A sense of belonging and home is something most people take for granted. You are born to your parents, you live with them and their people, you grow older with friends and family and no matter what you do from that point on you still have a place to call home. A place to belong. Now imagine losing all of that. Every. Single. Little. Bit.
What do you do? Most of those who experience this either try to find something like what they know or they try to recreate the old. Some try to connect to something new and different. An extreme few tries to create something unique and new. Then what do you do when all of that comes crashing down, having tried them all? Some taken from you. Some doomed at birth. Some lost to bad decisions.
Belonging. Lost when freed. Lost when betrayed. Lost when you fail.
You are tested. Will you be found wanting?
Penumbra part Three: Testing, testing.
A few months ago.As I understand it, trips down memory lane are supposed to be moments of nostalgia and pleasant visitations of the past. I've never really experienced that, so in my wisdom I've determined that either everyone else is wrong (which is entirely possible, let's be fair) or my life has been somewhat unorthodox in the whole good to bad memories ratio. Don't get me wrong, I'm a capsuleer with very few inhibitions, a quite serious amount of resources and assets and a good sense of where to find what I desire so I've definitely delved into depths of pleasure and experiences that most baseliners could only dream of. Or have nightmares of, I suppose.
I just suspect that the events that tend to come to mind are sufficiently nasty enough to overshadow these things. Someone once told me that wisdom came about after having experienced bad days over enough time. I can't say I'm the wisest around, but by that measuring stick I'm somewhere in the upper echelons. A lot of bad days, many bad enough to inflict a lot of permanent physical and mental injuries. Lessons learned.
Looking down upon the village below I'd remembered the day of the sentencing, marking and exile. I know some people who wouldn't have survived that lesson. More people who'd never have survived the following journey past the frozen wastes. I can't think of any who'd survive what came next, but that doesn't really say much about my abilities but more about exactly how well those volur knew me. How far they could push me, those years ago.
Today was a different matter. I turned from the cliffside over the village and returned to the Spirit's Rise few scattered buildings not bothering to hold the fur cloak closed as it billowed in the wind. Memories had already chilled me and the anger they'd stirred kept me warm until I slammed open the door to the wooden hut I'd woken up in a long time ago. For a moment I thought I could see the circles I'd drawn on the floor, but knew that to simply be my imagination. The hooded woman at the bookshelf was quite a different matter.
"Enough." I stated calmly but with a firmness that could not be ignored. "If you brought me all the way here, it's for a very good reason and time is not on our side. Let us descend and be done with it."
She didn't even respond. She just half-way faced me and smiled in that unbelievably smug, mysterious and
knowing way that she does. It took some practice, but I have gotten just as good at it as she was. Like I've told several guests I've entertained lately, who've brought up the subject of what volur and shamans do, we're all largely con-artists. Oh settle down, I didn't say we didn't believe or that we had ill intent. We've just come to understand something rather important about human beings. Most of them need something to believe in. Not just something ephemeral and lofty like gods, spirits or the supernatural, but other human beings that are better, stronger, wiser and more intelligent than them. They need authority figures they can trust, even if they don't like them. Priests. Teachers. Guides. Officers. Chiefs. CEOs. Whatever.
We tend to oblige them in that regard. Of course, we're not guardians of secret knowledge or somehow tapped into any sort of cosmic library of obscure information. We have the same limitations as everyone else, capsuleerdom notwithstanding. Deep down, everyone knows this, but they don't want to know this. They repress that, as long as we give them reason to believe. And so we smile. Mysteriously. Knowingly. We answer questions with questions, letting them figure things out for themselves for the most part and they happily give the credit for their own cognitive capacities to us. Of course, it's not entirely a sham. It takes a lot of training, education and skill to guide someone to the right decisions and make them see uncomfortable facts or truths they don't want to, but in the end we are still the con-artists that have been ascribed all manner of powers, knowledge and wisdom we don't necessarily possess. And we let them believe that, not out of malice, greed for power or money, but because we recognize that they need us to be what they see. They need to know that when the world is cruel and dark, they can always trust in us to know.
Despite the fact that I knew this so well by now, I allowed myself to take a small measure of comfort in her demeanor. Which I suspect was her intent. Con-artists we may be, but we're very good at it. I placed myself next to her as she touched the wall in a particular spot and the floor around us started descending almost fast enough to be considered free-fall down to the real habitation areas.
What? You didn't seriously think we were living in wooden cabins and longhouses in YC117, did you? We hold fast to traditions and culture but spirits below, we're one of the most advanced cultures in New Eden. Most of the surface structures were there as cultural reminders, surface utility and some hid the access ways and ventilation to the complex below. You know, I can just feel the disapproval and disappointment. A spiritual and traditional people with mystics, shamans and volur aren't supposed to be technologically advanced. Highly advanced technology and the beliefs of old don't tend to mix very well. When you can take a rock and reduce it all the way down to it's most basic components, preferably without an energetic event sufficient enough to crack the crust of a planet of course, it's a bit difficult to see how it still has its own spirit. When you're an immortal god of the skies, swapping bodies on a whim and delivering death with a thought, it is somewhat difficult to see the spirits of the ancestors or the land. Lightning is not the mother above lashing out in anger and earthquakes are tectonic in nature rather than something to be appeased through sacrifice.
