Abyss In Rebirth

[Alex Silver]

Alex could not help but be ever so slightly underwhelmed by the appearance of the Nexus. It certainly had quite a bit of a minimalistic vibe going for it. There were people abound… most of whom were so small he frankly had to take a double take and look down to his feet in order to reassure himself of the fact that he was very much standing on firm ground and not several feet higher than everyone else. This made him come to a realization that was – indeed – quite unpleasant for him; the floor was virtually indistinguishable to the skies above, or let alone the horizon. It would’ve caused a bout of seasickness if his feet were not firmly floored nonetheless.

Despite the fact that most people were smaller than the Ichorian average of eight feet of height, he had to acknowledge the fact that some were indeed as big as he was and some – to his surprise in light of this established norm – were even taller. Size was, of course, not the only difference between all these individuals. He was pale and tall by the standards of his people, but all of them – like him – had horns, claws and tails. These people did not all fit this norm and many of them seemed to come from different worlds altogether. “Different worlds… Oh. I see.” He uttered once more, and concluded that all of these people had likely been brought in the same way he had. In truth, many among them were secondaries and were thus brought in by other primes like himself, but seeing as nobody had brought this information to his ears he had no way of knowing that and could only presume based on what he knew. As he looked around, he became aware of the structure behind him; the fountain. This time around, it appeared like a gigantic monolith of darkness atop which sat a statue of Omni which spewed from its mouth a thick, constant stream of water into the small pool below. He would come to realize later once he would return again that this was not the constant reality of the ever shifting fountain, but for the time being he did not have a way of knowing that, nor did he need to. It was a flavor of the Nexus he had no time to truly get accustomed to.

Seeing that some of the people around him were armed, the tall ichorian had the reflex of reaching for his necklace which depicted a unicursive hexagram and attempted to call upon his revolver. This attempt was, however, fruitless. He tried to call upon many of the other objects stored within the trans dimensional devise but this too appeared to have little effect. Perhaps, if he’d focused on one of them for a long enough time, he could have ended up summoning it through the odd commodity that Omni had shown him beforehand; omnilium, but seeing as he was accustomed to the effect of the pendant being instant, he did not bother with a more elongated attempt and simply concluded that the arcane device had lost its effect. “So it seems the immutable rule of the arcane does not apply in this realm. This is going to be fun…” He let out – once again to himself – on a tone of relative disbelief impregnated with sarcasm. To his knowledge, the one stable thing about his universe was that the arcane forces were an immutable constant; regardless of where he found himself, they had proven reliable and ever ready to be called upon. This gave him a nasty feeling. If this was the kind of plane which held such power that even the arcane could not reach him, this ‘Omni’ person was a lot more powerful than his unassuming form let on. Then again, he could have reached that conclusion simply by the fact that he’d summoned him to this world on what appeared to be nothing more than a whim.

“No arcane force… no weapons… I’ll just assume right away that I have no access to-” He paused as he formulated that sentence, raising his hand to try and conjure an orb of energy, but this too seemed fruitless. “…yep.” No way about it, this place was quickly revealing itself to be dampening every single one of his abilities. With this much in mind, he decided it was likely for the best to assume his physical abilities were also dampened here and opted to save himself the embarrassment – and possible pain – to try to lift something larger than himself or, worse, ask one of the denizens to have an arm wrestling competition with him. For now, he would simply make use of his massive stature and hope that his imposing nature would be enough to ward off any would-be attackers. “Rule number one of weird ass places you know sweet fuck all about; assume everyone’s an asshole.” He reminded himself. At this point, the last thing he needed was to assume the first person he came across would be willing to help him only to lure him into possible death. He knew that – according to what ‘Omni’ said – he did not truly need to fear the possibility of death – but he wasn’t about to just take his word for it. Any being sociopathic enough to willingly summon someone like him into their world right after he’d shot a king at point blank range into the skull was definitely not an entirely ‘good’ entity and the fact he did not know the individual’s motivations simply did not sit right with him. There had to be a reason he had been brought here and until he figured that much out, or died and was indeed brought back, he would take everything Omni had said with a grain of salt and would assume for the sake of his own survival and sanity that he was still very much mortal. Besides, the fact that this ‘Omni’ person had appended “so long as you interest me” as a condition for his reincarnation meant that it was very much possible for the being to lose interest in him and let him die for good once he kicked the bucket. Between relying with the whimsy of a potentially omnipotent being whom had brought him to this world from his own without giving him a precise reason or relying upon his own instinct of self-preservation, he chose the option he was by far most comfortable with; the latter.

