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

[mementomoritz]

Oh... [Medic's voice is small and quiet.]

[And full of awe.]

Hello, can you hear me? I'm going to study you, I want to see, I want to know-

[She never learned to be scared for herself, and here in front of this cold mechanical thing so unlike the warm flesh she loves she is small, she is more fragile than she has ever been, and she is not afraid.]

[This too is a body.]

[Something so complex and vast and intricate and random, to her this must be a living thing, a being.]

[With her hand and heart and senses, she reaches out...]

[daughterofthemark]

[So this is way, way above Veil's pay grade. She cannot begin to guess where to begin to guess. As a machine, thos is way beyond her. As a metaphor, she's pretty sure what it represents is also way beyond her. And she has the feeling that if she tried to do anything here someone would quietly take her aside, pat her on the head, hand her a lollipop, and tell her to let the adults handle it. She'll just be over here off to the side, she guesses.]

[emberserker]

Careful, Medic.

[But she won't do more than chide, barely even that. Instead, Wolfsbane will only stand beside, weapon still out and waiting for something to go wrong.]

[twibeast]

[ Achilles stayed quiet during the descent, but now that they're here he finds his breath taken away, freezing in place.

...You know, Gula reminded him a lot of his homeworld, the one he left behind. He's been haunted by memories of his abuser for a long time now. But there's one thing he was never expecting to ever be reminded of.

His parents.

The unending size of it reminds me of when he finally met Echidna, how she held his already significantly large form that could crush a man with one paw in the palm of her hand like he was merely a mouse to a Goddess like her. That something could be even bigger than her feels disgustingly wrong. "Not even a god could withstand this." Yeah, he's feeling that now.

And then there's the stillness of everything. Of something that should be moving and alive, and for some reason he's thinking of Echidna showing him Typhon's body, crystallized upon his death like the same material he would make for his children's hearts, frozen in time, and how eerie and not right seeing that felt--

He finally remembers how to move and has to turn to the side, looking away from it with one hand over his mouth. He'll be fine he just needs a moment. ]

[cancrymods]

[ Reaching to touch the mind of the Cogs is like trying to read the mind of a corpse. There's the sense that there was something here once, living and breathing as best as anything can in Purgatory, but the stirrings left behind are no more than a memory of a memory.

It hurts to probe something so complex and huge. Medic, of course, can withstand the pain but the pressure of it makes something burst – her eardrums pop and a stream of sparkling pneuma sluices out of her nose.

But wait.

A gear out of place in the machine somewhere. A loose thread left hanging. The coppery tang of–

The connection breaks there. ]

[cancrymods]

[ Rei watches her go. It's... easier to focus on the others than it is to try and comprehend this machine and she's trying her best not to take too much of it in. After a moment's hesitation, she peels away from Achilles and makes her way over to Veil.

Without a word, she takes hold of her hand and gently squeezes it. ]

[daughterofthemark]

[Veil squeezes back, looking over at Rei.]

Dame Rei.

...how are you feeling?

[cancrymods]

. . . I'm not sure. I know I must have been here before at some point but I don't remember any of it. I thought maybe knowing what was down here would prepare me for it but I didn't think it'd be so...

[ The sentence trails off and hangs there. There really isn't a single word she knows of to try and describe the enormity of the machine around them – if you can even call something like this a machine.

She shakes her head a little then turns her focus back to Veil. ]

How about you?

[daughterofthemark]

[Veil hesitates.]

I feel foolish. All this time, it never once occurred to me to wonder just what I'd do once we got here. I suppose I simply... assumed things would fall into place.

[cancrymods]

[ Rei gives a trembly, tired sounding sigh. ]

That makes two of us. I thought somehow... I'd know exactly what to do once we made it down here.

[ Her grip on Veil's hand tightens just a bit. ]

But I don't.

[daughterofthemark]

[Veil's instinct is to say it's okay, the others will figure it out... but if that thought doesn't make her feel any better, why would it be any more helpful to Rei?]

We're two of a kind, it seems.

[She smiles, a little.]

Perhaps that's part of the reason I don't want to leave you.

[cancrymods]

[ The smile Rei manages in return is a tiny one but no less sincere for it. ]

Mm. I'm really glad that you didn't. ... I'm really glad that you've been here all along. I acted like I knew what I was doing right at the start but... the truth is, I was just scared and alone, and scared to be alone. I only made it this far because all of you said you'd help me.

