I heard a loud voice boom from outside the white room that told me to "AWAKEN!!!". I felt a tug on my mind accompany the voice's command. It wasn't very strong, but it felt similar to the last alien force that had invaded my mind. So I retaliated and pulled against it.

LOSS/ Bond(III): Reliquary Golem Body(V)

NEW/ Bond(V): Reliquary Golem Body(V)

NEW/ Bond(V): Reliquary Golem Controller(IV)

LOSS/ Bond(V): Reliquary Golem Body(V)

LOSS/ Bond(V): Reliquary Golem Controller(V)

NEW/ Bond(V): Reliquary Golem(V)

A chunk of knotted pipes and cabling that connected to my tether was yanked off of the central knot. My tether appeared to split into two, with one end traveling up to the walls of the room, and the other connected me to the central knot. My 360-degree vision expanded past the walls of the room in an instant, and showed me an area roughly a foot out from an odd robot-like body as well as within my small white room. And, for the first time since waking up in the void, I could feel a real body.

I was sitting slouched over in the fetal position at first. I tried to move and found everything stiff and slow to respond. My head especially seemed excessively heavy, like it was weighed down with lead. As I arduously lifted what felt like my own head times two, I heard a faint click from the central knot. Suddenly I could see. Not just the odd 360-degree vision of my immediate surroundings, but actual direct and long-ranged sight. And stood directly in front of myself, I saw a humongous insect that could only have crawled out of H.P. Lovecraft's deepest pit of nightmares. I froze for what felt like an eternity. Then voices started to scream out at me.

"RUN!"

"KILL!"

"stand at attention"

Without realizing what I was doing, I lept back in fear and instinctually tried to follow the instructions of all three voices in my head at once. Which was about as successful as one would expect. I flailed about trying to get my balance, grabbing onto anything that could be a weapon, while simultaneously attempting to crawl away for my life from the monster.

Vibrations built again in my central chamber, and the same booming voice called out a command. "stop." Despite the volume, the command seemed sad somehow. But it just melded into the cacophony of other voices instructing me on the correct course of action.

ATTENTION/ Bond(I-temp) contest Bond(V): Reliquary Golem(V)/ FAILURE

I felt myself run up against the back wall of the bench. I chose to ignore most of the voices and various text boxes that were popping up until I could parse through this chaos. I didn't have enough balance to run, so I chose a different course of action. I twisted my body around and kicked myself away from the wall, and off of the table.

"GOOD! RUN! ESCAPE!"

"Hide, then kill when hidden, then hide."

"falling, distance unknown, protect self."

"SHUT UP!" I yelled out and felt the tether I had to the central knot thrum with power. Focusing on the white room, I realized where the voices were coming from, and thankfully they weren't in my head. I had moved closer to the silvery knot at the center of the room while I struggled. Its tethers to the two motes of light had grown looser in the process. These motes were right up next to me, vibrant red and muddy brown trying to yell at and command me. Once I yelled back, I felt their connections to the central knot react to my command, and the nets that held both motes of light tightened down. Surprisingly the mess of cables I had pulled from the central knot also responded. It wove itself around the knot and acted as another net that restrained the central knot similarly to its own tethers around the motes of light.

My brief period of introspection ended as I felt my body slam into the hard ground, forcing me to focus on my outside perspective. That impact was followed by the severe buffeting of heavy tools falling on top of me.

"STOP!"

ATTENTION/ Bond(I-temp) contest Bond(V): Reliquary Golem(V)/ FAILURE

The same outside voice angrily commanded me to stop again. Now that my head was clear of voices, I realized it may be best not to overly antagonize the giant alien. I stopped moving, not that I really could under the piles of tools, and observed the creature. It was a hulking insect. Its body was like that of a flat centipede's, with an exoskeleton of orange plates lining its back. It stood on two stocky chitin covered legs, but it seemed to be supporting itself on the broad flat tail whose end laid flush with the ground. It had two long, lithe double-jointed arms, each of which ended in three octopus-like tentacles. It didn't seem to have a mouth or face. Instead, it had two massive pitch black spherical eyes. They were set along the side of its head, where the chitinous plates of its back met the softer underside of its body.

