[Quest] The White Obelisk: Act II of Darkling Tides

by **Anselm** on June 10th, 2012, 8:56 pm

Anselm had managed to get himself back into a sitting position leaning against the stern of the boat. It looked like Poole and he were the only two still functioning, and he was frankly not too sure about himself. He was injured and drained, and had to concentrate to remain in the present. He looked toward the White Obelisk, standing tall and strong, taunting him. So close, yet so far, he thought. Most likely it's not going anywhere.

“Mr. Poole,” he said in his usual quiet, meat-grinder voice. “Perhaps we should turn back and leave the Obelisk for another day.”

by **Echelon** on June 11th, 2012, 1:38 pm

Anselm felt it, in a sense that escaped categorization, explanation. He sensed the shark slip, with vein inelegant defeat, downward into the depths, its gills matted securely by gagged stone. There was hatred, and severe pain. But, also a mutual appreciation. It was finally over.

Poole came forth again, with a much required task he excelled at. The bandages moved in a blurred flurry from the perspective of the mainly overgiven and slowly recovering crew. Poole was frightened as well, but he hid it with productivity. With a loud proclamation that the sea was great for wounds, and already cleaned it out, he made a halfhearted attempt at being gentle while binding the women's head. He still believed a boat was no place for a women. It would stop the bleeding, but would win some scowls from the next doctor to see uncover it. Should would survive.

Poole looked to Leigo. His hand was cut, rather deep, but across the palm where the tenderness of cold hadn't reached yet. Despite that he would be fine. Poole gave a bravo of a nod, lip perked in deliberate stoic strength, and he left the young man along, tending to other various wounds around the ship.

He checked the status of everyone on the ship, those still conscious, before giving another one of his nods, not wasting a moment to take up two oars for himself.

Anselm's words won a literal growl from the grizzly man. "Don't think we didn't see what you are, creature! You will shut your mouth, and do what the University asked of us, or I won't hesitate to see you thrown from this ship." He glared strait at Anselm, but eyes reluctant to look past the darkness of his reestablished hood proved his fear.

He sat down. "We passed Laviku's test. Lets petching hope the prize was worth it." He declared, leaving no room for objection, and began calling his strokes as he helped propel them forward toward the towering mystery, bobbing with resistance in the narrow boat, which now had large grooves disrupting it's hydrodynamics upon the bottom. Still the hull held sound, without holes, and Poole only had to demand the free hands bail out access water from the splashing once. Had they been lucky?

The trip was eerily still, boat slipping over the slate glass y surface of the again calm Mathew's bay, and larger and large the opal Obelisk towered above them. Anselm felt it first, a tingling warm sensation in his dead gut, like a warm body's reaction to a few swigs of alcohol on a cold day. There was definite magic in the air. Even those without the sight felt their skin stand on end at they finally drew within oar's reach of the thick base.

Wide enough that a trip around would take a full crew a fourth a bell to encircle the stark white tower showed no taint of wildlife upon it, no green stain of flora, nor fauna swimming near it. Neither was there a single inlet, or entrance to be discovered. Instead, there shown clear and masterfully carved grooves, in an enchanting, almost mesmerizing pattern, wrapped never ending around the mysterious landmark. Each valley of a groove set deep enough for a grown man to reach his arm into, the pattern has no recognizable meaning or pattern, though it beckons those, especially those learned of magic to decipher something into it.

"By Laviku..." Poole said, more aghast than impressed, as he pushed the small vessel closer to the gargantuan abomination. The water surrounding the tower in a circle lay completely flat, without a single ripple, even when oar's were forced through. It wasn't long before the boat itself came reluctantly to a complete stand still, the water too solid to push any farther. Brow knit fiercely together Poole reached his hand out of that boat, and touched the water around them. Like hard packed clay it did not move, and his hand did not sink inward. Clear, like glass flooring the water maintained it's opaqueness, it's reflective nature, but it had become solid. Not frozen, but altered in some way that made it like earth.

Wind blew softly over the crew, most uncontentious, as Poole cast a look back, seeking for the eyes of somebody who might be braver than he, and attempt to draw closer. "It's solid..." His voice was rough, and almost unbelieving. If attempted the water would hold, absorbing the step like forgiving clay, and adopting a footprint for a few moment before flattening out with flawless integrity.

