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Known as the Celestial Seat, Nyka is a religious city in Northern Sylira. Ruled by four demigods and traversed by a large crevice, the monk-city is both mystical and dangerous. [Lore]
It was hard climbing out of that hole. Every straining muscle, every burning fingertip was an extension of will. Fear sat on his back like some kind of wet rag as he expected the wall he was climbing to come apart again. Who knew if this time it might just go straight back into the molten fires below and not spare him? his mind and body had to be in perfect alignment to breach the aperture in the Aperture.
Once he pushed himself out of this womb of darkness, he found himself back in the original hole he had fallen into. The water had either receded or calmed to the point that there was some kind of level to it and he could wade easier. he thought about constructing a rod from stone to lead the way, but he really couldn't afford the effort or the expenditure until he knew what was going on. He knew that the water was cold and that people died where he was at. he had no weapons except for his mind and his body.These thoughts motivated him to move further on.
There was a clear sensation that was pervasive. it didn't only move around Pulren but through him. It was as if he had become part of the organism that was Nyka. he could feel its presence everywhere and he could feel it breathe and pulse thorugh his own breath and pulse. The essence of the Aperute was entering him as he breathed and it had a distinct power. His eyes caught twinkling lights high above on the walls of the crevice, movement coming from them, be they tricks of light or something else. He kept his faith on his presence and his attention all around him. He would do his best not to be taken by surprise again.
Two great pillars came to rise on either side of the Zeltivan, a man and a half tall with runes engraved on their sides. The strangeness of the designs made him wish that he had more schooling in the arts of the occult, but he would just have to hope that they were a warning that he could understand in other ways. He sincerely doubted they were merely artistic. A choice was presented to him: A stair up and a stair down. He knew that the water's temperature and the night air would slow his body considerably without any food or fire nearby, so he chose to ascend the stairs so as to at least not get any colder. It was a serious but simple choice of survival.
He could only hope that the choice would lead to his own survival.
The stairs seemed to go on for ages without variation or end, the gentle light of the walls and ceiling at least providing respite from the suffocating dark of before. The air wasn't quite as damp, though it hadn't lost its electricity and Pulren couldn't shake the feeling that even in a hall with no obvious crevices, he was still being watched. After a couple chimes, the stairs evened out into a hallway of decent length. After about twenty ticks of walking, he neared the end... And found himself flanked by two rune pillars, facing a set of stairs that went up, and one that went down. Somehow, he had wound up back where he had started. If Pulren looked behind him, instead of the Aperture he'd see the hallway he'd gone down, except now it seemed to stretch on until what lay ahead was swallowed by darkness.
Climbing the steps, he could hear little other than the squishing of water in his boots and his own breathing. The unnatural glow of the hall and the pillars was something to consider, but he could only seek to find some kind of purchase. As he continued to climb, he saw something before him as he seemed to reach what he could believe was the top of the stairs. A long hallway, still glowing like the stairs had been. He took his time passing through the long hallway, still expecting any kind of danger to occur, finding himself vaguely troubled as he saw something in the distance at the end of the hallway. A set of pillars like the ones he had began with came into view and once he arrived at them, he realized he was back where he had started.
he felt that he was being judged by the Aperture now. It could as easily be judgment of food as judgment of curiosity. This was no game as could be told by the countless dead who had found their way here. Also, it seemed that he was now in a true loop as the night sky was gone an only the pillars and hallways remained. Looking back, he could see the hallway and the stairs disappearing into darkness. Looking around, he thought on it. He was sure that if he tried to go up again, he would find the same end. Was this true of down? There was one way to find out, though he felt like he should do something different in order to change the presentation of the reality or illusion, whichever it was.
turning around and facing the way he had come, he began stepping down the descending stairs, though he placed his hand on the wall for balance and instead descended backward, looking up as he did so to see if the scenery behind him changed. Every third step he would turn halfway and make sure there was no obvious pitfall, but if not, he would make his way to another hallway and walk that backward as well. He wanted to be sure of the sense of direction and if the loop was true. If so, it only left him one other choice.
The mercenary's suspicions were proven true as he stumbled down. Eventually, just as before, the stairs evened out into a hallway, and soon enough Pulren's fingers came into contact with the runes carved into the pillars marking the hallway's "start." It seemed that both stairs just lead back to themselves despite never curving, though how precisely they did so was a mystery. Likely a different approach (aside from orientation) would be necessary to exit.
Just the sound of Pulren's breath and the eerie cerulean illumination accompanied him in this strange and ominous place. That being the case, along with his constant shivering, he decided to take advantage of the relative privacy that the danger brought him. Sliding his boots off first, he walked over to the other side of the pillar alcove and dumped the water from them, stacking them upside down against the wall to drip out a little. Next came his shirt, which he took care to heartily wring out before spreading it out on a dry spot of ground nearby.
