World Tree MUSH

The depths of the Libyan Desert are remote even for the small train of Bedouins the study team rode along with. In other histories and other Egypts, remarkable discoveries will be made here, on the plateau known as Gilf Kebir, only decades after this date. By all rights, Europeans shouldn't even /see/ this part of the world for another 15 years. Today, it is the rumours of strange artifacts that bring attention to this place - in the eyes of one Cambridge professor, at least.

    < BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPAwTqig4_c >

Neviah shields her eyes from the punishing glare of the Saharan sun. Her long black hair is already shielded beneath a deep white shawl bordered in red geometric patterns, the attire an effort to match her half-dozen Bedouin guides in these parts. Gingerly, she coaxes the camel she's riding to a halt and slides awkwardly down from its rug-draped humps.

The desert here gives way to the remains of a wadi - a dry riverbed, slashing through the ruddy sands and dark rocks of a plateau roughly the size of Puerto Rico. "We're here," she says as she withdraws a map from her pack. "Wadi Mansiyu." A place that appears on literally only one map - the one in Neviah's hand, roughly scrawled and labelled in Arabic.

With a few orders to the Bedouins to set up camp, the professor taps the map with a fingertip. "A Bedouin came to me a few months ago with something interesting," she explains to the group. "A piece of very old pottery - thousands of years old. He said it came from this site. The motifs on it were definitely very early Egyptian, but the figures were like nothing reflected in the mythologies we know of. The site's been marked...."

She looks up towards the rocky rim of the plateau. A simple red bolt of cloth tied to a stake flutters in the desert wind - dug into the turf in front of a low and narrow cave entrance, half-hidden by sand. Neviah presses her lips together.

"...We'll need to be careful."

    Dante of Redgrave grumbles as he rubs suntan lotion into his arms. He tans like crap, he'll be picking burnt skin off of his body later today. "Guh, for once my pale boyish looks fail me." He grouses as he slides down a sand dune.

    At the camp, Dante chugs from his canteen. No red coat today, that'd just suck to wear in the desert. Instead he's got a red button up shirt that's loose and cottony, as well as khaki trousers and boots with a black waistcoat. All in all he looks like a gentleman adventurer for the most part.

    "Betcha dinner we unearth some evil sorcerer's tomb while we're diggin' about."

    In Orbit:

    Justina watches the progress of the group as she finalizes her field gear, ordering the various Dolls to fit modules, pack equipment in a modular case and ensure the Primus Nodes are fully charged from the ships Nexus. "Minerva, status report." she requests, earning a chime from the onboard AI. "All systems showing green across the board. We're running from onboard power only. Local magical energy isn't dense enough for the Nexus to draw from. We'll be good for a few days but should head back to a more rich environment before we have to break into the back-up Cores." The half-elf nods to that, then looks back to the display. "Looks like they've reached their destination, I'm seeing signs of setting up camp. Send down the Doll. I'll jack in momentarily." "Aye Captain."

    On the Surface:

    Not too far outside the camp perimeter, a robotic chassis materializes between blinks, a little bit of glass forming beneath its feet from the sheer power of the teleport spell. It stands passively, even if approached for about thirty seconds before it shifts and seems to come to life. "Minerva, check comms... Good they're still connected. Keep me posted on that magic signature. If it moves or changes I want to know ASAP." The robotic frame turns and approaches the camp and moves toward Dante and Neviah. "You may be correct. Orbital scans show a concentration of ambient magic in this area. We must be cautious as Lady Younger suggests."

