Avishraa Reloaded

The passage, as passages at this level went, was a quiet one. It went nowhere that there weren't more convenient routes to; travelers hardly ever came this way. It was left instead to the local flora and fauna, which themselves generally went about their business in relative silence.

There had, however, been a rather noisy incident a few hours before, which had resulted in a lone figure being deposited, prone, upon the tunnel floor, dimly illuminated by a nearby patch of glowmoss.

A thing like a millipede with extra-long legs, to all appearances made of milky quartz, skittered across the floor and waved a pair of antennae at the figure. It found nothing of interest; the only edible mineral deposits were too well-covered by meat to detect. The thing, losing interest, wandered off.

Some time afterward, another creature came loping down the tunnel. This one appeared to have come from some other world than the previous one, though it might have seemed less exotic had the figure been able to witness it: it looked something like a sea otter might look if it had the legs and gait of a cat, and was covered in short, dense fur.

The odd thing about it was the object that, without any evident danger of being dislodged, seemed to be attached to the top of the animal's head like a hat: a thing like a pinecone made of stone hexagons.

Tiny, fragile stalklike appendages extended from the furrows in the object's surface. At some unseen urging, the animal slowed and stopped next to the figure, and lowered its head to look closely at what lay on the ground.

At first inspection, it looked more like a bundle of black feathers than anything else, as though someone had discarded a large bird's broken wings on this path.

But from a slightly different angle, it was clear those wings were attached to a creature covered in obsidian scales, tiny enough to almost give a feel and impression of smooth skin, excepting a few places such as the ridge of its eyes and the centre of its spine, where they were considerably more pronounced.

Doing nothing to break the colour scheme, a short plume swept back from the creature's skull, longest feathers shorter even than its muzzle, and curving downward rather than calling much attention to itself.

The claws on its three-fingered hands too were simply black - a predator, then, though evidently at most adapted to life in the most literal deepest shadows. Its feet were currently concealed, though if one could see them, one would see each foot sporting two sturdy running toes and a third with a significantly enlarged claw.

A tail about as long as the rest of the creature was flanked by a few large, flat feathers, perhaps used to steer while flying.

And then it stirred.

It was a sluggish stirring, barely worth commenting on. It only slowly opened its eyes, a broad, flame-coloured iris peeking hesitantly through the cracks, a dark pupil unfocussed. One hand reached forward in a disoriented, physical search, pawing at the air only to settle against the ground. A soft snort disturbed a thin layer of dust near the creature's muzzle.

'Venara couldn't remember how she'd gotten here, nor where 'here' was, but it had really messed with her head and apparently knocked her out for a little nap. She couldn't rule out that this wasn't somewhere in Thelix's Star, but there was nothing that would drive her there. It wasn't Dusk, which meant she was nowhere near the Dusk stone she ought to be guarding.

The little stone-shelled creature was delighted. A creature with wings! And which could actually think! This, it thought, would be a far better host.

In response to prodding at its subconscious, the otter-creature glanced around. Its gaze alighted on an object hovering in the air ten meters or so further down the passage, drifting with glacial slowness. It hadn't been complete unexpected; though it made no pretense of knowing all the beings that called this world home, it was not too wild a bet that a completely unfamiliar one had come in with an Orb.

As the feathered creature groped towards consciousness, the symbiont realized it needed to move quickly if it intended to catch its ride before it got up and left.

The otter-creature obediently lowered its head to the ground, and the little stone cone gently popped off, falling to the ground with a clack. The now-former host carefully picked the cone up in its mouth, trotted nearer to the recumbent figure, and placed the foot of the cone against its back, between the wings.

There might have been a very brief itching sensation as the cone attached itself, but it was soon gone. The otter-creature let go and, the cone's control of it released, it gave the dracoraptor a sniff and then wandered off, slightly confused about how it had got here.

The cone, meanwhile, quietly watched its new host's mind awaken. It even more quietly rearranged a few things to its liking - just a few, to ensure that, however much its host might think about trying to remove it, it would never actually happen.