Papers, and pencils lay in a chest near by, unsoiled by water, and ready to take notes on the obelisk's size, and appearance, including it's dizzying designs. Poole decides quickly to remain in the safety of the boat, not at all invited by the structure, and the bazaar nature of the water that surrounded it, and began using navigating instruments to take measurements of the structure, and writing it down.

ooc :

by **Anselm** on June 12th, 2012, 12:48 am

OOC :

Anselm stared at Poole in disbelief as the man put his strength into rowing the sizable boat. But not back to the docks. Noooo. The fool had decided to continue toward the obelisk. He certainly is a stubborn fellow, Anselm thought. The boat soon enough came to a halt a few feet from the massive tower, having run aground against the increasingly solid water. The tower was massive in width and massive in height. Well old man, he thought. As long as you're here, you might as well get out and take a look around.

He turned to Leigo and spoke slowly. “I am going to try to determine what the obelisk is made of. There is obviously magic afoot so it's hard to say what will happen when I touch it. In the meantime, perhaps you could make some visual observations, take some notes and maybe try your hand at making a drawing of those designs.” He tilted his head back to follow the length of the tower up into the air above them. “How tall do you suppose it is?”

He gingerly stepped out of the boat and on to the solid water. Now this is interesting, he thought. Then he reached out and touched the obelisk. A tingling sensation flowed through his hand and part way up his arm. He focused on feeling past its surface and felt heat. This was how Anselm usually experienced the presence of magic, although in this case he already new magic was present. He moved his hand along the surface and felt deeper. He shut everything else out and focused on just two things: his hand and the obelisk. The tingling had become more of a pulsing and had reached his shoulder. What are you? He asked as he willed his senses to explore the massive structure.

OOC :

by **Leigo** on June 14th, 2012, 2:17 pm

Leigo would’ve been the first man out and about had Anselm not rocked the boat. But he did, and Leigo fell back to his knees before he could even make half a step. Sooner than expected the boat was again perfectly still. This made the man uneasy.
Wanting to inspect the structure regardless, he proceeded after the old man. He couldn’t let that coward get all the fun after all. And while the boy wasn’t going to touch the stone directly, he decided on doing it as well once he saw Anselm’s hand land without deprecations.

Stepping unevenly, each step meant pain for the blond. At least until he reached the stone and he could finally lean onto something. The pattern felt almost like hypnosis and the still wet hairs on his arm started to stand on edge. Something from inside the stone called him to push his hand deeper inside, but once he did there was no telling what could happen. Tracing hand across the inner workings of the obelisk, Leigo soon pulled out, unable to decipher much and his hands too numb to be certain if he had the chance to grasp at something.

Another though occurred however. Perhaps he could leak some of his djed into the stone and see what happened. Maybe res would have been ideal? Too tired to think on it much, the boy reached the hand back in for a bit before trying to concentrate on loosening his djed.
It wasn’t a pleasant experience anymore. Nor did it feel intimate by that point. All it gave him was a headache that seemed to pulse through each genuine thought he had.

The essence broke apart somewhere inside him with small bits heading to his fingertips lost in the stone. Normally he would convert this matter into res as that was a more reliable way to deal with it, but he was too exhausted to try.

A normal person would’ve probably told Anselm to back out just in case, but Leigo seemed too consumed with his own musings to even consider the nuit’s existence. Gritting his teeth, the boy let last bits of his magic slide into the towering monstrosity.

by **Echelon** on June 15th, 2012, 11:36 pm

The captain stubbornly disregarded any words from the nuit, which he strictly held in poor regard, as he worked his craft, deciphering just that, the height of the monstrosity towering above them all, shadows passed over mostly unconscious faces.

A firm palm upon the Obelisk gave forth a tickling tingling itch across the whole body, as if electricity flowed freely through. The deeper and more trained probe of Anselm revealed much more.

His hand, full in it's own right with Djed mingled with the material the likes of which Anselm could not in all of his years rightly testify to have seen even a glimpse of. Twice in one day, indeed Matthew's bay was proving to be quite the fresh experience. Full of surprises.

Massive amount of power laid out before Anselm's mind, as if he were attempting suddenly to comprehend life's mysteries attempting to stare out into space out into the vast ocean. Endless, and what what he could tell untapped power. And beyond this was vivid and undeniable sense of sentience. It, the material itself, was aware of him, of his mystical eyes turned upon him, and at first the two simply existed there, in shapeless soundless presence.

Then came another hand, a tendril of power, stained with a vivid mark the aura of Leigo, the haughty boy from the boat who had unbeknownst to Anselm joined him upon the glass like grounds, to socialize with the awesome Obelisk.