    "Ugggggggghhhhh it's so hottttttttt."
    The desert is not Morrigan Lor'osa's cup of tea. For one, she can't bring her favored and cherished 2003 Ford Windstar van and its sweet sweet air conditioning.
    Trudging through the Sahara has been pretty nightmarish and it's preeeeeetty evident why as Morrigan's Familiar- a little Maryceles Shinki by the name of Mary Contrary sits perched on the Warlock's shoulder fanning her gently.
    "Have you considered wearing less black, Master?" The shinki asks gently.
    "I'll wear less black when I die!" Morrigan jabs back.
    "Speaking as the group's resident evil sorcerer... I don't know why anyone would pick a place this far out in the boonies to build their tomb." She asides to Dante.
    Justina ports down.
    "Oh thank heaves. Justinaaaaaa does this Doll have air conditioninnnnng?"
    Chances are high the Doll doesn't have air conditioning.

Neviah doesn't have the option of employing high technology like some of the others. She wasn't even fully sure where Wadi Mansiyu was until they got there. The depths of the remote Sahara are so far from the tracks of civilization that only the wandering Bedouins and Tuaregs know what's where. If nothing else, she has knowledge on her side - and she smiles wanly at Dante as she begins to climb towards the cave entrance. "If we do, I have confidence that we can handle it."

Having him and the others there /gives/ her that confidence. Recent history has shown that Neviah herself is comparatively weak.

Justina winks into being suddenly enough to startle Neviah. Kneeling near the cave mouth, she looks back to wait for her, then purses her lips and looks into the darkness ahead. "...So there is something strange here," she murmurs as she pulls a sheet of waxy-looking paper and a candle out of her jacket pocket. Flashing Morrigan a sympathetic smile, she turns to light the candle, holding it up with one hand and angling the paper above it.

Thus equipped, she ducks past the low threshold of the cave.

The cave's interior is dim, musty and hot, thick with sand that's blown in over the ages. The bobbing glow of Neviah's candle casts light across the worn walls of a long passage. After a moment, Neviah pauses to squint at the paper. "You're right. There are traces of magic," she murmurs, voice echoing subtly against the cave's confines.

The paper is not ordinary wax paper. She angles the candle to let others look. Its surface has darkened where the candle has heated it - but the darkening has spread out in odd, cobwebbing patterns that appear entirely too regular.

"It's not just magic... the dimensional materia is weaker here."

    "That's the spirit." Dante grins at Neviah before he shrugs at Morrigan. "Hell if I know, but if they're out here they probably did something messed up."

    He produces a flare and lights it with his boot, waving the flare about as he begins to get too close to a cluster of bats.

    The bats are in his hair, oh no. He waves and swats at the flying pests, "Gah! Get off me!"

    Justina shifts her photoreceptors towards Morrigan, "No." is the only response to the flagging Warlock before she turns to follow after Neviah and Dante. As she passes into the room, her optics shift from blue to dull purple as she goes into 'darkvision' mode, "A Magic Paper? I've not seen one of those since Utility Magicks back in the academy." she comments as Neviah shows the paper and the way it's scorched from the candle flame.

    "Uwahhhhh..." Morrigan is pretty disappointed Justina's Doll lacks AC. But she'll live. She has her shinki fanning her anyway.
    "Anyway." Anyway indeed, it's into the cave as Professor Younger lights a candle and leads the way.
    The Warlock's eyes glow a vibrant green in the murk and gloom, her vision utterly perfect in the darkness as she loosens her robes just a little to not die from the desert heat.
    At least it should, in theory, be cooler in the cave but something catches her gaze.
    "Ah... Look." The Warlock muses, approaching one of the cave walls, stopping juuuuust short of touching it. "Have a look at this." She says, suddenly all business instead of complaints.
    "Cave paintings. They're old and crude, but... Maybe they say something?"

This is power, Dante. The power of bats in your hair. :( Neviah turns with a sharp blink and a hiss of breath, nearly dropping her candle. "Dante, are you alright?"

As the danger passes, Neviah breathes a soft sigh of relief, enough that she can angle the paper to show Justina. "It's treated with a chemical solution. There are... environmental traces that can be picked up in areas where a Vine manifests. Like a signature...." Trailing off, she turns to lift her candle, casting it about the cramped cave. The sand piles high against the walls, the low light casting corners into deep darkness.

