Once through the phase gate, Riyxia stumbled into the barrier acting as her cage. The room around her somehow faintly reminded her of her father's laboratory, just several times larger and many times more cluttered.
Riyxia took account of her immediate area, a small metal platform trapping her inside a large barrier. It was also the same barrier as Liyuzhe, sturdy against physical and gift force. The clutter of instruments made seeing much of anything beyond her area impossible, most of such instruments were attached to the ground or stacked in shelves, like a giant warehouse or workshop. The most impressive part was how everything appeared to be working, even while no one else was present. With that considered, while having drained herself bashing around some barriers already, it was quite clear she would not be escaping this cage with direct force. With that in mind, she let her rage fade, finding a spot to relax.
Once her mind was clear, she immediately had an idea she wanted to try. Neither physical nor gifted, she stepped from herself spectrally and walked towards the barrier, quickly finding herself on the other side. Only there as a specter, there wasn't much she could do, but looking around was more than she could manage otherwise. As she embarked, a gate suddenly opened beside her spectre, causing her to stumble as Ieqyisa stepped forth from it. Ieqyisa took the opportunity to embark from her armor, the entire unit folding into itself to be stored on a shelf. Ieqyisa left on the more regular armor underneath it, plates that would take more than a couple moments to remove.
"Sorry about keeping you waiting like that, was a few things to look into before I could follow along. So, my name is Ieqyisa, I'll be your Doctor today.. well, more like Researcher I guess. I hear they call you Riyxia.. Khyzaxliehriyxia.. quite clever, really. So often, you seem exactly like our dear lost friend, and other times you seem like someone who is just really similar. Today, we'll be exploring the facts hidden behind you.. feel free to help out with the process, it makes things much easier, really. To start, let's take some in depth scans, see what we can see." Ieqyisa started manipulating some of the nearby instruments, while Riyxia started to explore. Beyond her confinement was much of the same, an endless corridor of instruments she really didn't understand. While it didn't give her much opportunity to discover information she could use, Ieqyisa was having similar luck with her own research.
"Okay, nothing here is making sense. Any signs of that power from before, gone. Scanning for vital signs says you're okay, but also that there is also no one inside the barrier. A normal weight, but with all zeros in nutrition. Exact same blood type as Khyzae, a rested pulse, full zero for so much else. Oh, that's promising, a perfect match of Khyzae's living signature. Wait, can I even trust that, when nothing else makes sense? Maybe you need a short nap, in case you have a gift for this sort of thing. Healing, lots of body modification options could be similar to that. Not detecting any gift usage, but.. can't chance anything at this point. Sorry, it's getting late anyway. Might as well have you sleep, get some overnight scans, check things in the morning. I was told we can't keep you for longer than dawn, so it can't be helped. Don't worry, I'll make sure you are taken care of, I don't sleep properly myself." Ieqyisa adjusted another instrument, then started redoing her previous tests. Riyxia stopped by to watch, her body instantly falling asleep in the process. Seeing the display for the same tests as before leaving the same confusion, Riyxia's spectre smiled as she resumed her searching. Ieqyisa would be in for a long night if she just kept thinking Riyxia was organic and that her Astral Flame essence was still trapped within the barrier along with the rest of her.
For the first time ever, Riyxia wasn't compelled to wander ethically, the terms of her containment convincing her to feel free in looking anywhere she could reach. Even with the expanse of her options being little more than a warehouse, she quickly found a messy space that was clearly used to attempt rest for an occupied mind, even the bed present was filled with clutter. Such made it clear that Ieqyisa wasn't about to be talking much of a break tonight, much like most nights before. As she was already intruding on privacy, her own privacy out of her hands too, Riyxia took the opportunity to investigate some of the documents scattering the bed. Lunar exploration, gateway instrument, all in her writing.. or more specifically, written by Khyzae. Without the ability to pick up such documents, she was stuck looking them over as they were. Piecing notes together, it was clear Khyzae had actually attempted her trip to the moon.. and the gate never opened. There were notes about the location being wrong, needing somewhere with less interference. This would have been the notes then about an aborted attempt before the village, clearly not where it had been actually attempted. Recalling the rift damage within the abandoned observatory, she had a pretty good idea where these notes might have been taken from.
While checking out such notes, Riyxia was suddenly interrupted by Ieqyisa’s arrival. Ieqyisa was pressing over the notes so far available from diagnosing Riyxia’s body on her cell, numbers that still weren’t changing. Given an opportunity to relax, Ieqyisa finally took off the additional armor over her regular clothes, exchanging the metal protective scaled mesh for a much lighter lab coat, leaving the armor hanging inside the same wardrobe as the robe had previously rested within, sitting within a huge cabinet of the wardrobe clearly intended to contain it. In her troubled state, she didn’t even bother closing the wardrobe, letting Riyxia witness some of her other outerwear options, including the fluffy, long, thick, and warm coat Riyxia suspected she had first seen Ieqyisa wearing far underground. It was clear that Ieqyisa was very prepared for many occasions and situations, her gift probably demanding a lot of travel from her. Even so, her gift was also fairly alarming, not nearly as obscure and simple as her brother’s. More than just jumping short distances from shadow to shadow, she was capable of travelling vast reaches in the span of an instant, even bringing others with her in the process. Not just that, Riyxia took a moment to recall the rift destruction she had found in that abandoned observatory left by her predecessor, a sign of how destructive Ieqyisa’s gift could be if required.