The pants came soon after, albeit extremely and frustratingly slow, the leather not wishing to come free in its soaked state. They also got a good wring along with the underclothes. Soon he was stark naked in the ancient ruins buried in the Aperture. It was a moment like this that really needed to be told as a tale of adventure but never would. This would be something he could look back on and enjoy when he was in even more dire circumstances down the road. Squatting down on his haunches, he ran his fingers through his hair, a few stray droplets speckling the ground beneath.
Was all of Nyka a living being? If he was literally in the 'Heart of the World', was he just seeing what was presented to him by a being more powerful than he could understand, like a God? The thought made him shiver deeper than the actual temperature, urging him to get dressed again. The clothes seemed a little worse at first because his body had dried and warmed somewhat and they remained frigid, but once they were all back on, he could tell he had done the right thing as he was retaining his heat much easier than he had before.
He needed to leave. The forks ahead, be they ascending or descending, were loops of some sort and would do him no good. That only left the way he had come. Perhaps this same entity did not wish for his non Nykan eyes to see what was inside the runic ruins. Whatever the case, Pulren was happy to oblige, turning and walking down the hallway behind him and into the darkness.
The air seemed to grow thinner as Pulren walked and cracks began to appear along the walls. It soon became apparent why. Where the stairs were supposed to start there was instead a gaping hole as if a giant hand taken a hunk of the hallway and ripped it away. That development, however, was not nearly as attention-grabbing as what laid beyond. The broken hallway opened up to an endless black sky more enormous than any Pulren had seen on the surface, filled with innumerable stars that twinkled from an untold distance away. As he approached he felt his body grow lighter and the cavern air wrap around him like a protective cocoon. As he stepped past he found himself suspended in space as if afloat in a great ocean, weightless and free.
Below he could see an enormous ringed world shrouded by swirling clouds in colors that could not be given proper description, of blues that were yellow and greens that were red. Ahead was a red sun twice the size of Syna on Mizahar, holding the world in its orbit and bathing Pulren in its dark light and warmth. Shattered pillars and hunks of Protohuman walls drifted aimlessly around the opening the Zeltivan had stood out of, floating ruins of ancient Nykalia. If Pulren looked closely he would see that the world's ring was made of many such fragments from many different buildings of different styles and material. Suddenly, the mercenary caught the glimpse of something breaking the world's circular horizon.
The being Pulren saw was gargantuan, large enough to blot out the red sun, with tendril-digits that clung to the planet like it was toy horse. Its body was an angular round shape that sunk and churned like a collapsing lung, yet in doing so flared out like a startled bearded lizard. Its head was a mass of nauseating color bound together like a fraying yarn-ball made of flesh, or an octopus perpetually being turned inside out and back once more, with limbs that split like fractals and coalesced like a bunch of spaghetti pulled taut, allowed to relax, turn limp and tangle, then pulled taut again. Despite the vanishing of the light, Pulren still sensed his skin burning with warmth. He felt an unnatural attention upon him, as if he were an insect picked up by a pair of tweezers and turned about and raised and lowered for a giant's examination. The beating pressure he felt in the Aperture was unbearable now: it seized control of his heart, squeezed and released it in time with its own overwhelming tempo, it forced the air out of his lungs and stuffed it back in at will. Pulren felt as if he was perpetually being struck by lightning without pain. The unseeable, inescapable eyes bored into him like knives, he felt sick from the sight of the creature, his head hurt trying to understand the impossible angles it was composed of, he could feel it slowly leaning forward-
Pulren felt the driving rain on his back and scalp along with cool cobblestone pressed against his cheek. He became aware that he was looking at a red marble wall sideways. Shortly thereafter he became aware that he was lying facedown in the middle of a Nykan street. He didn't know how much time had passed or at one point he ceased to be in the great dark and was instead on the surface, but if he stood he would find he was a few yards away from the lip of the Aperture. That was not the only change. That sense of being watched that Pulren always felt in Nyka now seemed familiar, and though he couldn't pin down quite why (though he might make a decision regarding it soon enough), he felt as if the city knew, and its eyeless gaze bored into his back.
Lores: When In Doubt Proceed Prudently Nyka’s Energy Comes From The Aperture The Aperture Contains Strange Loops The Aperture Contains Impossible Spaces Sometimes Backwards is Forwards In The Aperture Beholding A Cosmic Vista An Eldritch Thing’s Visage Something Terrible Lies Beneath Nyka
Items and Consequences: Nil.
Well! That got finished.
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