11-22-2017, 11:36 PM
True awareness arrived quietly this time, heralded by the vague impression of a soft-but-significant click. Awash in a tide of gently rising clarity, Kelly's eyes opened, his higher senses expanded, and his thoughts began to spin. The traveler shifted his weight, the heel of his boot digging a small trench in the black soil as he straightened one of his legs. Brushing the ticklish fronds of a fern away from his face, his gaze sharpened as he turned his focus inward, taking stock of his faculties.
He wasn't the same. The phantom walls and roiling fog that had populated the idea-space behind his eyes were gone, replaced by a metaphor of billions of efficiently-shifting sapphire panes, floating in a matte-gray void; Some were windows, some resembled blades, others owned wild and nameless forms. As his thoughts ticked over, jumping from observation to association to evaluation, collating and processing and criticizing, the gleaming and seemingly boundless array changed instantaneously: a constant progression of seamless cognitive states.
Within the fenestrated constellations of his brain, many of the windows were dark; These, Kelly knew, contained memories. The psychic sensed it instinctively; he could feel them flickering past him, phantom impressions that informed his thoughts and actions: sources for his sourceless ideas and methods. If he focused, they fell into a stable orbit, his experiences shining stark and available beside the darkened panes of lost history, and diamond packets of alien information – fruits of the psychic's recent apotheosis: gifts of memory and knowledge from Tearen Wover and fragments of identity gleaned from his disciples' minds.
It was all within reach, like a friend spotted in a crowd - available at the call of a name, the judicious use of a cross-walk, a shoulder-barging march through the masses. With a little circuitous effort, he could break through and drag the truths of his past from their brittle vaults.
Only now he wasn't sure he wanted to.
Ever since Omni brought me here I've been convinced I was forgetting something important; Is this it? My own culpability for my memory issues?
It doesn't feel right. It doesn't fit. It's significant, certainly – It changes my entire psychological paradigm – but it lacks urgency. If I had to guess, the thing my subconscious has been prodding me about is part of whatever memories I went to such lengths to bury.
Which I suppose brings me to the most irritating question ever posed: Can I take my own advice?
He didn't know the answer; There was so much he wanted to know about himself, so much hinted and half-remembered. On the other hand, assuming that the transient entity which had spoken to him while his brain rebooted wasn't a trick or hallucination implanted by the God-mind towards some unknown purpose, then Kelly felt safe in reasoning that he must have had some extremely strong motives to lock so much of himself away.
Ponderously, the traveler rose, kneeling among the ferns. A cloud of rich miasma boiled from where his boots disturbed the earth as he put his hand on his denim-clad knee and levered himself to his feet. Upright once more, Kelly turned and looked back in the direction of the clearing from which he'd been so unceremoniously thrown. Through the tangled emerald fronds of forest undergrowth, he could see the classically-styled pavilion, battered and blasted by the tidal forces and ensuing explosion of the psychic singularity that had consumed them all. He caught glimpses of Tearen Wover's disciples as they milled about, absorbing their new perspective and experimenting with their powers; their presences in the psychic landscape were crisper now, though still unpolished.
Absently, he noted that both Guu and Tearen seemed to have left.
Irritated at his own indecisiveness, Kelly shook his head and set to navigating his way back out of the underbrush. The traveler moved with deftness and precision, aware of every gnarled root and twisted vine, every bird and insect whispering radio-spectrum neurological noise, but he remained introspective; Even leaving aside the question of whether to delve into his past despite the warning he'd received, he had a lot to think about.
Kelly had gotten what he'd come here for: Tearen Wover's experiences and knowledge. More than that, he'd received a deep understanding of the God-Mind's philosophical background - the very keys to his power. The content of those revelations, however, posed their own problems: chiefly, why did the recollection of his recent cosmic apotheosis feel simultaneously so routine and so anathema? His overall perspective hadn't changed as near as he could tell, though he could recapture the feeling of ontological oneness with only minor effort.
As he strode back into the sunlit clearing, the psychic's mind attempted to serve him the answers. The memories were slippery, but pliant. They whispered of chaos, tragedy, and triumph, and in spite of himself he heard a voice from the past.
“You,” it whispered, worried, proud and astonished, “are an intruder here, on every conceivable level: an existential principality. Your mere presence in our lands sends ripples thro-
Just as the full context threatened to spill over, Kelly disengaged, refocusing his mind. If he was going to finally plumb the hidden and potentially dangerous depths of his memory, he'd prefer to do it systematically, in a place and time of his choosing.
