<div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide</div><div class="spoiler_body">"Aronwa?"  a voice called out into the air around, echoing out in muted waves. There was a shuffling sound, the creak of metal on metal and a grunt as a door was pushed hard, merely creaking nearly two feet wide in response of the obvious strain. As air rushed in to fill the previously untouched chamber, the entrant's candlelight breached the threshold and murky darkness clung to the walls as stubbornly as the layers of cobwebs did. They were not normal shadows, instead an inky and viscous sort of living pitch that filled in the shade of the room as it normally would have appeared... but they did not shrink back immediately as light touched them. It was as if their reaction to light was an aversion and they were merely turning slowly away from that which they disliked.<br/><br/>As the door grew wider, it became obvious that the strange shadows within the room did not effect the area outside and two figures were illuminated. The first of which was a hunched elderly man with a beard longer than he was wide. He wore neutral-colored clothing that bore a pattern of geometric figures along the end of his long sleeves and in one hand he carried a gnarled walking stick. In many ways the man appeared as much of a relic as the untouched ruins he had entered, his companion on the other hand, stood in stark contrast. She was tall and broad-shouldered, with the bearing of both confidence and caution. She was younger than the other by over half his age but had scars to prove that she had seen much in her time to weather her. <br/><br/>The two humans entered fully into the room, the armored female pushing past the opening first and waving the sage in when she found it to be safe. She took a moment to push brown hair out of her face and frowned at the strange moving shadows, now dancing eerily in the wavering light of the man's candle. He waved her concern aside and tapped at the tangible shade, garnering no retaliation from the act. <strong>"Consciousness <em>begets</em>..."</strong> he said aloud, revealing himself as the speaker from before. Somehow there was an explanatory tone to his words but the meaning was obviously lost upon the girl, who turned with a smirk and walked deeper into the room, kicking loose stones as she went. She pulled out a small device and began tapping at buttons and was soon following the suggestions it gave and moving along a specific path. The room widened out into an immense chamber, revealing it as having been more than the building they it was attached to - it was carved out of the very earth itself. <br/><br/>As she stepped out further, the sound of her metal boots hitting the stone floor echoed distinctly and the darkness seemed to swallow her whole - except for the screen in the palm of her hand. She took a moment to brighten it and as soft illumination spread out in the immediate area around her, a smile spread across her usually stern face. <strong>"Old man!"</strong> she yelled out, the echoes falling as if they hit a velvet wall back in the direction she came from. But the sage put away her worries that she went unheard as he soon stepped out into her light, leaning on the stick in his hands. "Is this the place?" With those words, the light expanded, brightened. It was a conscious act of the wisened man but it caught her by surprise and she nearly dropped her object, startled. The orb of illumination around them unveiled the cave's secret: a carved stone throne in its dead center. It appeared little more than a crude sculpture, hardly enough to gather one's interest, and not even a hint at the wonders it held.<br/><br/>The man walked to her side calmly and asked, "Aronwa?" to which the female repeated softly, "Patron Rinastre... is this the place?" He pursed his lips and nodded, <strong>"We haven't much time..."</strong> The guard dropped her screen and burst into motion, bolting to the chair in a second. Rinastre made his way to the stone seat in what time his body would allow him, appearing to lean more heavily on his staff now than he did when they had first arrived. The situation appeared somewhat grim or urgent, still he did his best to belay her worries. "Calm, Kellis. Your nervousness serves no purpose..." with that he managed to finally sit on the great stone seat, and sighed with relief. The guard shook the man's words away, a lone tear falling down to the dry ground. She had a part to play in this - no matter how small - and she would not see their mission - the man's last wish - end fruitlessly on her own account. <br/><br/>Hidden cables had been pulled out from the back of the chair and Kellis worked deftly, attaching them here and there to its sides as well as the man's arms through invisible portals. After a few moments passed, the patron appeared to be a prisoner to the rock beneath him, the cables nearly securing his limbs to it. She stepped back and waited a few moments that seemed eternal and void, the only sound in the room a single drip from a stalagmite long off. Kellis held her breath and shifted, waiting for the culmination of their efforts, the great work the wisend man had promised... Many seconds passed in the silence and the illumination from her dropped portal faded to dim. Disappointment began to creep within her with each moment and anger layered on top of that as she stared at the patron, who appeared very much a helpless old man in the moment, tired and frail likely his mind and his spirit lost to the ages. <br/><br/>Kellis opened her mouth to speak and Rinastre closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath as he did so the breath exhaled seemed to bring life to the entirety of the world around him. First, a silver circlet appeared upon his brow, inset with three colored stones. As if in response to that, sparse crystals high in the cavern ceiling began to give off a soft glow. The chain reaction continued from there, causing three holographic screens to appear splayed out in front of the chair. He opened his eyes and scanned them, reaching up an arm to touch a colorful glyph on the rightmost screen it became obvious that his arms were not stuck tight as the uninitiated guard had assumed them to be. The 'button' pressed, the screens went away and there was a great scraping sound as walls closed in to seal off the smaller passage they had arrived from, leaving the two in the center of a illuminated dome that very much gave the appearance of being lost amongst the stars. <br/><br/>The stage set, the sage was now able to manipulate the environment with minimal effort. With a wave of his hand, he twisted the sky around them, maneuvering past nebulae and solar systems that became more apparent as they drew closer. Kellis was awestruck, her mouth agape she moved her eyes from one amazement to another and finally back to the throne. The very same old man who had seemed to weak a moment before now had the bearings of a God in all his glory. With a blink of an eye or a flick of a finger, he would zoom in on a world, down to the very details of the inhabitants within it and then move on to his next point of research. The sound of a child laughing made her spin around just in time to see the family he had been watching fade as he drew back his vision to see farther and farther away on the map, the planet itself fading and falling away again.