It loomed forward briefly, intimidating me into staying still. Once it knew I'd stay put, it reared back and lifted one of its feet. The foot seemed injured somehow, and I saw a drop or two a deep violet liquid I could only assume was alien blood. It took a moment to gather itself after inspecting its injured foot. It relaxed slightly, seemingly satisfied. It gingerly set its foot back down and loomed over me again. It reached down toward me to seal my fate. But for some reason, it chose not to end me. Instead, one by one, it began to lift tools away from me, placing them back on the table above.

I looked around the torture room for anything that could get me out of this situation, taking care to remain as still as possible, hoping the monster would forget about me. My gaze landed on a gargantuan war hammer, which was resting precariously head side up against the wall. As the alien fiddled with the tools on its bench, I began to slowly move my hand over to the handle's end.

Seeming to be lost in thought, it continued its work of replacing the tools where they were supposed to go. It leaned back toward the pile I had made, oblivious to my repositioning. As its head leaned closer, I waited until I saw my own reflection in its black eyes. Then I grabbed ahold of the end of the hammer's handle and pulled with everything I had. To my dismay, I realized something else about my new body. I was horribly weak, my efforts only succeeded in barely shifting the hammer. It was enough, though. The hammer became unbalanced, and ever so slowly began to fall forward. Whether it was by some stroke of luck or the creature's own distraction, I don't know, but it failed to realize what was happening. The hammer's head connected solidly onto the creature's skull with an audible crunch before it even realized the danger.

The alien fell to my left bonelessly, the hammer slammed into the ground right behind it. I waited for a few breathless seconds, watching the creature shift and twitch before it came to a final stop and lay unmoving. I let my head clank back into the ground, and the slight panic over my situation unwound a degree. There would be no torture for me today if I had anything to say about it.

Now I had a moment of reprieve. I focused on the multitude of "text boxes" that floated to the side of my vision. I moved to touch the first one that popped up but found my dominant hand pinned by a hammer. It seemed, however, that the box noticed what I was trying to do as it still disappeared once I thought to poke it away. Even if there was no actual poking involved. Weird, the rest of the boxes remained in my vision, though. Instead of actually moving to poke the next text box, I thought to them to display a bit clearer. I watched them shift and rearrange in order.

As they rearranged, they formed into one box with different lines of text. Odd. I wonder what they all mean. It looked like I may have developed a "Bond" With this body, a "Reliquary Golem." Chances are the silver knot of pipes was the first Controller. I think I may have booted it out of its position, excellent. Something actually went my way in this surreal jaunt through insanity. I wonder what happens if I try to see what all the text mea- The text box disappeared, and a new, far larger display appears in its place.

Name

Thomas Aldrich, Tom

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Existence

Race: Unattuned Essence(VI)

Conditions

Racial Condition: Ethereal(X) 

Racial Condition: Unbound Sight(IV) 

Attunements

Null

Expressions

English(Spoken, Written)

Empathic(Will(V)), 

Morse Code(Partial)

Acuity

2/24 (18+Racial)

Abilities

Golemic Control(I)

General Will(V(II+Racial))

Titles

Stanger(I): A stranger in a strange land, even the world finds your presence difficult to define and explain.

Bonds

Bond(V): Reliquary Golem(V)

Welp, there's my failing sanity acting up. A massive text box that seemed to generally describe myself floated in the center of my vision. There was a lot to unpack that wasn't very clear, and I was pretty sure it was a hallucination. I willed the "status box" away, and it disappeared just like the rest of the text boxes. I wanted to test this oddity, though. With an effort of will, it reappeared precisely as it had appeared before. With another effort of will, the same text box with the most recent notifications appeared next to it. I looked at the notification box and willed it to stretch upward, holding in my mind a clear picture of what I wanted. It extended upward and filled in with every notification I've seen so far in chronological order. Well, if I'm insane, at least I'm consistent.

