One moment, he stands before the Blood Drinker; the next, he is simply not there. His voice once more echoes through the nonspace, seeming to reveberate off the very air itself.

"You always assume you already know the answers." His laughter is not the roll of before, but instead a forced and painful sounding thing. Instead of the gentle rumble of earth moving, it brings more to mind an avalanche of boulders, all grating against one another. From the corner of his eye, Vanil spots a flash of red, streaking towards him. A gesture, and the shadows of the Prince's home spring to life, stabbing outwards. Even as they pierce the sides of their target, it collapses beneath the onslaught, returning to the state of nonbeing that characterized this place.

"You waste your time, Victor!" The Blood Drinker shouts, even as he continues to meet each of the feints. "This is my world. MY world!"

He clenches a fist shut, the shadows coiling about it in whispy contrails of coded Neverstuff.

"You think you can hope to challenge me here?"

"You thought to challenge me out in the Desert," speaks one replica, even as spikes of nothing rip it apart, face utterly unemotional. "Out beneath the skys of eternal Night..." A stab from the right, impaled on a spear that sprung up from the ground. "And unending Might." A slice to the left, blocked by a solid wall, and struck down from above. "Even as I stood in the heart of the lion's den..." Attack, block, parry. "...you sent your minions alongside of me." This one from above, caught in an invisible web and crushed. "Striking at me then, you thought me at my weakest." A headlong rush, ended on spears that dragged the body down "You never understood that it was only then that I was at my strongest." Silence now. No more battles of shadows, no more clashes of imagined blades. Then the voice echoes out from the nothing again. "Is it not fitting, then, that I strike at you where you think yourself strongest, that I may show you where you are truly weakest?"

Vanil's eyes flare with the crimson light of his Exilic resequencing. Both of his gloves drop, unheeded, to the floor below, and he flexes his claws at his side. Ever so slowly, a long, narrow smirk claims his black lips.

"Then fight me."

"You poor fool..." It happens again, once more with no warning at all. The transition produces no precursor, has no logical sequence to observe. There is a moment that the words seem to simply hang in the air, but before they have even fully been consumed by the natural state of the Construct, he is there. It happens so fast, even the enhanced sense of a Blood Drinker have no chance to react. All the Prince knows is that there is now a hand around his throat, the pressure insistent, the muscles unyielding. His feet are dangling almost level with the man's knees, his upward progress inexorable and unstoppable. He stares down the one hand choking him with his cat-like pupils to come face to face once more with the mismatched orbs of The Great Wyrm, the Viking blade held at his side, glinting in the light. "Do you not realize that I have already won?"

Every trace of human diplomacy leaves the Blood Drinker. In that moment, he stands revealed for that which he truly is.

"Insolent human WRETCH!" The shadows in his hand solidify, responding to their master's hatred, forming into a viciously jagged knife of Neverstuff. "You never should have returned! Now you will meet the fate I had planned for you at Bane!" His voice is a snake like hiss, warped with the poisonous malice that nestled where his heart should have been. He strikes out with the tendril of the Construct, infusing it with all of his rage. To his shock, the blade like projection sinks home, only for the form holding him aloft to dissolve once more. Another replica...Struggling to regain his equilibrium, the sound of that ruined voice once more causes his head to snap up again, shock and outrage warring for dominance as he sees The Great Wyrm seated upon his own throne, the Viking blade laid naked across his knees, hands clasping the arms of the chair as he seems to loom over Vanil. In stark contrast to the enraged Blood Drinker's tones, the voice of the Draconigena Nauarchus is calm and level, booming out from him with surprising strength, speaking in that tone he reserved only for pronouncements of great import.

"Listen to me, Vanil. Hear me, oh Prince of Darkness. I come to you this night not as your enemy, though that is the role you would chose for me, but instead as a final chance. You have meddled deeply in the affairs of those that have claim as your equal. Worse still, for you, you dared to meddle in the affairs of our employer. Oh yes, I know of Blackwood. Did you think it all forgiven and forgotten? The affair settled when once more you stepped through that door and back into the Prison of Dreams?

"I forsee conflict in your future. A change is upon you, and those that have associated with you. As that time draws ever nearer, you will find yourself in dire straights, in need of any help that will avail itself to you. Consider well, Blood Drinker of the Ouroboros, Vanil of the Masquerade, what debts you owe, and what debts are owed to you, and remember that they will all be repaid in kind. Consider well the fights you pick, and the prices you will pay."

