war table: strangers in the mirror.

[propulsion]

WHO: Closed to the gang
WHAT: Delving into the temple of Dirthamen in search of artifacts, Riftwatch finds that the temple demands more than they seek. But what else is new?
WHEN: Cloudreach
WHERE: Arlathan Forest, within the temple of Dirthamen, Elven God of Secrets and Knowledge
NOTES: OOC post.

You stand before it, a glow emanating from its smooth surface, a perfectly round sphere whose warmth bathes your face and hands in light. Around you are veiled faces in hoods, heads bowed in reverence, and a murmur of chanting echoes, overlapping, like the clashing of tides. Your hovered hands drift apart in a slow and elegant motion, and you can only faintly see it, the lines of magic you draw between your fingers, like faint golden cobwebs of shivering power.

They tremble between your fingers, they shiver, and they bend towards the orb. You must master it so it does not, in its wisdom and hunger, take from you what you're not willing to give, but you are well trained, you are beyond compare, and you will give only what you will.

The chanting rises, and the orb pulses with light. You focus, and the magic drawn between your fingers pulls away from it, arcs around in loops. It feels akin to reining a wild horse or mastering the lines affixed to the sails of a ship in a storm or pulling taut a bowstring.

And your control slips. Or you set something free. Either way, your hands come down on the surface of the orb, and it burns you alive.

...

The fading impression of this memory glimmers in your mind.

And nothing else. Where are you? What are you doing? Why do you wield this blade in your hand, or lay here with your bare throat offered to another's? You don't so much awake; you become aware of yourself, cold and aching and tired, and as you try to assess the situation and evaluate the motivations of the weary, filthy strangers that surround you, you wait for context to return, but it never does. You reach backwards for memory, for anything, encountering only the image of the glowing orb before you, and the way it had burned you with the things it knows when you touch it.

But there are more pressing matters to resolve.

After the initial confusion and chaos, all that is left to do is assess the place you are in, and decide what next to do. To escape, perhaps, or, some niggling part of you wonders, find the location of the glowing orb, which you know, deep down, is somewhere in this place.

The Temple of Dirthamen

Not that you know its name.

This place feels like an underground palace, sunken deep inside the earth, grand chambers that connect to one another with various passageways, tunnels, and staircases. Light sources come from your flaming torches or travel-sized lanterns hanging off your belt, or the occasional luminescence from green-glowing runic engravings on tiled walls, or the faint glow of a green miasma that lingers in hallways and chambers. There are walls set with elaborate mosaics, and great statues depicting twin figures, one of them cloaked in shadow and the other more detailed, and creatures such as ravens, always a pair, or the arching legs of a giant spider.

As intentionally built as it is, it is also half-wild. There are chambers that seemed carved directly into rock, and floors of rough natural stone. It is not, however, all intentional. You will find the frames of stone archways set directly into rough rock, or stairwells that lead nowhere but directly into cave wall, as if the earth had grown around it.

Despite this oddity, it is a beautiful and grand place, but clearly one steeped in ancient neglect, with flooded chambers, moss-riddled stairwells, crumbled stone, and the smell of rot and dust.

Traversing this place, however, is a challenge in and of itself, hostile to the strangers that crawl through its catacombs. Not only will you find whole pathways blocked with crumbled stone, or rooms that require you to swim through them to get to the other side, or a strangely angled corridor that forces you to climb up its craggy surface, the building itself is intentionally guarded against intruders in a myriad of passive ways. Traps trigger when a previously unnoticed puzzle is left ignored or incomplete, or doors refuse to open without the presence of a key in spite of there being no discernible lock. Some of these you may be able to solve, some will force you to double back.

You are also not alone. Out the corner of your eye, the presence of spirits dart in and out of the catacombs, and occasionally, you hear the ominous chittering sound of many-legged beasts that put you to mind of all those giant spider statues.