Besides, now that he had actually re-entered the clearing his higher senses were painting a vivid picture: not all of the recently-enlightened were faring as well as he was; One in particular, a slim young woman in a cheerful dress with her long blue hair pulled back in a thick braid, lay propped against a pillar, glassy-eyed and staring at nothing. A feral-looking man with a mop of wild snowy hair, his body covered in scars, crouched over her, face pinched with concern.
The man Kelly recognized, from watching Dante's Abyss and researching Darkshire – and both of their identities were readily brought forth from the God-Mind's memories.
Strazio Rockwell and Malon... though I guess she's in disguise right now? Regardless, it looks like she's having difficulties processing all this. I'm the most powerful telepath still present; I should probably help.
And ethical altruism aside, forging stronger ties to this particular group of people will probably have long term strategic advantages...
Kelly picked his way through the central pavilion, taking a couple of seconds to fix his ponytail as he went. His booted footfalls sounded hollow on the cracked and riven tiles. His iron-shod quarterstaff, missing until now, caught his eye, lying among the debris; A moment's focus and it leapt into his hand, impacting his palm with a quiet slap.
Strazio looked up, grimacing as he spotted the traveler approach.
“You're the guy who showed up to Wover's whatever-this-was at the last possible minute. Who the fuck are you, anyway?” the mage growled, his whole body tensing as he unconsciously clenched his fists.
Kelly halted his advance, and answered with a thin, amiable smile. “My name is Kelly MacAryn. I'm not your enemy, Strazio – in fact, we've fought on the same side before, although we managed to miss each other at the time.”
The traveler dug beneath his shirt, producing the Emblem of Darkshire he'd been given for his service to the city. Recognition flickered across Rage Mage's face, but he didn't relax.
“That's great. Fantastic; But I'm dealing with something here, so you've got two choices: either Help Out or Fuck Off.”
“Helping is why I'm here,” Kelly said, closing the remaining distance between them and kneeling down in front of the catatonic woman. “I've been a psychic for much longer than the rest of this conclave. I felt her distress, and I've got some insight regarding her condition.”
Strazio's frown deepened, becoming a little bit less like a growl. “Okay. So what's wrong with Maru?”
Kelly shifted his weight, boots scraping on the tile, and placed his staff across his knees. The traveler extended a scarred hand above Malon's dilated, staring blue eyes, and brushed the surface of her mind with his own. Clinically detached, he observed the weft and form of her consciousness without immersing himself in the content, confirming his suspicion.
“We've all ended up with a certain amount of psychic debris in our minds,” he said, withdrawing his hand and blowing a stray strand of dark hair out of his face, “bits and pieces of each-other's pasts and personalities. I've filed mine away for reference and ease-of-access, and you seem to be handling yours, but Maru's having problems keeping herself separate from the echoes of the rest of us. She's caught in a kind of mnemonic riptide.“
Strazio struck his fist against the floor, eliciting a dull, meaty thwack. A fresh crack appeared in the tiles. “I figured it would be some kind of telepathic bullshit. Alright, I'm listening. How do we fix it?”
Kelly rose smoothly to his feet. He arched his back, popping his spine. “She'll probably come out of it on her own eventually, but there are things we can do to speed up the process. First, we should put her someplace more cozy; There's a chaise-lounge over there that doesn't look too damaged. Once she's resting comfortably, I'm a skilled enough psychic to help guide her recovery.”
The Avatar of Rage glowered for a moment, then nodded, scooping up Malon in his scar-ravaged arms and standing effortlessly, as though she didn't weigh anything at all. “Okay. As much as I hate to admit it, you're the expert. But if you mess this up, there'll be hell to pay.”
One corner of the traveler's mouth twitched, but otherwise his expression didn't change. The two drastically different men, their charge in tow, made their way over to the only slightly-battered maroon fainting-couch that Kelly had indicated earlier. A brief wind kicked up, ruffling Strazio's shock-white hair. Torn silk curtains wafted and spiraled as the breeze moaned through the damaged pavilion. Although it remained sunny and warm, the air smelled like rain.
Strazio deposited his wide-eyed burden face-up on the couch, taking a moment to make sure her head was supported comfortably, and asked, “So now what?”
Kelly propped his staff against a nearby column and placed his hands on either side of Malon's face. His eyes, much the same shade as hers, seemed to retreat slightly, lurking in their caves. “For you, the boring part. For me – a short telepathic jaunt.”
