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 Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:15 pm
My unfortunate host is not in the habit of recording his affairs, out of the paranoia he has cultivated against leaving any sort of paper trail. I feel it necessary, given his new allegiances, to break him of this. Mark you, I am not wholly privy to what happens around him, as my perspective is usually from inside his own mind, train wreck that it is.
~J
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:18 pm
These first scraps did I rescue from the wreckage of his original craft, just after he crash-landed in the City of the Damned. For the most part, they are from his own journal, but somehow I discovered a few rather valuable bits in his sister's unusually elegant script. I have endeavored to fill in where explanation is needed, as some of his records are rather vague but his memory of the events remarkably clear.
~J
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:32 pm
9th Frostnight, Year 1027 Father gave me this book today. Why he wants me to write down my thoughts and feelings about what goes on every day, I don't know. I don't plan on letting him or anyone else ever read it. Well, maybe Isabel, but she already knows everything I'd write, right? Isabel says the first thing you should write in one of these is an introduction. If it weren't her idea, I'd never do it, but okay. My name is Gabriel, of the family crest of Saint Germaine, who was of the one hundred Saints who did first take wing in our world. I am twelve today, and the youngest brother of my family, there being eleven brothers before me, and I have one younger sister, Isabel, who is my only real friend. To my older brothers, I am just someone to make fun of and steal dessert from. If they weren't my brothers, I would....no, I can't write that, it wouldn't be nice. If they weren't my brothers, nothing would be different except that it would be easier to hate them for it. The St. Germaine castle sits on one of the largest and most prosperous islands in the whole sky, as much of it as we know about. The castle itself is like a small city, with several zeppelin docks and hangars and a gondola system for getting around without making your feet hurt. Outside the castle is the city proper, and Father tells me there are over two hundred thousand people who live there and obey Father's laws. If Father runs the city like he runs our family, it must be a terrible place to live. I won't tell you where, but Isabel and I have made a second home for ourselves outside our family chambers. It's close to the hangar where we're going to work on our planes when Father says we're old enough to fly. We keep things there, our little treasures that we find around the castle, and the books Father says we aren't allowed to read, and even some food for those nights when Father has been in the wine cellar and gets angry and people who aren't there. Isabel gets very scared on those nights, even though it's so funny how Father argues with the walls and floor. Isabel says it's good planning anyway, for when we grow up and have to make homes of our own. We already set up traps and alarms so that no one can sneak in and take our things. Someone's shouting outside my room. I'll finish this later.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:43 pm
13th Frostnight, Year 1029 Real quick, before I forget again. The shouting last time was because a Saparacci slave carrier was seen in our skies and Father wanted all of us there to help board it. Mostly my brothers, because they spend all their time fighting at home and they're good at that, but Isabel and I are very good at moving people who are scared and hurt, like slaves always are. Father's one of the only family lords who doesn't allow slavery. All the lesser families, like the Saparacci who were founded by pirates exiled by the Saints, buy and sell other people like meat cattle. About two thirds of the other Saint families do too, Father says. It makes Isabel really sad, because the stories say the Saints were all such good people. We found a girl in the ship. She's really pretty, and she likes me. Father let her move in with us since she sings really nice too. Her name
~~~
Unfortunately, this page was torn off halfway. And the memories of this "pretty girl" are among the most guarded in Gabriel's mind. Given his current state of feelings, however, that is to be expected. The next legible passage comes from a later date. As you might have guessed, he was not very faithful about keeping this up to date, before a certain point.
~J
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:56 pm
....and the engines are completely trashed. Still, it was a great test, and we think we might have finally figured out where the fault is. Isabel's going to sneak me some more scrap from the family hangar to patch and strengthen the frame, and did I mention these cookies are fantastic? I wonder where she learned all this neat stuff. Couldn't have been on that slave ship where we met. Tomorrow, we're doing assisted flights, so I won't have time to work on the Horizon, but it'll give us a great opportunity to steal some of the really good guns from Father's arsenal. He likes to show off, and that means he won't see a thing outside his own cockpit until supper. 7th Stormwatch, Year 1030 Work is coming along a lot faster now that we've solved the engine problem. It weighs her down a bit, but the new engines are even faster than the old ones, so we still come out ahead. We mounted them in a special cross bracing... The rest of this page was a schematic for Gabriel's original craft. I doubt he knows it still exists, else the Hellwind would have been built to such standards. I may leave it laying about the laboratory for him sometime, should he seem inspired enough to revise and rebuild.
