Setting
Alone in the cold depths of deep space, a metallic shape glides, trailing a blue, shifting mist behind it. With the exception of the occasional nebula, the Edge is seemingly barren. Where the Outer Centre was rife with strange activity, the Edge was bleak and unpleasant. What was once nearly certain, is now rife with uncertainty.
Within the hull of the S.S Victoria, a warbling song plays through the multiple mouths of the gramocom, serving only to punctuate the uneasy quiet. This near-cessation of noise, save for the almost-oppressive hum of the engine, was initially taken as an improvement of the invasive smorgasbord of noises that filled the Threshold. Now, as the excitement dissipated, it only grew more profound.
The volunteers, once again, have a moment of peace before they reach a suitable world to explore. The present enigma stands; how will they spend this moment?
“Whatever those spectral folk were,” he mused, “it’s a right shame they couldn’t have stayed longer. The knowledge I’ll bet they could tell. Oh, er, not that I would want them to keep suffering like that or anything.” He added hastily, “I meant more, it’s a shame they were in those circumstances, whatever exactly those were.”
He scratched his head in shame. He wasn’t lying, it was more a case of tactlessness.
"Strange... I have this strange feeling of déjà vu," Grimms said as he stood motionless in front of a porthole. He caught a glimpse of Basalah, as she preferred to be called, slinking out the door. He said nothing, as she exited, and simply turned back to look out the porthole again. "Getting a bit of cabin fever, I imagine," he said.
She had not turned to go to the engine, but rather, she was in search of the rest of the crew, in hopes that would give her something to do for the remainder until they hit some form of land, hoping that some even existed.
Max would turn back to Adam to chastise him, before noticing the rodent. "Having a good trip so far?" he asked, referring to their first, eventful encounter with hyper-fantasy. "Well, hopefully that'll be the worst part over with, before we find a new world to run through. We're just gonna head to the Cafetorium, get our heads together for the trip. You're free to come with us, as well as the others." On that note, he would motion Adam to follow them and head down the corridor. Adam's gait as he went down the corridor was much like a marionette with a few strings cut; his long limbs swung unsteadily, now cautious of hitting any more short creatures on his way.
Now having spent some time in the Edge, occasionally one's ears would pick up something from the almost-silent gulfs of space, a strange, almost musical noise ringing just outside the mortal range of hearing, but nevertheless inciting an unwelcome feeling of dread. Hidden sects of the Imagiverse tell of fundamental tunes and frequencies which correlate to a specific emotion, some of basic emotions like happiness and anger, others of more complex feelings, like the apprehension that an elderly person feels as they approach the end of their life. Said sects claim that the Maker incapsulated these emotions into these sounds, for reasons only known to the Maker.
This particular sound, heard almost only in the Edge, is said to invoke dread of the unknown, an emotion more related to the ancient beings that lurk between the stars and of the hidden horrors within the dark of space. To replicate it, one would need a theromin that exists in 5 dimensions at once. However, since text cannot make sounds, an attempt will be made on how it might sound in words:
WEEE-OOO, Weee-ooo, weee-ooooooo.......
Curious what exactly the full view was out there, the dwarf scuttled over to the chest to retrieve his pack, grabbed a couple of pillows off the beds, and stacked them haphazardly and scrambled onto the unstable construction, balancing precariously as he grasped the edge of the porthole with both hands and peered out.
As he leant forward to get a better view, he unfortunately lost his footing, toppling his support and sending him crashing (albeit softly) to the floor on a heap of bedding. Thinking better of making another attempt, he hastily gathered the mess up in a bundle and waddled away with it, acting as nonchalant as was doable.
“I think I might go join the others, see if I can get the run-down on what’s happening next.” He said, throwing the pillows roughly back into place. The dwarf pushed his way through the door, holding it open for a second to look back in case of any response from Grimms.
He glanced back for a moment and then turned, "bah... I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, I think I'd like to stretch my legs as well," he said, before also heading to the door.
