quest/src/epistolary/00064.md

title	created	updated	public	syndicated
00064	Wed, 15 Feb 2023 17:58:35 -0700	Wed, 15 Feb 2023 17:58:35 -0700	yes	yes

00064

Back at the fish market, Marvelo squints into the pouring rain and swears under his breath, frustrated at the limited visibility.

His colleague is lying on the floor behind him in some kind of state of deeply altered consciousness, along with an inkling, a toque, and an owl. In fact, the only waking beings left inside the market are himself, a fluffy little duck, and a sticky hemogoblin.

"I've seen stranger things," he shrugs and admits to himself.

The duck and the goblin are both fluffed up and huddled up next to each other softly quacking and chirping to themselves.

He pauses and holds his breath as something indistinct catches his attention. Years of training have produced an instinct he has learned not to question. It has saved his butt more times than he can count. Sometimes it screams at him and the danger is apparent. Like that time with the Permian Raiders off the southern tip of Harshwind Glade. Other times, such as this, all he gets is the vague feeling that something is off. He waits. He's been here before. His subconscious has spotted something, noticed some pattern that doesn't fit its surroundings. He knows if he's patient, his conscious mind will catch up and realize what it was.

He squints out into the pouring rain. There! A flash of red close to the ground.

"What in the world," he wonders as a small child wearing a bright red dress toddles into view. It looks up at him blankly as the rain beats down on its head and shoulders.

"What are you doing out here, little guy? You're getting soaked!" Marvelo, concerned, rushes forward to comfort the child.

Inky gingerly takes the coin with both hands, small digits clamping onto the straight edges. They look at the Twenty-one Fiver nestled against the fuzzy outlines of one palm before peering up again at the figure seated before them. "Thank you, Great Spirit." Inky says. "If truly allowed to choose, then, this one accepts the price."

They toss the coin up into the air. A beat, and they are hovering a few feet above the tracks, between the fork and the oncoming train with no walls. Inky watches as the child's body begins to shrink as rapidly as the black uniform expands, the entire apparition thinning and becoming translucent. The shirt continues to grow until the hem brushes the train tracks and the collar peeks over the invisible tops of the train, the trousers and shoes having been pushed into the stones and earth below.

A portal, the child's voice supplies distantly. At the back of their awareness, Inky homes in on the coin as it continues to spin. When the train thunders down upon the oversized shirt doorway-apparent, they brace for the force of the impact. Instead, all they could feel is a creeping weariness, like water draining through tea leaves in a sieve, while being suddenly surrounded by and staring into a deep reflectionless pool.

Is it two to two, or two past eight, Inky wonders.

The last thing within their consciousness is a gleam of silver as the coin lands on one of its corners mid-spin, bounces off the small half table and falls into the shadows.

You sink into the dark reflectionless pool, letting its waters close over you and pull you under. You ponder its depths from within in its embrace, mindless of the passage of time.

After a few minutes, or a few days, you notice faint light rising up here and there from below. Fuzzy, cobwebby human shapes float suspended in the waters. Some far away, distant as stars. Some drift close enough that you would be able to discern their features, if they had any.

You realize all at once that these are the dream forms of sleeping Basmentarians everywhere, and that you are floating in Ousia, a solitary awakened dreamer in a literal sea of the passive slumbering.

As though responding to your realization, the waters bear you up and you pierce the weak membrane between water and air. You float effortlessly and the gentle waves nudge you ever onward toward some unknown shore. Or merely farther out to sea. You're not sure.

You continue to see the dreamers all around you. You watch curiously as you float by two that seem to have bumped into one another and fused together, their cobwebby bodies sprouting hard crystalline growths and spreading like creeping vines, forming a lattice and creating a small floating island.

After a few hours, or a few weeks, you wash up on the beach of a large island. There is a steep rock, a pillar of a mountain, jutting straight up from the center of the island some distance ahead. And jutting from the pillar is a fractal structure of interconnected towers, all sprouting and branching from one large central tower. The top of the tower disappears far overhead, obscured by a rippling aurora of green and pink lights in the sky.

Some distance down the beach, just out of hailing distance, a lone figure stands gazing at the sea, their back to the tower.

The figure waits.

The tower's strange geometry beckons.

Kasutva, how can I know that I can trust you? What do you gain in helping me, and was there really no way for you to communicate with me without beheading yourself? That seems a little bit distraughting. Like, do you need a bandage or some headache medicine or something? I feel like if I yanked my face off I'd need an ibuprofen. I have some if you want? (alex rummages in a coat pocket and finds a bottle of pain killers, and offers them to the being).

Right anyways, answers questions. I'm looking for my Uncle first and foremost. He dropped off the map a few days ago, and I can't find hide nor hair of him. Then the murders started. Shit at HQ when wild, hit the wall literally, and now I'm in some sort of fever dream talking to what can only be a manifestation of my own subconscious, or perhaps someone else's. Look. I need to get back to Inky, we're trying to meet someone and we're running late, and in the scheme of things my problems aren't so big if the world's going to end because some mad hatter is after these blasted crystal's we've been collecting..

Even as you speak, you notice the edges of Big Kasutva's "wounds" start to close until its flesh begins to once more envelop and enclose its face.

The creature courteously accepts a few pills from you, but simply deposits them in its satchel.

"No, it doesn't hurt us," say the two voices together. "And little matter if it did. It is necessary for us to speak."

They listen to your story. Big Kasutva's voice starts to become muffled as its skin now grows over its mouth. Only its eyes are visible as the two of them continue. "If your Inky has come to this place, then there is only one place they can have gone." They gesture to the sea. "And that place is Ephemeris. The Heart of the Dreaming at the center of Ousia."

Big Kasutva finally falls silent as it heals completely. It guides you to the shoreline, where a long pier has suddenly appeared. Mushroom Kasutva continues to speak for both of them.

"We only ask to accompany you as you go. We wish to see Ephemeris ourselves. But we cannot abandon our post here on the dunes," it says looking at Big Kasutva. "And we," it says gesturing to itself, "are too small to brave the sea alone."

Big Kasutva stops short of the end of the pier. The little mushroom hops right up to the edge and peers down at the water.

"All that is left is to jump, Alex. And let the waters of Ousia bear you up and carry you to Ephemeris."

It hops up to you and extends itself in a clear request, despite its lack of limbs, that it wants you to pick it up.

WHAT DO YOU DO