The Obleisk did not beckon, and did not seem hungry. With quiet and controlled disdain the air around them both hummed softly, and every ounce of raw power offered by the foolish mage flowed with ease, incredible ease, into the tower. As quickly, and effortlessly as a drop of rain falling to ground the djed sped off through the grooves of the tower, in the thinnest of lines running from Leigo. It dropped through the maze work, till finally it met with the water itself, and at that point only Anselm could feel it, stretching out through the water, changed and charged by that catastrophe earlier that season.

Beyond the sight of the crew, and only linked to Anselm by a thin string of Djed, and the graciousness of the Obelisk, Anselm felt a magnetic push against his hand. Slowly he felt the pressure grow more, upon the moisture of his sick fluids. He realized the sympathy of it all, as the pressure pressed upon his hand it pressed more so upon the water, far outside their line of sight. It push the water down, widening the surface like an empty maw, a hole opening in the bay's surface itself. Wide, and, from what Anselm could tell, permanent.

Even the laymen could see the second effect, however, a clear line from Leigos outstretched hand, through the mazework carving, to the base upon the water, within the water, glowed with the preternatural lights, still humming softly, even as Leigo let his Djed flow stop a moment, and withdrew his hand.

Poole stopped what he was doing, and stared with concern.

oocgratz on 100 posts leigo.

free for all rotation on your posts. There ist just two, maybe three, of you guys now so treat it as your turn, and try not to take more than two days to post

We suddenly find ourselves so close to finishing our mission! How exciting.

by **Anselm** on June 16th, 2012, 10:08 pm

A whole universe opened up around him. For a moment he felt like he was alone, floating in a vast, endless expanse of nothingness.

Vastness, endless, open, a world within the world. Or perhaps a world containing the world.

Power, infinite, without limits, without containment.

Intelligence, consciousness ... awareness. Awareness of the self, awareness of the other.

Like a drop of rain falling into an endless sea, Leigo's Djed falls into the endless expanse of Djed. It is awake. Have we awakened it? Or has it always been awake? It looks out. It allows him to look in. It makes no effort to hide itself, no effort to protect itself. Perhaps it has no need to hide or protect. Perhaps it knows they do not have the ability to hurt it. Or perhaps it is simply beyond such questions. Perhaps such possibilities do not apply to it. Asking the wrong question invariably leads to the wrong answer. Anselm realized he did not now the right question to ask. He could not find a common frame of reference within which to form such a question.

He did not sense any animosity or ill will or, really, any emotion at all. With his physical eyes, he gazed across Matthew's Bay at the other obelisk, the black obelisk, and wondered what the other party was finding there.

Why two obelisks? he wondered.

His mind drifted across space and time to a warm, clear evening on a beach of black sand, something he had not seen anywhere else. There was a cooking fire, and a hermit named Brandon, whose attention had once again wandered off as though he were in a world of his own. Perhaps he was.

“Friend Brandon,” said Anselm gently. “You were speaking of monism and dualism.” The man's eyes snapped back to Anselm and he scratched the scruffy beard that had over the years laid claim to a good deal of his face.

“Yes,” he said. “The question of whether everything is one thing and one thing is everything. This may well be the most important question of all, for the simple reason that every other question we might ask must carry within itself the assumption that either everything is one thing or it is not. And this assumption, in turn, must necessarily frame all subsequent questions one way or the other, and therefore will determine all subsequent answers one way or the other. If you begin with the wrong fundamental assumption, then all your questions will be wrong, just as surely as all your answers will be wrong.”

He picked up a stick and stirred the embers, causing the fire to flare up again. He tossed two pieces of wood into it and they both watched for a while as the flames licked greedily at the offering. This was fortunate because Anselm needed a few moments to try to absorb Brandon's typically dense philosophy.

The hermit continued. “But before we jump to the all-too-tempting assumption of the fundamental oneness of everything, consider this:

Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.

Therefore having and not having arise together.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short contrast each other;
High and low rest upon each other;
Voice and sound harmonize with each other;
Front and back follow one another.

“The question you must ponder is this: Can there be One without Another?”

Anselm was still pondering that question as he looked back and forth between the two obelisks and asked himself, Why two obelisks? He pulled his hand away from the tower and turned to Poole, who was still staring at the glowing water. “We can head back now.”

OOC :

EDIT :

by **Leigo** on June 18th, 2012, 9:04 am

It remained unclear to Leigo how, but he could feel the nuit’s presence. His best guess pointed back to the obelisk. At least until the point where the structure pushed him back. Only then did he realize just what had happened. For better or for worse, they seemed to have activated the obelisk. Somehow Leigo was certain that it was actually his djed that pushed the cogs forward, but as long as it looked like he could even remotely blame Anselm as well, his paranoia was in check.