Some places you may encounter in your blind journey forwards:

THE QUEEN'S LAIR: You don't know how it happened, but the ground gives beneath you and whoever you are with, sliding without dignity down the abruptly steep angle of not-quite-smooth-enough rock. You land with a violent tumble upon surprisingly soft, spongy ground—fungus, moss, mud, deep puddles. As you look around, you see the large stone chamber you are in is lit with a sort of ambient bioluminescence of green miasma, showing up the sight of thick patches of cobweb strung between pillars, statues, hanging from loops from the ceiling. You see bundles blanketed in web, tellingly humanoid in size and general shape and, thankfully, perfectly still. The smell of dust and old decay in the air makes you hopeful that perhaps this place is more tomb than nest, until you see the way the giant cobwebs around you begin to sway. Looking up, through the miasma, the shadowy shapes of dog-sized spiders begin to pluck their way down. And you think you see, far above, the unmoving shape of a truly colossal spider resting high above. At least, you hope it's unmoving. You have two choices: take your chance in trying to scramble back up the steep incline you fell down, despite slippery rock, or brave the chamber and try to make your way in deeper in search of the gated archway on the other side that you will only know is there when you find it. Or the secret third choice of being eaten by spiders.

THE RED REVELRY: You and your companions, such as they are, find yourselves at the entryway of a great chamber. The walls glow with a faint blue-green light, only barely illuminating the wide open space. The open tiled ground is littered in debris, some of it crumbled rock, and some of it, ancient shattered skeleton, scraps of cloth, the evidence of many corpses that have long since decomposed to nothing but dry bone, dull jewelry, and the rotted remains of their clothing. Unpleasant, but unless you wish to yet again double back, the only way forward is through, and you do see another archway towards the back. However, the moment you step into the room, your mind fogs over. The room fills with golden light, laughter, music, and a swirling crowd of elven folk. You are in the midst of a revelry, and your heart feels light and joyous. One offers you a goblet of wine, another bids you to dance with them, another offers to share from a platter of fruit. The room is also surrounded by tall men and women of more serious demeanor, dressed in rich ornamental armor, dark cloaks, armed with curved blades, and you barely notice the sound of metal on leather as they all at once draw them. You do notice, however, as the screams begin, as blood begins to spatter, as the ring of guards begin to systematically cut down each reveler in arms reach. Now would be a good time to remember that none of this is real, but as you can't quite shake the immersive experience of a panicked grip to your arm or the visceral sensation of wet arterial spray spattering against your armor, it might be best to run for the next door before you find out otherwise.

Optional dice roll: A d20 roll of 16 or higher has you break the illusion, safely restoring the chamber around you to the dark dusty tomb full of unmoving skeletons. A result between 10 and 15 means you are still immersed in the illusion but you have your wits, and, with focus, are able to move through the figures as though they aren't there, but may still struggle. A result between 5 and 9 means you are too immersed, and the crush of the crowd is preventing you from running, and if a guard with a blade strikes you, you will be injured. You may need help. A result between 1 and 4: oh my god all of this is real and you're going to die unless someone drags you out of here. Otherwise, choose your own result, no dice no masters.

THE PATH OF THE SIGHTLESS: The broad hallway you approach is tiled with jade, with an atmospheric light coming down from the tall arched ceiling. Up ahead, the road is strange. The tiles are grey stone and then foot-square tiles of dull gold or similar metal. Upon stepping into the corridor, you will find that your vision is gone, cloaking you in darkness. To anyone else, standing outside of the corridor, they can see within it and you perfectly fine. What's more, any step you take that is not on one of the shining tiles, comes with a consequence: a psychic kind of torment that feels like a swarm of ravens invading your mind. They tear and claw, a physical sort of headache-like pain that becomes quickly overwhelming and paralysing, leaving you cold and shaking. What's more, this assault has things to say. Although you do not remember anything of yourself, these ravens seem to know. However, if you make it back onto a shining tile, or are close enough to one of the ends of the corridor to leave it, the torment will stop.

The idea here is that those with you will need to verbally guide your way through the corridor. If you are subjected to punishment for mis-stepping, the 'ravens' that flood your mind will pluck and claw at all the insecurities and fears you would have had if you remembered them. This is one way to get information about yourself, but as delivered through the bitchiest and harshest of critics. Your character will not be able to withstand it for long but will have difficulty hearing or moving, so feel free to assume they need extra assistance or manage to help themselves.

In general, feel free to find the kind of obstacles you might anticipate, such as ancient elven magic hopscotch, doors that only open if you pierce your hand on the knife-like protrusion where a handle should be, rooms full of wisps that taunt and mislead, platforms that require Big Jumps to get across or else you'll find yourself wet or on fire, Veilfire puzzle with tiles that ripple and shift, and so on.