Like I said, however. We do believe. It's hard not to when you've gone through the rituals and learned the ways of the volur and shamans. I'll make someone figure out their own solution to a problem with a smile, raised eyebrows and questions leading them down the right mental pathways quite often, because I don't have all the knowledge they might need. I do have a lot of knowledge they should never have, though. I could feel it. The spirit of the land surrounds you as you descend here. Every place that is a true home has one. The Gripdjur have lived here for so long that we are just an extension of this land and we are irrevocably tied to it. Even the ones that hadn't known home for generations can feel it with a little training. I don't even know how to explain it, because it defies language. Your own spirit doesn't have the senses your body does, nor does it have a language. It's all imagery and emotions. Let me try to explain how I felt as we descended and I got a sense of...
wrong from the spirit of the land. It was... there's like this feeling of... it is...
... it itched, okay?
Wood gave way to bright white metal around us as we accelerated down through the cliffside of the Spirit Rise and further down below the village level itself. The normal habitation areas were publicly available of course, but this particular section was for a different crowd. A few of the Elders, one shaman and some volur, and third circle scientists, military personnel and administrators that had gotten sufficiently high security clearance. All in all, I think about five of them actually knew who I was and that my position even existed on the clan organization charts.
After about half a minute the elevator slowed and halted, opening up to a hallway with white walls and diffuse lighting bathing it all in a welcoming glow. As we stepped out a section of wall slid open to reveal two reasonably sized closets where we quietly deposited our fur cloaks and trappings of the overworld, before they closed and slid away with a gentle hum to wherever they were stored when not in use. Another set of closets arrived, our own personal ones once again, and we slid into more practical clothing. A black tank top and a simple pair of dark pants and boots for me, ensuring that my prosthetics, tattoos and voluval all showed clearly, and a much lighter cloth robe for her. We both retrieved our unofficial but always-carried staves of office. An actual pair of staves, that is. Hers was a light and crooked piece of wood, carved into gentle waves and giving an impression of wind and water around a living tree. Mine was a dark and straight staff with carved markings that simply mirrored my own.
There are a lot of reasons why we carry these staves. Readily available identification of what we are. Instilling a certain sense of traditions and mysticism to us. You can do some truly nasty physical damage with one of these, not even counting the technology hiding underneath the wood, but all of that pales to a simple psychology trick. It makes you taller. When you carry one as if it's part of you, it's perceived as a part of you and if that part is a head taller than someone you're speaking to it doesn't matter if they have to look down to match your gaze, you're still taller. This little thing all by itself gives you more authority and credibility. Con-artists, who can brain you if necessary.
We wandered into the tunnels and passed several fairly high security areas including some of the gigantic computer banks utilized in our main source of political and military strength, intelligence operations, covert and overt both. I hadn't gotten my own claws on that asset just yet, but I hadn't really tried. Capsuleer status and endless amounts of money will buy you a lot of third party resources and that was part of why I was a Penumbra. I didn't need any sort of backing from the clan and thus there'd be no trail back to a clan that had publicly exiled me. That still begged the question why I was there. It was quite a risk for aaaand that was an absolutely gorgeous little redhead passing us.
I was not prepared for the sheer level of desire that flooded through me there. Hardware and wetware accelerated processing kicking in and images of that cute little thing riding the most intense waves of ecstasy I was woman enough to induce - and trust me, it's not boasting to say I've become quite proficient at it - blew through my mind at a frantic pace before I regained control and stamped down hard on my libido. What can I say? It's been years, for a multitude of reasons, and sometimes the body takes charge before the mind can overrule it. Besides, my tastes are... unconventional. Yet another reason to get out of here and back into controlled environments sooner rather than later.
A deep annoyed breath later and we were there. I instantly recognized it of course. The training areas. An actual blast door opened up to a fairly large hall full of modular combat scenarios that could be switched around by a controller to fit any scenario you could think of and the Gripdjur could afford some very impressive instructors. Yet again the mind returned to the last time I was here, spending months and months getting my ass kicked into next week, meditating until I passed out and back into the fight as soon as I awoke. I thought I was hard before then, and I was, but this place made that former me look weak.
I suddenly knew why we were there. In the middle of the hall was a designated combat area and an old... acquaintance. Our first meeting started with him backhanding me straight across the room and things largely deteriorated from there. He was one of the people I fought on a regular basis during my training and I'd never beaten him, and for good reason. Built like the mountain behind the village and exceptionally well trained himself, taking him down as a Sebiestor woman - oh do be quiet, women generally are less physically capable than men, just deal with it - would be a rather difficult task even with training. In a fair fight, impossible.
It was the final test, I realized. Whatever they had planned for me, whatever had the spirit of the place agitated to the point of instilling a sense of unease like this, required that I was at the top of my game. This was to determine if I was good enough. Oh, in case you didn't already notice, this final test was just a small part of it. Recognizing it without being told was a more important part, as fighters are easy enough to come by. Volur capable women are far more rare and they apparently needed both. A Seer must be able to read and recognize such things by default, and I felt a slight bit of pride in that I passed it so easily as I simply sauntered over to him and took a ready position, staff in one hand. That redhead before had gotten to me and I had frustrations to take out on something.
I didn't stand a chance. His thigh weighed more than I did, or would have without the prosthetics. He easily had me on reach. He had decades of experience on me and was surprisingly fast given his bulk.
A snap of the volur's fingers started the fight. It was over 2.8 seconds later. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Author
Topic: Penumbra, part Three: Testing, testing. (Read 2143 times)