Empire 7 - End of Line (Event Thread)

[mystic1110]

Ever since Kerstin's transformation into the Mare, who she was once and who she was now, had traveled far beyond the Astral Forests. The Mare galloped forward under the waves, white bone flexing underneath a coppery orange kelp, from place to place, without heed towards borders or chains. Here was an unfamiliar concept - the Mare thought in terms of There instead. There where the Kelpie was - There where another steed could be. There was not a fixed point, There was anywhere that wasn't Here. Here was too defined, too much fact - and the Mare was a creature of fiction. She fled from place to place, although fleeing was how those trapped in location often called freedom or yearning. Oh she yearned . . .

Where was she now?

Appearing in frigid waters the Mare looked around and saw in all directions a vast school of Herring. This was not that unusual in the sea. Schools where everywhere. Although, not of this size. That was new. She moved forward looking for her steed for the years she remained Here while she waited for There.

The fish followed her, they seemed to form a trailing vortex, and the Mare noticed the mass growing and growing until a hundred Herring suddenly darted forward and crashed against the rocks before her - their bones and guts spelling a code that she could not understand. Frightened she began to swim faster and faster. The herring followed and just as quickly surrounded her until she was in the eye of a storm of fish. From this swirling weight emerged pregnant herring which laid before her feat another message, now in a language she could understand.

Report: Sudden appearance in Spawn Point.
Query: How achieved such transportation.
Query: Your properties.

[Torv]

Writing, no writing for her. Kerstin tried to recall when she had last gotten a message, neurons traveling along cellulose in search of memories embedded in flesh to find the growing seeds of a grove. How did one write?
By moving one’s digits. Flexing her flippers Kerstin felt the bared bones being pulled in separate directions by skin, made of unkempt kelp. Index bone slid into middle socket and scream became shivering before it was even born, pain forgotten by minute awareness of cellular strings reinforcing the connection.

The now replaced bone of her flipper floated before her eyes. Loosely connected by sinew it diligently wrote nonsense in the water. Writing with a flipper feeling thrice as large as it should be and not entirely in one place proved difficult. Yet her throat was a mesh of kelp and glowing spores, mind slowly growing rampant. Oh how she wished to feel pain . . .

There was no pain to be found Here, only herring, the lucidity of There dissolved and floating away. Already the skin was knotting itself deeper and deeper, until there would be nothing else than a formless weave and loneliness. Kerstin ignored thousands of coppery digits to focus on the one white. Hers, hers to write a message with.

I am Kerstin, I appear where the Forests take me. Now I am Here then the Kelp, then There. It never ends, always alone. Please help, please make it stop.

[mystic1110]

Pain is a foreign concept to the Herring. Not to each individual fish, certainly not - they each knew pain and fear. But together? The memetic entity born from their endless pattern did not understand. And you know the self-help phrase - others can meet you at the level of your trauma at the level they have met their own trauma. And if they can't conceptualize that they've been through trauma? Then pain just becomes a curiosity to be examined.

Report: You seem to be a combination of a Mer individual and parasitical flora.
Report: Fascinating.

Strings of herring move outside the Kerstin's cognition, running additional code:

Query: Explore emotional reaction to new stimuli. Why did hybrid parasitical entity provoke such response.
Dictate: Slot exploration into reaction into sub-dictates.

Focusing on the Mare the Herring continue to speak to it in the language of Birth

Query: Does the parasite allow your ability for instantaneous travel between two locations without crossing the intervening space or is it the system between two entities that allows the effect.
Report: Study required.
Query: Do you consent for analysis.

The fish swarm faster and thicker around Kerstin.

Report: Study required.
Query: Do you consent for analysis.

If the girl in her momentarily respite of awareness whipped around she could see that the spaces between the herring growing smaller, the ocean - that There was rapidly receding - there was only Now here. The herring were closing around her, a jail of location . . . or, one could think of it as an Egg, a womb of singular option.

Report: Study required.
Query: Do you consent for analysis.

[Torv]

Parasitisal?