His voice lowers, softens even, and he leans forward slightly, his gaze pining the other before him in place as surely as his words had.

"Together, we could have done great things, Vanil. Instead, you could not see past your shadow, and so feasted only on ashes. Now, when perhaps you would have greatest need of my aid, I am bound to repay you in the same coin that you have parlayed with me. Consider well in what state you want the balance between us, as your time of need draws near."

He straightens again, his eyes closing as he tilts his head back, mouth open as a sound no human could make slowly works it's way out of him, building, gaining strength, the very fabric of the Neverwhere shuddering at the subvocal depths of it. As it nears a crescendo, there is a flash. The flash is composed not of light or darkness, but is instead a flash of Time itself, a moment where there is nothing but the awareness of self. In that moment, four words echo through Vanil's mind in a voice that he has never heard, and knows will never hear from any creature in Dreams or Deserts, but yet he still instinctively identifies as belonging to The Great Wyrm.

Omnia mutantur, nihil interit.

Opening his eyes, the Prince of Darkness finds himself seated on his throne. His harem-things languish around his boots. Tamur4 stands behind him, chestnut hair done up properly. It is as if everything from the moment he had first heard those echoing footfalls has not happened. As if it had all been nothing more than a vivid dream. He realizes he is breathing hard. Shaking himself of the old habit, Vanil runs a glove along the black veins marring his Residual Self Image. When he is once more sure of himself, he turns to his Operations Program and speaks with a slow certaintity he does not allow himself to doubt he has.

"We can no longer wait... Contact the Lupine Mistress at once." He pauses, and the program looks at him in question. "...Oh. And reseal the entry points. This is my world..." The last is said more to himself than to any other. Tamur4's look has turned from one of question to confusion.

"...The entry points are sealed, and have been since you returned. As per your orders."

The Blood Drinker stands and whirls about, the harem-things scattering as his leathers trail about him, scrambling away as he screams in fury.

"Then break them and reseal them at once! DO AS I SAY!"

It is amid the scramble that it catches his eye. Something just off to the side, out of sight from where he sat on the throne. A Viking blade, sunk deep into the inky darkness that comprised the floor. Even as he watched, the nature of the place was undoing it, slowly crumbling it back into the very substance of which the Construct was built from.

With another snarl, he kicks aside a Succubi and storms from that place to seek solace amidst the digital rain of the Matrix. At least there, Vanil could predict which way the shadows would slant...



...For now.

[LiterateMisfit]

His presence only meant that he had not failed in the task at hand. And the task bordered on the sharp edge of suicide. But he owed her this much and she knew he’d follow through. He had been to Bane once before. He had escaped the icy corridors, an endless maze of twisted paths and countless drones designed for the purposes of Death. She knew that he would succeed where others, those like her, would have failed.

And here he was, standing in the open hanger of her ship, with that cocky smile, holding the Bible-shaped box in a black gloved hand.

“I never thought I’d see you outside the more cultured section of, Styx, my dear.” His voice was like silk draped over razor-wire. His other hand glided through a thick mane of long white hair, held back by a black cord.

For a moment, Lit had forgotten that she was outside the Matrix. He hadn’t aged a day since last they’d met, when he had been imprisoned in Bane.

“Yes, well, times have changed,” she began. “I simply cannot be the public spectacle I once was.”

He smirked and passed the Bible-shaped box from one hand to the other. The folds of his heavy gray overcoat danced in a dulled-down glamour from how it moved in that digital world she was so accustomed to seeing him in. It was strange to see him face to face in the Real, in this backwater shanty of Styx.

“You flatter yourself, for we both know that just as you once held an ear to the Council, you administer the very same skills as advising in your current position. Lit, always in the shadows, always working behind the scenes, no?”

“In most cases your assumptions would be right, though I dare say this one time has left you looking like somewhat of an ass.” In the Real her hair was not nearly as vibrant but she tried to maintain her appearance where others let theirs go, a sacrifice to what they saw in their minds. “Have you what I asked for?”

He shook the black book. It wasn’t really a book, only shaped like one: a rounded box that looked weighty in his hand. She caught a glimpse of one of the short sides of the book and saw the connector that oddly, yet not surprisingly resembled the neural-jack in the back of her neck. The man holding the book noticed where her eyes had wandered to and gently caressed the connector.

“It reminds me of my own. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“May I have it?”