But it was, of course, free to think about it as much as it liked. It was one thing to make someone do - or not do - what one wanted, but one's thoughts were their own. That wouldn't be polite at all.

'Venara's instinctive reaction to the approaching creature was to reach toward it with an arm and a wing, not to grab it but to discourage it from approaching, potentially pushing it away. But her first motions were poorly executed - and this was no wild animal easily deterred from its prey.

When the pressure settled against her spine, foreboding tingle and all, she gave a displeased hiss and shoved one paw back, groping for the parasitic structure - but it morphed into a simple urge to relieve the itch, and the itch was gone before her fingers had reached the alien organism.

…for a moment, she simply remained lying where she was, confused by her own state, trying to unpack the strangeness of knowing a foreign object had attached to her spine and her proprioception's instant acceptance. Tearing it off felt about as good an idea as tearing off a necrotic limb - perhaps you knew on some level to do it, but it was still your limb.

The moment lingered; she held herself still, as though it made any difference at all to the thoughts drifting through her mind. She knew of nothing that behaved this way in the entirety of Nalamanagiji, but she had never been to the top levels. On a visceral level, she realised that if this creature wanted to consume her slowly, there was likely nothing she could do about it.

Hopefully that wasn't the plan.

Carefully, as though worried she might break a spell of peaceful interaction while she was quite this vulnerable, she shifted, beginning to ease herself first into a sit, then from there into a stand, her wings undecided as to whether to unfurl or tuck themselves against her body.

Warily, she looked around, clasping her forepaws around her wrists, her muzzle lowered.

Perhaps it was because her mind circled around the possibility of seeking out help, but her doubts were gradually increasing, finding too little familiarity in the landscape to register as home. And yet - how could she be anywhere else?

The symbiont watched the confusion play out in 'Venara's mind with interest, but with a certain amount of pity. Its host clearly had no idea what had happened to it.

The symbiont had considered just riding 'Venara quietly, but it perceived that however well this might work with a nonsapient creature, in this case it would only deprive her of some sorely needed understanding. Not knowing what was happening could be a dangerous thing in a world like this.

Words slid into 'Venara's head - or, perhaps, they were thoughts, with no words of their own, but clothing themselves in words she knew. Yet the thoughts themselves were not her own - they were not in her internal voice, and indeed there was not one voice, but many, speaking in a harmony of tones.

~Excuse us for our intrusion,~ they sang, ~but perhaps you could use some guidance?~

'Venara's immediate instinct was to gag; having thoughts that deviated this strongly from the expected backdrop of her thinking was much like seeing the world swim or swirl - her body was immediately and instinctively convinced that some poison was finding its way into her bloodstream and the best way to prevent it from continuing was to evict her last meal.

There wasn't enough of that left to have her miserable instinct yield anything other than a dry hacking. She shivered in a cathartic simulacrum of a fever.

“Guidance?” she echoed, softly, fully aware the conversation was in her head but not quite with it enough to restrict her part of it to her lightly wounded mind. She leant her head back until the spine of her neck brushed against the foreign object - a reminder of its existence that she would have rather done without. Her innards cramped in another misguided instinct.

“I'd appreciate,” she panted softly, too rattled by the circumstance to express any anger. “If you would get off me.” An unpleasant mental image of mold threading through her skin mixed into her confusion, threatening to eclipse her thoughts with panic - she fought it down, lucid enough of what was happening to know that that was not it.

But her body really didn't like the symbiont.

~We are not yet so inclined,~ the symbiont replied in an almost apologetic tone. ~We have limited mobility on our own, and our previous arrangements for transportation have been rather lacking. To come across a creature that has wings to fly and a mind to direct them intelligently, that is an opportunity not easily passed up.

