IceBrood Saga - Chills
"It's your move." Someone said. He couldn't remember who it was. That's okay. It doesn't matter. He tiredly blinked his eyes, trying to focus on the table before him.
Where was he? That doesn't matter. Did it matter at all? No...not really. It was kinda hard to see though. There was a lot of blowing snow around him, obscuring his view of the table, and of the person on the other side of it. Ignore the snow. It's just for...ambience. It's not like you're actually cold, right?
He slowly raised his hand up, and looked at it. He still had his gloves on; his entire environmental gear actually. And yet, he couldn't feel the thrum of the mini power cell, or feel the circulating heat. Was he that numb from the cold?
Reaching out, he picked up a chess piece and clumsily, slowly moved it. As he moved it, he noticed that the pieces on his side of the board were made of dark blue-black stone, laced with pale blue crystal. The rival pieces were inverse of that; crystalline blue, laced with black flaws. His hand eventually lowered, placing the pawn on a square.
It looked like the game had been going on for a bit before he lost his train of thought. Pieces had moved around the board, and a few were taken off on both sides. "Your move... I think."
The figure across from him smiled coolly and leaned forward to delicately pick up a knight, moving it equally as slowly. For some reason, he couldn't really focus on their features. He could see that smile through the blowing, dark snow, but he couldn't SEE the person. Only a shifting shadow, roughly proportioned like a human. Â Or was it a Charr? No wait, a Norn?... The shadow just kept shifting. Were they a man? A woman? His eyes just wouldn't focus properly. Who do you expect to sit there, hmm?
Honestly, from the voice, he thought that it was a woman. But... it could just as easily have been a man with a soft voice. It was so hard to tell. But the part of him did think it was a woman? A woman?....
There was a quiet chuckle, and as the figure's hand placed the knight, the blowing snow and darkness seemed to retreat a bit. Now he could see, vaguely, who sat across from him. The frost on his glasses still obscured things, but he could see it was a woman.
She had piercing blue eyes that twinkled with cold mirth, and long, silvered hair that drifted in the suddenly gentle winds around just her side of the table; the wind on his side was whipping his hair around and threatened to tear his glasses from his face. Each gust blew more cold snow onto his gear. His leather coat was already rigid with sub-zero temperatures, creaking as he moved.
An archaic, rime-crusted heavy armor covered her from the neck down, but when she moved there was no sound of metal scraping metal. She still had an amused smile on her dark blue lips, and he could see that her skin was pale -- very pale. So pale, he could almost see blue veins beneath the surface.
"Ah, that's better. You can see a bit better now. It is your move again, friend." She gestured with a finger, revealling that the tips of her gloves were open. The nails of her fingers were a deep, icy blue, he noted dully.
"...why are we playing?" He asked, licking his lips. His voice was a bit hoarse. He moved a bishop to block the knight. Priests can't defend against the knight.
"To pass some time. It isn't often I can play a game with someone." She replied breezily. There was a moment, though, in her response that her voice took on a kind of echo. It was like the voice was reflected through a deep, cold tunnel, and was far deeper than it should have been...but only for a scant second. "I wished to chat with the man who created such powerful weapons. They are...impressive."
"...Didn't make'm." He mumbled, as he watched her flick the bishop he'd placed aside with a mere pawn. "Thought them up, but m'friends made them real. They're geniuses."
"That they are. But I can tell you have a wonderful imagination." She complimented, smiling. She watched as he moved another piece. "Some of the ideas are almost beyond belief."
As he pulled his hand from the piece, he rubbed his fingers together, realizing they were entirely numb. He started to rub his hands together, to warm them, before realizing his glasses had frosted over. Can't see properly... he thought sluggishly, pulling his specs off and trying to rub the frost off them.
"It is such a shame that you and your crew are so unappreciated." She said, sympathy coloring her words. "Each one of you... an outcast of one kind or another. Those without true homes, without a place to rest. And yet, you made your own place. You built that ship of yours...what was it's name again?" Tell me its name... tell me all about it...
"Aspect... It's called the Forsaken Aspect." He mumbled, still mindlessly rubbing his glasses with his glove tips. It wasn't working; every time his fingers rubbed the glass, instead of removing frost, it seemed even more grew in its place.
"What if I told you there was a place you could call home? Where you would be welcomed without question. Treated with care and love? Given the respect you've worked so hard for -- that you've all worked so hard for?" His opponent asked, leaning in and interlacing her fingers, resting her chin on her fingers. There was such regret in her eyes, such empathy that he could see even without his glasses, and it made him glance away for a moment.