There are also places of respite, ancient prayer rooms or barracks-like quarters, where you may discover the rations you have on you and get to know people who do not know themselves.

Strangers in the Mirror

Here is what you must bear in mind.

MEMORIES OF THE LIVING: Although you have no recollection of yourselves, recollection is not forever withheld. At any time, your mind may jerk towards an impression of something, clear as day. You may whole heartedly believe that you are recalling something of your own past, or it may be so incorrect that you are certain that this memory doesn't belong to you. These flashes come in moments of quiet, in looking upon the face of an ancient statue, or catching your reflection in a shining surface of water or metal or polished tile, or seeing the light in another's eyes.

If you happen to meet the person for whom these memories belong, you will know like a hook in your heart that this memory belongs to them. There is no way for you to give it the way you got it, for only the gods can parcel out memory and knowledge without the tools of language and writing, and so what you choose to do is yours to decide.

MEMORIES OF THE DEAD: There will be moments, likewise, when the memory of those long gone from this place invades your mind. However, they are not for you to know. At any point, you will find that you lose time, that a great stretch of blankness takes hold of your mind, and you come back to your own forgetful self in some other place, perhaps with entirely new company, performing some task you did not mean to begin: sweeping the floor, or kneeling before an altar, or sitting at a table prepared to eat a meal that is not there, or even once again about to slit the throat of a willing supplicant.

Use this mechanic to free up your character to pursue threads with others rather than only your home team. If you can also play out encountering someone in this fugue state or vice versa, in which they will be largely unresponsive, but seem to know their way around, completing their tasks, until they snap out of it.

And some general advice on your current affliction:

This is a fictional form of amnesia, so don't overthink it. Broadly, your character should instinctively know standard facts like what colour the sky is, even if they can't see any sky currently, or they may have an instinct towards certain skills they have practiced every day since childhood, like the yo-yo. However, knowledge of who they are, what their name is, where they've come from is completely lost on them.

More specific world facts like what the Chantry is, what a mage is, what a Ferelden is, you can be fast and loose with. If your character is deeply intimate with something like the Circle, they may roughly know of it in vague terms. Alternatively, if it's more fun if your mage doesn't even know that magic exists, then go with it.

Rifters from profoundly different worlds, like modern earth, can absolutely have a sense that they are in some kind of weird ancient world surrounded by old timey people. This is left to your discretion.

As far as what your character is like without their memories, again, this is up to you. They can be cluelessly the same, or exhibit hidden personality traits they ordinarily keep suppressed (or suppress ordinarily prominant instincts), or simply be fundamentally different without the burdens or highlights of their own lives to inform them. Are they friendlier? More vicious? Braver than usual? Less selfless, more? Whatever you like!

A Gift of Revelation

And then it ends.

Seemingly without ceremony, if you are far away from the thing that ends it. You feel a lurch and then it all comes flooding back: your name, your life, the mission, the people around you, the forward camp merely a few hours of travel outside the bounds of the temple you are in. You may be close enough to where you'd already started scouting before it all went foggy to make your way out easily, or you may be so immersed in the depths of the temple that your mission of trying to escape hasn't really changed, despite this context.

And yes, your sending crystal is still not working. Figures.

You still harbour the memories that you were given unbidden, even if they've lost their bright shine in the void, and you will still feel that sense of knowledge for whom they belong when you meet them next, if you are unable to work it out on your own.

Once out, the warmth of the Arlathan Forest greets you, and your crystal begins to flicker back to life once more. Truly, they don't pay you enough for this.

Comments

The Queen's Lair

[thereneverwas]

It's hardly surprising that the cave-in is caused by someone with a tread as heavy as this, already walking stiffly in an achy shuffle and not paying nearly as much attention as he should to weak spots in the floor.

The ground gives way, he and those nearby are slipping downwards, scrabbling for purchase where there's none to be found, releasing breath only under the realization that they have reached the end of the fall and haven't died.

"Fuck," he wheezes-- and woe betide anyone who managed to land under him-- "hello? Anyone up there?" Perhaps someone has... a very long rope. And isn't also down here.

