048.002

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Empyreal

Oppressive Machine

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The Throne. The massive machine of flames and clockwork. Ignoring it worked surprisingly well considering how… oppressive its very presence was. It was almost strange how easily it faded into the background when she had other tasks to focus on, like Tenebrael and Kasita. She had to wonder if there was some kind of meaning or reason behind that. Like… did the Throne deliberately hide itself from mortals? That would certainly explain why the angels insisted that it was ever present and everything, yet nobody besides them seemed to notice it.

She didn’t think that she would forget about it—it wouldn’t just erase itself from her memory if she ignored it long enough. Then again, this place did strange things to emotions, willpower, and memory. Her first time here, she hadn’t been able to remember arriving at all… and she had been so lethargic. Or apathetic. Both. In fact, she was surprised that she was as normal as she was now. Her thoughts and feelings seemed completely in line with what she would have expected if she simply walked into a room and sat down with Kasita for a chat. Kasita also seemed normal… or at least had a lot of emotions that Alyssa had lacked her first visit here.

Her first visit hadn’t had some eldritch presence completely surrounding her, threatening to drown her with flames. So maybe that helped jump start muted emotions.

However it messed with her didn’t matter anymore. At least not in terms of memory loss and emotion dampening. Although she wasn’t too happy that Kasita was going to remain in this place, she simply couldn’t ignore the Throne any longer. It was her reason for coming here.

Though she was a little concerned about actually approaching it. The clockwork mechanism looked far less inviting than Tenebrael. Like if she reached out for it, she might just get caught in its gears and ground up to nothingness. The first few times, she imagined physically interacting with Tenebrael to bridge their connection. Punching or touching the Throne seemed like it might hurt. So did sitting, for that matter, but sitting was what one did with a throne, so…

Alyssa tried imagining herself sitting on the Throne. The imagination came much easier now than it would have even a day ago. Tenebrael had shown her what the actual Throne looked like within its tower. A large golden seat surrounded by six-winged angels. At the same time, it somehow surrounded them.

Even now, here, she could feel them. Seraphim. Crystalline masses without the growths on their crystal matrices that Tenebrael had. She hadn’t noticed them at first, but the moment she tried to sit upon the Throne, they were there.

Metaphorical spears crossed over each other, blocking off access to the Throne.

Alyssa slammed into them, not expecting them. If she had a spine at the moment, she was sure that a cold sweat would be dripping down it.

The Seraphim had moved. Something every angel she had met was absolutely positive that they hadn’t done in an impossibly long time. Yet they moved now to block her path.

Apprehensive, Alyssa started to run. She had been ready to rush back to her body at the first sign of trouble. Seraphim coming online sounded like big trouble. She might not be safe here. Those spears could easily be directed toward her soul. She had no doubt that being pierced by them would prove lethal. Possibly more than just mortally wounding her, but destroying her to her very soul at that. And even if that failed, they might teleport straight to her body and spear her physically as well, though hopefully Tenebrael would help to hide her for a short time at least.

Apprehension must have leaked through her link with Kasita. The mimic’s soul spiked in disconcerted fear, losing some bravery in the process. Despite that, Kasita’s soul welled up, moving as if to protect Alyssa, and her courage welled up with the movement.

Until now, Alyssa thought that the link between their souls was filtered. She hadn’t felt influenced by Kasita’s fear earlier. But when Kasita stood up ready to defend her from the most powerful beings in reality, some of that courage filled Alyssa. Thoughts of fleeing back to her body vanished. Or at least were dampened. The panic dimming gave her enough presence of mind to realize that the Seraphim were not attacking. Not in this place, anyway. Her body being in trouble might very well be a problem.

A quick glance to Tenebrael’s crystalline being showed no problems as far as she could tell. No panic or any of that fear of losing a friend that had happened earlier. Concern, maybe. But not enough that Alyssa thought there might be something going on back in the real world.

Situation understood, if not under control, Alyssa looked back to the Throne. She tried to look for the Seraphim again, but they were fading into obscurity. The Throne was too oppressive. Too large and all-encompassing. She could see that they weren’t attacking, but figuring out what they were doing beyond that was next to impossible. Would they attack if she tried again? Was it like some password screen on a computer where it gave five tries before locking the system down for a certain amount of time?

Alyssa wanted to circle around the Throne—or at least move along it as it was too large to circle—looking for a location where the Seraphim might not be guarding. But to do that, she needed to be able to see them clearly.

A realization hit Alyssa as she was trying to figure out a way to do just that. Kasita perceived things in a vastly different way than Alyssa did. If that were also true here…

Communication was the problem. Even if Kasita could point to the Throne and say whether or not a Seraphim was guarding that part of it, she wouldn’t be able to inform Alyssa. Alyssa might be able to tell Kasita what she wanted, assuming her earlier attempts at talking to the mimic had gone through. But…

Could Kasita force an emotion? Purposefully force herself to be happy enough to send that signal to Alyssa? Or maybe imagine something that made her happy… That would probably work better as the emotion would be real. Or realish. How to communicate that though?