He blinked dully, squinting through the blowing snow, his eyes unfocused without his eyewear. For just a moment, as the wind shifted, he thought he saw something. Where the woman sat, for a single second, something monstrous crouched. Something so massive he couldn't properly see it at all; the storm hid almost all of it, leaving shadow behind. But...did he see that? Or was he just seeing things in the snow?
"If I offered you such a place, would you come? A place to belong, for you and your crew?" She swirled a finger idly around one of the pieces taken off the table on her side; a castle battlement. "Verula has no Legion anymore... she's not welcome in her own homeland. But she'd be welcome with us. She'd find friends, warbandmates here... "
Her finger traced over to a smaller piece, and she rolled it between her fingers. "Poor little Tenna; so scared of death that she's gone to such extremes. I could help ease her fear... show her that fear is misplaced... All I want is for her to smile without fear and without sadness."
She moved her finger, and touched a fallen priest piece, and spot of frost expanded from beneath it, shaping into a delicate flower shape. "Moryggan... grandchild of an Elder Dragon... She nearly lost her mind, didn't she?" You told me all about it... "If only she came to talk with me. I could heal her mental wounds in a manner even her own Mother could not..."
He blinked slowly, mesmerized by her fingers as she gently caressed every piece she touched. There was an almost sensuous way she ran her fingers over each piece. It almost felt wrong to watch, and he glanced away to look at her directly.
And that's when he felt something was wrong. Something was wrong with his eyes, how he could see. It sent an alarm bell through him, which was almost immediately muted by his tiredness. The woman was still there; he could see her. But... if he shifted his focus a bit, let his eyes defocus even more, she melted away, and he could see that thing. But it kept fading away... Wait, what was he looking at again? Do not pay attention to that. The board calls for your attention instead. "Something wrong?" "...Snow's playing tricks on me..." He muttered, putting his still-frosted glasses on. His efforts had been in vain; the hoarfrost had actually expanded across the lenses. Everything was blurred. He could barely see her sitting there. Seeing does not matter.
"Ah, yes... storms can be funny that way. Make you think you're seeing something that isn't there." She replied, reaching out to move her piece on the board and removing one of his from his vanguard. "Oh such a shame... that was a poor move! You've lost your other priest piece."
"Damn..." He frowned at the board. It looked wrong. Were his pieces in those spots before? He couldn't remember. Of course they're in the right positions. There were so many openings now. She could take his Monarch in only a few moves if he didn't fix his defense. Do not worry about that now. Focus on the offense, not the defense.
Making the next move was more difficult. His fingers were so numb he could barely close them around the piece, and his arm was so heavy. So tired. Hard to move. It is alright. It is all... alright....When he went to move it, his exhalation made even more frost on his glasses, and the board all but disappeared. "...I can barely see..."
"Would you like me to help you?" She asked politely. It was said lightly, almost hopefully... but he could hear something like hunger behind it. It was an offer....but it was also a command. Do I want her help?....Do I.... Help... want...
"I..." His fingers finally gave out, and the piece dropped from them, clicking on the icy board. A sharp gust of cold wind and snow swept over the board, over his opponent, and over him.
"Come now... Everyone needs help some time." His opponent purred, leaning forward, chin on one sharp-nailed hand. Her blue eyes glittered coldly. "Even I require help some times. If I were to ask you, would you help me? I can help you if you help me...."
He couldn't manage a word; his mouth was so cold, his lips so dry from the cold. It felt like there was a slug of ice in his throat. Everything was cold, and numb. Cold is good. Can't feel pain when you are numb. The cold strengthens.
She gave him a smug smile, and reached for the board, the snowy wind flashing away in an instant. "Here, let me move that piece for you. You were going to move it right....here?...."
Her puzzled tone caught his attention, and he slowly glanced up at her, at the board. The frost on his glasses had lessened enough that he could see the confused, irritated look on her face. The pursed blue lips, the fine eyebrows drawn together in consternation. Letting his eyes droop to the board, he could see the piece he'd moved... was standing upright on the board in the correct spot, blocking her advance.
It seemed different than he remembered. The color was off. It...wasn't just blue-black stone anymore. There was a slight, sickly green tinge to the blue. As he watched, a swirl of black wisped off the piece.
His opponent stared at the piece, as if it shouldn't be there. Her voice stopped being conversational and pleasant; it became icy and hard, tight with tension. "....I know that wasn't where you meant to put that. So I'll just move it for you."