"There are no stalagmites," she murmurs. "It's almost like a passageway."

Morrigan /finds/ something. With a sharp blink, Neviah gravitates towards the warlock. She trades her magic paper for what looks like a paintbrush, carefully dashing away a few surface layers of sand.

The cave paintings revealed are primitive and faded in places, yet clear. Two lines of them, depicting incredibly basic yet still starkly humanoid shapes. Biting her lower lip, the scholar leans forward to investigate, narrowing her eyes. "...This is remarkable. These must predate even the earliest dynasties by centuries," she murmurs. "I wonder what they're supposed to depict...."

    "I got it!" Dante says, flailing mildly at the bats until he just decides to hell with it, and summons Nevan. The electrical Leanan sidhe guitar blasts a mild storm of electricity to blast the bats! "Fuckers!" After that bit of fledermaus homicide, Dante brushes his sleeves and carries onward.

    "Drink...your ovaltine...the hell is that?" He says as he tries to decipher the cave patterns. He has no idea what he's doing.

    He perks up briefly, and begins to go deeper into the cave, he hears wind coming someplace.

    Justina moves to look at the mural too. She gently places a hand on Morrigan's shoulder to make her stand aside, and points to a few of the figures. "These are different... look here, this one has legs, but the upper body is a squiggle, like it's serpentine... and this one is the opposite." if the Doll were capable, she'd be frowning right now. "Could this mean some hybrid creatures roamed around when these were drawn?"

    She does stand back slightly and take an image for the archives then turns to look where Dante's heading.

    Poor Dante, having to deal with bats. Eugh. They can give you rabies, you know. But Morrigan's focus is on the cave paintings. So as the devil hunter fries the bats and makes Morrigan's curly hair frizz and floof with static from Nevan, the Warlock scowls.
    "It looks like... --oh wow they are squiggly aren't they-" She says realizing it only when Justina pointe it out. But she sees something else... "It looks like... Some of the squigglies are hunting or battling the other squigglies..." She considers after further investigation of the drawings.

The sound of Dante's guitar vibrates through the cave. Pebbles and dust shudder from the ceiling. Neviah flinches before letting out a breath. "Careful," she murmurs with a look back before turning her gaze to the cave paintings once more. Her candle is nestled into the sand as she draws her notebook and begins to hastily sketch out copies of the images - but pauses when Justina makes a point.

She squints at the figures. Her teeth close around her lower lip. "...I'm not sure," she admits, voice a little smaller. "But they remind me of people I have met before... people who have both serpent and human traits. The Yuan-ti." The scritch-scritch of her pencil dances across the page as she copies down those figures, but she pauses at Morrigan's observation.

Her lips curve downwards. "I see it too...."

When she looks up again, it's to watch as Dante plies deeper into the cave. She opens her mouth to say something, but pauses as something occurs to her. "...Do you hear that?"

When there's silence from the others, it's clear. Faint, but audible. A drafty sound, like a hollow wind from deeper into the cave. It sounds for all the world like the earth itself is breathing.

"Dante, don't get too far ahead," she calls, scrambling for her candle and beginning to scramble after him. It's not easy - the sand's shallower deeper in, but there's still rock and rubble to deal with.

Dante will have to deal with it first. The cave doesn't widen much, but it takes a subtle downward slope. Chunks of rock have fallen from the ceiling here and there - and chunks of things that are not rock. As Dante proceeds, there will come the sound of ceramics shattering underfoot, his bootfall hitting a patch of ground that is not ground - and is quickly giving way beneath him.

The incline has just a few feet to go, and right now Dante's poised to take it in a tumble. Unless he can right himself quickly, he will encounter two things.

The first is a subtle shift in the air. It's moving with a slow draft. The breathy sound is louder here.

The second, a few feet later, is a solid stone wall.

    Dante trips as he goes to investigate the source of the wind. He falls down a slope, doing a graceful flip right into a wall! He bounces off of it, and pirouettes into a handstand before bouncing back onto his feet. Tada! You may clap now.