[favoriteanalyst]

He hates that he can't feel his hands, but it's something he's kind of getting used to, ish. Holding the sword he's got with him seems like a dangerous prospect at the moment, but he holds a shield in front of him. Just in case someone decides to get knife-happy.

The large, visually imposing but verbally calm and quiet man shuffles on ahead until he simply disappears. Not for long, given the floor keeps collapsing, taking his feet out from under him. Even if the landing is rough, and it is, he's thankful he landed a lot of that right on the shield with a scraping clanging noise. It doesn't echo like he feels it should, in these cavernous mostly stone halls and rooms.

That alarms him, though he doesn't know why just yet.

"Trap?" He tries to pick himself up but apparently needs a moment to catch his breath before he can do so. "Was that a booby trap? Or just shoddy workmanship? Any--damn it. Anyone hurt? Too badly?"

[grindset]

Not so long after the collapse's crash resounds through surrounding corridors, heavy footfalls—much heavier than those of either aching templar—draw near. They slow, and in caution slow all the more. The last of the steps sound more like grit than weight for how carefully they're placed, gravel popping like seeds underfoot. No bellows breaths, no throaty rumblings, nothing to suggest a beast. Nothing breaches the edge above—not yet.

"Stop," is quiet. "Idle," and movement winds down. Gears still engaged; legs ready.

He says nothing yet to those below, only listens, as much to the structure itself as for signs of those who fell through it.

[armd]

How many of them went? She has a bruise on her hip and a sore wrist where one hand flung out instinctively to break her fall. That palm now cups something smooth and porous: a mushroom, when she looks. Oddly, the sight of it gives her a strange shiver, the fine hairs rising on the back of her neck. Fungus, for some reason, is bad.

"You brought us all down," is only slightly accusatory, "The whole – ground went."

Stupid temple.

Anyway, "Not hurt." And, "Now where are we." Whoever she is, she certainly doesn't sound very impressed.

a membry for abby

[thereneverwas]

“Pru?”

You hear the hitching breaths in the hayloft above, and you climb its rough wooden ladder, rucksack and all. There she is, silhouetted against the morning sunlight that comes through the circular window, the latest litter of barn kittens gambolling about near her feet.
She turns away. You ascend the rest of the way, and you set your bag down to crawl on your hands and knees toward your little sister, on the cusp of adolescence with her thick black hair in twin plaits down her back, who turns further at the sound of your approach.

Resting back on your heels, you allow her a silence, in case she wants to speak first. She does.
“I thought,” she gasps, through barely contained sobs, “if you couldn’t find me…”

“I wouldn’t go,” you supply, your own voice barely deeper than a boy’s. “Pru…”

She wants to push you away, that much is clear. But instead you go to her, put your thick arm around her shoulders and pull her close, so her tear-stained face can press into the traveling cloak draped over your chest. You won’t be back for a long, long time.

“I have to,” you persist, and you scoop up one of the kittens to place it in her gently accepting arms, “I already told them I would. And you can’t just lie to Andraste.”

“You’re not lying,” she sniffs, “you’re just changing your mind.”

“Can’t do that either,” you explain, and set another kitten right next to the first, forcing her to adjust her grip. “She knows. And then Da will know, and then we’re really in trouble.”

“Obie,” she says, laughing through her tears, and you place a third kitten on the previous two, which only makes her laugh harder as she struggles to hold them all.

“I’ll write every day,” you say, holding a fourth kitten but petting it yourself, Prudence somehow managing to wrangle all of hers. “I promise.”

Hauling himself to his feet, the man currently known as Clyde checks himself over to find that he's still sore, his joints still click abominably, but he doesn't seem to be wounded any further.
"No, I'm--" he begins, when something catches the light streaming from above: a gossamer strand, behind it the twitch of something shiny and sharp, like armor of a suspiciously organic material. "--what was that."

[favoriteanalyst]

"No one did anything," with a cough and dusting himself off. "Not deliberately, anyway. Hello up there?"

Because it was still audible, even as everything settled. The big footsteps. The quiet voice.

"You got some rope or something?" Called up to whoever it is. It's become clear that his group of misfits is not the only one here, and whether that makes them enemy or ally is unclear. Which means they ought to all work together. "We can probably find another way around otherwise."

'Clyde' has heard something. And that also is worrying. But he'll start with this. Assessing and getting help.