<br/><br/>"Every story ever told, Kellis..." the man said quietly, pausing to ensure that he had her attention, "Every fairy tale told at bedtime, every book ever read or written... is real" Kellis faced him fully, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she took a step closer. <strong>"Consciousness begets..."</strong> he repeated the words from earlier and they echoed all around the two of them. "Storytellers are conduits... and we are all storytellers. Those of us who 'make' the story are blessed, as we are those who have the first sight of the worlds we have tapped into and not just re-telling and passing on knowledge. But they are there, all around us... and always around us - the worlds and ways of each great tale.... And consciousness begets our connections between one world and another" The guard's eyes grew wide at the thought that she was standing in the middle of a representation of all the lore her people had ever been exposed to and what that could possibly mean. <br/><br/>"No... I cannot take you to them." he said, the sympathetic sadness obvious in his tone, "And as much as I would love to show you out the lives of Old Man Incus, I am afraid there is work to be done.." A smile came across Kellis's pursed lips at the mention of the folktale that had been a favorite in her youth and her eyes welled up at the hope that the man's work would actually bring forth what had been promised. <br/><br/>Rinastre began to speed his movements through the virtual Universe around them. "Each story is set in stone, every person having to live within the confines of their setting. I cannot pluck out the noble knights of Arthur, nor can I waive away the Chandrian. I can merely hope to seek out those heroes who's stories are yet to be told." It was the most lucid she had seen the Patron in years and Kellis was impressed by the way he spoke and carried himself. <br/><br/>Suddenly, Rinastre jumped forward to standing and reached out a hand, beckoning in a tiny, blue planet forward. It hovered and spun in place as he inspected it and nothing made it appear any different than the others, in the mind of Kellis. But the sage smiled, his eyes dancing in glee and recognition as he threw both arms out wide to the side, seeming to cause the planet to explode into tiny particles that took the place of the stars that had been around them. It was several moments before the guard had noticed that the lights of these were different, they were wriggling streams of energy, each keeping up a unique pattern of movement but otherwise appearing the alike to each other. It dawned upon her... they were individuals. Somehow, her patron had been able to look upon the very auras of the life sources within the world.<br/><br/><em><strong>"There!"</strong></em> the old man called out, pointing out to one of them as it shuddered and flew up, twisted and sank down to repeat the pattern. Nothing about that particular blip seemed particularly special to the lady, but she knew that Rinastre's sight was opened in ways she could hardly comprehend so she said nothing as he touched the image of the light source, causing a popping sound as it disappeared. The patron pushed a hand to the side, rearranging the array before him. Sweat appeared on the man's brow as he continued his search, occasionally making for the same startling disappearance of another soul. Several moments later, he collapsed back onto the throne, panting. "It is done..." he said weakly through breaths. "There is nothing more I can do for them now..." Kellis came to his side, concerned and placed a hand gently on his shoulder as he drowsed off.</div></div><br/>A beautiful day had graced the lives of most of those on the blue planet and there was little warning that the lives of some few inhabitants were about to change dramatically and without warning. But the loss of less than ten is not even a drop in the bucket when you consider the billions that the Earth had as its population. People went missing occasionally across the globe and though their individual disappearances might mean everything to their loved ones, it meant little difference in the events of the world around them. Life went on as it always goes on, indifferent to whether they had been there or not - one drone quickly feeling in the gap that had opened when another left its position.<br/><br/>Such a dry and emotionless analysis of the withdrawal was not likely shared by those who were ripped away from the comfort of their daily lives. Each of them had been in the middle of some usual task, some resting, some working or playing only to be suddenly grabbed by an unseen force and flung through what appeared to be a tunnel filled with indescribable sound and a constant wind. The unnatural experience consumed their senses and likely terrified them before they were dropped on solid ground. Looking around, the new arrivals could see that it was a sunny day and they were in the middle of a field that seemed to - somehow - settle beneath them. It was as if they had landed on a soft hill that then fell back into the hardened, carefully tended rows of crops as if it had always been that way. There were several others standing nearby, who seemed to have experienced the same landing, and a few of the those that had arrived were experiencing a strange sort of tingling feeling, including a large redheaded woman who stood up and tried to rid herself of it as if it was an arm that had fallen asleep.<br/><br/>"Oh, my goodness!" a deep and raspy voice called out from not to far off, and the man who had spoken ran up to the disoriented group of world travelers. "Where in the world did you come from!?" he demanded, a bit out of breath. "You just... fell outta the sky. You're lucky I caught you in time! Did anyone get hurt?" The man was solidly built and middle aged and he ran a hand over his dark hair as if to self-calm as he gave the party a look over. A moment later, he walked up to the distracted red-haired girl and made a downward motion with a hand, calling up a force that took off the clumps of dirt that had affixed itself to the sizeable seat of her pants when she had fell on her bottom at the landing. The girl yelped and slapped both her hands on her bottom as she felt the dirt get pulled away, initially thinking she was being goosed but then flushing with embarrassment as she realized no one had really been close enough to touch her. Then, feeling as if the others were no worse for wear, he went partially back to work, calling upon his innate abilities to reset the rocks in the field that had been disrupted when he had raised and softened the earth to break their fall.