So, in summary, aliens abducted me. Or to be precise, I had been abducted by aliens, gone insane, and possibly killed my abductor. The briefest of motions dislodged a tool from the wall as the unconscious form of my abductor shifted. Nope, didn't kill the abductor. Time for me to leave. 

I dismissed the floating signposts to my own failing sanity. I wiggled my stiff right arm out from under the hammer. Once that was free, I managed to shove the pliers off of me and free myself. I rolled onto my front and began the slow process of standing up. Golemic Control(I) my ass; As I moved to stand, it was like trying to walk with stilts through molasses. What was worse, though, was that if my 360 sight, or Unbound Sight(IV) according to the magic text boxes, was correct, my head was huge for my scrawny little body. 

But I took my time and kept a hand against the wall of this room as I made my way to the dark metal doorway. Still, I didn't want to push my luck, and once I made it to the door, I reached up above my head, and just managed to reach the doorknob. Sadly, my hands were not what I was used to, three digits, two thick fingers, and one "thumb." They were also made of what felt like a rock, just like the rest of my new body. This all added up to having to take seven minutes of constant failures to open the door as my stone fingers couldn't get a grip on the knob.

Stop, this isn't working, Tom. Yes, you may have gone insane, you may even have started talking to yourself, but you were in college for mechanical engineering. You're smart enough to think this through. I turned and looked around the torture room. Thankfully the alien remained unconscious at the other end. There was a plethora of tools and materials I could easily turn to constructive purposes instead of their original nefarious designs. I moved around the edges of the room carefully, slowly getting the hang of moving around, and gave the unconscious alien a wide berth. 

Most of the excessively large tools wouldn't work for me, I could barely lift the vast majority. They were obviously made to the scale of my abductor. But, some of the raw materials could prove useful. Pulling out a box made of dry gray wood from beneath the bench, I scrounged through what was probably a scrap pile. But it was precisely what I needed. I found strips of cloth or leather of some kind, metal nails, splinters of wood, and various odds and ends. Only the leather strips would be immediately handy in my current situation, the rest were too small and numerous to easily carry. Wait, there was something useful. 

I crept slowly over to the pile of tools on the ground near the monster, I removed a simple leather pouch from the mess. It would have been small to my abductor, but for my needs, it was perfect. Retreating from the alien back to the bin, I filled the bag with the nails and splinters for later use. I then took the strips of leather and cloth and rolled them together to make it easier to carry and handle before I also added them to the now filled bag. Gingerly making my way back to the door, I took a piece of leather and threaded it between my two fat fingers and thumb of my right hand. It took some doing, but eventually, I had a makeshift glove, and I could finally get a decent grip on the doorknob.

I turned the knob and slowly cracked open the door. An ominous red-lit hallway was on the other side, made of the same rock as this room. It would have been horribly cliche in a horror movie, but this was real, and it was terrifying. I looked over my shoulder and weighed my options. I could stay in this room indefinitely and try and kill the alien. I didn't like my chances, even if it was unconscious for now. Or I could actually do something and move out into the hallway from hell.

My life really sucked as of late. I inched out of the torture chamber into the hallway, sliding the metal door shut behind me. Looking around the room, I had three options. Option one, an evil door of heavy-duty metal down the hall to my left that was made to either protect a vault or imprison the hulk. Option two, a shoddy wooden door close to option one on the wall opposite me. Or, option three, a solid wooded door with a deadbolt lock, down the hall to my right. 

I moved to the other side of the hallway and pressed myself up against the wall. I shuffled down the hall toward the least secured door of the three options. Reaching up and turning the doorknob, I cracked the shoddy wooden door open and peeked inside. It was a small room, lit with the same dim red light, and nothing was moving inside. I let the door swing wider and slipped inside as quietly as my stone feet would allow.