[grindset]

The first of the somethings heard is conspicuously silent. No word in reply, no telltale scrape or thump to betray departure. A stone at the rim above at last relents to gravity, rattles down the treacherously craggy slope of fallen floor and whatever lies entombed beneath it.

What he knows: three voices so far; were there any injuries of note, they'd likely have announced it before seeking solutions to a lesser problem; this machine wasn't built with climbing in mind. This last point he knows by the shape of it, by the way it moves—but that doesn't mean it can't.

After not too long, he musters the effort to raise his voice down to them.

"There's no rope. Can you see a passage?"

[armd]

"No. We're in a hole."

She doesn't mean to sound so belligerent but the walls are crumbling – no good for climbing – and she's rubbing an eye while she says it, blinking through a memory caught off the unexpected glint of a breastplate while somebody turned away. She saw something that happened to... her, she thinks for a moment, mulling it over. The little girl, the bundle of kittens threatening to spill out of her arms.

Looking up, she catches sight of Clyde, as she knows him, and realises with a little jolt that he isn't Clyde at all.

"What the fuck is happening," she breathes, and presses the heel of her palm against her eye, ironing up, "There's something in here that's–" making her see things? She doesn't even know how to word it.

[thereneverwas]

There it is again, the quiver of a draping, accompanied by a horrible tapping sound as too many feet make contact with the stone of the wall.
Clyde’s eyes have begun to adjust to the low light, which he abruptly wishes they wouldn’t as a leggy shape descends on a strand of web— no, not a shape, several of them— a chittering that seems to come from all sides.

“Oh, fuck me,” he says through the other conversation, oblivious to any logistical revelations, “we’ve got to— go, we’ve got to-“

He backs up, bumping into the girl behind him as he reflexively reaches for the pommel of a sword at his belt. He looks helplessly up at the hole through which they descended, an impossible climb.

[favoriteanalyst]

"Hold on, it looks like it's probably just another room. We can take a look around and see if there's a door out. We-"

What more they should do is cut off by the big guy's panic, left hand grabbing for the sword at his hip as well, on instinct. (He figures if he's got a sword and a shield, he's someone who must know how to use these things. Whether he knows how to use them now is another question.) What is it? What--oh. Spiders? Spiders. Big ones. No wonder the sounds weren't bouncing around wildly, what with all the webbing now he's starting to see strung around the place.

"Don't be afraid. We're armed for a reason. We must've known this was a possibility." Maybe not spiders specifically. But things that could hurt them. "We can probably fight them. Cut a path across the room. Find a way out."

[grindset]

"What? What is it?"

In his earlier panic, even when staring down the knife, his instinct was to find the machine—their separation, that must have been a symptom of the circumstance he likely shares with these people. And probably is nowhere near reassuring enough to leave them to their own resources. Even if they were confident, why should he leave them to it? Why else would he be here? No, he can't.

He could send the machine down with a directive, but if it can't climb back to him...

Off some further sign, he calls, "Stay clear, we're coming down—"

[armd]

"Don't come down!"

She isn't scared of spiders but that doesn't mean she enjoys the sight of them unfolding from the wall and dropping toward the ground, unfurling too many legs. Crowding out their space seems like a bad idea, especially when she has a mace with her, a thick, barreled weapon with metal spikes protruding from it. The men with her have swords. "We've got it covered."

Maybe. Hopefully. Many eyes turn upon her, glittering, pincers opening silently in what strikes her as a spider's way of baring teeth. Before it can strike at her she lunges at it, throwing herself forward, braid leaping off the nape of her neck. She swings with the mace over the top of her head, brings it down hard –

Turns out squishing bugs is always the same, no matter how big they are.

Gross.

memory please

[thereneverwas]

The sword is drawn, and although he can feel the weight of the hammer on his back, Clyde doesn't have the presence of mind to investigate it, learn what it is, and try to remember how to wield it. There are spiders here, there are spiders now.

The fiends converge on the three of them as he too slashes-- why don't I have a shield, is that what's on my back, he wonders-- and glances up at the hole from whence they came, waiting for whoever "we" are to descend. In his ceiling-ward gaze, he catches another movement: the glint of what cannot possibly be enormous, bulbous eyes set in an arachnid frame too large to be believed.

