Their minds, now, were wholly linked. The experience of one was the experience of all. They would find, gradually, that they could communicate when close; and share vague thoughts when afar. This brought with it contentment. Even joy. All was right; all was, as before, how it should be.
Yet now came a summons. An urging.
Take your gifts. Come to Pisces. Come to me.
They would be drawn, moths to the flame, to a quiet corner of Pisces: deep in the Warrens, a black hole in the moss, shrouded by lichen and thick clusters of mushrooms. The clusters, though now half-melted into rotting clots of shredded filaments, were to be brought within.
Come. Join us. Become one.
This thread is continued from [Quest] Ere We No A... - Part III New characters may join at any time; close contact (touching, sniffing etc.) with the clusters will immediately bring them to the current state that the rest now share.
Archimedes was the first to arrive, his small brown body darting in and out among the mosses, whiskers twitching tentatively. It was perhaps unsurprising that he was the first here; after finding his clusters, he'd made his own new den not far off in the warrens themselves. He'd been living a short run from where the stone-like things were calling him to.
Some parts of his mind still thrilled with alarm, warned him that something wasn't right, but the overbearing calm and sense of rightness that came with it all quelled most of his fears. He sniffed, instead, at the hole he'd found only after some searching.
This is it, he thought, excitedly. This is the place.
He very nearly bolted right down, ecstatic to find it, but-... It had said to come with his clusters. He took them, gathering them up in his cheek-pouches (and they were disgusting, disgusting, but he didn't mind) as best he could before bounding back toward the hole.
As he went, he called out along that link--that ever-present, dreamlike tendril that had been his companion for days, now. Every since he'd found these things. He wasn't sure what being, or beings, were on the other end; but he was happy to have them, and he called out to them with joy.
Here! Here! I've found it; it's here!
The image flickered through his mind, available to the rest: the black mouth in the moss, shrouded by lichens and mushrooms.
Down he went, then: scampering, scurrying, vanishing into the dripping darkness.
Perhaps it was a punishment. That thought lingered at the back of her mind, clutched tight to the corners of her being and hidden, for the most part, during the day and only came out to play in her dreams. Others had took up residence in her mind, she shared with them something she would never be able to explain, an experience that was more important than her little life could ever be. Yet, when she was weak, in the midst of being both awake and asleep, she couldn't stop her thoughts from wondering to when she was by the spire; such vehemence for the thing had turned her mind acidic, she felt as if it controlled some parts of her, it had her mind clutched in her claws and now others did too. No. It wasn't the same, the spire has changed, it is now some force of evil, it isn't right, where as what she was going through now? No, that was perfect, so utterly right that she should never have thought otherwise. It was like breaking the cluster all over again, why was she such a disappointment to them?
She could feel the presence with her in the darkness of the tunnel's corners (was she in a tunnel?), could feel it watching her, that familiar feeling of never being alone. It was quite comforting. Harbinger. It was right. It was fitting.
The growing pup, although smaller than she should have been at that game with little food and barely any energy to ever do anything - yet, she had no one to compare to so all was fine - was led, legs sprawled, in the middle of a tunnel, or was it a corner of Canis? Which one it was she didn't know. Licking the decaying clusters as best she could (a nauseous feeling overcoming her as the rotting mess clung to her tongue), like only a mother would, before a voice appeared in her head. It was not uncommon, not enough for her to be startled or to hinder her grooming session, maybe the voice was familiar, maybe it wasn't. She didn't know, there had been so many words, images, feelings that she could no longer distinguish them from her own. All was right.
With little thought she raised herself back up into a hunched standing position, scooping, quite literally at some points, the melting clusters into her mouth. She had to refrain herself from gagging multiple times, she wouldn't offend them, not again. Once was enough. Then trotted, on awkward paws and an off balance body, through the large room of Canis. A wisp appearing in front of her on her travels, darting to and fro, but leading her further and further down an untravelled path.
She stopped, with the wisp hovering above it, at a closed off opening of some sort. The moss. She knew this, she had used this before. Was her den close by? No, that didn't matter, she wasn't here for that. What was she here for? That didn't matter either, just go down down down. What was down there? Who was down there? What were they supposed to do? Yet, even as these questions tried to push themselves into her mind she continued her descent, dragging her body into the moss to await...something.
Huckleberry didn't understand what had happened in the last cycle. He was confused, his head spinning and filled with images and sensations that were distinctly not his own, not right, but, at the same time, there was nothing else in the world more right then this. He didn't understand, couldn't understand, and Shiny, clutched to his back, was even worse off. She was almost trembling against him. Back to Pisces. We need to go back to Pisces. Now. Huckleberry glanced back, a little surprised at her enthusiasm, but he wasn't complaining. "Yeah, of course. Perhaps...maybe we'll know about this Harbinger thing! Maybe the Harbinger is calling us." It was a definite possibility.
He gathered what he could of the petals he had collected, Shiny gripping as many as well, despite their rotting state, and took off, flying through the tunnels until they reached the entrance to Pisces. No hesitation - Huckleberry turned towards the Warrens, the place where they were being called to, and dove right for the opening in the moss. He saw it as they approached and slowed himself down a bit, in case there was something to land on just beneath the darkness, and dropped both of them right in.
Yew was scrambled, was lost, her mind not her own.
She should have been afraid, she supposed. Should have gone to Mercurius, begged for his help. But... but she didn't want to! She had a family again, a place to belong! People who shared her thoughts! She felt content, felt joy for the first time she could ever remember.