Basalah covered her head as nearly a bag of bones, sans the bag, nearly came toppling down upon her. She let out a short grunt, still rather agitated, until seeing the clumsiness of her would-be accidental assailant perform a rather unfortunate ballet. It was small, but for once in a long time the aggressive creature let out a small laugh, unable to contain it further. She then noticed them heading off and scampered over to keep up.
"Hey, it wasn't anything too big, but I do wonder if it was some form of spectral imprint or truly cognitive reflections," she said, trying to spark conversation. "Also, notice anything different? Huh? Huuuh?" she asked, pointing to herself with all four of her claws. "Hearing anything different..?"
Eventually, they would reach the Cafetorium, where the window which occupied almost all of the outside wall provided a view of the Edge. As was mentioned before, the Edge seems to hold much less activity than the Outer Centre, instead providing a haunting picture of a cosmos leaning closer to cold, logical Reality than the spontaneously vibrant Fantasy that the crew lived on. Here, it was uncertain that anything lived in these gulfs, save the currently thin tendrils of a psychopathic near-omnipotent being that desires nothing but the extinction of Fantasy.
Seemingly unaware of all this existential terror, Max and the others would wander to the Cornucopia machine, where they fabricated various drinks before sitting down on one of the long tables, their backs to the window-wall. "It'll be a while before we reach land," said Fancy amiably. "Might as well stretch our legs and kick back for a bit, get to know each other a bit more."
"Yeh," said Adam, cradling a glass of milk, a textbook beverage for the calcium-based undead.
"Feel free to get a drink or something from the thingy," said Fancy. "If it does what John says it does, it should give you any drink you want."
“You’ve…aged!” he concluded triumphantly, probably misunderstanding the new colour her coat had taken on. He beamed at everyone, apparently not seeing anything rude about the statement he had just made.
Waddling into the cafetorium with the rest of the party, the dwarf caught sight of the huge window. A mature or sensible adult would certainly recognize at least a sense of cosmic horror in such a situation. While he was technically an adult, Vragi was, for better or worse, neither of these things and so giddily bounded over to the wall.
“Ah, finally a view I can see!” he whispered, staring hungrily out into the space as his eyes glazed over under their glassy shields. He appeared to be lost in thought and only vaguely picked up the gist of the conversation going on. Shortly after he ambled over to the strange machine that was procuring drinks from seemingly nowhere, joining the back of the queue so he could gawp at the thing without holding anyone up. He then ambled up to the table, holding a tankard of something that frothed fiercely like some poisonous dragon’s bile (although it emitted a rather pleasant sweet scent).
“How long did it take you to learn those shortcuts? In the corridor. If you don’t mind me asking.” The dwarf inquired, after having briefly introduced himself to the Chosen Few. He still appeared mildly out of breath from the ordeal, as he had taken the direct route. He didn't admit that this had been so he could try and count all the doors on the way.
Her somewhat thoughtful tranquility would be disrupted, however, by a voice from behind.
“You’ve…aged!”
The raccoon's hairs bristled up her spine, her claws tightened into fists, and her entire body tensed up. "I'll have you know," she growled. "I'm neither a demon nor a hag!" There's a brief pause as her eyes shift around looking somewhat embarassed. "B-besides, I've grown fond of this vessel, and I won't have it b-be mocked."
"The numberth on the doorth help too," contributed Jack, drinking a glass of water with an admirable attempt at preventing himself from spitting it out due to long-term gag training.
"Yeah, and that."
Despite their initial complaints, or at least the complaints of the Robloxian, the Few seemed quite at ease so far from home. Perhaps it was years of experience with the unknown, always on the move to worlds that had only few similar physical laws between them. They certainly had the air of people who have seen everything possible to be seen by mortal man and more.
"Tho, while we're waiting, wanna tell uth about where you guyth came from?" asked Jack. "Jutht to break the ithe a bit and get to know each other."