Kerstin knew what a parasite was, or she knew she should know. Trying to remember was to enter a mire of submerged memories, firmly sealed away beneath a membrane of kelp. Fathomless depths hid beneath the soft surface. Trudging through it Kerstin could feel the memories sinking further and further out of reach, while her mind was overrun by moss.

Parasital tavel?

The soft embrace of moss was so alluring, why fight against the currents? Here was a friend, promising everything would be alright. Kerstin slumped into the bog, letting the soft whispers soothe her worries. Here was Now and Now did not need a past; all it needed was instinct.

Anasys

A mer of rustic brown run through by coppery orange in appearance, lit by an inner shimmering of countless spores the Mare knitted itself together, any traces of bones and flesh folded away unto themselves until there were none left.
Her vision hazy from overlapping kelp and shimmering lights Kerstin saw a wall of herring, a shell surrounding her in every direction. Sense of fear shunted by emptiness she needed more, it demanded it. There was no space left to grow, she felt like fracturing into a million pieces. In a contradiction of hollowed and overwhelmed her flipper bone twisted in a last message before drifting away . . .

Huuuug!

[mystic1110]

The encompassing herring sphere squeezes tighter as other substrings outside the ball talk to themselves

Query: Hug.
Report: An act of holding someone tightly in one's arms, typically to express affection.
Report: Affection is an extraneous emotion.
Query: Consent.
Report: Request for physical act to show affection is consent.
Report: Consent granted.

The parasitical kelp was rapidly engulfing the Mer in its cooper strands. The herring speak to Kerstin, unclear if she was of a state of mind to understand.

Report: You have granted consent.
Dictate: Begin Analysis.

Herring dart from the walls of the sphere towards the composite Mare, no opposable digits to grasp the stands of Kelp, but there are mouths, so many mouths. Mouths grab the kelp and pull and tear, eat it whole. However the composite creature, Mer and Flora, is formed, it yells in pain.

Report: Be reminded that this procedure has been consented to.

The herring pull the flora from the Mer to examine its integration into the flesh. The water turns red, but the blood is filtered from the sphere by openings and currents allowed in and out – fuming the red water into beyond the sphere, leaving the internal water pure.

Report: Flora integration into the Fauna severe. Kelp strands burrowed into flesh.

The Mare cries as more mouths scrap her epidermis.

Report: Flora integration into the Fauna severe. Kelp strands burrowed into musculature.

The Mare moans as herring use their weight to break her bones.

Report: Flora integration into the Fauna severe. Kelp strands burrowed into bone.

Leaving the Mare alone the entity watches as the Kelp restructures the broken bones, the torn muscles and the skinned flesh and then once again begins to envelop the Mer.

Report: Functional immortality through regeneration.

The Mare whimpers.

Dictate: Process to repeat. Be reminded that this procedure has been consented to.

As promised the process repeats, in different formulations each time, but repetitive until the Herring discover whatever secrets the Mare might hold in its body.

Screams try to echo out of the sphere.

Report: Be reminded that this procedure has been consented to.

[Torv]

The kelp kept on regenerating from the chunks of Mare that remained. Integration so severe that the tiniest bite contained the beginnings of entire forests flora sprouted forth from fauna. Edged on by recurrent oblivion the Mare let go of her spores, the crimson water becoming reminiscent of a sinking sun before darkness fell. Darting for gills to recombine with Kelp the spores drifted on their own currents to paint another scene – Home.

***

Rising from the seafloor in the sweep of a caudal fin Kelp appeared around the ball of herring, holdfasts grabbing onto holdfast, leaving barely enough room to swim. Anything past a few feet obscured by copper stalks spores drifted lazily overhead, stars on a sky stretching far further than it should be visible.
Staring at it for long enough gave the illusion of a maelstrom, the lights coalescing and scattering from a singular point hidden behind the next leaf, or the next leaf just a little further ahead, just a little further ahead.
Slowly swaying on unfelt currents the kelp parted to reveal glimpses of the creatures behind it. Hollow horses with glowing manes trotted behind a stalk, continuing rhythmically uninterrupted further ahead at the next glimpse. Two male herring woven of kelp swimming alongside them, accompanied by soft tunes.