'Take your gifts. Come to Pisces. Come to me.'
She should have been wary. Should have questioned it, but she didn't it. Scrambled to her paws, took the gifts in her beak and bolted, no longer fearing leaving the forest, running into her ex-family. Through the tunnels she ran, skidding around corners and barreling over Lessers and around Greaters, uncaring to stop and make sure they were okay.
'Here! Here! I've found it; it's here!'
An image flickered into her mind, then, and she wanted, continuing to follow the beckoning. She wanted, she needed,
'Come. Join us. Become one.'
and she needed to, so she didn't hesitate before barreling into the black hole after the rat and the wolf and her uncle as fast as she could, lungs burning and muscles screaming but uncaring.
Zelk was drawn to a black hole in the moss, which was located in a quiet corner in Pisces. Some weird things were going on, but Zelk didn't mind or care.The summons brought her closer and closer. It said to bring the clusters she had collected, so Zelk obeyed and brought them. It took a lot of work to get them before, due to the floods that had happened. Though she didn't mind or care, she couldn't help question what the heck was going on! She stood at the entrance for a moment, but the desire got the better of her. She carried her clusters in her jaws, and entered the hole without a second thought. As she entered, Zelk just hoped that nothing dangerously serious would happen while she was in the hole. But there was no guarantee.
The big brown bear lumbered forward, his jaws totally stuffed with white, soft, stone-like clusters of something. He still know what they were, bar that they smelled appetizing (he was a bear; he ate far worse things). Rot and sweet; like old fish!
Delicious.
He knew that he was to go somewhere up ahead. He was a simple creature; he didn't think too much about all of this. The others--all the rest who'd been comfortably sharing his headspace for the last however long--would be there, too, waiting for him. And he'd heard a voice, one that called with excitement, that said they'd found it, that it was here. This had sped his shuffling steps, some, but he still didn't really rush.
When he arrived, then, he could smell (over the stench of the clusters in his teeth) a good number of other Gembound already present down the hole. Carefully, he squeezed himself past the clotted mosses and lichens, the fungus all around, pushing into the darkness below.
He wasn't worried; it was safe, down there. Safe, with the rest of them. It was as it should be.
It was a strange thing, really--two strange things, in fact. First, they had to carry these clusters--and they weren't sure why; it was hard for even so many flying mites to bring these things so far. Second, there was a... a sort of clumsy extension to Legion's hivemind, now. Where their own swarm communicated with swift efficiency, of one mind and zipping from question to conclusion, this new link was one of slow, interrupted information.
They processed emotion, at times, or memory, and a quick check showed that none of them belonged to the swarm; yet there they were, nonetheless. It was as if new mites had joined their link, but were mere larvae, confused and slow, and unused to this communication. Perhaps, one of their units had suggested, we are accidentally assimilating others..?
But the clusters seemed to have had something to do with it. These imperatives--these commands, and the sense of reward that followed--were all linked to the clusters themselves. Again Legion wasn't quite sure why, but it didn't really matter. There was no danger that it could sense.
Matter-of-fact, naively trusting, the hive swarmed through Pisces in search of its new goal. It buzzed, a faint brown cloud, here and there among the rolling moss of the Warrens--and at last, a few of the outer sentries all set up a buzz together. There! they cried, There! They'd spotted--and now all of them did--the black mouth of their visions.
Without hesitation, Legion reformed: a bioluminescent creature, on four limbs and large-eyed, blinking as it lifted the clusters within itself and slipped into the darkness.
Labradorite liked to think of himself as vaguely suspicious and wary. Other gembound-- other than his own brother --couldn't exactly be trusted. He didn't like talking to others and he sure as hell didn't want him in his mind.
But a part of him wanted to go.
And go is exactly what he did, without actually thinking about it. He scooped the once-delicate clot into his mouth and padded into Pisces. It didn't take him long to find the others, but he certainly kept a safe distance. He could see in his mind that this was the right spot, but something else told him that this was... not entirely correct.
'Come join us,' said some disembodied voice in his head. 'Become one.'
At first, this seemed like a very natural thing to him. 'Becoming one,' whatever that meant, just seemed... normal. This sense of normalcy lasted about nine seconds, about the same time as it took for him to settle the filament down between his paws.
That was when a very clear question entered his head-- and likely the heads of everyone else near him. Why? Why are we doing this?
What's the point of it? What does becoming one even mean? These weren't questions he was asking himself-- or was he asking any of the younger gembound near him --but instead he was asking whatever was bringing them here in the first place. What do you want from us?
In the last cycle, the powerful need to share, to collect, it had been growing stronger and stronger. In a corner of Pisces, Lamia had been collecting the strange little petals, a small inlet where they floating. She hoarded them there, living, for once, not far beneath the surface of the water, staring up at the petals to make sure nobody took them from her. The dreams had gotten more intense and confusing. She didn't understand, but she knew that it was right. This was the only thing that mattered.
When she'd woken up today, though, things were different. The urge to follow and gather was so strong, she couldn't resist. She needed to take the petals somewhere. Hopefully, she could get there through the water.
She swam up to the surface, reaching out with her spindly limbs to gather as many of the rotting petals as she could, pressing them close against her chest before diving back in, headed towards the place that the strange urge was begging her to visit. There was a place to go...but then there was another. Under the water. She could get to it!
She changed her direction until she found an opening in the rocks. Without hesitation, she swam right into it, petals still clutched desperately to her chest.
