THE LAB
In a dark corner of a distant land, a warehouse was dimly illuminated by the glow of a strange liquid flowing through and between intricate machinery. Within this space the shadow of a man moved, ever-changing as he walked.
The man, Hugo, had spent a lot of time here, in his lab. He carried out his actions mechanically, in a way that spoke of many years of experience and a fierce determination. He came to a stop in front of three cylindrical tanks, faint turquoise light reflecting bubbles across his lab coat. Within these tanks two men of different sizes were visible. One shorter with a darker complexion and wavy black hair and a taller one with a lighter skin tone and amber locks.
“Been a while, hasn’t it?” Remarked someone from across the room, motioning towards the tanks with a dagger. The tip of his beard covered smirk poked through a dark cowl, his attire close to that of a leather-bound rogue.
“They will be released soon,” Hugo replied in a monotone voice. “It is only a matter of healing the small one’s injuries.”
A shuffling of tools drew attention to a third man at the back of the room, a mechanically minded person named Gareth sat at a desk. He stopped and leaned back, turning towards the others he said with his usual smug undertone.
“Yes, it is quite notable that you have a fascination with these two. I do wonder if they would compare however to the specially organized individuals you had previously selected. Indeed, you have also mentioned the fragmentation of their memories. Which, to be frankly honest, does not seem to fare well for them even working with us.”
“He has a point,” commented the rogue, an ex-soldier that went by the name of Ghost. “Just give me a clean line of sight and I can finish it. None of this pussyfiddling around.”
The man sighed, conflicted as to whether or not he should correct the soldier's misunderstanding of the phrase ‘pussyfooting’. “We are planning a war, Ghost. You would not even make it into their citadel.”
“What, and these two are gonna help with that?” The veteran scoffed.
“Every resource is useful,”
Skepticism flickered across the rogue's face
“How’s the first test subject doing?”
A shimmer of light flicked across Hugo’s face highlighting his skull underneath, he flicked a button and an imaged floated in front of them,. “see for yourself.”
The screen showed woman in blood soaked armour wielding two axes. She was staring down an ogre that stood besides it’s fallen comrade. The Ogre roared towards her, but she did not flinch instead grinning. The blood soaked demon held her axes firmer and charged forward, the ogre appeared to show genuine fear across it’s face as the screen cut out.
The artificer looked up from his desk.
“Hugo, I am not comfortable with this experimentation regardless of potential strength gains if it is to leave us in a case of mental instability. I pride myself on being of a substantially firm and sound mind.”
The rogue scoffed before the dark scientist turned to face them. “I assure you, the behaviour she exhibits if of her own volition un petered by any effects the system would have on her.”
Furrowing his brow, the rogue moved on towards one of the tanks and stared at the man’s almost naked floating body, only seemingly cotton undergarments covering their genitals. He tapped on the side of the cylinder having noticed a strange anomaly before stating, “Got a floater.”
The object under his gaze appeared to be a silver crystal moving in and out of itself, steadily growing. It floated and moved within the battery tank, with some form of newly developed sentience giving it coordination.
“Agh, not another!” The scientist exclaimed. He slammed his hand into a button on the side of the tanks. The bodies grew limp as their supporting liquid was drained, their faces unceremoniously smashing into the glassy walls of the cylinders. The rogue flinched in discomfort.
The crystalline manifestation had been sucked out with the liquid, and it moved through curving mechanical tubes into a large central tank.
“Kurt, you have food,” the rogue announced to someone or thing across the room. A small black smooth skinned creature lowered a glowing tablet he held in front of his face. The hint of a Cheshire cat smile broadened before he quickly disappeared in a puff of smoke.
The creature reappeared within the tank and grabbed at the shapeshifting crystal worm. The manifestation almost seemed to resist, wriggling as the gremlin-creature chomped and tore at it. Then, in another puff of smoke, he reappeared by the doctor’s side. He dangled his tablet as water seeped from it.
“The thing’s stopped working,” he chimed.
“It is not waterproof, you fool. Maybe this is a chance for you to do some real work instead of spending your days watching Netflix...”
The rogue looked on blankly at the situation. Both creatures appeared to be beings of magic, formed from the strange energy within this new land. He understood the process: it was like evolution sped up, some sort of trial an error of interaction with it’s environment. It was the basis for most of the scientist’s research, a strange process where the high concentration of mana creates intricate properties through mutations at unfathomable speeds.
That was how the ‘floaters’ emerged, through uncontrolled variables and the eventual creation of life through what he called “anthropic mana turbulence”. The most frightening aspect was that whatever strange changes the scientist was enacting upon those in the battery tanks created this crystalline form of living mana as a by-product.
The strange dark creature moved on to a corner of the room in a huff, his skin sparkling as if space could be seen through it.
“I ain’t ever gonna get used to this place,” the rogue remarked.
The sound of books falling echoed from across the room. A bespectacled woman in suspenders and a bowtie appeared from across the wall, flashing a warm smile as she quickly moved to pick up her books. “Sorry! Just a moment.”
The scientist motioned to the others, each human in the room seeming to stand at attention whilst the scientist looked on and the creature stuck in the corner back to his tablet. “Ah, finally, this is your third member.”
“Are you going to kill some elves with books, or just sit there Whilst I do all the work?” The rogue asked in ridicule.
The scientist rubbed his forehead in frustration. “Fiona is a historian, political scientist and anthropologist. She is the best option to lead your expedition. These areas represent close to what you remember as the dark ages. Gareth will be your technical expert - he will help you understand the world - and you, Ghost, are the-“
“Muscle. Yeah, I know.”