"Well yeah," said Fancy, a touch reproachfully. "That's pretty much the point of this chat, Jack. I already said. But yeah, where do you guys hail from?"
He nodded as if making a mental note as the Robloxian answered his question. Learning the layout of the ship sounded a good challenge to him so he’d be sure to have a go when he got the chance. He was just taking a long, thoughtful swig of his beverage when one of the few inquired about the newcomers’ homes. Pushing his tankard to the side so it obscured only half of his face from everyone’s vision, he took it upon himself to go first.
“Oh, well my hometown Nidvell is very dark and stuffy and mostly underground. And there’s soot everywhere.” The dwarf said jovially. “We mostly trade in smithing, see, so it’s very much like one huge furnace. Most of the light comes from the lava streams and glowing algae in the water.”
As the dwarf finished, she supposed it was her turn to explain. It wasn't pleasant to recall things of her past, but there was no point to be so secretive now.
"Weeeeelllllll," she said with an odd fluctuation. She held her throat, looking a bit perplexed, coughing to clear it. "I come from the world of Tzel... ah, imagine a land blanketed in perpetual dusk, illuminated by the fauna and flora, and a gentle warmth that flows throughout. Now imagine the other side of this world, cold, desolate, and blanketed in darkness instead, where people who have descended from banished dissidents now live in perpetual turmoil. That is where I'm from. Believe it or not, I wasn't always like this, I was taller, eyes of jade, hair of emerald... a green torch in a dark world. I was... I waaaaasssss..." She began to trail off, looking at her clawed hands with a perplexed look. "Mother named me Basalah, courage, for nothing startled me... saaaaaid I held lots of promise for our people."
"As for me," Grimm's voice chimed in, as Basalah's eyes grew distant. Grimms walked in, adjusting his tie, apparently having had little trouble traversing the ship's oddly warped space. "From where I came originally? I really don't know, the world I grew up in was certainly not my native. The people that raised me, a nomadic lot, said I fell in from the sky, from 'Orion's armpit' they said, Betelgeuse, the red star. Betelgeuse Grimms, get it?" he continued, chuckling a bit as steam blasted out from the break in his armor around the neck. "I started young as an adventurer, a hero, though I admittedly did it for the thrill. You know, fighting monsters, averting disaster, smashing large stones with my head and flexing... lots of flexing... looking back on it, I was quite an.. hmmm... idiot. My wife found me incorrigible, until she tricked me into learning humility, getting me to admit that there were things I was just awful at. Like... almost everything involving not slaying monsters or smashing something... and er, reading. Anyways, I really don't know from where I originally came from, I've thankfully ruled out all sorts of aeons, daemons, angels, and gods. Closest I've come to in my hunt for knowledge is Fae, or something akin, but I am neither malign, nor pleasure in toying with the lives of others... at least, not usually."
"So, what, you think you'll find home out here somewhere in the tumor of the multiverse?" Basalah said, letting out a snicker.
"Well, that and when I fought a swamp witch, she said we both came from a place beyond the veil of stars, y'know, as she tried to gnaw off my head."
"Wh... what..? Basalah muttered, looking perplexed at the concept, imagining a green human hopelessly trying to chew through Grimm's hard shell.
"Er, she had absorbed many beasts and animals of the swamp, so she had amalgamated into a massive and horrible monstrous chimera... thing? Just to get an idea of what I was dealing with. Actually, maybe she wasn't that horrible... maybe it was the fact most of what I saw in the fight was endless rows of teeth. Anyways, she lost interest in our constant stalemate, thought I was the thing missing her being, found out she was my twin sister, er, liberal on the 'twin' part, and... and... well, here I am searching beyond the veil of stars."
"Your life is... weird, Basalah said.
"Yes... yes it is," he said, nodding in agreement.