That thought brought her to an even more alarming realization. Riyxia and her friends had unleashed their potential against their foes, standing against strength with all of their own strength, and had lost. Meanwhile, Ieqyisa hadn’t even applied the full potential of her own gift, the destructive rifts having played no part in the whole battle. It was as if their foes had merely toyed with them, let them wear themselves out, then cast the net around her. More alarming was how much stamina Ieqyisa should have lost with the use of her gift, and yet she didn’t seem very worn down at all. Instead, Ieqyisa went over to a large bookshelf and started pouring over the books stored within. Riyxia saw a passage beside the bookshelf, leading to a corridor of even more bookshelves, something she knew Sryine would have loved to have seen, it was even greater than the collection Riyxia’s mother had sported, though far less organized. There were even a vast collection of books that had simply failed to make it to the shelves, being scattered around the hall in a massive clutter. However, even without the organization, Ieqyisa would always put down her book after finding what she was looking for, wander to a seemingly random location in the mess of books, pick up a book, and begin searching through it like it was the exact book she had set out to find. In a clutter this vast and messy, Ieqyisa still seemed to know exactly where any specific book was.
Finding three unknown books she seemed to have wanted, Ieqyisa took them all over to a nearby flat-panel crystal display, like an oversized cell. Riyxia didn’t know that the display she was looking at was remarkably similar to what would be a laptop, a design borrowed from notes of another world that very few were at all familiar with. It did look similar to one of the instruments Ieqyisa had been using in the room her body now rested within, which itself was similar to a desktop computer of the same origins. Ieqyisa had both the best in instrumentation and the best in information, making apt use of both in turn for her investigation. However, nothing documented held a hint as to the answers she sought, as there were no records anywhere of anything like her ever before. Celesi history held nothing, Celesi research held nothing, not even records of the Terran Mythos held anything. Riyxia was the first ever living Ersatz, and between her and her friends, they were the first ever to have such experience with the Astral Flame. Knowing that, there was no chance Ieqyisa could have ever…
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Heading back to the collection of books, Riyxia was scouring over the shelves in thought as she pondered Ieqyisa’s resources, her thoughts being caught as she settled on a shocking book. ‘Astral Flame, the Void of Worlds’, a simple title that held such meaning for her. Of course people would know about its existence, even Eqriuxzl knew the name. Knowing this, Riyxia felt a desperate need to learn what else the book before her could also teach her. The most aggravating part then was her inability to interact with anything around her as a spectre, the book thus remaining closed on its shelf. Even in this moment, Ieqysia appeared to have wandered away while Riyxia was distracted, Ieqyisa herself being absorbed in her own research. There was nothing that might possibly help her in her goal, her desire to learn from the book before her, nothing beyond her spectral self. She pressed to grasp for the book in futility, frustrated in her own inability in this form. It wasn’t fair, being so useless like this, when such a treasure taunted her, tormented her, consumed her. It promised answers, if only she did the impossible by opening its cover. Absorbed in her desperation and anguish, she pressed her spectral self further and further into the book, desperate for a solution that brought new answers, until the book itself absorbed her completely.
Her spectre had itself folded into the book, leaving her with much less of a presence. She could still see, but her movement felt restricted, constrained. She pulled free from her binds, falling from the shelf in a heap on her side. She pulled herself up with effort, feeling a lot more weighted down than her spectre usually was, and her perspective much smaller and shorter, like she had shrunk dramatically. She moved what felt like her arms with the sound of a flutter of pages. Wait, it was a flutter of pages, she was the same book she had tried to manipulate earlier, itself having been possessed by her own spectre. She picked herself up, as the same book still, and set herself back on the shelf in its original spot. Does that mean she could possess things, not just her own body, but other stuff as well? She left the book and turned to yet another book resting on the floor, falling into it as well. She turned the book open, like the binding was simply one of her limbs, and then flipped page after page like each was yet another limb. Without having even read any of such books yet, it had given her a considerable answer for herself, and very possibly her ticket out of here.
