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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:51:06 GMT -6
She could never have been sure if she had merely missed the next sight, or if the mansion had waited for her to see the clean room before somehow sliding the other things into reality. The surprise of the things sent the floof skating back in the air, catching itself a second later when it realized the lizard had not moved from the doorway. The surprise faded, concern mingling with annoyance that lent it the confidence to return to its previous position, looking in at the dark smudges that stood out from the sea of white.
There was a desk. Bookcases too, massive things that lined the walls of the suddenly much smaller room, that hid much of the white walls from sight. But she had seen those walls, had known them to be as blank and empty as the rest of the room. Yet, without waiting for her to so much as blink, there they were. 32
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:51:24 GMT -6
Hundreds of books were crammed into the sudden bookcases, a few laying open upon the desks to display pages of black text. The wheels in her mind turned slowly, thoughts fighting to gain coherency as if they were struggling free of sucking mud. Was...was this the threat of the month? Books?
She had read many books since her entry into the city over a decade ago, learning what the squiggly Common letters meant so that she could understand certain things about the hive. But what did books have to do with the soft-skin’s beloved ‘Incursion’? She had found information about the other holidays in books and scribbled on scrolls, but the mansion have never cared to make books before.
The floof stared over her shoulder, it too trying to make sense of what it saw in the room beyond. And, much like Haix, it had little success, her confusion melding with its own to leave it entirely befuddled. 33
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:51:42 GMT -6
She had always thought of the labs as using the little glass boxes of trapped light and electricity they seemed so fond of in place of books. Had the hell house failed to mimic its source properly? Such was the emotion that accompanied the thought that the floof slowly rolled in the air.
Well then, she would see what threat books could pose. Or she could perhaps find something to entertain herself for a few minutes before the mansion sent its own version of a labs-spawned threat to deal with her. She entered the room hurriedly, pulling her tail to herself just in case the door was like some of those she had dealt with in the kennel, built to deal only with the flat rears of the human-breeds. Those at least had a trick to them that prevented the door from crushing whatever was caught in them, but, with the job the mansion had done so far in regards to its mimicry, she had no plans to test it. 34
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:51:52 GMT -6
The unseen floof had no such experiences to draw upon, hesitating to follow the only member of its pack over the threshold. It was not just that the air was wrong, empty somehow in a way that even the garden had failed to be, or that the bright cave would keep it from floating freely into the sky should the need arise. It was the brightness itself, no night sky for it to press itself against, nowhere to hide from its pack should she turn around.
But it had to follow her. It felt the anticipation and worry that mixed together as she crossed, the urgency a warning given to it freely. It could not wait, something bad would happen if it did. But something bad could happen if it followed.
A hiss from the door decided it. The floof skated after her, veering up sharply into the perfectly white ceiling to avoid colliding with her. 35
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:52:03 GMT -6
In the previous month, the hell house had demonstrated a tendency to randomly blow a chill wind at her back. It had not mattered to the wind that she was wandering the grounds or trapped inside a room so dark that she could not see her own hands. It liked to try to startle her, and that alone kept the floof from detection. She did not turn to find the source of the breeze, so certain she was that she already knew the source.
The floof was free to float up to the blank ceiling, mouth still gaping open as it sought a snack in vain. The light here was bright, far too bright for it to feel remotely comfortable, so it hung in place with its eyes shut, tracking the other member of its pack as she moved around the room. At least here it did not have to worry about her disappearing from range. 36
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:52:14 GMT -6
Haix had waited for some manner of attack after the slight breeze, half-expecting the mansion to have sent something burrowing up from the gardens behind the door. Her hand had been on her dagger, muscles tense beneath the armor she wore, but she refused to look back, and the thing behind her made no sound. She would not look weak that night.
When no attack came after a handful of heartbeats, she began walking to the tables and the books left scattered on top of them. It was as if she had stumbled into a soft-skin building, the inhabitants scurrying away from her entrance like vermin at the sight of her armor and weapon, the books left forgotten and half-read. As she drew nearer, she could see that the open one’s pages were coated in the Common script, the letters so densely packed that it took her a moment to realize which way the books were meant to be viewed. 37
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:52:25 GMT -6
That was a surprise of its own. She had expected the books to be empty, the mansion merely mimicking the labs in the most superficial way and using them to help enhance the illusion it wore. But there were words and, when she was close enough to reach out and touch the nearest open book if she so wished, she saw that they really were words. Some of them meant little to her, but the two pages she could see were undoubtedly written in Common. She read the visible pages and found it to be giving in depth details about something called a mitochondria, which was apparently the powerhouse of the cell. As to why a cell would need a generator within it rather than safely outside where the creature could not reach it, the pages did not say, but the way it was written made her doubt that was the cell it meant.
The floof noted the confusion, but the stronger curiosity allowed it to keep its eyes closed. 38
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:52:38 GMT -6
Curiosity and confusion seemed to be a common combination to the floof, not one that warranted any reaction from itself. Besides, the light was easily more bearable with its eyes tightly shut.
It might have sensed less of her discomfort if Haix had the luxury to do so as well. She glared down at the open books, making no move to touch them as she scanned the pages they had been left on. Despite all but one of the books having been written in blocky, clear Common, she could not understand most of them any better than the one containing only dashes and dots. The page on something called joules was almost entirely composed of numbers and symbols of the soft-skins overly complex math, others containing yet more gibberish that meant nothing to her.
