All felt heavy and quite cold. Looking about slightly finding that his bleary old eyes didn’t want to focus just yet, his readers had to be around somewhere. He had also found that his lap blanket had fallen during his nap, his grey legs were exposed above the knee a bit and he would now have to bend and fetch it to get warm again. His back just didn’t have that sort of ‘umph’ yet, in fact he fund he couldn’t move at all and would need to wait for the attendant.
In his mind he knew that his vessel had barely survived the attack, an onslaught he had not foreseen or anticipated. He shouldn’t have dropped his guard like that, but Ben is just too much amusement for him! The banter was an old game between the two childhood friends and Ben took it well enough, but Ammon did wonder (wander) if the meister blathered to his compatriots too much in the warlock’s absence. This had to be shelved for now, for their was a new piece to contend with on the game board it would seem and a powerful one at that. There was a new foe that had hastily taken up the offense against him, but to which side of the board to assign the peace too? His defense was desperate and he had buffed against the assault - but at a cost, always the cost and balance. There would be such fatigue and recovery sapped the energy from him. The desire to do anything else but convalesce and plan was the only practicum to be found. Recuperation for the weary and battered body and reflection in his mind - a mind that even while the vessel recovered did not, could not stop.
What bothered him so, mostly, was the stillness that was absolute and endless. It was utterly burning, this catatonia. It wasn't quite a sleep state, but also wasn't a complete awareness either. What it was was hellish and that this amount of time with only himself - and those alien denizens confined within him. Their attempts to communicate (more as cajoling and taunts) with for lengths for they always nipped and chided when he was temporarily in need of recovery. Such as this state was and it was absolutely, utterly, unhealthy and bothersome, this much time to think and reflect and ponder amongst the archive minds of nine and mine, this mental Mal-Gallery, not often answered his burning questions by opening those doors, the insight: there was the balance, the price, the justice, the insanity,
“tied to machines that make me bleed, cut this life from me”.
No, often there wasn’t resolution, just more halls with more doors, always more damned doors and unanswered interrogations. From time to time the fog would lift and he could sense the now. His mind would come to the front of his awareness and he could meekly witness events, such as the medical staff tending to the ragged frame. This bodily shell, this prison, his miserable and broken fleshy vehicle. From time to time though he would be at the present, there were a couple of nurses who were especially thorough when bathing him apparently. This was base entertainment.
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There were mornings, for there were periods of perceivable daylight, its warmth a sense against the medical cold sterility of it all. Arcanuum doctors would investigate the runes, sample and cutaway or heal that was currently left behind. The stasis though, when would it end?
Though he remained within his mind, his will was constantly required to maintain bars on doors and prohibit any jailbreak by the vandals. Somehow he had managed to spontaneously astral project as well, a self defense or unplanned self preservation tactic? Disturbingly, this had been called forth by another, for he had made no conscious effort to due so. Was it one of the gallery that had protected him? This was most troubling, especially as he felt their rantings and alighting of torches calling for his head and lay siege to his soul while he lay in such a weakened state. There wasn’t much choice and he resigned that there was plenty of time to think on things such as these and wait. Nine hells, it was torturous.
His senses reported remotely a relief in the monotony, something new happened and it was most distressing and perplexing. A stranger, there, set at the foot of the bed. They had touched him and while he had not witnessed the contact - it HAD indeed happened! There were many events taking place in his dim mind, but delirium was not one. There was a touch! A different sort, intentional contact that only one of the craft new, that only one of the craft would to employ. She. It was a She and She was bold and skilled, perhaps an artisan? She held his hand steadily and indeed studied its lines, but also as one who knew this gesture well with him, familiar. Ammon had not a remnant of recall of who this was but there was a familiarity! Ey, gods the touch!
She was using the contact to reach, to reach for him and it was bold and unbridled. Her will was smoke and particle so fine that attempts to grasp, hold or define the telepathy were rendered risible. He’d grasp to identify her and some astral cloak would whisp her away, she was formless. Lo, but there it was and with it an affect that… it had been so long since he heard the sound. The sense he heard in his mind wasn't cocky, but it was most definitely a playful sing-song canter, Laconian children at ply. She was both amused and assertive, calling his name! She knew his bloody name and asserted upon him!, a command as well as she knew his hand as she held it there. She was lovely and hauntingly familiar calling to him from afar, a gentle prod, “Amun, Amun…”, and it had been so long since hearing a woman's lovely voice calling to him, perhaps none since Vanessa in such a wonton familiarity to his troubled mind. He knew then that she was Nemesis.
“Wake up and face me. Don't play dead. Cause maybe someday,….
maybe you're better off this way.”
He had died, or so she had thought. She was now here, poised at bedside like a great cat waiting to pounce upon her prey. He could not move, he barely dared to draw a breath.