Hearing the sounds of footsteps rushing towards Riyxia, she closed the book she was possessing, leaving Ieqyisa to witness an untouched room on her arrival. Ieqyisa had heard some suspicious sounds from around here, and had rushed over in alarm. However, there was nothing here, nothing she could see at least. Riyxia left the book, a spectral smile crossing her face. Sure, she still had a really intimidating guard to worry about, one she could seriously not underestimate, but she had discovered a very unexpected advantage for herself. Riyxia waited for Ieqyisa to depart before contemplating her options. If she could possess things, the options scattered in the laboratory offered countless solutions. One solution stood far above any of the others, the power armor Ieqyisa had abandoned, left connected to the wall of the wardrobe from earlier. She drifted over to it and possessed it, trying to make use of it. However, to all of her effort, it remained nothing but a collapsed clutter of metal, unable to complete most of its operations. Of course, it was designed to do things because of the gift, and that was still one thing she had no access to in this state, only her body could make use of the gift.
It was an automatic limitation of her new discovery, that she could do little with an instrument like this, but even simpler objects could have plenty of options. She turned once again to the fluffy coat hung within the same wardrobe, the full body form holding a very human-like visage. She dove into it, then climbed off of the hanger holding it, floating in the air like it was covering an invisible Riyxia. Notably, it was actually taller than her, Ieqyisa was about as tall as Sryine, after all, but it wasn’t like the coat was covering her, instead she was the coat. She had the hood flop over, hiding a head that wasn’t there either, looking effectively like a fluffy white reaper. She then turned to the bed, her sleeve picking up one of the pages and turning it over. She could even carry things like this, that was awesome too. She knew one thing she wanted right away, turning back to the collection of books. Finding the book she wanted, she pulled it from the shelf and put it into one of the large pockets the coat sported, the coat being designed for such utility. She then floated from the room, her soft sleeves brushing silently against a wall in her passage. Of course, picking such a soft coat had such advantages as well, it was very quiet.
Leaving the area, Riyxia saw a light in a room off in the distance, shadows moving within. Ieqyisa was there, absorbed by her own research in her own way, not expecting things might be moving around her. Riyxia also spotted the main doors in the opposite direction, her way out. All she needed to do was to recover.. herself.. and she could go. She floated over to the cage that bound her, and the instrument that kept things going. Of course, she had no way to directly influence anything to do with the gift in this state, but she remembered watching Vwyx work. Each of these instruments had physical parts inside that made it work properly, stuff that would make the whole thing fail if it was disconnected. She set the coat aside for the moment, and dove into the parts of the instrument, searching for that black augmentation crystal that seemed to be the center of everything instrumental. Finding it, she possessed its cage, then forced it to disconnect its contents from its connections, the whole thing instantly powering down, not getting enough of the gift to achieve its purpose any longer. Riyxia’s body however was still fully asleep, unable to escape the way things were, even with the cage shut down. Her spectre returned to the coat once again, floating over to her body to pick her up with it’s sleeves, carrying her with its own possessed arms. It was strange at that moment, realizing that she was effectively carrying herself in her arms, but there was no time to think about it. Dashing through the air, she rapidly made her way to the main doors, pushing them open as she dashed through.
Ieqyisa however caught on gradually that something was very wrong, then realizing that the containment field had shut down, and her diagnosis instruments were no longer collecting any data. She dashed from her lab, confirming the disappearance of her guest as a white shadow faded through the main doors. Riyxia was escaping?! How?! There was no way she could have even been awake at this point, so this had to have been a rescue attempt. That made even less sense, there was no sign of an intruder.. except for that slight sound she had heard earlier. Someone else was here then, completely undetected by their entire security system. Fortunately, with her gift, she could cut them off quickly. She rushed over to the laptop in her room, checking the security cameras. There, she found Riyxia’s body carried by an unknown individual wearing her own coat, obscuring their identity. She then turned to her wardrobe, pulling the power armor from it once again and got ready to depart. Whoever this person was, she would simply catch them as well. She returned back to the laptop, searching for an updated location for the escapee, only to find nothing. They were hiding then, how smart of them. Either way, she would just watch for them to appear, and jump to them in that moment.
Riyxia set her body down within the random storage closet she had found along the way. She hadn’t expected everything to be so big, and she knew that Ieqyisa had a huge advantage over her in these circumstances, her body wasn’t even awake yet. She at least had access to all of her own stuff, her possessions not having been removed during her containment, and she had access to everything in the room around her. She just had no idea what had originally put her to sleep in the first place, let alone knew of a good way to simply wake herself up. She took the opportunity to account for things outside, finding the halls gradually growing brighter. It was all too obvious that she was being searched for, the red hum of the walls growing brighter like a scene of flames or blood as white light also blazed through the halls. The storage room however remained dark, a small sanctuary from her searchers. Riyxia took a moment to wonder if anyone else had ever hidden in this room before, getting the feeling it might have actually been actually possible.. as she returned to her sleeping body and the problem that presented.
Even with all of the resources available, there was nothing present to provide her with a rushed solution for her slumber. Riyxia’s searching was proving about as fruitless as Ieqyisa’s, leaving them both at a stalemate.