She went to pluck the piece with her index finger and thumb...only for her fingers to slide off it as she went to lift it. A single sound escaped her; one of surprise, as she came away empty handed.
The surprise lasted only a moment. She growled and something much bigger, much darker growled with her from the shadows. Again, she gripped the piece, this time with her whole hand, and tried to pull the piece up.
It would not move. The black, smokey aura on the piece just grew stronger, spreading to a few of the other pieces. It actually reached across the board and surrounded each of the fallen pieces the opponent had been toying with just moments ago. Once it surrounded them, it started to pull them slowly across the board, until they were safely behind that central piece, with its wisping darkness.
"You don't play fair." A whispery voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
"...Who are you?...." His opponent stood up, glaring around at the storm. Her eyes darted around, piercing the snowstorm like lasers, gleaming with icy rage. "You are not part of this game..."
"You change the game... to suit you. You change the pieces. The places. You cheat." The voice said sourly, getting closer. It sounded like it was off to his right.
His opponent clenched her fists, that ultrabasso growl coming both simultaneously from her, and not from her. "This is MY game. Mortals play by MY rules. How dare you intrude."
He felt a hand come down on his shoulder, and then another on his other shoulder. Letting his head loll a bit, he caught a momentary glimpse of a hand, swathed in swirling black, before it faded away from view, leaving a translucence. There was something familiar to it.
"I could feel you enter his dreams." The voice said from directly behind him. It was soft, but there was dark anger in it. "Twisting them away from what they should have been."
"What do you want." The icy woman hissed, planting her blue-nailed hands on the tabletop, her nails digging into the surface surprisingly deep. It was like she had ice picks for nails. The storm around her seemed to grow in violence, edging closer behind her until she stood on the border of it. Swirling blue-black storm clouds, with razored strips of blowing ice and snow surrounded the table and its occupants. And there was again, that sensation of something in that storm. Something unseen... but immense, and very, very close. "You don't belong here any more than I do."
"I want... you gone from his mind." The voice replied thoughtfully, and he felt the hands sliding up his neck on either side, to gently hold his face along his jawline and temples. "Stay out and do not come back. Your offers aren't wanted."
"He WILL come to me." The woman hissed again, her composure cracking, the beauty flaking away as her face transformed into one of the most vicious expressions of wrath he'd seen in a long time. From his view, everything seemed to crack between the two players, like a pane of glass, or a pane of clear ice.
Fractures ran across his view; some shards reflected himself, sitting in the chair, his visitor unseen behind him.
Some showed him on his feet, shod in icy armor, a dead blue glow emanating from his half-closed eyes.
Some let the image of the angry blue woman through, where she bashed new cracks and spiderwebs on the barrier between them with her icy fists, each new fracture containing its own shard-image...
The rest showed pieces of something huge, intensely angry, and immensely powerful. "He will SERVE."
"No. He won't." The hands holding his head began to grip tighter, until it was almost painful. Then it became actually painful, as he felt something sharp in each finger's tip dig into his skin. He let out a pained noise, short and sharp. The cracks in his vision fractured let again, destroying any image he could see; it was all ice shards and broken dimension, broken facets. "None of us will. Do not return."
There was a sudden, hot pulse from each finger, and he began to yell as he felt something being forced into his skin, into his head....
***
Cyrus snapped awake with a gasp, on the verge of hyperventilating with terror. He could still feel the hands gripping his face, and that pain of....
As his vision swam into focus, he realized immediately that all he could see were two glowing, blue eyes directly in front of him, so close he could almost not see the face of the person sitting on his chest.
After a moment, he calmed down enough that the rest of his brain began to snap into gear. He knew those eyes. He knew that slightly bitter smell...
"....Novni?" He rasped breathlessly, before realizing that his mouth and throat were intensely dry and hoarse. "What are you...?"
The glow in Novni's eyes began to fade, and she blinked, slowly sitting back, as if waking up. With exaggerated care she removed her hands from his face, revealing that the tips of her fingers had each grown an individual thorn through the bandages she habitually wore on their tips. A dark brown fluid seeped from the tips, and were actually staining his bedclothes.
"You were having a bad dream." She said simply. Holding her hands up, she retracted those thorns. "I could 'see' you having a dream... something was forcing you to dream. It...wanted something."
"Dream?... wanted something?..." Cyrus tried to remember. The dream was already fading away, but there was something. What was it? Why was he so cold?
He reached out, plucking his glasses off the side table and getting them on with numbed fingers. Cold fingers. Why was it so damned cold in here?