Even if the boy had planned to move back, he didn’t want to agree with the overly cautious geezer. And he was certain Poole would be somewhere along the same line of thought – anything to defy the elder, right?
The endless hole gave him more to worry about however. Certainly if it could go so deep, it could also get wider than before, as unlikely as that may seem. Whatever they needed to do in order to inspect the obelisk surely needed to happen soon, and they were surely a poor choice for such an experiment.
Turning back to Poole, voiced temporary protest to Anselm’s words.

“I believe” he said “we aren’t capable of ever examining the structure fully here. That’s why we should try and break a piece of it off and carry it with us to give those folks at the University something to look at.” Fixating at the sailor again, he added briefly. “How about that?” He thought about Anaya particularly, as the structure itself seemed very much alien to him. Regardless, he wasn't beyond getting back into the boat and leaving while it still looked as if they could.

Clearly Poole would need to be the one to do anything physical from that point on. Leigo even pitied the man to an extent. This could very well make something bad happen, worse than even having to row him back home with an arm that hurt mercilessly. Still, it was a good step to take; he just knew that being a guinea pig wasn’t his best bet.

by **Echelon** on June 18th, 2012, 4:46 pm

Poole frowned as they called on his services. He looked from his scrawlings with a glare. The monster wished to go and the other wanted to chip into the damnable thing.

The sailor certainly had no preference for the Nuit, though he had to succeed, though begrudgingly, some recognition of expertise to the man. He, after all, would know more about these cursed obelisks than anybody else. On the other hand the boy had a point, and so Poole rummaged through his chest and produced without much trouble at all, having organized all of the tools perfectly, one petite chisel and one hammer. It would do.

Not wanting to get out of the boat he set the tools on the bench nearest the two, the busied himself again with his work. He had no words for the two, and preferred remaining in the craft, looking after the injured.

The decision was theirs.

by **Leigo** on June 20th, 2012, 9:48 pm

oocI wasn't sure if I'm supposed to wait on Anselm or if were back to the old posting order, but I posted anyway since I had some time on my hands. If amendments are needed, do PM.

For the longest moment, Leigo waited for someone to do something. Even disapproving his idea would’ve come as reassurance since he wasn’t completely sure either. Yet, nothing came. There was surely enough time for someone to act, yet it fell to him to decide. Would he mimic the cowardice of his still conscious companions or would he act on his primary impulse? The question was indeed a tough one, but the choice seemed easy, natural almost.

Walking towards the tools Poole had set out; the boy felt his legs strengthening. Surely, it was a nice change to stand on something (seemingly) solid after all the time aboard and underwater.
Picking up the tools was somehow harder than walking and he could feel cramp like pains climbing up his lower back.
Doing his best to accelerate the process, the blond stood up before his time and white spots began to plague his sight. It was truly embarrassing to lose face like that, but all Leigo could feel was fear and curiosity mixed together into an unshakable bond.

His feet made their way across the glassy floor slowly, begging to be stopped. But no one told him off, and perhaps it had been for the best. After all it was his idea and not acting on it without significant reason made him an even bigger chicken than Anselm or Poole, and he just couldn’t have that, no sir!
Placing the chisel against the structure, he felt the need to whisper before he struck.

“I’m sorry…”

Not much use to him or anyone near, but if there was even a remote chance that this thing was sentient, perhaps some manners could add up to its good side. Still, when someone wounded you, would politeness even matter?

The hammer would fall down after several practice swings. It would fall down evenly and quite likely tear off more than they needed in just a couple of swings, unless the obelisk had another idea.
All one could do at that point was hope for the best. Even the best Leigo could imagine looked grim though.

by **Anselm** on June 21st, 2012, 1:39 am

Anselm was alarmed when he realized what the boy was proposing. He intends to do harm to the object! He didn't know whether the obelisk was sentient, but it was aware. He was sure of it. He had looked at it and it had looked back at him. There had been a communion of souls. It may see this as an attack, he thought. Then Poole the fool produced the tools of said attack and Leigo took up arms against the tower of power and launched his fruitless assault.

“Stop!” Anselm shouted. “You must not hurt it.”

But it was too late. The fatal blow was already falling. A thought flitted through his mind as he watched the hammer coming down on the chisel in agonizingly slow motion: Our fate is no longer in our own hands.

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