terminus

[cancrymods]

the final layer

Down, down into the darkness you go. It's not the first time you've made such a blind descent... though some instinct beyond any kind of conscious thought tells you that it will be the last. There's no movement down here. No motion. The air is so still that as you descent, it feels like stepping into a wall of ice as you leave behind the heat of the Wrath Layer and continue into the bitter cold of... Oh. This is the end, isn't it? The machine that sits at the bottom of Purgatory is incomprehensible. The sheer scale of its size make it impossible to imagine that it could ever have been built by anyone – and yet, the sheer complexity of its design simultaneously has you reeling from the idea that it could have come into being without some intent. Wherever you look, frozen gears interlock in a labyrinthine network that soars high into the space above your heads and down into the inky depths below. All at once you remember what you had been told so long ago. Not even a god could withstand this. It's still here. So still that it feels obscene to move or to make any noise. The air is at once thin and heavy - like stealing a breath from the hanging jaw of a skull. You've reached the Cogs of Renewal. Investigate . . . ?

Comments

[schardynfreude]

I don't recommend touching the damned things if it can be helped. Terribly unpleasant.

[cancrymods]

[ Down is right. Looks like the only way to reach this... whatever it is would be to step away from this tiny safe space and essentially platform your way down across the gears.

It's just far enough that you can't exactly see what's there with the naked eye... but you won't lose sight of the others if you decide to descend. ]

[mementomoritz]

[Cheerfully:] That's why I always wear gloves! I have extra if anyone wants some.

[Yes, she brought a plastic baggie full of latex medical gloves down to the final gates of the afterlife. Look, you never know.]

I don't see another way down, so... forward it is! [And unless anyone wants to take her up on that offer, she's going to follow Wolfsbane and try to jump from gear to gear.]

[At least that rollercoaster stunt in Luxuria was good practice for something.]

[emberserker]

If any of you fall, I'm not catching you.

[Wolfsbane runs and jumps down across the gears, apparently not impeded by her dress (or, for that matter, the gems sticking out of her).]

[twibeast]

[ At this point he's decided to transform into his dog form and is following behind. Much more agile like this! ]

Yes, yes, we know.

[cancrymods]

Mm. I'm coming too.

[ As if there was even any question – though she manages the impressive feat of going even more pale than usual when she sets down on the Gears. ]

Th–they're so... cold. And strange.

[emberserker]

Suppose it's because they're ailing?

[She peers down into the abyss and manifests a fireball hovering above her hand.]

[daughterofthemark]

Ailing, or perhaps... upset, somehow?

[Look, she doesn't know. She would just be chilling and waiting for you guys to handle this if she wasn't following Rei.]

[schardynfreude]

Mm, perhaps, but it feels quite like the sensation of getting run through with our little Birdie's terrible-to-behold sword. Perhaps somehow she took part of the Cogs and fashioned it into a blade?

[We're back to holding the blind man's hand okay he will need assistance in getting down. He's scowling the whole of the way because he does not like this feeling.]

Where is she, anyway? If anyone's to help us reshape the whole of Purgatory, she would be the one whose assistance we need most. Given her being the Authority of Purgatory.

[cancrymods]

. . . You're right.

[ That makes Rei pause in her mascot platforming to straighten up and look back up at the spot they'd just left behind. Her brow furrows. ]

I thought... maybe when we arrived she'd be waiting for us. But...

[ And her gaze goes back into the deep dark below. ]

... is she waiting at the very bottom?

[mementomoritz]

[Medic has a very high tolerance for discomfort, but even she's walking like a cat with tape stuck to its' paws whenever she has to stand on these gears- light, quick hops, trying to touch the ground as little as possible.]

It would explain why her sword can affect memories! Although...

[A thought seems to occur to her.]

You managed to recover your memories, didn't you? [Pointing at Chirardyn.] I wonder if that means the effect of the gears themselves can also be reversed? Or maybe they're much stronger, here at the source...

[emberserker]

We'll have to find out from that demon. If she's waiting for us at the bottom, she certainly hasn't done anything to fix the Cogs... though perhaps she needs us for that.

[schardynfreude]

Don't call her that. [Snapped with a nasty little growl.] She's even more trapped here than we are. And while, yes, my memories recovered, I've little doubt that if she had managed to render a killing blow--forgive the term--that I would not have recovered anything upon reconstitution.

[cancrymods]

[ It's at this point in the conversation that you all see... something just a little further down. A splash of light and colour against the darkness of the Cogs.

Something... not living, necessarily. But certainly something new. ]

[mementomoritz]

[Is Medic immediately making a beeline for the New Thing?]

[Yes, of course she is. It's not even a question.]

[cancrymods]

[ Attagirl, Medic.

The lavender colour strikes your eyes first. It takes a moment to realize that it's because it's the exact hue of spilt pneuma, but much brighter and lighter. It winds its way around a cluster of Cogs, tangled around the mechanisms tight and growing deeper and deeper into the complexities. You think that it might be a web, but then you follow it down and see something that jars surprise through you.

Old cocoons. Split open and left behind, as if a butterfly had broken free and taken flight. ]

[mementomoritz]

Oh wow-

[Yeah, she's definitely taking a sample of that. ...With gloves and sterile tools, all of which she's going to carefully bag up alongside the sample afterwards, because at least she's responsibly irresponsible.]

[Is there anything else around here that stands out, or is the signal that they're following deeper down?]

[emberserker]

What in the world is that?

[Wolfsbane cautiously pokes a cocoon with the tip of her halberd, and then, like it's an afterthought, hacks away some of the webbing gumming up the Cogs.]

Something left behind when the Authority split off into Rei and Birdie would be one idea, something a Revenant made another... It's butterflies all the way down in this place, and they always mean something.

[schardynfreude]

Many who have tried to come all this way, simply to fail to pass on? Others, like us, who have come before to fix it?

[cancrymods]

[ This seemed to be the signal you were following, though tendrils of it certainly sink further down into the Cogs. And now that you're so close, doesn't it feel...

Familiar? ]

[mementomoritz]

[D... does it?]

[Familiar like what? Or, more accurately...]

[Like who?]

[cancrymods]

[ Come on, Medic. ]

[cancrymods]

[ Surely by now you can guess without being told. ]

[cancrymods]

[ Right? ]

[mementomoritz]

[Just looking over at Rei.]

You started getting memories back from the butterflies when we touched them, right? If this is where it started, then maybe... [Medic looks back and forth between Rei and the webbing a couple times, and then slowly peels off one of her gloves to touch the cocoon with her bare hands.]

[Sometimes you need to handle hazardous materials for science.]