"What...What did you?..." He paused, feeling his heartbeat still racing in his chest, even as he took calming breaths. It wasn't working. "It feels like I just ran a race..."
"I had to wake you up." Novni said quietly, and held her fingers up for him to see. To see where the thorns had been, but now were just marked by that brown fluid. It almost looked like she'd grown individual rose thorns from each finger, only... "I put a special poison in. It makes you wake up, and your blood flow faster and stuff."
"Are you saying you injected me with adrenalin or something?" He coughed, feeling his heart starting to slow down...a bit. The rush was ending quickly but everything about him felt sped up; was whatever it was, it was wearing off, but not very quickly. "Or...was it caffiene? I mean, plants make caffiene to keep pests away, and it opens blood vessels, which might explain why I feel cold right now, but maybe there was something else; my heart is beating really fast and I just don't--"
Cyrus realized he was babbling, getting distracted, and he was forgetting why she had injected him. Why she was even there. He stared at her, and she stared back, blinking in curiosity. He took a long, slow breath, before speaking again. "....Novni, why are you in my quarters?" He asked slowly.
"You were in a bad dream. It was trying to distort you." She replied, tipping her head to the side and considering him. "I felt its mind reaching to you, and you were starting to reach back. It would have been bad if you had."
For a split second, he recalled the image he'd seen reflected in one of the shards, before the dream had imploded. A vision of himself, in dark, ice-crusted armor. His face had been unnaturally pale and severe, and his normally grey-blue eyes had shone with a brighter, but empty blue luster. Just that momentary memory sent a chill entirely unrelated to the cold in the room through him.
As if in response, Novni shivered a bit. "It's cold."
So she felt the cold too? Maybe it wasn't just his mind playing tricks on him? It wasn't a reaction to whatever she'd injected him with? Cyrus pulled his comm unit from the bedside table. A quick glance at the wall mounted comm-unit had told him it'd be useless; There was actually a thick layer of what appearred to be ice misting over it, sealing it shut and non-functional. Glancing around the room, he realized everything was covered in hoarfrost, even his bedsheets; how low was the temperature even?
He clicked on the portable unit, and immediately called out. "Aspect? Alice? Verula? Anyone?"
The Aspect's voice was the first to come through. "Cyrus. Are you alright? I cannot access the wall unit in your quarters. There's been an anomaly I'm at a loss to explain."
"Aspect, wake the others if they're asleep, and let them know we're shifting locations." He spoke rapidly, frowning. "Set a course to the south, away from the Shiverpeaks. If any Pact ship questions us, either make an excuse and fake whatever you need to, or just Mistwarp us out. But don't keep us in the Mists either. Short jumps only. Leapfrog us away; don't linger in the Mists for longer than a few seconds. I don't care how much power it uses. If we have to stop and recharge the jump engines at some point; I don't care."
He muttered to himself, unheard by the A.I. "....limit our exposure in the Mists."
"Understood...for the most part." Aspect replied, confusion coloring its voice. "What do you wish me to tell the crew?"
"Tell them that we're not safe sitting here. That the Aspect and all of us are at risk. Psychological assault, beyond the defenses we have. We have nothing I can think of to block it." He paused, mind still racing, but pieces of thoughts were falling into place. "Aspect... Do you have the plans for the Psi-blocker in your files? The device Scarlet made? I know we don't have a functional unit, but is there enough data on it to manufacture something like it?"
"I am afraid not." It replied regretfully. "The device Scarlet made, and the half-built one you used on Moryggan... I have partial data on both, but not a complete design. It would take some time to expand the design and finish it, and fully understand what Scarlet had actually made. It is rather....fascinating. She truly was a genius ahead of her times. It will take a long time to run it through simulations alone."
"How long until you understand its full function? Rough estimate? And raise the temperature in my quarters to Maguuma temperature, please. Repairs authorised if the heater is....damaged..."
"Heater activated. It was set to -4: the equivalent of a shiverpeak summer morning. There is no record of the temperature being changed, but it was somehow changed. As to the device -- rough estimate to understand its function and build a facsimile based on current data is six months. Any other extrapolations beyond a helmet design will take longer."
"Six months? Really?" He was surprised. Was the design that intricate? That 'out there'? Once again he was struck with how smart Ceara had been. "Fine... keep studying it, and when you can make its technology, try to make some kind of shield out of it. Personal shield if you can, but I want you to focus on it being an upgrade to the current shipwide shields. We can always find a way to downsize a larger device if we can make it."
