Xera's eyes were no longer his own, he knew that but they
felt familiar. He saw out in darkness, comforted by a crowd of hooded figures
behind him. As he looked onwards the dark gave way to pinpricks of light, then
to an alter and a crying baby upon it. There was the glimmer of a blade in his
hand and ring that adorned it. There was the smell of a familiar perfume in the air mixed
in with smoke from the torches. He turned his head to the moon and saw a large
manor house casting its shadow over them all. A name danced on his tongue, Ickwell before he was ripped back to consciousness.
Raneaux meanwhile had slowly become overwhelmed with
feelings of loss and guilt. She looked over at Lina and only felt failure. Something or someone was broadcasting strong
emotions, strong enough to infect her. She had three options; stay with Lina and hope for the best, inject
herself with the Guldspar drug in hopes to disconnect herself or try to walk it
off and get out of its range. Although she didn't want to leave Lina, both
Jarvan and Mavis where there to look after her and she didn't want to knock
herself out in case she was needed. A long walk around the village would help,
as long as the source wasn't following her or became more intense.
Clouds were slowly covering the afternoon sun and the light
breeze carried with it a tinge of cold. The Oraea monks were frantically tidying
up which made her giggle, although she kept that to herself under their
watchful gaze. There had always been one building that she had never broken
into. It was a curiosity in the make-up of the village. A domed building made of
grey hexagonal tiles. Time had worn away any details that would have marked
them out as being made of any particular material. This perhaps was as good as
time as any to investigate. She put her
ear to the outside and heard violent
winds with the occasional bang of
something heavy being thrown up against the side. The feelings she had felt within
the inn were rapidly being superseded by hunger in the pit of her stomach. Neither
the wind nor her hunger made sense together and although it brought back
memories of Braxx and the Blue Famine, she dared herself to investigate
further.
The door that she could never open was somehow ajar. It was
made of polished metal, possibly brass and two foot thick. She peered into the
darkness staying as low to the ground as possible so that she didn't obstruct
the only sliver of light piercing the darkness. The winds howled past her, as a
brief flicker of an object passed within inches of her face and smashing into
the shell of the room. It felt as if the
Iron Wind had been compressed into this small space, that or some other chaotic
storm. She through a glowglobe into the darkness, hoping to catch a glimpse of
what was going on. Her eyes followed it round and round the room as it cast its
light on shards of metal and synth and odd dirt clod. At its centre was a black
void, a black ever darker than the room itself, suspended over a large crack in
the ground. The hunger she felt intensified. Objects caught in the winds were
quickly being swept towards the centre and as they did, they were slowly disintegrating.
The hunger she felt masked a loneliness and a deep longing to be free which
bubbled to the surface of her thoughts.
She darned not go closer in case she was pulled in. Luckily
for her and perhaps not for Xera, she had managed to procure the set of glasses
that had been found in the Ethis Manor. She had hoped they could be sold for a
substantial sum but there didn't seem to be an opportunity to return to Auspar.
She knew he had warn glasses before when investigating or carrying out
experimentations and perhaps in some way they would help her here. She wanted to know more and hoped they would
at least allow her to see better in the dim light. As she did so however, the
arms of them sprouted wires like tendrils of a plant's roots. They burrowed
through her hair and her skin. For a split second her head felt as if it was
being ripped apart before it subsided. She tried to yank the glasses off but
they remained firmly in place, causing her pain with every tug. She muttered
under her breath before throwing another glowglobe into the vortex. Her words
somehow appeared on the lenses on the glasses in a pale gold colour. She
muttered to herself again, and the words appeared. The winds howled again,
bashing more debris against the side of the structure. White words appeared
under hers. I hunger.
She stepped back for a second in shock. She had seen
madness, she had known madness. The wind did not talk, it was not alive. She
convinced herself to act like Xera, and test just to make sure. Proof was
better than doubt. She called out asking what it wanted, why it was hungry, why
it was lonely. The replies she got made her shake a little. It hungered for existence,
matter, anything. She could see what it
was feeding on, the disintegrating metal and syth and now screeching rat. Fur disappeared
from its hind, then its flesh then bones, without a single drop of blood. She
swallowed with a gulp. It was lonely, trapped with only brief moments to feed.
She panicked. She threw what little she
had on her; shins, Numenera and scraps of cloth into the maw of the void and
ran. The winds tried to grasp her as she fled. She tripped and fell. The lenses
shattered and the glasses fell to the floor. Her body was being pulled back
into the crack in the door. She kicked out, she heard the sound of glass and
metal bash against the door. She became frantic, violent and pleaded for her
life. She scrunched her eyes and felt the earth shudder, as the brass door
slammed shut. The feeling of hunger was gone but she was too scared to carry on
alone. She faced the door and put her hands on her thighs and tried to slow her
breathing. She turned her head left and right to see if anyone had seen her but
both ways were quiet. The only thing she did notice was a small swathe of
flowers outside the domed building, that had been neatly cut.
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