But there was another issue that came to mind; whatever it was this ‘Omni’ individual – this quotation mark thing was starting to bother him, he would just mentally refer to him as Omni from now on – wanted, it clearly wasn’t for him to just sit still in this big blank space until he eventually died of boredom or someone did the killing in boredom’s stead. So he looked around for something to do. It took him a while to discern – seeing as, after all, the gates were merely twelve feet tall and he was standing over two kilometers away from every single one of them – but he eventually managed to make out some gates in the distance. By walking around the fountain, he realized quickly that there were eight of them and that’s when he made a very interesting realization; interesting to the point he felt the need to speak it aloud; “I may have lost my powers, but my innate sense of direction is still intact.” How exactly he realized this was anyone’s guess, but the fact of the matter was that it was present, and therefore he knew in which direction each of the gates were. It was difficult to completely make them out and – honestly – he had no freaking idea what was on the other side, but people were coming in and out of each of them so it could be assumed to a certain extent that he wasn’t going to die by walking through one of them. Much more importantly however, it meant he would be able to leave this boring place. If he had to stay in the middle of the Nexus any longer than was absolutely necessary – he suspected – he would have an existential crisis.

The gate up north simply seemed like a bad place to head towards first; he had no idea what was on the other side, but the fact of the matter was that after watching his headquarters burn down to the ground less than ten hours ago, he was very much unwilling to intentionally head towards anything which emanated such a steady output of smoke. The door to the west, for entirely different reasons, was his first ‘not a good start’ spot; it was guarded by men in – as expected considering the world as a whole shared that feature – unfamiliar armor and holding rifles. He mentally reminded himself of the first rule of unknown places – also known as the ‘asshole rule’ – and crossed that one from the mental checklist. Logically, if he went by process of elimination, he would eventually find the gate that seemed like the best option.

The eastern gate was third to be eliminated as it seemed to have a steady input and output of individuals wearing cloaks and carrying weapons. Scouts, perhaps, by the looks of it – he could only assume without actual knowledge after all – but the fact that so many came in and out was rather off-putting. He might give it a look eventually if only because the gate was aesthetically pleasing, but for now he needed something which looked like an ‘obvious first choice’. The south gate – last of the primary cardinal directions – was also eliminated simply because in spite of the fur around the neck of his coat Alex had little love for the idea of freezing his rear end off in what he could only assume to be perpetual winter. His race had a high tolerance for the cold, but that did not stop him from disliking it. If one of these gates looked like the entrance of a shack with a fireplace, he would take that over this one.

Now came the secondary directions; the northwest gate was eliminated purely by the fact that it seemed worn and eroded; too much so for him to be willing to pass underneath it. He was not going to die via collapsed archway; he had too much self-respect for that prospect. Northeast was eliminated for reasons similar to the ones which led to the South’s elimination; it’s appearance’s weather implications. With his outfit mainly consisting of leather – a material which was not renowned for its ability to breathe well – he had no love for the hot and humid weather of what he could only guess would be a tropical forestation. There were thus only two gates remaining. The southwest did not even get much more than a quick glance. By the same logic which had eliminated the seemingly tropical northeast, going to a beach was simply not a good idea in light of what he was presently wearing. Following his trail of logic based on first impressions, he would thus decide. “I guess I’m heading southeast then.” A direction which would later reveal itself to house the Pale Moors… whatever those were.

He was about to head off – and, in fact, had already taken his first three steps in the appropriate direction – when he remembered the words of Omni; “This is Omnilium. It’s what ties the Omniverse together. Without it, you are nothing. With it, anything you desire can be yours.” This brought him to take hold of the Omnilium he had been given and gaze upon it in vague curiosity. Maybe… maybe the reason he was unable to use his arcane force was because this omnilium was to be used in its stead? That would be a logical assumption and a theory worth testing. He wasn’t too sure how exactly he would go about it so he simply did as he would have when using his pendant; he took hold of it and began to summon the motorcycle.

Unlike with his pendant – which had set a precedent of immediacy – the Omnilium’s rules, limitations and capacities were completely unknown to ABYSS, so he was a lot more patient with it. Taking all of his concentration and slowly focusing on the item of his desires until it slowly began to form. By the time he finally had a solid motorcycle, it had taken him a solid five minutes of constant concentration. On the bright side, he’d managed to pull it off and the bike did look exactly the way he expected it to. Still, the time this had taken was inconvenient and he hoped that at least he’d get better and more efficient at this. Sadly, he would realize later that the time this took was not due to his lack of practice, but rather due to an immutable law of the Omnilium’s function.

Another inconvenience, which he realized upon climbing onto the large chopper bike, was that its speed meter apparently went no higher than eighty miles per hour. “What? How even…” He uttered in a mix of irritation and disbelief as he tapped upon the small metal window which revealed the speedometer. It was now self-evident; this world was literally created with the sole purpose of pissing him off.

But… no use crying over spilled milk. He revved the motor and started heading towards the gate at moped speed. It was so slow he suspected that if he came across a bug he would actually have the time to physically dodge it before it even hit him, but this was indeed a faster way to reach the gate than a steady jogging pace, let alone walking, even while factoring in the fact that making it had taken a whole five minutes. For that reason, and that reason alone, he thought better than to get aggravated over it and simply leaned back as he rode forward. There was, thankfully, a convenience to this limited speed; he was able to let go of the handle, pull a cigarette out of his jacket, lodge it between his lips and light it without any danger to himself, the bike, or his surroundings. Smoke pouring from his lips as he headed slowly but steadily towards the pale moors, Alex rode forward with anticipation.