She might have taken solace from the gibberish, as the hell house clearly had filled the books to the brim with meaningless text. 39
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:52:53 GMT -6
If the words meant nothing, that was an extra degree of separation from the true labs, the building clearly not connected to the soft-skin hive-heart. She would have been willing to leave the room without pulling open a single book, without turning a single page if not for the last open book.
The words would have meant nothing to her a year ago. Back then, she had yet to fall so far, had not yet spoken to the old general and nullified the tat-lung. Back then, she knew little about the physical brain inside beasts other than it was one of the easiest ways to kill a living thing, and that it did not taste particularly good. But the words across the page were familiar for all their strangeness, and she knew enough of them to understand what the book spoke of.
The floof, unaware of the meaning of the words, nevertheless curls slightly on itself as it felt the import. 40
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:53:07 GMT -6
She willed the words to mean nothing, but she had worked hard to understand them a few months ago, and such hard won knowledge was not easily discarded. Numbly, she read the page describing the operation and results of something called a lobotomy. The text seemed just as dense as the others, filled with terms that she wished she had not learned, describing a process that rendered a ‘willful subject’ to a ‘pliable state’. It was not unlike the information she had gathered about the nullifier, but entirely different in the method. One killed the creature, burning away the mind and implanting itself in place, the other merely destroying a part of the mind.
And would she not have done this to the tat-lung if she had known, if it had been a cheaper alternative?
The floof felt the sudden illness, opening its eyes to the blinding white of the room as it worried over its pack. 41
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:53:20 GMT -6
When it saw the lizard sagging over a desk, hands pressing down on the surface, it worried a little more, tempted to reach out and comfort her. But it still remembered the lessons she had taught it for having reached out before, and the signals never left its mind.
She was right to have come to the mansion. That thought broke through her minutes of loathing and silent arguments with herself. Tat-lung were crafted beasts that resembled the cursed dragons, they deserved nothing. But it was the right of the slave to at least try to escape, to be allowed to harbor thoughts of escape that no beating or poisoning could steal away. The nullifier killed the tat-lung, leaving behind a corpse puppeted by the small mechanical mite. Her hands curled into fists as she tried to find a reason against it, failing as the thought repeated in her mind. She was right to have come to the mansion. 42
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:53:36 GMT -6
It was already far too late, but at least she was there now.
The floof felt the return of the earlier peace and calm, confidence where before there was disgust and worry. It relaxed as it saw the lizards fists uncurl, her emotions as placid and hopeful as it would have hoped. The floof did not know what had made the lizard feel better, but it felt safe enough to close its eyes once more against the whiteness. There was safety to be found here, even if there felt like there was a third, alien presence nearby at times. The touch of that mind was always fleeting, a casual brush that bore no more interest than a fly casually buzzing nearby.
If the lizard, if its pack felt that they were now safe from whatever had worried her, then it had to be safe. And with her emotions calmed, it might even be safe enough to sleep. 43
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:53:52 GMT -6
It rested even as it felt the faint lines of suspicion crawling over its mind like a bunch of ants.
The mansion had always been a risk. When she had first come to the city, before the districts and the shops sprang up like weeds, before the hive had been more than a collection of small mounds, it had simply been sealed away from the public. When it had opened, the tales of how it took minds far outweighed the promises of treasure certain soft-skins had come rushing out with, and she had stayed away. She huffed once at the thought, amused by her own naivete. To think that she had ever considered the soft-skin hive safe, a place full of prey that she only did not strike due to her status as a visitor. And now she was here, seeking protection from that same hive, a simple prey beast looking for the less cruel of the two predators. 44
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:54:14 GMT -6
The floof rested for a long while, hovering near the ceiling without need of a single conscious thought. The wash of emotions from its pack were easy to ignore, sliding quickly enough and never with enough force to startle the floof out of its rest. There was no breeze to guide it through the air, allowing it to remain in its chosen place without effort, so it hung as still as any blanket left to dry on a laundry line.
It would have slept longer in that room of bright lights and a nearby ceiling had it been given the chance. Instead, the floof jolted awake, slapping itself against the ceiling in a whumph of air as the sudden emotion hit it. Anger, hate, fear, excitement, all blending together and piercing its mind like a spike, and its instinctual urge to flee foiled by the ceiling above it, and the floof began to panic. 45
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Post by Alma on Nov 8, 2020 13:54:28 GMT -6
Her elbows resting on the desk, her head propped upright with one hand while the other traced the scales of her neck, little could have shaken Haix from her current train of thought. Her eyes were closed as she thought and shivered, mastering herself a moment later to look up at the mansion door opposite of her, and the little thing that was needed to derail her thoughts.
In the room of white and shiny metal, where everything was as still as though it had been carved from bark, she saw a twitch of darkness. Thoughts and feelings bled from her mind like she had been gutted, and she ducked behind the little desk to hide from the thing she had called from the mansion.
She had not expected it now, and a part of her mind wondered if it had been waiting for her to be too distracted to properly fight back as she drew the dagger. 46
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