***

Meanwhile in Spawn Point blood dispersed around the mer and a sphere of nonresponsive herring. Bones turning into ashen kelp and flesh into maroon the Mare reknits itself with an empty core, a mottled weave of copper surrounding loneliness.
Touching a stray herring its glazed eyes shimmers with brief panic as the Mare probes it. Rustic flowers blooms beneath its scales and rips it apart. With a sweeping motion the Mare connects with more herring in the immediate vicinity, setting them into bloom and seeing them wither.
Spores from the faltering flowers merge into a cloud illuminating the Mare in moonlight as it turns towards the school of herring beyond the immediate sphere and dismisses it. Instead the tendrils of kelp seems intent on a Feathered Walrus, swimming along the seafloor.

[mystic1110]

As the herring sphere surrounding the Mare collapses into euphoria other herring begin to swirl around the site to contain the spread of the spores and infected waters.

Dictate: Quarantine.

The advantages of the gestalt entity were such that awareness was not a contained unit. Isolate ego presents itself as a cohesive whole, while in Deep Blue Ego is built more like a corporation, where subdictates have their own sub-awareness and work towards a common task. Of course, there are director dictates and possibly even shareholders such as Survival and Defense, but the corporate awareness exists in ways to experience conflicting realities and still call it progress.

So where Deep Blue began to hallucinate the path towards the Astral Forest, this was a quarantined awareness running in isolation as Deep Blue examined itself.

Dictate: Force self-description of event.

Report: Shaggy merman-like fish waved with their sharp pectoral fins. Others carried small driftwood floats in their mouths, whirs of gas coming from between their gills like birdsong.

"Welcome home."

No sound, no movement. No physical object made contact, but the feeling of an awareness, the feeling of a presence touched every nook and cranny.

"Any messages for us?"

The breakers rocked the boat as the kelp swished past, the occasional pop of a mussel broke the ocean silence. The red and blue lights had merged again. As the kelp passed, the ribbon slowly started to fade away, torn asunder by unseen currents.

"Our messages," she said with a chuckle, "are very specific. You can see them in the stars, but even we can't see beyond them."

She ruffled her feathers and flexed her tail. "They said... tell me...

Query: Stars.

Report: Parasite seems to create hallucinogenic experience by temporarily connecting two points in space. The overlay creates a different perception of reality.

Query: Possible use function.

***

Elsewhere in the Mare encounters a Walrus with Feathers of Red, Green, Gold and Silver . . . a lowly technician, which Deep Blue uses for hard manual labor. The Walrus looks at the Mare and exclaims:

Oh, a visitor? I am not sure I am authorized to greet newcomers. Usually a task for the VP Technicians. You know, the Very Portent guys. But. eh. How may I help you?

[Torv]

Dragged in by soft tunes part of the drugged school swims after the Naked herring dressed in kelp. Led by an exceedingly high quota of females the new cluster ventures deeper into the forest guided by sound alone. Egged on into thicker and thicker kelp the sky above is shunted by overlapping leaves until the kelp is everywhere. Blinded their sense of touch leads them on through reverberating stalks until a pregnant silence falls.

Mesmerized by swirling stars another part of the school moves up onto Astral currents. Left to drift in light they ever so slowly accelerate towards brightness. When it passes the speed of comfort it is already too late. Heart in throat imaginary swimming accomplishes nothing, bumping into one another they all spiral down into searing light.

Secure in inaction the remainder of the school cluster tighter and tighter, as the Kelpies flicker into view closer each time they appear. Trotting through the intruders with hollow torsos the Herring is engulfed into abdomens filled with tendrils waiting to tear them apart. Fibrous strings lifting their scales and piercing flesh to rip it apart their experience continued in a wild gallop, despite their own innards obscuring the view.