No thanks, he thinks, and kills another small, pleasantly dog-sized spider. These aren't so bad, really, when you get used to them.

[propulsion]

The water blushes red when you submerge your hands. Your cabin smells like oily smoke. The windows are closed, the curtains are pulled closed, and still the smell works its way in. You plunge your hands in the water again -- you took them out, you don’t remember doing that -- and the water sloshes over the side of the basin onto the table. You scrub your fingers, under your fingernails. Bits of gore come away, floating on the scummy surface of the dirty water. When you blink, and look again, it’s only ash.

Your hands are still bloody so you put them in the water again, even though it is dirty. The voices of your crew outside, shouting to one another -- orders, laughter -- and the crackle of the fire and the screaming, distant -- voices pleading, voices you don’t know. Mercy. The third man you killed, his stomach had split open, spilled his guts hot and steaming on the deck of the ship. The captain had been the bosun, when you were new to the crew. It was easy to stick your sword in him, easy to split his head like a summer melon. Some of them you knew. Some of them you didn’t. They were kneeling in the end, their heads bowed, and the deck slick with blood.

And here: your hands are still bloody, so you put them in the water again and scrub harder, scrub until it hurts.

What greets Barrow upon emerging from this recollection, something that feels like intrusion through the flash of light of sword arcing across shining carapace, is the easy descent of another arachnid shape from above. It's simple and silent, the straight-down slide of the spider on the end of silken tether, long legs outstretched and alighting almost dainty upon one of Barrow's shoulders.

The needle-sharp bite that sinks into the meat of the back of his neck jolts him free of visions of blood and water, of stained hands and the memory nested in memory of steam rising from gore.

also memory [grabby hands]

[favoriteanalyst]

It seems, very suddenly, that the moment the fight starts, so many more of the damned things crawl out of the woodwork. Silkwork, as it were. Okay. Okay, maybe fighting through is going to be easier said than done, but he sets to task, swinging his sword in what feels like a very practiced, muscle memory type of way. His whole arm stings with the way he has to hold it tight, given he can't actually feel the hilt in his hand, but once, twice, and the nearest creature collapses, twitches, stills.

"Actually maybe come down!" The voice above is either a large person (and the voice doesn't seem to match that) or has someone large with him, and large feels like maybe that would be a good thing.

"Stick together. Backs to one another," he suggests breathlessly, hacking at another before turning to his companions, "so we--Clyde!"

He hates the names that were made up on the spot for them, but they're the only names they've got at the moment. He pivots, swings up, and it takes two swings to sever the head from the rest of the body. The fighting leaves his sword smeared in spidery viscera that glints in the torchlight.

[grindset]

Don't pins him with hesitation. What echoes up to him only sounds like a fight—he can't discern anything more.

One distantly saurian foot takes one long, carefully placed stride, at his hushed direction. Over it, the body leans—Not too far, he whispers—and as the edge of the hole drops low in his field of vision, his belly lurches horribly. He stretches up to see. Sudden clench of a startle as a sharp creature moves across the the stony slope, skirting the edge of the space below, the torchlight a crisp reflection on its body, its legs. It leaves a filament behind, barely gleaming. It looked fast. Nimble. He isn't; they aren't.

Don't come down, but do, actually? Clyde—do these people have their names? He can't see them,

but he soon will, as a jolt of crumbling stone tugs the machine's balance, forcing it to commit.

To its credit, the machine neither falls headfirst to the floor below nor shreds him against the rocks, but it's a rough, spine-jolting slide. As they recover, trailing pebbles ping off the iron body and pelt his back, like the rubble itself is teasing them.

What rises is a forged construct aglow with runes, a long-armed and barrel-chested humanoid shape, at least eight feet tall, wearing a skinny, rumpled man on its back.

for mobius.

[propulsion]

Glints, sparkles, the strange interaction of arachnid murder slime on sharp steel, the light coming up brilliant for a moment as Frank brings his weapon around, and then thinks to himself, unbidden,

It's beautiful, right?

In an awful way. Like laying on your back and looking up at the night sky. It's a cliche for a reason. You have stopped ordering thoughts in terms of when you make it back, have also ceased with the amendment of if you make it back, but you do think that in the fictional outcome where you find yourself back on earth, you're not gonna be spending a lot of time laying on your back and looking up at the night sky.