He closed his eyes, probing passive clarity, raw awareness flowing like water through porous rock. Softly, like a song on the breeze, he infiltrated her mind.
“Malon?”
He wasn't the same. The phantom walls and roiling fog that had populated the idea-space behind his eyes were gone, replaced by a metaphor of billions of efficiently-shifting sapphire panes, floating in a matte-gray void; Some were windows, some resembled blades, others owned wild and nameless forms. As his thoughts ticked over, jumping from observation to association to evaluation, collating and processing and criticizing, the gleaming and seemingly boundless array changed instantaneously: a constant progression of seamless cognitive states.
Within the fenestrated constellations of his brain, many of the windows were dark; These, Kelly knew, contained memories. The psychic sensed it instinctively; he could feel them flickering past him, phantom impressions that informed his thoughts and actions: sources for his sourceless ideas and methods. If he focused, they fell into a stable orbit, his experiences shining stark and available beside the darkened panes of lost history, and diamond packets of alien information – fruits of the psychic's recent apotheosis: gifts of memory and knowledge from Tearen Wover and fragments of identity gleaned from his disciples' minds.
It was all within reach, like a friend spotted in a crowd - available at the call of a name, the judicious use of a cross-walk, a shoulder-barging march through the masses. With a little circuitous effort, he could break through and drag the truths of his past from their brittle vaults.
Only now he wasn't sure he wanted to.
Ever since Omni brought me here I've been convinced I was forgetting something important; Is this it? My own culpability for my memory issues?
It doesn't feel right. It doesn't fit. It's significant, certainly – It changes my entire psychological paradigm – but it lacks urgency. If I had to guess, the thing my subconscious has been prodding me about is part of whatever memories I went to such lengths to bury.
Which I suppose brings me to the most irritating question ever posed: Can I take my own advice?
He didn't know the answer; There was so much he wanted to know about himself, so much hinted and half-remembered. On the other hand, assuming that the transient entity which had spoken to him while his brain rebooted wasn't a trick or hallucination implanted by the God-mind towards some unknown purpose, then Kelly felt safe in reasoning that he must have had some extremely strong motives to lock so much of himself away.
Ponderously, the traveler rose, kneeling among the ferns. A cloud of rich miasma boiled from where his boots disturbed the earth as he put his hand on his denim-clad knee and levered himself to his feet. Upright once more, Kelly turned and looked back in the direction of the clearing from which he'd been so unceremoniously thrown. Through the tangled emerald fronds of forest undergrowth, he could see the classically-styled pavilion, battered and blasted by the tidal forces and ensuing explosion of the psychic singularity that had consumed them all. He caught glimpses of Tearen Wover's disciples as they milled about, absorbing their new perspective and experimenting with their powers; their presences in the psychic landscape were crisper now, though still unpolished.
Absently, he noted that both Guu and Tearen seemed to have left.
Irritated at his own indecisiveness, Kelly shook his head and set to navigating his way back out of the underbrush. The traveler moved with deftness and precision, aware of every gnarled root and twisted vine, every bird and insect whispering radio-spectrum neurological noise, but he remained introspective; Even leaving aside the question of whether to delve into his past despite the warning he'd received, he had a lot to think about.
Kelly had gotten what he'd come here for: Tearen Wover's experiences and knowledge. More than that, he'd received a deep understanding of the God-Mind's philosophical background - the very keys to his power. The content of those revelations, however, posed their own problems: chiefly, why did the recollection of his recent cosmic apotheosis feel simultaneously so routine and so anathema? His overall perspective hadn't changed as near as he could tell, though he could recapture the feeling of ontological oneness with only minor effort.
As he strode back into the sunlit clearing, the psychic's mind attempted to serve him the answers. The memories were slippery, but pliant. They whispered of chaos, tragedy, and triumph, and in spite of himself he heard a voice from the past.
“You,” it whispered, worried, proud and astonished, “are an intruder here, on every conceivable level: an existential principality. Your mere presence in our lands sends ripples thro-
Just as the full context threatened to spill over, Kelly disengaged, refocusing his mind. If he was going to finally plumb the hidden and potentially dangerous depths of his memory, he'd prefer to do it systematically, in a place and time of his choosing.