You will also note a slightly different tone in his writing. Having a firm goal in mind caused him to mature rather quickly, it seems.
~Jso the whole engine and fuel array can be removed for maintenance and repairs, or even jettisoned if worse comes to worse. It works so well that we've already rigged up similar frames for the heavy guns and ammo feeds. I have to admit, I'm amazed no one thought of designing a ship this way before. If all the parts were so easy to arrange and replace, we could build and efficiently maintain a whole armada! Father executed a captured slaver today. As many times as I've seen it, it still feels strange. Father's always been one to give a man a fair fight before he kills them, but slavers don't even get their hands free. Father just throws them off the tower. Mind you, there's no ground at the base of the tower he always chooses. It's the tallest in the castle, and it juts out from the side just a little, so that anything that falls off the side just keeps falling. I went to a lower window and just watched him fall. He didn't vanish right away, the sky was clear below us for quite some distance. He just kept getting smaller and smaller, like the sky was sucking the life out of him, until he disappeared altogether. Even with a telescope, there's a point up, down, and out, where everything just fades away, like there's too much sky in the way. I'm going to find out what's on the other side of that point, though. The three of us, together, are going to fly so far that the Saint castles fade away behind us. We're going to fly until we find where the sun actually sets at night, where the edge of the endless sky begins. Sandwiches today, and she snuck the meat out of Father's personal stores. I REALLY have to wonder how she figured out the lock. Isabel seems almost jealous of her sometimes, but I've made almost mathematically certain that I'm spending the same amount of time with them both. Easier to do now that they're working together with me so often.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 9:07 pm
30th Harvesttime, Year 1030 My hands are shaking right now. After six months of backbreaking work, the Horizon is finally complete and ready to fly. The three of us did the test flights together, testing and retesting every component, every bolt and weld and seam. That ship almost feels like home, we've spent so much time in it, and if the big trip is as long as I expect, that's for the best. We've got the best and biggest guns in Father's entire stockpile, a trio of the fastest and most cooperative engines anywhere in the whole sky, and some really, REALLY good upholstery, courtesy of a certain little lady and her skill at...appropriations. But that's not the reason my hands are shaking. Father showed me a large chest today. He says it's my birthright and that it contains "things of great value" to me, though he admits he never opened it himself. It doesn't make much sense, but everyone seems excited about it. Isabel keeps giggling about it, like she already knows what's in it, and she makes such faces at me when I ask what's gotten into Father. Even SHE can't pick the lock. It requires the insertion of the family signet ring that Father is holding for me, to be given to me on my sixteenth birthday when I take my first solo flight and officially become a man of the family. Well, Father isn't exactly holding it himself. Isabel, much to everyone's surprise, begged him, BEGGED him, to let her keep it until then, so that we could open it together. Which means that sometime this next week she's going to help me steal it and move it to our hangar, of course. But that's not why my hands are shaking, either. I'm meeting her alone tonight, in my bedroom. She thinks she's going to surprise me, but I could tell from the glint in her beautiful blue eyes EXACTLY what she wants tonight. And I'm not going to tell her no. My gods, I've never been so nervous.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 9:53 pm
I've chosen to omit most the passages from here on. The one immediately after contained a great deal of intimate detail that I feel would serve no purpose in these annals outside of sheer boorishness, and I know that he would rather not have any pleasant memory of her at this point to stifle his sense of purpose.
The others contained nothing at all out of the ordinary, consisting of almost weekly updates on which maneuvers he was practicing with his sister, what treats and trifles his beloved had made for them, and the usual goings-on of the family fortress. It is, however, the last surviving record of daily life in Gabriel's world. Bits and pieces dropped in the assorted pages give a wonderfully detailed portrait both of life under St. Germaine rule and under other families.
Their world, having no ground, developed entirely around air travel. The wheel was invented almost entirely as a means of furthering flight research. The scarcity of mineral wealth on their world precluded the usual token economy, as food and aircraft parts were far more valuable than precious metals. Economy centered around a bartering of supplies and abilities, and a deal could always be reached.