~But we assure you,~ it continued, ~that this is not intended to be a permanent arrangement, and we shall eventually be content to be deposited at a suitable location. And we can, in the meantime, be helpful. For instance-~ She found her attention being drawn to the metallic orb hovering its way gently down the passage. ~-you may wish to retrieve that object before it floats through a wall. It represents your only likely method of returning to your place of origin.~

'Not yet so inclined'. There was a brief, confused emotion much like anger, but as her unlikely passenger continued to speak, it faded into the general ocean of incredulousness.

Three words stood out: Place of origin.

For an inopportune moment, she froze.

It was one thing to be in Thelix; it was another to be in a different world entirely. The one was a forgivable negligence of duties, the other promised Dusk might be without its guardian for a dangerous while yet.

Abruptly, she sprung into motion with a curt, high-pitched sound of distress, bounding after the orb to try and snatch it with her paws, before the thought wait but if it can float through walls wouldn't it also float through me could quite finish forming.

Given the other oddities about the orb, it was only a mercy it didn't have the capacity to flee from her. As it was, it had already come into contact with a wall and was, at the time she reached it, in the process of slowly sinking into it, as if it were being lowered into water. Yet, as the symbiont had suggested, she was able to grasp the portion of it that remained outside of the wall, and pull it back without resistance.

Though it looked like highly polished metal, it did not feel quite like it; it was certainly very smooth, but oddly yielding, and was cool but lacked the chill that one might have expected from metal left in a cave.

~Well done,~ the symbiont applauded.

Back home, there was a clear rule about magical objects: If you didn't know what they did, you gave them the wide berth. She had just done the opposite in a moment's panic - it made her reflect that she was likely fortunate it wasn't choosing to pour copious amounts of electricity through her body, or was in any way prone to some other lethal form of self-defence.

“Okay,” she said, to no one in particular - mostly to herself. “Okay.” She stared at the object, trying to square what she saw with what her passenger had claimed: Your only likely method of returing to your place of origin. Nothing about it suggested that it could do anything of the sort in particular; it was a magical item, yes, but that was all she knew.

Unless.

A fragment of a memory gave her vision of a similar curvature - in the obsidian Depths of Dusk itself, at the shores of the Lake of Sunlight. It didn't help her instinct to better leave this item unattended, before it changed its mind about being so peacefully handled, but she fought the urge and instead awkwardly bunched it against her chest.

~So,~ she subvocalised, trying out the mode of communication - still not the slightest bit pleased about being used as a vehicle for this alien creature, but at least a lot less terrified about the prospect. ~How does it work?~

Her communion with the symbiont appeared to extend somewhat beyond mere conscious communication. She could feel a hint - just a hint - that the thing was consulting something, in the manner of someone reading some ancient book or scroll.

~The Orbs are not devices,~ it said at last. ~They are… what is visible of the meeting places between worlds. And, from time to time, those living things that are close enough to an Orb in one world are caused to appear near its counterpart in another. So long as you remain near it when another event occurs, you will be sent back.~

The symbiont thought about this for a moment, and then added, ~After which, we would assume you would wish to get it as far from you as possible, lest you be brought back here yet again.~

Her fingers flexed slightly against the metallic not-a-device, sceptical of the claim that it was some kind of planar crossing. Did that mean she was, in a manner of speaking, holding a piece of Nalamanagiji in her hands? But this metal seemed like none she had ever encountered there.

On the other hand - and a chill crept along her spine as she thought this - there were quite a few things they did not know about the slumbering demons. She manipulated the orb as though to set it into a controlled spin, but never quite let it go, her way to rid herself of the urge to toss it.

In any case, she wasn't home. And if this thing had anything to do with the the demons whether they were known here or not, which was perhaps safe to assume for the time being, as not to lower her guard too much, then it was best to find a way to trigger 'an event' sooner rather than later.

Of course, her passenger could be lying. It felt fundamentally implausible, as though the psionic connection wouldn't allow complete untruths to be this opaque to her, but that simulacrum of trust could be artificial just the same.

Her wings stretched in agitation. Holding the orb to her chest with her right arm, she brought her left up and scratched at her shoulder, the closest she was likely to get to dislodging the parasite for a while yet - a frustrating experience if there ever was one.