“Oh, I suppose.” He threw the book and for a moment Lit wished beyond all things that they were in fact inside the Matrix and that she could move at the speeds she was so well adapt to there. He relished in the sight of how wide her eye had become in a matter of mere seconds, as she jumped out of her chair and reached for the Bible-shaped box that seemed to turn in slow-motion but somehow picked up speed with the passage of time.

She heard the screams the moment her fingers grazed the ebony casing of the box and knew that they originated from what she now held and were ringing through the passages of her mind. She knew that if she could in fact open this dark tomb, as she would a rare book, she would be able to read the details of the world she now held, the pages, too many to count of cursed ancient code scripted a story too dark and sinister to bare. Reading what was contained in thousands of folded circuit board was enough to render a sane person unhinged and to experience the effects of the Code first-hand would unravel the very fabric of the mind. She knew this, the one now loitering around the back hatch of her ship knew, and so did one other, one who had come calling, who most recently had an intimate encounter with the Construct that now resided in her hands.

“Do you have any sense as to what you almost did?” She demanded, coming close to holding the Bible-shaped book as though it were a child. The screams did not cease, not even for a moment and she had to consciously keep from raising her voice, knowing that only she could hear them.

“I’m aware of exactly what I was doing.” He straightened, revealing his true height. For one so old he rivaled the greats of this age. A memory from the Zion days returned to her. How he had stood beside Morpheus, not as an underling, but rather, an equal. She had been a child then, and he was once respected. Now he was breaking into fortress outposts and stealing Hell-Class Constructs. “And had you not caught it, I’d have done us all a favor. What you have is the Atomic Bomb of this generation. It’s a doomsday device. Only instead of ending everything, the Real, the Matrix, all of it, that book you have there will imprison us all, trapped and tormented for all eternity.”

“What I have is a Construct.”

“No, Lit. What you have is the harbinger of Hell on Earth, for all the living, Blue Pill, Red Pill and Program alike. There is about as much reason for machines to fear as do mortal minds. It’s a twisted realm beneath the layers of Code and circuitry. What monster did you pry that from and why would you ask me to retrieve it?”

“Because I wrote it, K. And because there is a mind that was able to escape it.”

“No!” The man named Kafka proclaimed.

“Yes. And I need to understand the how and why before his call is answered.”

[SiegesMorraeon]

((Since I can't seem to indivually link my posts from DN1...))

((Warning: Here be a long post... and a much more violent one than you're accustomed to seeing from me. It's an idea I had hidden in the depths of my personal LiveJournal for my own private consumption, but I figured now was the time to let it surface, revised to fit the occasion.))

The bell on the door of Ernesto's in Creston Heights chimed. Sieges, sitting at the bar and going over the books for the night before she locked up, looked up to see the last shadow she wanted to see darken the entryway. She felt Morraeon rise and roil in her head, but she kept calm, not letting her own annoyance reach her face.

"Still maintaining this place, Mercedes Hannaford?" he asked, looking around him and taking a cigarette from his lips. "I thought that now you had started that little order of knights of yours, you would have abandoned this endeavor."

Sieges shrugged one shoulder. "I was going to sell it, but Austrian wanted to use it as a meeting place, so I kept it among my assets."

His lips curled in a sneer as he came up alongside her. "Ah yes, along with your stolen chalice. You're as much a weak, foolish little child as you ever were. You put me in mind of those Goddess-worshippers that fail to see the dark face of the Lady."

It's a little hard to do that when, oh, she's got what those Demon Army wonks call a death-goddess in her head, Morraeon sneered. Sieges let down the barrier between her mind and her symbiote's consciousness.

"You forget, my smoky friend, that the guardian of the Grail is also the keeper of the Unholy Spear," Morraeon said, speaking through Sieges. Now? the Exile asked.

If you insist... Sieges replied in the back of her head. Out loud she added, "Releasing control art restrictions to level Omega."

Wyrm smirked down at her. "What's that you're saying?" But he hardly had the words out before Sieges leaned back and let a cloud of darkness about the same size as herself flow from her left side. The inky mass transmuted into a cloud of crimson eyes that first took on the shape of a human-sized bird of prey with the head of a woman, then a woman with the head of a desert dog, finally resolving into a cloud of knives that hurled themselves at Wyrm. Before he could run for the door, the knives slammed into his body, hurling him over backwards and pinning him to the floor. The blade tips pierced into the linoleum, holding him down.

"Target subdued. Raising Control Art restrictions to Level One," Sieges said.