    This was utterly pointless and Dante has no idea what the heck they're looking for now.

    Justina steps forward, "Lady Younger be careful, the floor inclines about five meters down and there are... potholes hidden by broken pottery fragments. she announces to the others, as Dante tumbles gracefully into a wall, defeating it with his face but leaving them unsure where to go next. "Opening up my sensor profile. Justina's frame seems to 'tense' for a moment, before the optics shift through a chromatic sequence. "Scanning full spectrum."

>> GAME >> Justina Thyme spends an Edge for: =Doll Senses Enhancement.

    Morrigan's lips purse.
    "I've never met a Yuan-ti. I've only read about them in books. None of it was pleasant." The Warlock mutters, rubbing her chin.
    "Don't leave us behind." She does aside to Dante as he moseys ahead. And- the sound of breaking ceramic makes Morrigan flinch and whip about to see the direction it came from just in time to catch Dante's fall.
    And handstand.
    Mary Contrary holds up a hologram screen from her perch on Morrigan's shoulder. It reads: '9.5'
    "Oh. Huh. Anything down there, buddy?"

Dante's acrobatics find purchase. His bootheels hit solid stone; there is a heavy *thunk* upon impact, followed by a sound like fistfuls of pebbles hitting the ground at the same time. His landing is exquisitely graceful and flashy.

Behind him, the pebble sound is followed by a low crunching noise, the stony thud of stone on rock, and a puff of drafty air breathing down his back.

A couple of seconds later, Neviah's bobbing candlelight comes dancing down the incline. She blinks as she spots something underfoot - "A pot?" she murmurs, avoiding the broken fragments of what used to be a piece of clay pottery, now stamped with a Dante-sized blueprint in the middle. Justina's warning comes just in time for her to dart around it. "Be careful, Morrigan," she warns, before stopping and holding her candle up.

Her breath catches in her throat.

It is not just a stone wall Dante's standing in front of. It's a wall of masonry - incredibly old, composed of heavy limestone blocks placed within a square threshold that frames the cave. What mortar once existed has crumbled mostly away, leaving gaps in the stonework - and where Dante's boot struck, one of the blocks has broken apart and fallen out. Most of the block sits in chunks on the ground behind him.

It is the largest hole in the immense symbol carved deeply into the central stonework. A few hieroglyphic figures frame the threshold, but the wall itself is dominated by a single massive glyph, easily twelve feet high.

The Eye of Horus.

    Dante's mishap somehow has wound up switching a button! "Oh hey! I found the thing!" He says happily, proud of himself as he looks at the massive wall, and the eye of Horus atop it.

    "I think...we found out what's in here."

    Justina's sensors are positively singing as information comes in. "Faaaacinating." her voice trailing off as the Doll deftly navigates the way down, the automatic system picking its way down the incline to stand before the wall. "I'm getting so much data right now. The air beyond that wall isn't the same as out here. It's rich with magical energy, like a fresh water stream feeding into the ocean. I'm also getting a Vine signature, a very old Vine signature behind the wall... some kind of ward was placed on the wall, it seems someone wanted to seal it away but the ward has failed. The magic left in the paint is inert." she summarizes, though she does hold up a hand to show the sheer amount of info coming from her sensors in a holographic display.

    "Huhhhhh."
    That sure is a big glyph of an eye.
    Morrigan licks her lips thoughtfully as she takes a place at Neviah's side to peer down at where Dante landed.
    Glowing green eyes dart over the holodisplay Justina pulls up and the reams of code and data.
    Yeah but..." She considers.
    "If it was warded... Was that to keep people out or..."

    "To keep something else in...?"

"I've never seen anything quite like this," Neviah breathes as she ventures closer to the crumbling wall.

< BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWvsoROnBHM >

As she steps up beside Dante, Neviah draws out her notepad again, but she hesitates to draw just yet. "The Eye is a symbol of protection," she explains, voice quiet. "And look... the symbols on the threshold. Those glyphs there." She gestures to a half-faded set of glyphs, an elaborate falcon sigil framing what looks like a top-down catfish and a wedge shape. "A pharaohnic serekh. N-R, M-R...." Her eyes widen. "...Narmer, the first pharaoh of /all/ Egypt? But... but certainly /none/ of the dynasties extended this far, and certainly not /that/ long ago...."

When Justina provides her data, Neviah leans in to inspect it, her lips hanging slightly apart and her eyes wide with astonishment. "...The time of Narmer was more than five thousand years ago," she says, her voice heavy with wonder as she turns her gaze to the wall again. It stays there only a moment before she looks to Morrigan.

"I have a theory." Setting her shoulders, she moves to the wall. Her candle is set aside, and she draws an odd-looking device from her pocket. It looks like a pair of metal spirals that extend into a pair of interwoven copper wires, twisted down into a vial full of clear liquid. They all connect down into a rubber-and-wood grip. With care, Neviah maneuvers the device close to the gap in the wall. The air breathing through the wall stirs her hair.

As Neviah touches something on the device, there's a sudden spark from each coil, and a smell like burning ozone. Electricity vibrates down the wire coils and spirals into the fluid. The substance froths and churns for several seconds before its colour begins to change. First from the bottom up, then proceeding to the top of the fluid, it yellows, then shifts to an odd greenish hue, one that gradually segregates itself into two separate bands - some of it darkening to a muddier green and sinking to the bottom, but more shifting to blue-green and floating near the top.

The professor holds it up to the candlelight. She examines the colour. Her breath catches again.

"Morrigan," she whispers, her voice tense. "The Vine behind this wall... the place it connects to... my God, we've /found/ it, Morrigan!

"A surviving piece of our world...."

    Dante is not at all qualified for this sorta nerd talk. But he knows a bit about mythology, juuuust enough to get by. So he lets Neviah do the nerd stuff instead, curious as to what we're going to get here. "'Our'?" He says aloud, staring at Neviah for a moment, before looking at Morrigan next.

    Justina mimics Dante's sentiment. She's good at picking out information, her Doll's sensor suite is designed to pick out all these different signatures and sift them for easy viewing... but the lore, the history? That's lost on her. She does mirror his question. "'Our' world? Elaborate."

    Easing her way closer to the wall Morrigan is still frowning. Thoughtful? Or paranoid?
    It's hard to tell with the Warlock sometimes.
    But she licks her chapped lips as glowing eyes follow Neviah's indicated glyphs as the professor translates.
    "Do please share this theory with the class, Professor Younger." She says as Neviah produces a device. And tests said theory.
    "... What."
    The revelation is... More than astounding.
    "That's... That..." She wants to say 'that can't be possible'.
    "... But our world was so absorbed by the Tree... There's hardly anything lef...t..." She trails off, voice hoarse. But even more pressingly.
    "Do... Do we go through...?"
    There's a beat's pause of silence as the Warlock looks to Justina's Doll and Dante.
    "Neviah and I come from a world that doesn't exist anymore. At least not the way most others do. It's been around for so long that it was... Essentially absorbed by the Tree. Bits and pieces might still exist like what we... Just found but. As an 'individual' world it's. Long gone."

"Morrigan and I... have our origins in the same part of the World Tree," Neviah explains, lifting her eyes to Dante. But Morrigan's a step ahead of her in explaining what happened to the place they came from. She presses her lips together and looks to the wall, her shoulders rising a little beneath her coat, then falling as she breathed out.

"...What happened to our world is why I studied the Tree to begin with. All the history of our world... the stories of why we exist, where we came from... nothing was left. I thought that if I could find it...."

Trailing off, the professor stares up at the broken ward. Her dark curls stir as the draft from beyond tousles them. In the flickering light of her candle, one can see her biting down to her bottom lip, cheeks flushed and eyes intent. For a long moment, she doesn't say anything.