[schardynfreude]

And people really thought this could be fixed. [Someone's going to at least try and be upbeat about all of this. After all, he wasn't even expecting to get down here. Not so soon, anyway.] Why, you wouldn't even know where to begin!

[He lets go of Phoenix's hand, trotting near gleefully down the stairs.] HELLO~! ECHO~!

[Just to see if it echoes. Can any of the Cogs get touched? Climbed on? ...sigh, warped onto without incident? Because he'll do it.] What rubbish.

[discutio]

How bad is it? [with a hand on his arm because gods only know where the floor stops here] Just what are we looking at?

[schardynfreude]

Adamantoises all the way down. [He tuts.] Just gears on gears on gears up and down as far as the eye can see. It'd be awe-inspiring if it wasn't so dreadfully literal.

[discutio]

...I admit I expected something literal, so that's almost disappointing. It certainly feels like more than mere machinery, though.

[daughterofthemark]

I think, perhaps, that is what it means to be a person. Scared and alone, we find strength in others.

[...

...

......

This makes her previous hesitation seem like a brief pause to catch her breath, and not without reason. Veil made her (non-)decision already, right? And she certainly has no desire to prematurely revive the argument from before.

And yet.]

Dame Rei. If we have the choice, I think I'd prefer to stay with you.

[mementomoritz]

[The fact that she pauses to give Wolfsbane an affirming nod even while in the middle of her science fugue says a lot about how close they've gotten.]

[She instinctively raises a hand to the pneuma nosebleed, frowning curiously down at the smear of dark liquid on her fingers even as she reflexively heals herself.]

Is it... really...

[She looks up, expression firming.]

This isn't all there is. [She gestures around them with her free hand.] It's so big that I can't see where it is, but there's something in here that isn't done yet!

[Like finding warm flesh surrounded by dead tissue, a beating heart in an old corpse. Or even just a single vein...]

[cancrymods]

[ this is probably a ridiculous question, which i acknowledge in advance. But...!

Despite the danger, does Medic go back in for a second look? ]

[cancrymods]

[ Rei blinks. Stares at Veil for a moment like she's growing a second head. And then her words stumble out of her. ]

You don't– have to. N–not that I wouldn't want you to stay... or that I wouldn't be sad to see you go, but... if there's someplace else you need to be or someone else you want to become... you shouldn't force yourself to hold back because of me.

[ ... even saying that, though... ]

... but I'd be really happy if you stayed.

[mementomoritz]

[Almost immediately, yes.]

[cancrymods]

[ The crushing pressure and weight of the Cogs immediately returns and it'll take a moment to adjust to it again, unless Medic wants to risk another nosebleed. Either way, now that she knows what she's looking for she's able to detect something interesting that wasn't apparent before.

That still living presence somewhere down here... does not belong to the Cogs. It's something foreign and new. ]

[mementomoritz]

[She settles almost unthinkingly into a professional posture, falling back on the old familiar habits of an old unfamiliar life for steady ground.]

I'll have to go in deeper... Beginning observational necropsy.

[Medic isn't very good with her own safety, when it comes to risk- but she does at least understand the importance of being careful with an experimental subject. It's no good if you carelessly crush something important while you're trying to study it, after all.]

[So when her mind reaches out, it's with a surgeon's steady hand- a gentle touch, light-fingered and cautious.]

[But never hesitating to reach out.]

[Murmuring, thoughtful:] A foreign body in the patient's system...? But is it malignant or benign...

[This presence, does it feel like anything she can recognize- an Authority, an Executor, a Specter, a Revenant? Or is it something as alien as the Cogs themselves, in a distinctly different way?]

[cancrymods]

[ Picking her way through the Cogs is hard. There's the distinct sense that at any moment, the connection might somehow lash back at her - not hostility, but the indifference of a person casually and unknowingly crushing a bug underfoot because they never noticed it was there. It takes a great deal of care and some toughing it out, but eventually Medic feels... something.

It's not part of the Cogs, first of all – it's some sort of foreign matter that's latched on, growing and mutating within the Cogs' environment. It seems... mostly benign, but it's still alarming to see.

Like this, Medic could probably track it... if she wants to? ]

[cancrymods]

[ Whee! The Cogs easily bear his weight but they feel... unpleasant to stand on somehow. It feels like a mild, full-body repeat of whatever happened in his soul the first time Birdie ran him through with that black blade of hers. The cold seeps up through his feet and into the rest of his body.

It's probably fine. ]