Government varied from family to family, the St. Germaine lands being an example of the more libertarian form. The city was ruled and policed by soldiers loyal to the family patriarch himself, who established a -usually- fair tax in exchange for protection. Outside of some very basic laws, the people were free to do as they pleased outside of their employment. Criminal justice was handled by the patriarch's officers, based on severity. Petty infractions were both judged and punished by the local sergeant, burglaries and other great felonies by the lieutenants, with murder and treason the only crimes for which you could stand trial before the patriarch himself. Slavery, as Gabriel has mentioned, was punished without trial. This standard varied from family to family, some being far more regimented and fascist, others being near anarchist in their rule, and still others more villainous and cruel.
Society itself was fairly egalitarian, the value of a person being the amount of useful work they could do. Everything was measured and appraised by the standards laid down by the founders of civilization as they knew it, the aforementioned Hundred Saints. These hundred were, according to fable, the strongest and wisest of "those who came before," as the ancestors of humanity were called, and who established a system for ensuring that no person could either be cheated out of their dues or receive more than they deserved. Fair recompense was, in fact, the supreme virtue of their culture, though survival of the fittest came in a close second. Killing another man was not frowned upon so much as killing him and refusing to provide for those he left behind. As such, there were no orphanages or charity houses, as those who were in need were always seen to by those responsible for their situation. Children were thus cared for until old enough to learn a trade, and went to work as soon as they were able.
Soldiering, obviously, was the most common profession, as both mines and farms were scarce and highly prized. Those who lacked the skill to pilot a craft were sifted through various military duties until a niche was found, and one was ALWAYS found, it seems. There was a certain dignity to any vocation, no matter how demeaning, because as long as you were working, you were worth something. Those who were too inept at one task were circulated to others until they found SOMETHING they could do, and it was uncommon for some to die of old age in the "unskilled" pool, earning the unfortunate deceased the sort of notoriety that immortalizes a man in bar-room patter-songs and tales of less-than-brilliance.
Religion was a bit of a quandary to Gabriel's people. True, they did venerate the Saints and the ideals they followed in creating their culture, but the general idea of a "higher power" seemed quite pointless. To them, gods were nothing more than impish troublemaking spirits or unseen mystical spectators who might, if it amused them, answer a desperate prayer in the heat of the moment. But to devote any great amount of space or time to the worship of such beings was wasteful, as it seemed the gods were not inclined to repay them equally for that space and time devoted.
Gabriel, of course, has come to know differently, but that is an experience best documented later.
The other significant thing of note about Gabriel's society was that they were fairly isolated. Within a theoretically infinite space, they occupied and explored only a very small portion, even by the standards of smaller worlds. And despite knowing that they possessed very limited resources, there was never any effort to seek out new lands to develop. Gabriel's ambition to explore beyond the "vanishing point" would have seemed so extreme as to be regarded as a form of madness, and the repercussions against him would have been dire indeed, possibly leading to his joining the condemned in an endless plummet from his father's tower. At some point, I will write a more detailed and anecdotally illustrated history of the doomed people of the endless sky, for posterity's sake at least.
~J
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 10:09 pm
12th Snowfall, Year 1030 Something feels wrong with everyone. It's like everyone had a big fight, and I slept through it. My brothers are even MORE hostile than usual, but moreso toward each other than ever I can remember. My little blue-eyed angel at least tries to be cheerful, but there's something about the way we lie together at night that gives her away. She's afraid, more than she's been since the night we met. Isabel had been away for a few days, but she seemed just as worried when she came back. She says everyone in the city, and in both of the other cities to which she flew, it's like they're all waiting for the firing squad to pull the trigger. She wants to talk to me alone tonight, in the hangar. She's never asked for that before. I hope something hasn't happened to make the two most important people in my life enemies of each other. I'll give her her birthday present when we meet then, since we were both away that day. Father wouldn't approve, but I DID make it myself. Mostly. I made it pretty, anyway. ~~~ 30th Snowfall, Year 1030 Another midnight meeting with Isabel. She gets more anxious every time. I'm three months away from my sixteenth year, three months away from our great adventure. But that's not what's wrong. She won't TELL me what's wrong. She's becoming more and more reserved, like if she tells me, everything will end. It scares me. She just wants to talk with me, alone. Just talking, about ANYTHING. Family memories, our late mother, flying, the Horizon, everything she can think of. She talks to herself, or sometimes sings, whenever we're