First and foremost, she needed to know if Kasita could even detect the Seraphim. If she couldn’t do that, there was no point in continuing to more complex tasks. Alyssa was skeptical. She gave it low odds that it would work. In reality, Kasita could detect things through her innate biological and magical being. Here, souls weren’t so dissimilar to one another. The only reason it would work would be that a mimic’s perception came not from the body, but from the soul.

So Alyssa tried sending a few concepts over.

~Joy; positive~ ~Frustration; negative~ ~Query~ ~Comprehension~

Then she waited, listening in on Kasita’s emotions. They were tumultuous at first. Both joy and frustration were present, with there being far more frustration. However, they had been present beforehand. Along with the likes of fear, courage, loneliness, bewilderment, and all the other emotions that generally made up someone. Alyssa was specifically looking for a spike in one of the two emotions. Well, not frustration. There really was only one answer to this question. Either Kasita would understand, upon which Alyssa was hoping that she would figure out a way to make herself a little happier, or she wouldn’t understand and wouldn’t answer at all in any appreciable capacity.

~Emotion~ ~Receive~

Alyssa added a few things, hoping that Kasita would understand that she could detect her emotions. Then she waited again. After, she tried a few more different concepts. Then waiting. Then concepts. She could tell that frustration in Kasita was mounting, which actually made it quite an appropriate way to say no. But, after a while, something must have clicked. Kasita welled up, practically glowing with a smug sense of satisfaction. It wasn’t quite joy, though Alyssa could tell that she was generally feeling a little more joyful, but it was close enough that Alyssa decided to rephrase her question.

~Hope; positive~ ~Anger; negative~ ~Query~ ~Comprehension~

Immediately after sending that group of concepts over to Kasita, hope spiked. Alyssa could feel it in herself just as much as she could feel it in Kasita. It worked. They had a way of communicating, limited though it was. Her joy and satisfaction still had yet to go down, so it might be necessary to cycle through some emotions to get definitive answers, but that was a small price to pay. Everything would pretty much have to be binary, yes or no, questions. Maybe there could be a third option there somewhere, but that was probably not necessary. Through a game of twenty questions, nearly any concept or idea should be able to go between them.

It might take a while, but Alyssa didn’t think time mattered in this place at all.

So she started. The first few questions she had were fairly general. She wanted to know whether or not Kasita could still perceive the real world. Alyssa couldn’t. Everything was just a Throne-filled void for her. The same seemed to be true for Kasita. Then she went on, asking about Tenebrael’s presence, the Throne’s presence, and even Alyssa. After the general questions, Alyssa started to narrow things down to what she actually wanted to know.

~Amusement; positive~ ~Impatience; negative~ ~Query~ ~Extraneous presences~

Was there anything other than the Throne, Alyssa, and Tenebrael that Kasita could detect?

The responses to her questions had been slow at the start, but by the sixth one, Kasita had started to get the rhythm. But this question seemed to trip her up. She hesitated, frustrated. Frustration was not a proper response to this question, so Alyssa was a little confused. Was she trying to see something else but couldn’t and was therefore naturally getting frustrated? Was she unsure about whether or not she was seeing other things?

Just as Alyssa thought to ask a few clarifying questions to figure out the problem, Kasita did something Alyssa had not been expecting.

Kasita pulled back. The connection between them broke. Alyssa panicked, worried that she had done something wrong. She tried reaching out again, only for Kasita to avoid her. The way the impulses of the souls worked within the adrift realm, it wasn’t exactly like that. But it was close enough that it didn’t matter.

While trying to figure out if her question had somehow offended Kasita so much that the normally laid-back mimic wouldn’t just ufu~ the issue away, Kasita latched back onto Alyssa. Painfully. It was like when Alyssa had first reached out to her while in this place, lashing and afraid. It hurt, but Alyssa steeled herself and bore with it. She could tell that Kasita was already calming down. The painful tearing faded as companionship welled up inside the mimic.

And along with that companionship, amusement. A lot of amusement. It was shaky. Obviously forced. But Alyssa was pretty sure that it was an answer to her question. Just to be sure, she repeated the question. This time, she substituted amusement with interest… and found a suddenly interested mimic holding onto her tighter than before.

Kasita could see other things out there. Seraphim, hopefully. Alyssa could confirm that, and whether or not Kasita could detect them in a more definite manner than Alyssa, with a few more questions. But first, she had to know why Kasita broke off in the first place. If there was some problem…

It took ten questions before Alyssa thought she had an answer.

Thus far, Alyssa had been shielding Kasita, protecting her from the full might of the Throne. That shielding was interfering with Kasita’s sense of the realm around them. Kasita had broken off, pulled away from Alyssa and that protection just to help out. Alyssa couldn’t help but feel immense gratitude that she had even met the mimic in the first place, let alone had become as close as they were today. If she hadn’t met Kasita… well, she probably would have died during one of her first nights in Lyria, first of all. But doing this… might have been impossible.