You've had enough of that. (And then another memory, a leap forward from this one, as if maybe it is the framework in which this is remembered: you, standing on the porch. Oh, ladies! you call, and Pepper's voice responding. You see they are laying on their backs in the grass, looking up at the night sky, her long arm pointing something out.)

The night sky, the depths of space, full of awful beauty, endlessly wraps around the viewing window where you sit, weak, accepting it. You yearn for her, and everyone else, and the kid who is gone, now, but the worst thing is is that it has nothing on the animal hunger that has consumed you. A void with teeth.

Well. You'll rest your eyes. And maybe something different will happen.

And in the absence of the memory that leaves him, Frank's senses are filled with metal on stone, of heavy weight rumbling down the steep passage, the ruse of dust and runic light.

[armd]

Clyde twines with her own shout, "Obie!", the name she got out of a memory. Somehow, that little girl with the kittens links to this man, the one that Frank thankfully rids of the spider crowding his neck and shoulders.

Something else is coming into the hole.

It evokes some crawling, sense memory in her, the rumble of something huge. A roaring that comes from a thousand mouths. Kirta ducks blindly, she weaves forward to get out of the way before it can get her, grab her. She slams into a wall, and then reorients herself, and has to kick a spider that draws too close. They are fucking everywhere.

Frank is trying to order them. That's good, she can do something with that. She locks onto his voice and draws level with them again, turning her back on Obie. "You good?"

She draws in a breath to scream and only just manages to hold it in at the sudden appearance of the machine, the man on its back, "What the fuck is that??"

[thereneverwas]

Obie, the artist formerly known as Clyde, is not good. He’s not dead, thanks to the swiftness with which the spider was removed from his neck; it didn’t have the chance to inject all of its venom, and he’s big enough to survive the amount he took.
What he isn’t big enough to resist is all of its effects, and his legs crumple beneath him, his sword clattering to the ground as paralysis sets in. He can’t seem to move his mouth, but his wide eyes communicate everything to Kirta: please don’t leave me here.

[favoriteanalyst]

The unbidden memory of elsewhere, someone, someones else, leaves him breathless, lightheaded. Is he being spoken to? For a moment, he's not sure.

And then suddenly everything catches up at once. Is he good? Fuck if he knows, but he's better than--Obie? But there's the big thing with the person on it, and Clobie collapsing, and he has to do something. Do anything.

"Maker, just start stomping those things!" Because when the bitten collapses, that feels like his cue to get his arms under Obie's so he doesn't smack his skull on anything on the way down, drag him back toward the collapsed bit of floor at their back. That's the most important thing. "Whatever the hell you are!"

[grindset]

The man atop Whatever The Hell, pale and tense as he is, looks about ready to throw up.

These unpleasantly large arachnids don't yet recognize him as something to chase, but they will soon enough, whether or not he engages them. He can already see they're too fast. Leaving the machine to do the swinging for him is not an option—he couldn't even stick the jump down, let alone survive what comes next—

Only the one with the braid seems free to move, so to her he calls, "Find a way out!"

He leans forward to the big helm-head, then, and speaks a few words not raised for the others. With tanklike inevitability, the machine begins a turn toward the struggling combo of Frank and Clyde, begins lifting its foot,

"Not them. Eight legs. Eight!"

The construct pivots in course correction, revealing on its back the whole of its rider, half-seated on something like a narrow saddle, feet supported by a bar. It's tight—his knees are hardly bent and pressed right up against its body—and only marginally less uncomfortable than it looks.

Presently, one three-toed iron foot bangs down on moss-cushioned stone with a puff of luminescent spores. One spider scrambles clear with three fewer legs.

[armd]

Oh, well. They are not going to leave Obie, inert upon the floor, but Kirta will scamper ahead in search of a way out as instructed. She whacks spiders as she goes, shaking them off, screaming once, sharp and high-pitched when one of them brushes wiry-stiff leg hairs along the nape of her neck.

At one point she has to leap over something lying in her path, bulky, distressingly body-shaped (but perhaps not, also? Perhaps not at all). Some spiders peel away to give chase after her, but not all of them.

They're being drawn toward something else, a much bigger target.

Kirta, unaware of this, presses on deeper.