He shivered, and tried to pull the blankets up further, but that didn't work because of Novni sitting on his legs. "If we can size-up the Psi-blocker to shipwide, I'm hoping we can prevent more... any... psychic-based attacks."
"Understood. Analysis clock time will be doubled when I have the cycles, and I will make it a priority. Moving the Aspect to Bloodtide Coast. I am currently faking a damaged engine, and leaking the appropriate smoke and fuels. Pact HQ is.... Well, they're distracted at the moment, it seems. I recieved authorization to pull back until repairs are completed almost immediately. There are a few Dominion helicopters closing on us.As soon as we clear some more mountains, I will bring them down and put us in full cloak until we reach the coast. Request permission to exterminate the helicopters to ensure no witnesses?"
"Thank you Aspect." He sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was hard to focus; coming out of sleep so suddenly was like hitting a brick wall, and what with his scrambled thoughts, erratic heartbeat, and how he was still panting for breath... "Permission granted. If you have to drop the Illusion field to engage them, just make sure the Pact doesn't see us, and make sure as hell those copters don't leave survivors. Lethal parameters authorized."
"Understood. Thirty seconds to safe distance. Will engage at forty-five seconds."
It took a moment, but he finally had to deal with the elephant in the room. Or rather... the sylvari in the room. "Novni... While I'm rather glad you came and helped me escape that 'bad dream' by giving me whatever you gave me... A question arises."
"Hmm?" She had been sitting there quietly through his chat with the ship.
"How did you get into my quarters? I know I locked my door." He pointed out, idly indicating the still-shut-and-locked door.
"I Walked in." She told him simply.
"You walked in?"
Novni shook her head. "Not 'walked in'. I Walked in."
As an example, she flickered into a spectral state, and seemed to split into two. One Novni stayed sitting on the bed, while the other got up, crossed the room without taking a step, and slid like smoke through the frames and joints of the door. Both Novnis were linked by ghostly, spectral, warping trails, like space was being distorted by her passage. After a moment, that Novni slid back into the room, waved lightly, and then zipped back to the one on the bed, and both became whole and physical again. "See?"
It made an unsettling amount of sense. What barrier is a door to a spirit? Yet another Necromancer trick. "Ah. Yes. I see. You Walked in."
She grinned and bounced a bit, happy that she had been understood. Or perhaps that she'd been clever. "Your room is cold. It liked the cold."
Cyrus frowned. "Yes. It did. And you stopped it from doing...what it was doing to me. Thank you."
He took a shuddering breath, and shook his head. "Gods above and below... I don't think I'm going to be able to get back to sleep. My heart is still racing."
"I can fix that." Novni said simply, and reached out a single finger, poking him in the chest.
"What, what do you mean you can-- OW!" He flinched, and stared down at where she poked him. It was only when he did so that he realized she'd extruded another needle-spine, another venom-filled cactus-like spike, as thin as a hair, from her fingertip, and had jabbed him. Jabbed him and was holding her finger there, as she pumped whatever it was into him.
He could feel the injection as a kind of hot rush flashing outward from the poke, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. Even the anti-Miasma poison-nullifier in him was affected. In the few seconds since she poked him, he could see the glowing green veins flare up at the prescence of the venom...and then go quiescent. As they did, the numbness spread.
"What did..." His eyes fluttered as it hit his nervous system. "Novni, whut di-d yuu...."
And then all the lights went out; like a puppet with his strings cut, Cyrus flopped back onto the bed in a dead, deep sleep. Novni kept her finger in place for a few seconds more, to make sure he was utterly out, before pulling the finger-needle out, wiping the single blot of blood from his chest, and pulling the blanket up to his neck.
As an afterthought, she repositioned his head, fluffing the pillow up to make sure it was comfortable, and then sat back watching him sleep. By this time, he'd started to snore quietly.
From under the blankets off to the side, Dangles poked his nose out and looked from his master to Novni, curious. She shrugged at him. "He'll sleep deep now. The Sneaky One won't be able to get to him... I think."
She pursed her lips, thinking. A moment later, she nodded, apparently having come to a decision. Novni then pulled the big cat over closer, and pulled the comforter over herself as well, so she was covered up. She wasn't under the sheets, but she was close enough to be comfortable.
Dangles just murphed as he was dragged over, but easily repositioned himself for better snuggling, and gave in to being a cat and immediately started to snooze again.
Novni herself wrapped an arm around him, and curled up with her head on Cyrus's blanket-covered chest, and closed her eyes. She listened to his slow breathing, and smiled. "I'll watch from the Other side... Make sure it doesn't get him."
And then she too, was out like a light.