not alone together. It's almost as if she's afraid of the silence...or she's trying to drown out something that only she can hear. I've heard of such ailments among older pilots. You spend so much time listening to the hum of your engines, you start to think it's talking to you. And the voice starts to follow you around, everywhere you go. My betrothed- yes, I forgot to mention that we're planning to get married before the big flight, it was her idea- has been cuddling up to me a lot more lately, especially after my meetings with Isabel. They know they don't have to compete for me, but still...things seem more strained between them, no matter how I try to placate them. ~~~ 5th Newyear, Year 1031 Not much longer now, and we're packing extra provisions for the big one. Isabel's been airborne every day for the last week, setting up hiding places and supply gliders to take with us. Fuel not so much as food, since we can glide for quite a long time with the new wing design. In fact, unless we hit a major storm, we won't even have to start the engines once we're on course. Spirits seem a little lighter now that the girls have been flying out together so often. I think maybe they're starting to really bond again. Father, on the other hand, hasn't been sober in three full months. He's had the rest of the army on full alert, and we've had engagements against several pirate families almost daily. Our castle defenses are impenetrable, but he still insists that if anything got through the line, we'd be doomed. It's downright weird, even for him. He has constant trouble keeping his mind in the present instead of in his childhood, the last time the castle was ever successfully invaded. He's confusing our names, even, calling one of us by another's name, even the names of his own long-dead brothers and uncles. Isabel loved her present, at least. She keeps it with her for every flight, for luck.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 10:42 pm
8th Frostnight, Year 1031
Today was the most eventful I can remember.
It began with Isabel having a total breakdown at breakfast. She seemed perfectly fine, chatting and joking and laughing like always, ever pleasant and considerate, until a few moments of peace while everyone had their mouth full. She just sat there a moment, dead silent, and I think I was the only one that saw that she wasn't even breathing. Then she just broke down and cried, harder and longer and louder than any of us had ever seen. The moment Father rose to try and calm her, she bolted from the room. She was SHRIEKING by the time she reached the dining room doors, and we could hear her all the way down to the hangar. She took off alone in her Nightingale, and didn't return until well after supper.
While she was gone, we had eight separate attacks on the city walls, from both ground and air forces, none of whom seemed to be working with any of the others. But they were very well coordinated, and very well armed. I was fortunate enough to be flying tail-gun in Father's bomber instead of my usual place below, otherwise I might not be alive to write this. The belly-gunner, bombardier, nose-gunner, and copilot were sniped. Not just hit, SNIPED. And it was only on our craft, none of the other bombers were hit that accurately. The attacks were diversions to draw him out, and someone was VERY close to having nailed him. I wasn't sure, but I'd almost have thought the shots were coming from the castle. I might be mistaken, I was too busy dealing with enemy pursuers, and got a bit turned around from tail-gunning instead of my usual place in the belly turret. It rattled Father pretty badly, but he didn't back down and he didn't hide. The last engagement he took his fighter instead of the bomber and made SURE they knew he wasn't afraid.
Since I was the only one not in a combat plane by then, I snuck off for a late lunch with my fiancee. She seemed exceptionally anxious about the attacks, but a little picnic in our private hangar cured her of it. She was worried about us and about Father, but not, strangely enough, about Isabel. I didn't think about this until I picked up this journal, but when I mentioned Isabel being out so long, she was POSITIVE that my sister was just fine.
It was a good thing our hangar is EXTREMELY well-hidden. Father was looking for me by the time we were....presentable, and it's never a good thing to make him wait. Fortunately, all he wanted was to talk to me about my flight tomorrow. The attacks had him worried, and he wanted to know if I felt that we should postpone it. He was in favor of putting it off a day, and to my embarrassment, so was she, and loudly so. But I've spent much too long planning for tomorrow, so I convinced Father to arrange for extra squadrons for security. I know several of his captains, and we've already planned a few formation stunts just for show.
Isabel got back about a half-hour ago. She seems...pleased, somehow. She apologized for what happened this morning but wouldn't tell us a single thing about what set it off. She wants to see me tonight, but not in the hangar. We have a favorite spot, always has been, up in the old castle where we can see our favorite stars. We haven't been up there in a couple of years, what with the plane and the planning, but there's something special about tonight that she wants to meet me there.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 11:02 pm
This was the last entry in Gabriel's hand. If he keeps the memories of his treacherous first love imprisoned in his mind, then the memory of that night he keeps sealed away in a fortress all its own. None of us have ever been able to pry it free, even the most strong-willed of us who dwell within his being.
