Darkness. Everlasting darkness. At first it seemed like it it was stationary, but then she realized it was flowing.
A slow and steady soaring over grey stone, but that wasn't right. She felt it should have been brighter, and that the colour just wasn't right.
And then a flare of light, some sort of malevolent red illumination that flowed and swirld with liquid fire.
This brings to life an inviolate wall of burning glyphs, of a nature she did not understand nor comprehend.
And then the real motion began. At first it was small, like a flutter of cloth, before enormous shapes twisted into life.
Machinations, obviously borne of and bred for war twisted into view: Terribly jagged claws, iron jaws full of malicious silvery fangs. Heavy armanent in bore sizes clearly designed to level buildings and armies alike.
Finally, a figure rose in the center, resplendant in black and purple. Cloaked and hooded, the face was all but obscured by these articulately detailed vestiges.
Except. Those. Eyes and Fangs.
The sinister leer set in sharpened teeth rested below twin orbs full of fire.
Then a laugh so chill it made one...
- - - - - -
Eryss Sysvanoe's Suite, Magus Capital, Early Morning
- - - - - -
She snapped awake, sweat beading on her face and neck as she sat up in her bed. Sucked in a sharp and bewildered gasp, before she arose with a groan and shuffled out of silken sheets to look at her disheveled self.
She looked an absolute wreck, her eyes carrying heavy baggage and normally wild ebon locks laying flat and limp against her scalp and shoulders.
With a grunt, the magus elite began to dress for what she expected to be a very long day.
- - - - - -
Still haunted by the eyes of the dream, she slowly made her way to the high mage Counsel room.
Which was not as empty as she had expected it to be.
She was first greeted by the Arch-Pyromancer Markus Hyperia, whos' normally explosive animation seemed strangely muted that day.
Gryse Fynadyke only briefly looked up from a clay pot he had brought with him, nursing to life some seeds and transforming them into something altogether new. Druids were a curious lot, always talking to the trees.
Jeron Maristolle was nursing a cup of coffee. Or rather, playing with a cup of coffee. A long spiraling ice tower was decorated with tiny sculptures in motion, some skating, some playing, even a ridiculously intensely detailed tree adorning the summit.
And at the head of the table, sat the Counsel leader; whos' magery skills were as enigmatic and mysterious as his bright blue robes and glowing crystalline cerulean gaze. The Blue Mage Calcimer Potts.
Eryss, the highest established portalmancer in her class, as well as the youngest Counsel member at barely in her thirties took her chair. ...and had her doubts that that their curious leader's name really was Calcimer Potts.
But that became the least of her concerns as their personal thoughts were interjected upon.
“As you are all aware..” began Calcimer. “Excavation on the new living quarters to the Northwest Passage is ahead of schedule, all reinforcements of the pathway are in place and Fall Wards are well in effect.”
He steepled his leather-gloved hands together in a solemn expression. “However, work on expanding the Herbary has dwindled to a crawl as the citizens are demanding more space for foodstuffs of better variety.”
“Gryse?”
The druid temporarily stopped fiddling with his little 'pot' before his gravelly voice took the Floor.
“A common misconception of the un-attuned is that locked inside all plantlife is just one strain in particular.”
A table full of blank stares compelled him to continue. “And so the old adage 'An apple tree just makes apples...' “
With a twist of his hands, the little plant violently blossomed, tiny branches flaring out and budding into small fruits.
The flowers quickly flattened down, producing miniaturized fruit: Strawberries, apples, a pear, and a curiously swirl-striped berry.
“Thus, my apprentices and I can easily remedy that little conflict with the current local crisis. Thereby alleviating the need to expand at all.”
A grumble of consensus finds the topic shifting to the next object at hand, some prattle on upgrading the antiquated waterworks.
As they were about to launch into a discussion on why the current Counsel members were even up at this ungodly hour, there was a frantic knock at the Counsel chamber door.
Not expecting any sort of interruption even for breakfast tea for several hours, Calcimer's velvet smooth voice broke over the confused haze that hung over the Conference room.
“Enter...” As the great doors creaked open, a boy maybe ten at most covered in coal and rock dust stumbled into the Councel's chamber.
Barely able to stand, the lad huffed and wheezed, taking a good half minute to recover his faculties.
“T...the Taskmaster sent me... up from...” He sucked in a breath, drawing some iresome looks for this delay in what he had to say. “Up from Shaft Seven in the new dig site for th-”
Markus interjected, his normally smoldering temper having been stoked back to life.
“Get on with it pup, we have things to do.”
The boy took a moment to turn pale, before he resumed with a new quaver in his voice.
“There's been an accident, nobody's hurt but...” More annoyed stares. “But they discovered something down in the mines. I've been down there since I could pick... and I've NEVER seen anything like this b'fore.”
- - - - - -
Shaft Seven Excavation Site
- - - - - -
The climb was harrowing, a sheer sixty feet straight down, poorly lit with only the most primitive of safety lights.
Eryss felt there should definitely be some examination of the conditions and equipment down here in the rock-littered passageways that could easily fit ten men shoulder to shoulder.
Down the hall another fifty feet or so, the hallway blossomed out into a half-domed roof, with a flat wall on the far end where they were drilling a sort of duplicate of the central core of the city, for another Herbary and Tree central and standpoint to reside. The future home of hundreds of citizens to come.
Amidst empty scaffold trellises and work tables strewn with supports, sealant pastes, and various detail tools; there was some curious gemstone samples.
The usual fine gems, quartz, and crystals was overshadowed by something both curious and alien to the passing Counsel members: A pinkish-purple rock,l clearly glowing with its own luminescence.
Gryse, curious about this element, proceeded to aim his hand for a piece easily the size of a man's skull.