Most of the mass of blades pulled back except for five large blade pierced through his wrists, his ankles and his left side. The rest of the mass resolved first into a black mass, then into Morraeon's usual graceful, sinisterly decadent form, clad in a revealling gown and opera-length gloves, her black top-hat perched rakishly askew on her head, her shock mane of black hair falling half over her face. She lowered herself, sitting astride her target's hips. Wyrm glared at her, trying to pull himself out from under her and tear himself free of the blades, but Morraeon unsheathed the talons of her left hand and slammed her palm against his throat, the talons scissored across his neck, the tips plunged into the floor.

"Funny how love and hate can burn just as hot and just as fierce. I used to think yah were the man for me," she crooned, carressing his chest fondly with her free hand. "But then yah had to go and commit the second of the only two crimes I list in my book. And what was it?"

"Your father was an abomination that needed to be purged," he said, his voice half-choked.

"Mmmm, but he was also my daddy," she said. "And yah don't mess with his little girl's daddy, after he saved the life of one of your operatives, when you weren't around to help her out of the mess."

"He put her under his spell --"

"All right, that does it, yer gettin' a taste of what ailed her," Morraeon snapped. Lifting her right hand, she let a green-tinted black mass of code form in her hand. Pulling her left hand from Wyrm's neck, she forced open his jaws and stuffed the mass of code into his mouth. He bucked wildly under the onslaught, but then his head fell back. He tried to speak, but already the lining of his mouth and his tongue had started to turn the same green-black as the toxin ate into it --

The group of Exiles and Redpills hurried as quickly as they could along a dank corridor under the Chateau, carrying the weakened Draconigena Nauarchus. LinksLife, leading the group, reached the door at the end of the hallway first and opened it, stepping aside to let them enter.

In the room within, Morraeon waited, the stylus of a tattooing machine across her lap. On the table beside her sat two grimoire-like leather-bound books, one a little smaller than the other. "Just in time," she said, setting down the glas of absinthe she nursed.

LinksLife looked from his former teacher to the smaller book beside his sister's one-time symbiote. "Is it ready?" he asked, nervously.

"Ready when you boys are," Morraeon said, standing up and approaching a surgical table in the corner of the room. The Masquerade crew dropped their weakened prisoner on the table. "Hold his head," Morraeon ordered. LinksLife looked down at Wyrm's injured face, the eyes already sunken and his lips turned greenish black.

Looking to the rest of the Masquerade crew, Morraeon added, "Hold his arms and legs, I ain't gonna have him swat me off in the middle of this." The Redpills and Exiles did as they were told.

Morraeon approached Wyrm, the tattoo stylus in hand. With the talons of her right hand, she slashed open his shirt and pulled back the halves of the fabric. He weakly tried to writhe away from her, but she set to work, tattooing a cartouche in the center of his chest. A bubbling shriek rose from his chest, but the damage to the muscles of his tongue, mouth and jaw were too much for him to articulate the curses that he heaped on her.

When the needle ran dry, she stepped back. Wyrm fell slack in the arms of his captors, a tremor passing over his body. The color slowly returned to his lips, then they moved as if of their own accord.

"Wakey, wakey, Iapawet," Morraeon crooned, carressing the cartouche with her talons.

Wyrm's chest heaved as he caught a breath. Then a small voice, like a young boy's spoke through Wyrm's lips. "Maman... is that you?" --

Sieges shook herself awake. "Okay, which one of us dreamed that?!"

In the back of her head, Morraeon replied, "I think it was a concerted effort, but it was almost too wierd even for me."

"That's the last time I let you talk me into watching a David Cronenberg movie marathon late at night."

[SiegesMorraeon]

Dragons have one soft spot, somewhere. -- Neil Gaiman, "Instructions"

Merrill had been a light sleeper since his forced awakening a year before, and despite his somewhat dreamy nature, he rarely dreamed. His reason had always been that he dreamed so much during his waking hours that it left him little need to dream while he slept.

But that night, one day out from Segur, he awakened from a strange dream, which left him with a jumbled image that haunted him. It seemed he'd been playing several hands of poker with a dragon that seemed to be also a lean giant of a man in a dark red suit. Only the cards they used were the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. At one point, as the dragon-man shuffled the deck the Wheel of Fortune fell from the cards. The dragon-man smirked and pushed the card, inverted, towards him. Whatever the dragon-man said, Merrill lost the words as he awakened...



Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup -- Bumpersticker motto, popular among gamers, fantasy fans and other whimsical people *

Under his guise as "Guillimar the Bard", Merrill ventured into the world-within-the-world, intending to continue learning his chosen line of work as a craftsman. Instead, he encountered a young man whom his sister had spoken of only too highly, a youth known as LinksLife. They spoke at some length regarding the sister they shared in common, about her troubles they both knew of and others that he was not aware of, tales of dragons and kings and psychopomps he had not heard until that night. He spoke, innocently enough, to Links of the dream he had had, and the very mention of this dream gave his new-found brother pause before he explained it.

As he departed for the evening, Merrill slipped his hand into his trench coat pocket, feeling something there....

At least now that she had been plucked from harm's way, his sister could rest easily. The physicians at Outpost Segur, and the medics from the Aeria Gloria and the Hapsburg kept her sedated, but she insisted on being jacked into one of her small worlds-within-the-world, the better to get her mind off the damage to her body. At least her face was unmarred, but her limbs had suffered. Ninurta, a physician from Outpost Bane who had transferred to Segur, had hinted that prosthetics could be designed to take the place of her right arm and -- Lord and Lady, prevent it -- her right leg if surgery could not save the limb.

He wished to linger at her side, but the attendant nurses shooed him away, which probably worked for the best: he had code bits to farm for if he was ever to develop his trade as a code-craftsman.

And yet, as he roamed the world-within-a-world, his familiar at his side helping keep the hostile Exilic wights at bay, he sensed something peculiar pass over his being. A burning sensation struck his forehead, almost as if some unseen person had hit him with a branding iron. He saw a flash of darkness behind his eyes and he stopped, leaning against a container, but it passed so quickly that he could make nothing of it. The pain subsided after a moment, allowing him to continue his way through the shadows and narrow passageways among the containers on the wharves of Uriah.

The pain returned again, later on, as he made his way to Apollyon, there to meet with Austrian, commander of the company Sieges had brought their crew to join, but he made light of it: perhaps it was an effect of the assault on the Hovershuttle La Veuve, but something hidden deep in the back of his mind would not buy that theory....

[Liliane]

A dark figure cloaked in shadows circled around her slowly. She could feel the penetration of his gaze, the singular gaze of one blinded eye, sear through her very soul...if she believed in such a thing. She brought the chalice to her lips and drank, her body trembling so fiecely she could barely keep from dropping it. Blood poured out, seemingly without an end, flowing past her lips and down her chin. An incessant stream, more than the chalice could possibly contain. The figure stopped before her and her violet eyes rose to meet his as the chalice clattered to the floor soundlessly. Her ears were ringing. Blood still seeped past her lips, the strong coppery taste burning her tongue. In his eyes, she saw his obvious disdain at her decision to flee from life, and his will for her to put this selfish attempt at escape behind her. The promise she made to him went beyond her desires or wants, beyond life or death. She fell to her knees, stuttering out her next words.

"I can't..."

The monster of a man crouched before her. No, he didn't need her to carry out his plans. The Great Wyrm did not seem to need anyone. He did, however, have use for her. Crouched there before her, no words were spoken, but she heard his voice regardless.

"You can, and you will."

Liliane jolted awake. She was still violently trembling, just as she had been in the dream. The same recurring dream, haunting her sleep for...she did not know how long it had been now. As she pulled the sweat-drenched locks of black curls up from the back of her sticky neck, she tried to remember how long it had been, or even what the day was, and for the moment she could not. Swinging her legs over the side of her cot she sighed, resting her face in her opposite hand, willing her nerves to calm.

The throbbing in her ears would not stop, the unending hum and vibrations. She was at the point of growling low with frustration when it suddenly occured to her that the noise might....not...be in her head. Liliane dropped the tangled mass of hair, alowing it to once more fall. It was now long past her waist. She snagged a well worn and often torn sweater from the back of her desk chair. Quick steps carried her out of her quarters and down the long corridor of her once lavish ship, formerly filled with recruits. Now it was as hollow as a burial mausoleum, which she had meant to be her final place of rest. As she reached the gaping door, an open welcome for intruders, she raised an arm to shield her eyes from the dust storm that had been kicked up. The canyon a short distance away had echoed the vibrations well ahead of the arrival, and it was only now that the source crested the lip of the natural formation. When it did, the noise grew louder, sparks igniting from the undercarraige of the ship...His ship...there was no mistaking it. Her arms lilted to her sides and her mouth gaped. Stumbling, slow steps moved her down the entryway, bare feet making imprints in the dirt. She stood there, waiting.