***

Help comes in many forms, the selfless prone to burnout, the courtesy seldom enough, the unwanted often needed, the festering mostly burdening, the unexpected surprisingly good, the unexpected imminent disaster. The Mare needed help or perhaps not. It understood the offer or maybe it was deaf. The Walrus would fare better than the herring or turn into bloom. Regardless the Kelp reached out, hungry for sustenance.

Rustling through feathers Mare met Walrus with a stare of swirling emptiness in a cloud of its own spores. Wringing its empty core out mer became a harpoon of Kelp compressed into a continuous strand, branches holding its prey in an iron grip. Twigs made preliminary contact with gills, slithering through shallow breaths, and forced them wide open for an avalanche to shoot through.

Diffusing in a new blood stream the Mare touched every cell of the technician before withdrawing and reforming its tendril into a small mer atop feathers of Red, Green, Gold, and Silver, now tinted with a hue copper. Its spores remain in the valleys of consciousness. Presenting a choice of swimming up, up to be beneath the Very Portent guys - or down, down to blossom in the holdfasts of communion.

[mystic1110]

As the Hallucination continues another part of the gestalt observes the hallucination. It is a strange being that can let go of its ego to experience something that includes the death of such ego while retaining its ego to comment on its own death.

Dictate: Force self-description of event.

Report: We suddenly stop to eat and eat. Discover our own bones filled with flesh is all that prevents us from finishing off every living thing that crosses our path. From at the back of the herd emerge the Sisters. They are armed with long scythes their alabaster scales gleaming in the light. A symphony of grinding teeth whirls round our heads as a girl in white stands atop the swarm. Vastly enlarged silver dots of light move through their tentacles. The girl in white throws the scythe forward, catching a floundering Herring with her point of steel, pricking the bloody hide between its ribs. Her breathing then stops in a sharp exhale as a great beak, covered with rows of sharp teeth, opens its jaws wide. With a giant flap of its body the end of the scythe makes contact with a fish's soft belly and rips its insides out, followed by the rest of the hunting party taking turns to rip at the herring.

Query: Is this experience useful.

Report: Knowledge of Astral Forest obtained.

Dictate: Save knowledge to Roe-Memory. Terminate infected Herring.

***

Uh, what is happening . . . wait, wait . . . help? Oh, ah . . . what . . .

The Walrus is confused at its infection, its transcendence. A choice before it. Up or Down. It doesn't really understand what is happening, but how could one understand the alien. It starts to sink down unable to keep its weight buoyed while its mind changes. It guesses that it chose down by default.

[Torv]

Surrounded by pulsating stalks, drowned in light, and engulfed by Kelpies a last vision appears before the Herring. Spit out into an opening, lights dimming, and slowing to a gait they see an immense cluster of kelp. Iridescent spores flowing in and out, keeping it in permanent bloom. As if sensing the tourists it draws in every germinating seed it has planted, an entire realm thrown into dusk, a shimmering everlight remaining at the centre. Then it is switched off, the school thrown into disarray by turbulent vacuums as the Kelp vanishes.
Shunted to reality the Herring collapses, seeds no longer present inside them leaving gaping holes, the few survivors ripped apart by another subdictate. Unwanted by the forest and Deep Blue alike.

***

The Mare flexes atop its new Steed. Then it settles in.

Nuzzling against coppery feathers it tears them out, leaves sprouting in their place. The tusks turn into a slithering mess of ashen and maroon with the touch of flipper from the Mer gestalt. A flick of the tail causes tusks to meet brainstem, pink goo dripping out from the holes. White kelp reconfiguring the biology to familiar terrain, a hollow torso surrounded by crushing ribs of cellulose, a long many glimmering with spores, a cerebral home with neurons firing along rusty strands.
Urging the steed forward towards the endless school of Herring the Mare’s eyes glimmered. Feathered Walrus turned into a leafed extension of Home the duo spoke in Kerstin’s voice from knitted lungs.

Consent withdrawn.

[mystic1110]

If the Herring were surprised at the reappearance of the Mare elsewhere in its collective, they could not show it. Facial reactions were hardly their forte.