~Are there other ways to return?~ she subvocalised, grimacing lightly. ~I have important duties back home; I don't know what might happen if I neglect them for long.~

For now, she was lost. Ta'skaaru, as ancient writings might say. The lost one. It would help her hold onto the importance of the journey back home if she kept that in mind - that, and many other thoughts like it.

The symbiont appeared to have taken notice of this piece of self-identification. Though it said nothing about it, the newly-minted Ta'skaaru could feel something like pity emanating from her unwanted companion.

But instead of commenting, it chose to answer her question, at least as best as it could. ~We have heard that those who have the knowing can build devices around an Orb, so that the breaches between worlds can be opened at will. But most of them are Vongassitil, and few travelers have had much to say about those beings except words of warning - that they are powerful and arrogant, and capable of terrible magic. We have been lucky not to meet one.~

Vongassitil? What a mouthful - or a mindful, as it were. She assumed it would take a while for her to recount the word without twisting at least two of the syllables. Vongatissil. Vontagissil. Votangissil.

In any case, arrogant creatures were often easy to manipulate by wounding their pride - although if they were proficient magic-wielders, it was perhaps wise not to do so. Indeed, if they were proficient magic-wielders, and this world was connected to hers, she wasn't yet willing to rule out that these were the demons themselves.

For a moment, she mistook 'we' in her passenger's musings to mean herself and the symbiont - but it had consistently spoken of itself using that pronoun set, so it was likely referring to its prior travels, given that Ta'skaaru had spent all of ten minutes together with it so far.

~Are they aggressive?~ she asked, eying the orb she was cradling to her chest once more. It was a bit unwieldy to take along with her wherever she went, but presumably, that was what she was going to do for a while.

Sleep might be a problem.

The symbiont seemed bemused by the question. ~As with most thinking beings, it depends. Much of the trade conducted between higher and lower levels is mediated by them, so we must assume that peaceful contact is not alien to them.

~But their lords are warlocks, whose tempers are… volatile.~ Its tone became disapproving. ~This is the price of certain sources of power.~

Lower levels. Some things, then, were perhaps comparable to her own world - not that this necessarily soothed her concerns about this one.

Keeping a hold of the Orb, she began to take in the environment, wandering along the stone path that had been the entirety of her experience with this new world so far until it opened to a view across what appeared to be a yawning chasm.

She crept forward as far as she dared, cautious in her motions, not yet trusting her wings to catch her if she slipped, peering down. Perhaps not like home, then. This was more like a very deep well littered with rocky ledges - although how deep she could only guess, seeing only little of it from this angle.

The conversation with her passenger still had part of her attention, though. ~What do you mean?~ she asked with a curiosity clearly aimed at 'sources of power'.

The symbiont did not immediately answer. It was captivated by the view; it had previously received impressions of the vast, vertical hollow that made up the axis of the world, but this was the first time it had ever been able to see it.

The chasm was dim, but far from dark. Glowing moss, like that inside the tunnel, blotched many surfaces with a greenish-blue light, but this paled in comparison to the numerous structures projecting horizontally from the walls: strange trees, some smaller than Ta'skaaru herself, others longer than entire villages, bedecked with crystalline foliage.

Though the far side itself was lost in haze, the lights of its gravity-defying forests could be seen, shining steadily.

The sound of water was faint here, but pervasive; trickling and dribbling nearby, accompanied by the distant roar of waterfalls. And, possibly, rain: there were clouds drifting through the air nearly at her own level, and it seemed that there were more, and heavier ones, higher up.

And, evidently, at least some of those who, like her, had arrived in this place and managed to thrive. One of the wider ledges on the near side held a cluster of lights and what looked like buildings.

~Mm? Oh. You have no warlocks in your world? …there are many sources of magical power, and it is possible to bind oneselves to one so that the power may be tapped. But with the magic of a source may come other traits - like personality.~ The symbiont contrived to sound disdainful. ~We are not trustful of such eldritch power, nor are others of our kind.~