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Post by Noa on Nov 27, 2021 0:47:17 GMT -6
It was unnerving -- like being underwater. Noa twitched his fingers, just to see if they would meet with the same resistance, but it still felt as if he was moving through no more than air. He turned, taking in the room for the first time. It was a darkened space, but now that he was in it, it wasn't the pitch blackness that he had half expected. Instead, he found himself bathed in a soft, irregular light -- emanating, he could see now, from the various screens that surrounded him.
Now that the shock of the sudden quiet had worn off, he could hear the faint chirps and pings of the devices that occupied this room. They weren't so quiet as to be nearly inaudible, but there was a peaceful, muted quality to everything. It felt like a relief after the overwhelming nature of the room that had come just before.
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Post by Noa on Nov 27, 2021 0:47:28 GMT -6
Slowly, Noa drifted closer to one side of the room, inspecting the screens that lined the walls there. Not all were lit; there were some that had gone dark, and others that flickered on and off. He didn't know enough about these to tell whether this was intentional, or if they were in some state of disrepair. But the screens that were lit showed a variety of things: diagrams, lines of what he presumed was text, and images he couldn't decipher. The text was in a script he recognized, but the contents were completely incomprehensible to him, and on some of the screens, they moved too quickly to read.
{What is all this?} said Rhys. The Faeron had flown up to one of the tallest screens, and peered at it with no more comprehension than Noa had. The two of them were both at a loss as far as this place was concerned.
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Post by Noa on Nov 27, 2021 0:47:38 GMT -6
Noa shrugged, though he knew that Rhys wasn't looking for an answer from him. He had thought perhaps he could glean something from the screens, but having inspected a few of them more closely, he abandoned that idea. Looking at them in this dimly lit room was starting to give him a fledgeling headache again, and he had no interest in inviting another one upon himself.
Instead, he began to look for an exit. There must be one, preferably one that wasn't the door they had just come through. He could make it through the room of machinery again if he really had to, but it wouldn't have been his first choice if there were other options available.
Wandering the edge of the room, he eventually found one, tucked behind several large devices. He might not have spotted it at all if not for the faintly lit sign right above it, set into the wall.
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Post by Noa on Nov 27, 2021 2:35:44 GMT -6
The symbol on it was a simplified, abstract image, but it was a man running. Presumably this meant that this door was an exit, though somehow Noa doubted it would actually take him back outside. If this house had anything like a normal layout, maybe, but he had heard more than enough about how this place warped space beyond all reasonable expectation. And it was already true; there was no way he would have been unable to hear the machine room from where he was, in a room directly adjacent, considering how loud it had been.
He knew that he was taking a risk here, that there was the very real possibility that he wouldn't be able to find his way out if he went further in... But in a way he was already in too deep. When he had looked back through the door he had come through, it had been dark.
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Post by Noa on Nov 27, 2021 2:35:54 GMT -6
The door hadn't had a visible... well, door to it, but the room with all the machines had been brightly lit -- almost too brightly, such that it had contributed to the general sensory overload of the room. It was possible that this was even the house's way of telling him that he couldn't go that way anymore. He hadn't tested that hypothesis, but at this point taking a new door was about as dangerous as taking the one he'd come in through, wasn't it?
He pulled the door open. On the other side he could see a room covered with filth. Not promising, and certainly not what he had hoped for, but it was new, he supposed. With a sigh, he stepped through, and Rhys followed.
The thing that he noticed first was the stench. Excrement, he thought; and certainly that was one element of it, at the very least.
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Post by Noa on Nov 27, 2021 2:36:05 GMT -6
It was the most overpowering aspect. But beneath it there were other unpleasant smells: the sickly sweet scent of rot; coppery notes of blood; and a deeply unpleasant sharpness that he couldn't put a name to. He put a hand to his nose this time, wondering if this was going to be a theme with these rooms, forcing him to cover some orifice with his hand to stave off unpleasant sensations.
But then he looked up, and saw it.
Rows and rows of cages -- the walls stacked high with them. The filth was strewn liberally across the white tile, but it had originated from within the cages. They were empty, but their floors -- the ones he could see -- were caked with piles and puddles, all in various unappealing shades of brown. Here and there he saw other things: a scrap of fur, a torn off limb, claw marks scoring the tiled floor.
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Post by Noa on Nov 27, 2021 2:36:15 GMT -6
Despite himself, Noa felt a chill spread through his body. It wasn't the obvious evidence of ill-kept beasts. He didn't particularly advocate for animal cruelty, but he wasn't the sort of bleeding heart who couldn't stomach the idea of mistreatment or violence either. What other people did with their beasts were none of his concern, and not worth his energy to meddle in. And clearly they had suffered the consequences of their actions anyway, if the state of the room was any indication. Not all the bits and pieces strewn across the room were animal in nature.
But... the cages.
They weren't for him. He knew that. He wouldn't even have fit inside many of them, and there was no one here except for Rhys. But the sight of those bars surrounding him still invoked a nauseating sense of... No, no, he wasn't going to think about this. Not here, not now.
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Post by Noa on Nov 27, 2021 2:39:23 GMT -6
Almost mechanically, he forced himself to breathe. Forced himself to take a big inhale of the putrid air, for all that it made him want to retch. But the stink was something he could conquer, merely some base reaction of his body. It was nothing he couldn't overcome. He quelled the urge, and took another breath, and then another. The third he held, and began counting down. Three, two, one... A breath. Five, four, three...