The room was small if the proportions of the hallway and the torture room were anything to go by. It was long and thin, along the opposite wall, a large alcove was carved slightly above the ground level. I walked over to investigate, and found it to be a sort of tub filled with sand or some kind of stone dust. I guess aliens have weird beds? Or maybe this is a- I threw the sand away in disgust. I leaned down to rub my hand on the ground, just in case.

I turned to leave, but another alcove caught my attention. Set high above the ground, closer to the ceiling as was a smaller alcove, and placed into the makeshift shelf were seven leather-bound books. It was at least a foot and a half beyond my reach. I took a brief look around, and nothing jumped to me out as a way for me to reach the books. I could barely walk in a straight line, so climbing the stone wall was not even an option. I set my pouch down and dug through it for some straps and junk I could use. Being short is a huge hassle.

Roughly five minutes later, I had knotted the cloth straps together to get a simple string and weighted one end with a bundle of wood splinters. I grabbed the free end of the line with my hand and hefted the weighted end in my right. I stood beneath the alcove shelf and tossed the weight up, hopefully, to catch a book. It took me another five minutes to finally get the weight to catch on the corner of one of the books, and it fell onto the ground in front of me. I rerolled my weighted line, and stored it into my pouch, before walking over to my find.

The book was rather thin and proportionate to my abductor, like most everything in this place. On top of that, the title on the cover was utter gibberish to me. I'm not sure what I was expecting. Still, I had been hopeful English was a universal language like in the movies, but no such luck. Either way, I would rather have the book than not. But with how long it took me to get, I didn't think it wise to push my luck any further. I picked the book and pouch up and made my way to the hallway.

In the hallway, I turned to the left, I was not going to poke my nose into the evil door's business; hopefully, it wasn't the way out. But all other options first. I stopped at the base of the larger wooden door. It was definitely built heavier duty than the bedroom/bathroom door. I had to set my pouch and book down, so I could jump up and grab onto the deadbolt latch. It clanked open and unlocked.

I opened the door and checked for anything dangerous. Nothing jumped out at me as immediately dangerous, and much to my relief, it opened with a pleasant breeze. It gave access to an outcropping that overlooked a pitch-black sky that hung over the oddest forest I'd ever seen. The stone outcropping was raised startlingly high on the side of a cliff. A series of switchbacks connected the outcropping to the forest ground, which seemed to be composed of some kind of gravel-filled dirt. A small trail wound from the base of the switchbacks into the forest. The forest itself, if it could be called such, consisted of mushrooms, vines, and fern-like things of gargantuan proportion instead of actual trees. What's more, each and every bit of plant life glowed and shone through the darkness that permeated the forest.

The reason for this strange ecosystem was readily apparent. In the distance, a city could be seen. It could be seen beyond the forest because it was built into the sides of a glowing green pillar larger than some mountains. But there was one significant difference between that pillar and a mountain. The pillar ended where it joined the roof of a cavern. By the pillar's glow, I could see the roof of the colossal cavern that stretched over both myself and the entire forest.

It was beautiful. It was also terrifying. Every step I took since waking up has led me further out of my depth. Before I ran off into the further unknown, I needed to figure out what my next steps were. Obviously, my foremost goal was to get back home, but I didn't have the first clues as to how to do that. The only lead I had was an actively hostile monster that I had knocked out and shut away in a closet behind me. I didn't like my chances with that thing. But, that wasn't entirely right, was it? Looking inward, I observed the three senior passengers in this body. They could possibly help fill in some blanks, and from the sound of things, they weren't any happier with that thing in the closet than I was. 

A plan began to take shape. I closed the door behind me and hefted my pouch and book. With the door shut behind, I trotted down the switchbacks with haste. My first step was to find an isolated place that was somewhat safe. Somewhere that monster that lived in this cave wall couldn't find me, but where I could find my way back when I needed to. Next, I had a library's worth of questions to work through. After that, well, I guess I'd play it by ear from there.