The memories of what came next, however, are etched now into all of our minds quite indelibly.
Gabriel awoke early and went to the family hangar, where his sister had moved the Horizon. He was making ready to board for his great solo performance when he was shot in the back. The shot was imperfect, made from the engagement ring he had given his beloved, and it wedged itself in the small of his back, miraculously sparing his assorted viscera.
He still does not realize it, but her mockery and disdainful tone were forced. Why this is, we have yet to find her soul to torture an answer from. But in very practiced words, she called him every sort of fool she could imagine. She then hacked through the cables that powered the castle's defensive system. Without that elaborate construct of arcane science, the castle was defenseless.
Gabriel could see the battle outside, and could feel with each blast which of his brothers had been slain. He watched his father's fighter vanish in a ball of flame and flak, and was on the verge of blissful unconsciousness when he saw a fleck of blue coming out of the smoke. He could not see it, but his broken heart could feel that it was Isabel's plane. And even that did not last long. It was that sight, that blue speck turning red and plummeting into the abyss below, that gave our unfortunate host the jolt he needed to crawl into his vessel and start the engines.
He relives those moments every time he sleeps. Which is one of two reasons why he never, ever sleeps.
In more disturbed nights, he remembers what came after. Even as he rocketed downward in a desperate attempt to rescue the last precious person in his life, his world came to a sudden and catastrophic end. An entity unknown even to the oldest of us managed to breach the boundaries of its prison and devour Gabriel's entire universe. His escape, and his sister's, were the cosmic equivalent of two grains of sugar escaping from a pastry through its diner's whiskers. Feeling himself on the verge of death, and thinking only of his sister- I can attest to this personally, I was present at this part- Gabriel offered his own soul as ransom for her life. He laid down, in a heartbeat, some very strict conditions for our escape, but the deal was made, and with what power we could muster from our infinities-old incarceration, we trapped Isabel in a pocket of pure time and space, which was hurled by Gabriel's own will to a distant corner of the universe, permanently beyond the reach of the devouring darkness.
I was often dormant during the years that followed, being forced to share a single body with countless beings, many more ancient even than myself. I was not able to obtain what you might call a front-row seat until roughly the same time at which he commandeered the Hellwind and fled from the City of the Damned. I should like to say it was my own stoic influence that helped him to recover and build what has become his new life, but that would be honor beyond my deserving. I was merely a witness to the grim determination with which he persevered. That he is sane at all is a miracle, after the nightmares he has endured...and perpetrated.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 11:29 pm
8th Day of Frostnight, 1031 Year of the Saints
Dear diary,
I can't begin to explain it, and I feel I should apologize- not to you, the book, but to you, the eventual reader, perhaps my grandchild- for having concealed this terrible thing from you for so long. Lately...I have been having visions. They creep up on me in quiet moments, when I have nothing else to distract myself. Visions of battle. Visions of death.
My father's death, my brothers' deaths, everyone. Even my own. The worst one happened this morning during our meal. I saw my dear Gabriel bleeding on the hangar floor as our family went down in flames...and I couldn't see who had pulled the trigger. I could see every one of my brothers, their faces as they died, my father's rage and pain and regret. And I heard my mother's voice, out of nowhere, telling me to get away.
So I did. I told my feet to take me to my plane, and they obeyed, gods bless them. I shall soak them tonight after my talk with Gabriel, to reward their loyalty. I was quite a ways out, almost to our last charted waypoint, where I've hidden Gabriel's birthday trunk, before I was composed enough to consciously take over the flight. Rather than stop, since I still had plenty of fuel, I flew onward a ways just out of nerves. I'm very happy that I did, because I encountered a little floating merchant. He was a queer little creature, small and white and furry with little bat wings and a big red pompom on his head. Queer, but adorable, and it was all I could do not to cuddle him at once. He sold all kinds of strange, otherworldly treats and trinkets, and I found myself bartering off my entire supply of ammunition for my plane for what I brought back. Some pretty jewelry, to give to.....her, as a peace offering. I wish I could tell you why my heart aches so badly to know they're getting married, but if that is how it is meant to be, I would never be so selfish as to object. I love Gabriel every bit as much as she does, and I'd rather that he should be happy than ruin it out of jealousy.