Max would lean forward, resting his elbows on the table, as if to relay a riveting story. "Well, I come from this world that we call Robloxia. Mainly suburbs and cities, I don't think I've ever seen a blade of grass, considering there isn't any parks. Just miles and miles of tall, shiny buildings filled with Robloxians. To a man, we rarely leave our apartments; pretty much all the time, except for sleeping, we hook ourselves into these machines which connect to this big ol' server where you can create anything you want. "Powering Imagination", that's their motto. Of course, I don't use those machines as often, since I'm from a Builder caste; those are the guys who build those buildings. Dunno why, but I was made of much more stronger stuff than the others, could carry five I-beams without breaking a sweat. Nowadays, John would say it was probably the Creators leaving a mark on me as if to say 'this guy right here, he's gonna be the muscle of our little group when he's older', but I just think there was some sort of bug in wherever we were hatched or built that added too much muscle."
A few seconds of awkward silence would pass between the other Chosen Few before Max turned to his colleagues and rumbled, "Hey, don't get antsy or anything; I'm only stating it as it is. Anyone of you wanna talk about your homeworld next?"
Fancy would clear his throat. "Well, I dunno if I have that much to say about my world. I come from Squiggleville, just a regular place, although it doesn't have a third dimension as far as I remember. To be honest, it came as a shock when I was brought out of my world, seeing people going forwards and backwards as well as left and right and realising how shorthanded Squiggleville was in terms of spatial whatsits. It was all drawn as well, although not like pencil-and-paper drawn, I don't think, but... I dunno. I can't really describe it. It felt real to me, but when I saw the Imagiverse I realised that it was just... something out of some kid's sketchbook." His brow wrinkled, indeed like paper.
Glug-glug-glug. It was the sound of Jack pensively taking a swig of his water. Forcing himself to swallow, he said in that special bright tone one takes in an attempt to dispel awkwardness, "Well, I come from Toontown. It'th uthually a pretty happy plathe full of fun and practical joketh, eckthept when the Cogth are around. Their jutht thethe mechanical men in thuitth alwayth trying to thell you dethk toyth and thwindling you out of your jellybeanth. Bathically the only guyth that can put a Toon down, and I mean really down. They've got headquarterth in all four cornerth of Toontown which we regularly raid to try and thlow them down, but really, it'th what I've heard John call a "war of attrition". Other than that, it'th a nithe plathe."
The Chosen Few turned to Adam, who looked back with a momentarily blank expression. Then, finally realising what they were expecting, he said, "Oh, err. Well, me and John come from Earth- or, err, Anti-Earth, I fink it's called out in the Imagiverse. We lived in the 1890s and in a rich family. Our dad owned a bunch of factories and companies, and our mum... I guess, was just our mum. I remember her being very beautiful, although I can't remember the colour of her eyes for some reason; can't remember whether they were blue or green. Anyway, we also had another brother called Nick who was a bastard, according to John. Got into a lot of trouble when he was younger, and he did us even more trouble. Wrestling and slamming my head into the wall, for one thing. In the end, our dad sent us to New Orleans to find some girls to marry, cause that's what you do when you're old enough. Then Nick heard word about some fortune teller, brought John with him, next thing I knew, John was buried in a local graveyard and I got attacked by some shadowy figure in an alleyway that looked like Nick. Other than that, I don't know what to tell you."
This time, the silence was thick with terrible retrospection of Adam's summary. He was known to the group as being so emptyheaded that his mind was a vacuum, with only sparse sparks of thought flickering within. They had heard John's summary of their past, which was more filled with spit and venom when their third brother was mentioned, but Adam's blank and vague delivery seemed to make it much worse. As a man, they theorised if these beatings of Nick inflicted more than bruises.
As they stood silent, however, the volunteers may notice something outside the window. As they went deeper into the Edge, it seemed that the horizon held slightly more stars and nebulas and other cosmic constructs that mortals could not identify. It now seemed as if the stars were winking out, in a thick line, as if they were being obscured by something. Something vaguely serpentine but almost completely invisible, or rather, visible by the negative space it occupied. Somewhere at the end of this oblong blot in the sky, a red star flared.