"...If the connection has existed for more than five thousand years," she murmurs. "There must've been... a conflict of some kind. This area is so far from where Narmer's dynasty ruled that he would have had to put considerable resources into sealing this place. If there was some kind of war between this Earth and ours, then...."

She straightens, then looks back to the others. "...We don't know what will wait for us on the other side, but the ancients did not put this ward here for no purpose. We will go through... but not without preparing. We'll need time. Whatever will wait for us on the other side, I want to ensure we take every precaution."

    "I get the feelin' this place was sealed up for good reason." Dante says. "I guess we're goin' through anyways." He grips Rebellion on his back, "Fuck it, we ball. Let's go."

    Justina nods to that. "I will need to set up a signal router on this side of the portal. My connection to the Doll frame won't be severed by travelling through one, but the emergency system requires a stable link to my ship so my soul doesn't get 'lost'."

    The Doll looks back the way they came down. "I would want to bring a more combat-oriented loadout. Better to be have and not need."

    "Nnnnnh..."
    On the one hand, this here is an actual vine leading back to a portion of a long gone world. That's exciting.
    On the other hand, Morrigan is not prepared to go through. None of the party is according to Neviah and Justina.
    "Not yet, Dante. Not yet. We need to prep better than this. Look at you, you don't even have your jacket." She points out.
    Needless to say she doesn't even have her armor on under her robes and is NOT carrying as many daggers or shortswords as she would like to be.
    "We'll come back."

Neviah presses her lips together a moment. "We shouldn't rush through immediately," she cautions Dante, reaching out to lay a delicate hand on his shoulder. "Dante, you have been a brave and good ally. I don't want you to risk yourself when we're not ready. And Justina will need time, too. The Vine will not go anywhere." The smile she shares is small and slightly awkward, an attempt to put a veneer of humour over tension and excitement she's trying to contain. "It has been five thousand years. Waiting a little longer will not kill us."

She nods back to Morrigan and Justina before rising, tucking her world-tester back into her coat. "We'll come back," she agrees. "I will remain in the area - the Bedouins have set up a work camp I'll base myself at here. We can head back there and decide when the right time is to cross the Vine."

Neviah looks back to the wall. Her right hand moves to her collar, adjusting it, and she raises her chin with determination. "...But whatever time we decide on, we *will* return."

    "Oh." Dante considers the group. Yeah, other than him they're pretty underequipped for work. At the very least they got a base camp to head back to. "Well, I guess there's that. Guess I got a little excited."

    "We would be questioning who you were if not, Sir Dante." chimes in Justina with a hint of that sardonic humour the half-elf sometimes doles out. The scientist in a robot suit turns then to climb back up the incline, picking her way through the pottery fragments. "Sanctuary, Strider. Prep a Signal Booster and load the Mk.XVI Expeditionary frame for combat. No rush we have time to do this right." having sent that message, her optics turn back to look at Morrigan, the half-elf's soul within the cold metal giving a smile. <Maybe you'll be happier in yourself, soon.> she muses before stepping out into the desert sun once more.

    It's settled then. The party will return.
    Morrigan looks to her shinki companion and Mary nods, flitting her way ahead out the cave. She's going to prepare the beginnings of a spell sigil in the sand and dust outside. One Morrigan will finish later, but to 'mark' this place for a much more expedient return for the Warlock.
    "I'll be here." She promises, heart pounding in her chest.
    Something... Something in the way Justina's Doll looks at her, though, makes the Warlock's racing heart calm by several degrees.
    "Mm."

"I'm excited too." Neviah smiles gently, dipping her head. "But there will be time."

She emerges from the cave dusty and tired, but with her eyes alight with intention and her cheeks flushed. The camp waiting for them - a large tent, reasonably well-appointed - provides a decent place to cool off and grab something to eat. There are even cots to doze in, if one wishes.

Neviah can't dream of sleeping right now. Her mind is racing - and she has too much to write down.

So, so much to write down - and it's just the start.