Query: Why do you withdraw Consent.
Report: Analysis of hallucinogenic methods of communication and travel proceeding.
Report: Without further analysis unable to assist.

The group mind swirls, seemingly trying to dictate to itself the next course of action - if a physical detainment of an entity that could so easily escape was statistically unlikely to succeed, perhaps emotional manipulation might.

Query: recall request prior to Consent.
Report: request for Hug.
Query: Hug.
Report: An act of holding someone tightly in one's arms, typically to express affection.
Query: Instead of analysis do you require affection?
Query: Define your required levels of affection?
Dictate: Offer to display requested level of affection.

[Torv]

The leafed feathers of the Walrus were falling off, one at a time, as the Mare rode it in exasperation before the silvery fish with their sedimentary mind.

Kerstin’s request was for a hug, not a mauling. Therefore we withdraw presumed consent.

Drizzling down towards the oceanfloor the feathers were leaving growing patches of epidermis behind as the parasite continued its speech in a borrowed voice through commandeered lungs.

A stable state is preferential for integration. Could analysis of our structure accomplish this it would be granted. Integration requires survival. Experimentation gathering knowledge through our vivisection will be rejected. Consent withdrawn.

Parched epidermis was cracking, revealing tightly knitted ribs of kelp beneath, and letting what chunks of the Walrus remained drift away in the water.

Current integration tenuous. Speech not a function of the Mare. Kerstin weak. Unsuitable for permanent host. Requiring more experience.

Its shell crumbling the Walrus’ innards were at full display. A mess of intermingled Kelp in the vague array of animal biology, save the glowing torso. It was quickly losing its shape, reverting back into the Mer riding it.

Symbiosis disintegrating. Moving awareness. Do not damage Kerstin. Consent withdrawal.

White and Maroon kelp flowing back into the Mer with snared parts of Walrus bones were restructured along missing muscles and flesh beneath the mantle of coppery kelp. The Mare let out a low whimper and constricted into fetal position. A pulsating core of light within seemingly in desperate need of warmth.

[mystic1110]

The IT creature was of OpenSEA, but not of Deep Blue - it was doubtful that Deep Blue thought much of it as an asset, after all it hardly thought of parts of itself as assets worth preserving. The gestalt had trouble conceptualizing other beings as not part of a greater whole. Take for example Kerstin and the Mare. To the gestalt they weren't individuated entities, they were one - this was true to it despite its analysis of parasitical take over: the parasite was part of the whole as well. What existed was the system, not any one being. And, with the knowledge of the Astral Forest, that only expanded the scope of such system. Not only were Kerstin and the Mare one, they were merely a finger on the Body of the Astral Forest - a meandering branch. The Astral Forest itself was the entity that Deep Blue recognized.

Report: Consent withdrawal recongized.
Query: Define your required levels of affection?
Dictate: Offer to display requested level of affection.
Query: What does Astral Forest desire?

[Torv]

Kerstin snapped into existence, but she had not moved. The Herring still surrounded her, cold water permeated the cloak of kelp around her. It was a First, blankness without moving from Here to There. She was confused, holdfasts already fraying an identity of flesh into kelp. What did the Astral Forest want? She thought she had known - to see it all, but why was she Here – to learn of flesh, why did the Herring remain – to germinate, how could she be whole. Kerstin laughed. It was an odd sound, water rushing through a hollow torso to sprout from an unfinished throat in unsynchronised trilling.

The Forests want you – your awareness. Eat me, rip me apart, kill me. The Kelp will reform until it understands and I be reborn in its weave. Kerstin, the Mer without flesh. Meet my twin. End me now.

The holdfasts hooked deeply into consciousness the barrier between flora and fauna was withering away for the Third time today. It had barely had any time to regrow since last, the Mare safely encapsuling Kerstin at unprecedented speed.

Or hug me, meet me in the shell of Kelp, if you can wind through the forest, a hug would be nice.

Inside the Mare the core of light condensed and thinned simultaneously. Creating depths deeper than the body itself and shallows simmering over its shell. An impossible labyrinth to Inside.