“The help.”
“Sure, whatever. Five years SAS and six months’ covert operations…” He mumbled under his breath.
The scientist pointed to an area of the lab in which shining runes coated the floor with intricate designs. A rotating metal disk started pulsating silver, and suddenly a shining portal emerged, revealing a landscape of thick snow.
“Leave with your phylactery close else you will pass out,” the scientist commanded, dismissively refusing to look at them as they left. “The system will automatically activate. I expect you to be level five within a month.”
The battery tanks the scientist stood next to started making a grinding sound and a light resonated form a strange crystal attached to each tank.
“Ah, finally.”
The liquid emptied once again and the tank opened, a greenish steam rose form the seem as the people lay lost buoyancy, collapsing to the floor. The people inside the containers began to open their eyes, looking around as Ghost, the last of the group exited through the portal.
Hugo did not want to spend much time explaining what had happened but felt it was unavoidable.
“Welcome,” he said reaching out his hand to the taller of the two.
Instead of grasping his hand the man looked over Hugo’s shoulder to where the small humanoid creature was. The gremlin like thing was staring them down, a great Cheshire grind emphasising his many jagged teeth.
Suddenly the man slapped Hugo’s hand away and shouted “Run!” to the other one, they quickly ran towards the portal location as it changed to that of a grassy cavern.
“no, wait,” Hugo called but it was too late.
As they passed through the portal they both appeared to have a brief shriek of pain before collapsing to the floor.
“Ach, they didn’t even bring the crystals. Kurt, I told you not to scare the new ones.”
"Whatever, Hugo. Can I have a new tablet now?" The creature asked.
-------
A searing light in a bright blue sky shone through crisscrossing arches of a cavern roof. Thomas lay there, on the rocky floor of the cavern in only cloth underpants. The sort of underware he had not seen before, reminiscent of before the age of factories.
Groggily, he opened his eyes, trying to adjust to the blinding light of the sun. He took a deep breath as he pushed away his sleep inertia.
As he sat up, something appeared in the corner of his vision — something so unusual he could not think of it as anything but his imagination.
LVL 1
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It disappeared in an instant, reinforcing his conviction of it being little more than an errant thought. Still, he felt as though after it had disappeared the information was still ever-present in his awareness. It was an unfamiliar feeling that he couldn't quite grasp.
Amidst his confusion, he was trying to remember how he had come to be here, when a feeling like a burst of motion sickness threw him back. He couldn't remember anything: only his name. His home, his family, and almost every part of his life seemed like a distant idea that he only knew, in theory, had existed.
He felt himself sweating as his heart rate increased. A sickness almost overpowered him as he tried to remember before he got a hold of himself. He seemed to find a balance, forcing himself back to a focused state, blocking out any attempts to remember. Soon, his emotions were pushed back and replaced instead by a feeling of calm as if by an automatic process.
As he took in the surroundings, he saw further out someone else was lying on the grass beside him. Looking at this figure, his head throbbed for a moment as the motion sickness came, until he suddenly recognized him. It was his friend Rob, a long-time friend, one he was sure he should have recognized immediately.
He moved closer, before catching a glimpse of something strange, the shock grasping at his heart. perched on a slab of stone at the side of the cavern, was a strange black creature wearing headphones and staring into a modern tablet. The creature smiled at something on the screen, showing the gleam of jagged spikes for teeth.
Rob groaned as he stirred in his sleep. He had grappled onto one of the bodies next to him and was spooning it. Looking closer, Thomas saw that the body was of a large skeleton framed in silver-blue armour, its skull next to Rob's head as he slept.
Thomas tried to silently move towards his friend. “Hey, Rob,” he whispered.
Rob had heard him, but decided to carry on trying to sleep.
“Rob,” Thomas repeated louder, giving pause as he waited for a response. There was no such response. Thomas kicked him, and Rob woke with a sudden jolt. Looking down, he realised what he had been spooning. He let out a yelp and immediately scuffled back. Thomas quickly quietened him with a quick motion, and gestured towards the strange creature across the grassy patch that had yet to notice them.
“What the fuck?” Rob whispered, looking around from the skeletal corpses to the strange creature.
“Let's get out before it notices,” Thomas said, helping Rob away and subtly moving with him towards the exit.
Thomas rubbed his head. He still wasn’t sure what was going on. Even the words he was speaking seemed like a different language, as if it was a Scandinavian version of French, when he was sure he spoke English before. But then again...He wasn't entirely sure what either French or English was.
On a slight slope in the cavern, the exit appeared as a wall of light, so blindingly bright it obscured what was beyond. Thomas closed his eyes as he approached. As he passed through the opening, the light faded away to reveal a maz of arching red tinted sandstone.
Robert appeared behind him.
"Well, shit," Thomas stated. Realising now they were both here ina new world almost nude excapt for the cloth covering their special bits, he wondered for a moment if he should have stayed and tried to talk to the demonic being before but discarded the idea as unpredictable.
Robert looked back to see the way blocked off once more. He came to the same conclusion: they could not return.
“Probably not good,” he remarked.
Thomas rubbed his stomach. “Let’s see if we can find some food before it gets dark.”
Turning to put the red rock wall behind them, he added, “I’m going to sue someone if this is Derren Brown.”
But as they walked out into the red waste, he thought, Whoever the fuck Derren Brown is…