When he felt the worst of the prickling chill subside, he scanned the room again. There were no books, and only a few objects of interest. He walked towards the nearest one, as much to give himself something to do as anything else. A weight settled onto his shoulder, but he knew without looking that it was Rhys. The Faeron curled his tail around Noa as best he could, a cheap imitation of a human hug -- something else he had no use for.
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Post by Noa on Nov 28, 2021 1:28:17 GMT -6
He forced his focus to narrow onto the object he had noticed. Knelt, to pick it up off the ground. A vial of some sort, marked with a label -- 'Salaves', it said. It might have been a blood sample, but the color was wrong.
There were more little vials just like it strewn around the floor. He saw them, and filtered out as much of the rest of it as he could. Picking them up became almost a game, one after the other, until he had five in his hands. He reached out for a sixth only to be cut off by a sharp hiss, and he looked up -- not startled, not startled, just a little caught off guard. He hadn't been watching his surroundings.
It was a creature in a cage. The room was brightly lit, but there were still shadows enough for it to hide in, as it turned out.
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Post by Noa on Nov 28, 2021 1:28:33 GMT -6
Noa couldn't make out enough details to tell what it was. It was simply a shape in the dark, glaring out at him with baleful bright eyes. His mouth tightened into a frown and he glanced up at the other cages. Only the majority of them were empty, he realized; a few had more shapes and shadows shifting within, still trapped by the locked doors on the intact cages.
"There's nothing else for us here," Noa said. And it was true; there wasn't, not in this room. If there had been notes or books in this room before, he saw no traces of them, except for the occasional scrap of paper that was too soiled to even be legible any longer. Even the vials might not be anything useful, though they at least looked as if they might be worth something to that strange trader who set up shop in the city.
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Post by Noa on Nov 28, 2021 1:28:44 GMT -6
{Let's go,} said Rhys. {We've seen enough, haven't we? Let's just please go.} There was a sad, almost desperate edge to Rhys's voice. He had always been the type to plead; he certainly couldn't have ordered Noa to do anything. But Noa couldn't remember his having sounded so tired very often before.
Almost he might have entertained it. Not because he was uneasy, but because it was becoming steadily more apparent that this place didn't suit his tastes after all, that the promise of that first room had gone unfulfilled. There was nothing for him here, he thought; and he felt with growing conviction that it was probably true.
But that same restless sense was still there, and now it felt as if it was pushing toward some sort of crescendo. A little more, it said; the end was close at hand, if he would only go a little further.
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Post by Noa on Nov 28, 2021 1:28:56 GMT -6
And there was another door, on the opposite side of the room. It wasn't too far from where Noa stood now, in fact. He made his way to it, walking with slow and deliberate steps. This room and its contents had no power over him. He paused only to catch his breath, not to steel himself against what he might find on the other side.
The door swung open with only a little force, moving smoothly on well oiled hinges. Or perhaps there were no hinges at all, but some other more advanced mechanism that he didn't know. Whatever it was, however, the matter was quickly forgotten.
No.
It was clean. It was -- it smelled sterile, in a way that was familiar. One of the research rooms at home. He didn't like that one -- he preferred to work with books, with spell components, live experiments had never been his favorite --
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Post by Noa on Nov 28, 2021 1:29:33 GMT -6
-- and pods, there were pods -- no they weren't they were tubes, filled with... with that same glowing liquid. No, a different color. A different make. These were the products of the labs, maybe. That was what this place was. A lab.
He had never seen these things before. The tubes, the big ones lining the walls with the larger things inside, they bore a passing resemblance to the pods in his own home. But those were magic, and... and...
No, no no no.
He felt a sudden wave of nausea. The room took a dizzying lurch. He put out his hand to steady himself against something, anything--
There was the sound of glass breaking. When had he ended up on the floor? {Noa? Noa!} Rhys's words were like a tin hammer in his mind, sharp and bright, too bright.
"Be quiet," he said. His own voice sounded so far away.
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Post by Noa on Nov 28, 2021 1:50:27 GMT -6
The tubes. The lights. He looked up at the room and for a moment he thought he saw something else suspended inside, something -- No, no, it's not true, that's not -- they're not, they can't be --
He had to leave. Now, now, now. He stumbled to his feet, stumbled and fell, catching himself on the ground with a crack as his knees hit the floor. His hands -- blood, why was there blood, gods there was so much, he couldn't think, he needed --
...
He was on the path in the garden. Next to one of the flower bushes. He was retching into the grass. The spasms came in great shuddering waves, waves that felt bigger than his body. The taste of it was vile on his tongue.
When had he...?
{Noa, Noa,} said Rhys. A fluttering blur at the edge of his vision. He couldn't see anything. His eyes were watering.
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Post by Noa on Nov 28, 2021 1:50:39 GMT -6
Everything was indistinct, but that was good. That was what he wanted. He didn't want to see anything anymore.
... No, that wasn't right. Those thoughts weren't his. He wasn't so weak -- he thought, but then another wave of nausea swept through him and his arms gave out beneath him, so that he was on his elbows. His lungs heaved with the effort of breathing.
It was a good thing, thought a detached, almost mechanical part of his mind, that he hadn't eaten today. There was hardly anything to come up but acid and spittle. It still smelled rancid, but not so bad as --
No. He wasn't going to think about it.
It was the illness, he knew. They had done their little morning ritual, but Rhys must not have done enough. It had been a long time since he was last so unwell, but he was used to it, used to riding out waves of pain and waiting for his symptoms to subside.
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