Unfortunately, tactless poor soul that he was, Vragi failed to fully appreciate the disturbing nuances in Adam's tale, though this did nothing to dull his curiosity.
The concept of a two-dimensional world especially fascinated him and as he stared out the window at the generous view before them he tried to picture what life would be like only being able to move in two directions. He was just pondering whether it would be easier to find one’s way, due to only having two directions, or harder because of some difficulty with vision, when something mildly off caught his attention.
“Ah, seems we’ve a new friend!” He said excitedly, pointing at the strange red light ahead.
"Honestly? Your brother, this... Nick?" she began, squinting one of her haunting green eyes half-closed. "Long before it ever got to the point it did with you two? I'd have royally kicked his a-," she began before something red caught her attention, jerking her head to look at it, both eyes narrowed in an attempt to discern what it is.
"Well then, certainly looks like we'll be making another encounter soon," Grimms said calmly, casually pulling out a cigar from his pocket and attempting to light it. "What is the general percentage of amicable encounters around here, anyways?"
"Out here?" said Max, responding to Grimms' inquiry. "Not too good with maths, but I'd say the chances are a million-to-one."
"That'th hopeful, Mackth," mumbled Jack.
It took them a good seven seconds to detect the invisible thing outside, but like the shape of a cloud seemingly turning into a whale or a naked woman, it revealed itself; a large shadow in space where stars should be, swimming through the cosmos, yes, like a serpent, or a sea-snake. If one strained their vision, there was a faint suggestion of spike-like bristles around what was likely the head of the thing. At the moment, it did not seem inclined to strike the vessel, although it was possibly pursuing a viable tactic of predators everywhere, which was follow its prey until it tires.
There was a moment around the head area, as if the almost non-existent thing was opening its maw, and the background noise of the vessel was almost completely drowned out by the peculiar anti-noise that forced the Few to cover their ears. As darkness was not the opposite of light, merely its absence, so was silence not the opposite of noise. There existed a noise that approached the soundwaves from the other direction, presenting itself instead as an almost oppressive silence, the true opposite of noise. The Chosen Few had heard of a tongueless bell on the Discworld which silenced the entire city it occupied as it tolled the silences.
This anti-noise, however improbable it may be, had an edge to it. It was as if one took the roar of a great sea monster and somehow inverted the soundwaves so that it went to the negative. The hull shuddered under its negative cry.
"--it," said Max, as the hum of the engine returned. He turned to the gramocon on the opposite wall of the Cornucopia and began to walk towards it before Fancy said, "Max, I don't think that's a two-way communication thing. He'll probably never hear you."
"Well, if I yelled in the corridor on this ship, he'd have less of a chance to even know I was yellin'," replied Max. "Help me up, we gotta tell John about this."
John consulted the radar on the control panel with unease. On either side of the central dot was a larger, pulsating dot. They were staying about half a mile's distance besides the spaceship, which meant that they were travelling parallel with the vessel. If they decided to veer towards his ship, it would get sandwiched.
What was strange was the dots weren't lighting up; they were darkened. On the criss-crossing green lines of the radar, they were only noticeable by where the lines were blotted out. He didn't even know that was possible on the radar. He suspected something similar to Narrative Causality was in play.
From the extendible funnel which lead into the gramocon piping system, there was a faint noise just barely noticeable over the electronic hum of the control panel, fading in and out, "...ohn, there's a big fucking shadow serpent outside......ike it's eyeing us up, you gotta get......right now!"
John rolled his eyes, or rather the pinpoint light which served as the pupil in each of his eye-sockets, and held the gramocon speaker to his mouth. "Max, there's one on either side of the ship," he answered, his voice echoing across the S.S Victoria. "And I'd suggest you stop trying to use the gramocons to vent your panic at me, I've got the means of knowing what's following us."