The foreman, oddly enough, intercepted his grasp with a gloved hand and bid him not to touch it.
“That is part of why I asked the Counsel down here. That stone contains enough spark inside of it to render an unprotected man unconcious for a few hours. But that...”
As they reached the drill site in que4stion, a looming monster of a machine blocked the view. Composed of a completely sealed capsule for the driver, except for a small slit for viewing the treaded machine was silent, door to the cabin open and vehicle empty.
There were giant piles of rubble strewn about, but around the other side of the vehicle was revealed why work had stopped on clearing and continuing forward.
A vast rounded wall of glittering purple, sparking like lightning posts stood before them. Ridiculously enormous, the basic rock had collapsed when the stone below had been knocked astray. As if the purple crystal and the hard bedrock were only connected by pressure and not by actual physical seams like all normal mineral desposits would be.
There was a single scaffold in this chamber, and it caught the Portalmancer's eye. Something didn't quite look right above it.. and frankly... “What's with the pipes sticking out of the dark spot in the wall there?”
The foreman cleared his throat, and pointed. “See, that's the thing. We haven't done -anything- in this area, and its not just pipes...”
The group ascended up a small lift to the top of the scaffold, revealing it indeed wasn't just pipes. A long metal plank stuck out a couple feet in between and under the pipes, as if....
“Is... is this a door? Or am I just seeing things?” The more they looked at it, the more obvious the plain stone portal became.
At request, a pickaxe and bulky workgloves came to grace Eryss's hands. As... well let's face it. Stodgy old men and embittered younger men just wouldn't get the job done. Fear perhaps, or let the woman take charge when they should have instead.
Crack. Crack. Tink. Crack.
This was the only echoing sounds for almost a minute before...
Crunch.. Crackle... Rumble!
The gray stone wall gave way, revealing a black tunnel with the planks working into a lattice pathway. An oval-capped pathway reaching into the depths...
“Lantern...” Eryss hissed, but she didn't hold it for very long. Before a hand.. a HAND quite furred and almost skeletal reached up from the ruins of the capstone.
As the metal and glass dome clanked against the scaffolding floor, the Portalmancer reached down to pull the fallen person up to her feet.
And in those eyes she glimpsed the Cosmos.
- - - - - -
Through lavender orbs, a vast field of unfamiliar stars, planets, asteroids, and the eternal black of space.
- - - - - -
Then she blinked, and the vision disappeared just as fast as it had started. And she was left staring into eyes, clearly more feline than human.
A soft fanged smile, a twitch of pointed ear, and a small waver of the fragile starved bipedal feline form. Before the rags-shrouded girl collapsed though, she managed to mumble out a small “Thank you” before she fell into blackness.
- - - - - -
Mages' Infirmary, Four Hours Later
- - - - - -
Eryss stood beside the bed of the sleeping mixture of man and beast, both curious... and a little hesitant. Unsure really of what to make of the patient.
So she inquired to the orderly standing watch to retrieve the doctor that had received the girl. A few minutes of discussion, before the doctor was thus returned and adjusted his cravat.
“Well, she's alive.” He began, voice low not to arouse it.. err.. her, from her slumber. “She seems to be suffering from severe dehydration and malnutrition. Otherwise she's perfectly fine. We've been feeding her broth slowly, as we're not sure all of what her normal diet consists of.”
But that wasn't what had really roused Eryss's attention about the polymorph sleeping on her side. “Ah... I suspected as much. You want to know about the arms.”
A nod from her, and he continued.
“They're absolutely fascinating, really. A technological marvel, literally welded to her back. It's just...”
Eryss grew impatient. “Just..?”
“They're -not- technology. There's no power supply, no built in control systems. Not even a single gear. They just... just move. It's like she was born with them.”
The portalmancer just scoffed and shook her head. “That's impossible. No-one on -this- island is capable of such a feat. Organics bonded with machinae? Purely absurd and you KNOW it!”
The doctor just put up his hands in resignation. “Well what little testing we have done confirms just that. What's more...”
He just got a raised eyebrow. “We cannot locate a bonding agent: no wires, no bolts, no sear marks or even scars. Not even a remote hint of a hinge. The metal just seems to melt into the skin and flesh.”
Eryss just shook her head. “The power to craft such a thing would have to be -massive-. On a scale even the Counsel can only dream of. And then to bind it to her, even after the obvious racial transmogrification would probably deplete the magical essence of the caster for years.”
“Although...” She thought back to the purple crystal, and then to the placement of the woman. “The lack of any sorts of fragments of rubble or digging or even a layer of dust on any of the chamber means that some sort of teleportation occurred. And recently as otherwise you would just have a corpse or skeleton on the bed instead of a patient.”
The doctor seemed about to interject but Eryss wasn't finished. “The Counsel isn't going to like this...”
- - - - - -
Counsel Chamber, One Hour Later
- - - - - -
Once more, an impromptu meeting. And all but Eryss was scowling or looking positively annoyed at their daily routines being disturbed again.
But Eryss wasted no time. “So I've had a good long talk with the physician watching over our 'ward'. What he tells me is most unsettling.”
“That the power to craft her 'appendages' would be so cataclysmic our entire -population- of mages couldn't complete it without disasterous complications. That her chamber wasn't dug...”
Eyebrows raise. “...it was moved through some sort of device that transported the entire dome surface, and whatever that purple stone is all at once.”
Shocked whispers, before she raised her hand. “We can't get any sort of magical aura off of her, except for a faint reading on her quartet of extra limbs.”
A few mutters, before she silenced them with a cough. “ Now its clear that she didn't do it to herself. Nobody is so thankful if they purposely bury themselves alive.”
“So we are left with two very important questions...”
All eyes were on Eryss.
“Who put her there? And...” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “How lucky are -we- for letting her out?”