Besides, now that he had actually re-entered the clearing his higher senses were painting a vivid picture: not all of the recently-enlightened were faring as well as he was; One in particular, a slim young woman in a cheerful dress with her long blue hair pulled back in a thick braid, lay propped against a pillar, glassy-eyed and staring at nothing. A feral-looking man with a mop of wild snowy hair, his body covered in scars, crouched over her, face pinched with concern.
The man Kelly recognized, from watching Dante's Abyss and researching Darkshire – and both of their identities were readily brought forth from the God-Mind's memories.
Strazio Rockwell and Malon... though I guess she's in disguise right now? Regardless, it looks like she's having difficulties processing all this. I'm the most powerful telepath still present; I should probably help.
And ethical altruism aside, forging stronger ties to this particular group of people will probably have long term strategic advantages...
Kelly picked his way through the central pavilion, taking a couple of seconds to fix his ponytail as he went. His booted footfalls sounded hollow on the cracked and riven tiles. His iron-shod quarterstaff, missing until now, caught his eye, lying among the debris; A moment's focus and it leapt into his hand, impacting his palm with a quiet slap.
Strazio looked up, grimacing as he spotted the traveler approach.
“You're the guy who showed up to Wover's whatever-this-was at the last possible minute. Who the fuck are you, anyway?” the mage growled, his whole body tensing as he unconsciously clenched his fists.
Kelly halted his advance, and answered with a thin, amiable smile. “My name is Kelly MacAryn. I'm not your enemy, Strazio – in fact, we've fought on the same side before, although we managed to miss each other at the time.”
The traveler dug beneath his shirt, producing the Emblem of Darkshire he'd been given for his service to the city. Recognition flickered across Rage Mage's face, but he didn't relax.
“That's great. Fantastic; But I'm dealing with something here, so you've got two choices: either Help Out or Fuck Off.”
“Helping is why I'm here,” Kelly said, closing the remaining distance between them and kneeling down in front of the catatonic woman. “I've been a psychic for much longer than the rest of this conclave. I felt her distress, and I've got some insight regarding her condition.”
Strazio's frown deepened, becoming a little bit less like a growl. “Okay. So what's wrong with Maru?”
Kelly shifted his weight, boots scraping on the tile, and placed his staff across his knees. The traveler extended a scarred hand above Malon's dilated, staring blue eyes, and brushed the surface of her mind with his own. Clinically detached, he observed the weft and form of her consciousness without immersing himself in the content, confirming his suspicion.
“We've all ended up with a certain amount of psychic debris in our minds,” he said, withdrawing his hand and blowing a stray strand of dark hair out of his face, “bits and pieces of each-other's pasts and personalities. I've filed mine away for reference and ease-of-access, and you seem to be handling yours, but Maru's having problems keeping herself separate from the echoes of the rest of us. She's caught in a kind of mnemonic riptide.“
Strazio struck his fist against the floor, eliciting a dull, meaty thwack. A fresh crack appeared in the tiles. “I figured it would be some kind of telepathic bullshit. Alright, I'm listening. How do we fix it?”
Kelly rose smoothly to his feet. He arched his back, popping his spine. “She'll probably come out of it on her own eventually, but there are things we can do to speed up the process. First, we should put her someplace more cozy; There's a chaise-lounge over there that doesn't look too damaged. Once she's resting comfortably, I'm a skilled enough psychic to help guide her recovery.”
The Avatar of Rage glowered for a moment, then nodded, scooping up Malon in his scar-ravaged arms and standing effortlessly, as though she didn't weigh anything at all. “Okay. As much as I hate to admit it, you're the expert. But if you mess this up, there'll be hell to pay.”
One corner of the traveler's mouth twitched, but otherwise his expression didn't change. The two drastically different men, their charge in tow, made their way over to the only slightly-battered maroon fainting-couch that Kelly had indicated earlier. A brief wind kicked up, ruffling Strazio's shock-white hair. Torn silk curtains wafted and spiraled as the breeze moaned through the damaged pavilion. Although it remained sunny and warm, the air smelled like rain.
Strazio deposited his wide-eyed burden face-up on the couch, taking a moment to make sure her head was supported comfortably, and asked, “So now what?”
Kelly propped his staff against a nearby column and placed his hands on either side of Malon's face. His eyes, much the same shade as hers, seemed to retreat slightly, lurking in their caves. “For you, the boring part. For me – a short telepathic jaunt.”
He closed his eyes, probing passive clarity, raw awareness flowing like water through porous rock. Softly, like a song on the breeze, he infiltrated her mind.
“Malon?”