Putting back the speaker, he reached for the chadburn, a wheel-like device normally used to control the speed of sea vessels, and turned the handle to "Ahead, Full". After a while, the vessel would begin to pick up speed in an attempt to evade these invisible "shadow serpents".
Upon hearing the announcement that there were being pursued by two of the things, he shrugged. “Well, the more the merrier I suppose.”
He quickly checked what he had on him in terms of equipment in case of a turn for the worse. It seemed he’d left most of it back in the cabin but had both Knuse and Brudd on hand. It may have been worth mentioning that What’s a dwarf without an axe? Was one of his personal favourite phrases from back home.
It was a good thing he wasn’t planning on going back to grab anything else because firstly, he would have got himself either lost or distracted, and secondly, he would most likely have taken too long to be of any help. Not that any of the stuff he carried around would have done much good out in space. As the ship picked up speed the poor dwarf stumbled and was forced to grab a nearby table leg for balance.
"Interesting, a creature naturally capable of emitting negative resonance," Grimms said, before taking a puff from his cigar as the trails of his eyes and smoke trailed away from him as the vessel accelerated into an escape.
Basalah held onto the flooring with her claws as the ship accelerated, staring out the porthole. "Keheheheh... it is said that great beasts guard great treasures. Makes one wonder what is hidden out here," she said, a tone of greedy intrigue as her voice became more coarse.
The S.S Victoria is not the first space vessel to attempt to traverse the uncharted and perilous Edge, and it surely won't be the last, especially if the vessel returns. Those few who returned, and those fewer who were still coherent, told of their hellish odyssey into the unknown, fending off gibbering aberrations that somehow climbed through the closed windows and evading what the more academic and fanciful have dubbed Dark Matter Wyrms, mighty serpents of negative existence, sea dragon-shaped holes in space-time with predator intent. Biographies of these few explorers have been illicitly published and circulated within esoteric societies across the Imagiverse, where their visions and hints were taken apart and reassembled into still vague but foreboding theories.
During the most harrowing times of their journey, the biographies of spacemen relayed a worrying phenomenon; when the unmade horrors of space were rapping on the doors of the cabins, when the strained moans of the ship were silenced by the roar of the Wyrms, and when the crew was a hair's breadth of unravelling into mutiny and chaos, it was possible to see faint, black, tentacle-like shapes out in space - only visible in the same way that a tired eye could see shapes behind its eyelid - slightly obscuring the stars. During those times, it was easy to believe those were the grasping tendrils of the Unmaker, feeling its way towards the Centre to snuff out the light of the Creators.
Accelerating, it seemed to John, did not improve matters much. The serpents were still on either side of the ship (although, aren't they a little further away than before?) and showed no sign of tiring. Granted, there was no air resistance in the void, but it was still a mystery to John in regards to their locomotion. Perhaps, on a later expedition when he's more accustomed to the Edge's dangers, he might examine these wyrms more closely.
A rattling beside him makes him turn. Another spherical compass, which was previously just limp and pointing downwards, was now shakily pointing in a direction that was just about in front of him. He had heard of worlds tucked into the knots and crannies of the Edge's space-time fabric, almost invisible to the naked eye before it is sucked into a hidden wormhole that acted as a gateway to these worlds. He had a device installed which would point in the direction of a nearby Edge-world, in the same fashion as his Centre-compass. That rattling arrow, to John, pointed in the direction of relative safety. With great care, he pointed his vessel towards the direction of the arrow.
Even as he reached for his horn, the space in front of him began to distort like a disturbed pond. "I have news that is ambiguously good and bad. I've found a world we can hide in, but I have no means of determining what it'll be like. My only hope is that there's land-"
There is a ripping noise, like a sheet of spacetime being torn. The S.S Victoria disappears, leaving two mildly annoyed serpents. They leave to find other prey.
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