But it wasn’t.

Alyssa, through a series of questions, asked Kasita if she could find any weak points. Paths to the Throne that were not guarded by any Seraphim. They wouldn’t be physical paths, as none of that existed here, but they might just be some hole in the Seraphim’s defenses. Especially because the Seraphim would probably not move on their own, given what Alyssa knew about them. At least not until a threat was detected. Perhaps at one point in time, they would have been buzzing around like angry wasps defending their nest, but today, a weakness existed.

It was too much to hope for that the Seraphim would ignore her completely if she did find a hole in their defenses. But time and space were illusions here. All Alyssa needed to do was to touch the Throne and immediately, instantaneously, return to reality.

Hopefully the Seraphim wouldn’t follow… If they did, she might be able to talk her way out of trouble using her status as an Unknown Angel, but that was not likely to be reliable—Tenebrael said that trying to talk to them was like trying to talk to a brick wall. The power of the Throne might be enough to simply wave her hand and wish the entire caste of Seraphim from existence, but judging by how much time it had taken to wield Tenebrael’s power even at the level she did today, it probably wouldn’t be something she could do right away.

Tenebrael would surely have some extra ideas on how to avoid the Seraphim, aside from the few plans Alyssa had to deal with the situation.

Still, first step first.

She had to connect with the Throne. If she couldn’t manage that, there was no point in thinking about what might happen after.

Kasita was definitely trying to help, even if Alyssa hadn’t gotten responses to all her questions just yet. Every few minutes, Kasita would break contact and drift a short distance away. That would last only a few moments before she rushed back to Alyssa. Thankfully, she seemed to have herself under enough control—or simply got used to the feelings without Alyssa nearby—that her soul didn’t thrash and slice in wild flailings.

It took dozens of such attempts before Alyssa got the emotional response that she was looking for. Glee signified that Kasita had done it. She found something that might be useful.

Although initially pleased, Alyssa immediately felt her own frustration rise as she realized that figuring out what Kasita knew might take question after question. She had no idea how long it had been in the outside world, whether any time was passing at all or whether she might wake up to find herself like Rip Van Winkle, old with the world having grown old as well. This place was timeless, but that contributed to feeling like she had been here for just short of an eternity.

Question after question passed. Kasita definitely found somewhere that the Seraphim were not guarding. A hole in their defenses like one Seraphim was missing entirely. Alyssa learned that much. But trying to figure out how to go about finding that spot was nearly impossible. It wasn’t like she could ask which path to take. There were no paths. No landmarks. Even the Throne and how Alyssa saw it as some kind of clockwork machine didn’t translate well. Kasita seemed to see something else entirely. Asking about a certain part of it got nothing but confusion in response.

The talks went on and on. Alyssa couldn’t use frustration as signifying a negative response anymore because of how naturally frustrated Kasita was becoming.

It wasn’t even a surprise when she kept pulling away from Alyssa. The thought that exposing herself to the Throne was considered a break rankled. She always came back quickly, but Alyssa had to wonder if she would stay away for a bit if the Throne weren’t there. Alyssa was certainly getting frustrated as well. Two people seeing two different things, trying to describe something that was probably subjective, all without being able to properly communicate was wearing her down. Down to the point where she was considering calling it quits for now. She still had to make sure that Kasita could get back to her body properly as well.

Some of her own irritation must have leaked through to Kasita. The mimic broke off again, right after having come back. Alyssa hadn’t even tried asking a question this time.

But this time, something was different.

Kasita definitely pulled away, but she didn’t let go. Alyssa found herself dragged through the adrift, pulled toward the Throne as Kasita made her way toward it as well. Kasita didn’t slow down or stop. She didn’t hesitate in the slightest. Not even as they crossed the threshold where Alyssa had been rebuffed by the Seraphim.

In the maw of the Throne, Alyssa could more easily detect the Seraphim. Seeing them from the backside was easier, somehow. Like looking for a star next to the sun would have been impossible, but if she waited until the right time of year, the sun would be at her back. And she could see it now. A steady array of defenders around the Throne.

With one hole. Right where they had gone through.

The Seraphim weren’t moving. They were holding their positions, guarding against intruders without looking to see that an intruder had already slipped past. Two intruders. Kasita was here as well.

Terror. Excitement. Elation. Apprehension. Smugness. Fear. Determination.

Kasita’s emotions came through unfiltered. It was amazing that she had managed to keep it together as they got closer and closer. The Throne was oppressive from a distance. Up close…

Even Alyssa shuddered, wanting to flee.

But Kasita’s determination filled Alyssa with determination.

They were here. They made it hand in hand.

And there was nothing left to do but reach out and touch the Throne.

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