It was with a ponderous grace that the ancient behemoth rose from out of the canyon. Arcs of lightning shot out from the pads to the canyon wall before they cleared it. The ship came in low and gently, the careful manueverings speaking of an expert hand at the wheel. The rust stains on the hull marked it as uniquely as the name emblazoned onto the side. The distinctive apperance of a ship that had seen service perhaps longer than most of the current redpill population had been Awake. With a thunderous groan, the metalic leviathian settled to the ground, nose to nose with Liliane's own vessel. The hydraulics vented mist into the air, adding to it's almost etheral apperance. With a hiss, the boarding ramp lowered. From out of the shadowed entrance, a profile emerged.

He wore steel toed combat boots that clinked against the boarding ramp with each deliberate step. His pants were tattered and patched, torn and resewn on so many occasions it was doubtful even a shred of the original fabric remained. His shirt was loose and of thick material, but of similiar state. His hooded cloak was perhaps the most tattered of all. It appeared to have no original shred of cloth, put together wholesale from odds and ends. The stitches of the hood were obvious and poorly done. Coming to a stop at the bottom of the ramp, one hand was raised, and the hood was lowered. Staring straight at her with his infamously mismatched eyes was the Draconigena Nauarhcus himself. The Great Wyrm had arrived.

Her mouth opened and closed a few times, trying to find her own words. It had been so long since she had spoken at all in the Real, let alone to anyone other than herself. Language failed her at first, but eventually she found it.

"Wh....What...." she swallowed, and then..."What took you so long?" Nothing less than a smart-alec comment would have seemed fitting at a moment like this, but the trembling from the dream struck her once again, worsened by the frailness of her physical form having been pushed to the human limitations of neglect and starvation. His soft laughter is as she remembers - pained, and forced, his ravaged throat having to be willed to produce the sound.

"Next time, you can walk Beyond and Back Again and I'll vacation in the Wastelands." If she didn't think he was being sincere, she might have laughed. He steps a few steps forward, slowly looking her up and down in a frank assessment of her well being. She felt much like a slave on an auction block, the way he looked her over, and a sense of pride long forgotten bloomed within her as her eyes narrowed at him, shoulders squaring, posture forced to more rigid straightness.

"I would have found my own way back, eventually, had I not been resigned to stay here and perish." Amusement sparks in his right eye, and one side of his face twitches in what may have been an almost smirk.

"Yes, of course you would have. That's why you needed me to tell you to return, isn't it?" Flashes again of the dream, and a shiver rippled through her. She took a step back from him. On the surface she attempted to keep his gaze, her features firm and unafraid, but below the surface, Liliane had thought she knew him well, and thought she knew what he was and was not capable of. Now, she was no longer so sure. With that lack of knowledge came a new sense of fear, and yes, awe of him.

"Ah yes, I had a couple questions for you regarding that. One, why did you tell me to return, and two...more importantly...." Her voice softened. "How?"

He tosses his head back and laughs. He laughs long, and deep, and it is one of the most painful sounds Liliane thinks she's ever heard that destroyed voice box of his produce. Overhead, almost as if in response, the storm picks up, as the lightning flashes across the blackened Heavens and thunder shakes the deadened Earth. Her eyes flickered upward, and then back at him.

"That....is a long story, my dear Madame Liliane. For now, the important part is that I am here. Set!" The Freeborn picks his way down the ramp, arms filled with supplies of all kinds. "Her ship is nearly unsalvagable. We're going to need all the spares to do this. Start the assessment." He turns back to face her as his Navigator grunts an affirmative and moves to do as instructed. "I have asked for you because there are things I need to do. Things that would be much easier with those I could trust at my side." He stares straight at her as he says this, taking in her reaction to those words.

"I see..." She thought of the chalice, of daggers and sliced palms, the night of the promise she made meant for different reasons, and yet here she found herself, still at his command. "Well then...while I await further orders, please tell me you have fresh water on the ship. My filtration system is long overdue for replacement, and I smell like Hell warmed over." Her gaze never faultered. Some may have had trouble gazing into the horror of his mismatched orbs, but she never had. If there was one thing she knew about Wyrm, it was that if you gave him an inch of fear, he would twist it into a mile if it suited his whims. Still, a hint of a smile krept across her lips. "It is good to see you."

This time he does grin, ignoring the pain as his scars twist painfully with the movement, turning it more into a grimace.

"I do believe that's the first time anyone has ever said that to me."