I also found something interesting, something that only he and I will ever get to share. I bought only one, a strange star-shaped yellow fruit, and the little fellow told me that any two people who shared one of these fruit, their destinies would forever be joined. Come what may, I won't ever lose him, and in that I am content, even if he does marry her. I'll share it with him tonight, up at our old stargazing nook. He's always good about coming alone when I ask, he won't disappoint me tonight.
I'm writing this even as I approach our family castle, and I can hear Father on the radio already. He doesn't sound near as angry as I thought. But I can smell smoke, and there's a lot of our planes out tonight. Something must have happened while I was away. Oh, I hope everyone's alright!
~~~
Of the few bits of Isabel's diary that somehow wound up in Gabriel's wreckage, this one stands out above the rest. Most of them were tiddling bits of trivia, even more minuscule and insignificant than those omitted from her brother's journal, but there was the occasional insight. As Gabriel inferred, it is apparent from her writings that Isabel did indeed know what was in that mysterious chest, and from the freeze-frame moment etched in our collective mind of the last he saw of her, that chest is still in her possession. If she has opened it, we know not. The other secrets she seems to know, she has not even hinted at its nature.
~J
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Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2007 8:57 pm
Free at last! The damage done to mine host's form was tremendous, the cost to his soul immeasurable, but the end remains unchanged. I walk as a man once more, and now in a position by which to render more than philosophical aid to his unfortunate circumstances. But I must see to the other wounded "Chaser" first. She attempted to repair Gabriel's spirit from within, and the backlash catapulted her own soul into perilous regions of her own darkness.
What comes of this should be...most enlightening.
~J
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Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:54 pm
As I have previously mentioned, the state of my former host's soul is dismal indeed, but, I have discovered, not yet hopeless. Despite years of what amounted to a legion possession, he retained enough strength to keep a sort of control on the matter. Our liberty, as the agreement was written, would require a piece of his living heart to anchor us within the material universe, and to obtain such required oaths that even the most diabolical fiend would be unable to break. Such as would try to cheat on the deal invariably departed first, entirely within those hellish years in the Dread City. During that time, Gabriel tried every possible venue of containment, protection and control that he could research, short of human sacrifice. The carnage wrought by those first and seemingly most powerful few might have been appalling were the casualties not fully worthy of the punishment. As you might have guessed, the City of the Damned is NOT a nice place.
Those that fled in the years that followed, whom we referred to collectively as "the patient ones," did so with the expert planning and cunning that had marked their villainous existences before their imprisonment. These minds were more alien, more calculating, and far more cruel and savage for their patience. Between his own agonizing memories and the constant barrage of hellish dreams they imposed from their own twisted desires, Gabriel learned very early on to stop sleeping. We also discovered, after a rather painful and messy evening, that Gabriel is not in control of his body even when he thinks he's asleep and well-secured to his bunk. The constant battle for supremacy between minds and souls was equally taxing on his flesh. A body requires a soul to give it, not only life, but form as well. Our experiments in vat-grown bodies have yielded blank, malleable forms into which a captive or wandering soul may be impressed. When anchored with the light of a heart, no matter how small the light may be, the soul and body merge and begin to take form. Having multiple souls anchored within the same body, therefore, the body attempts to take the form of ALL of them simultaneously, reducing him to a mass of very uncomfortable liquid flesh.
This is where his hip flask comes in. Aside from the usual, traditional uses of alcohol to escape ones woes, we have obtained- through constant painstaking research- a formula that firmly re-fixes Gabriel's physical form to match the pattern set by his heart. It combines the alchemical might of several of the dead worlds we've explored in the Periphery, with just a dash of usquebaugh for flavor and warmth. To anyone else's body, such a concoction would prove harmful, if not fatally poisonous, though there have been incidents where other beings of a more plural sort of reality have imbibed Gabriel's tonic to their own benefit. Unstable metamorphs, beings that exist across multiple physical dimensions, and those similarly yoked with the presence of other sentiences within their own flesh. Some fluke of the formula which reorganizes Gabriel's cellular structure also reorganizes one's presence within space and time. I have yet to figure it out, precisely, but it is a diversion for another time.
Why I waited so long, I cannot be certain of myself, save that I find myself somewhat akin to my host, and as much of a friend as either of us would allow ourselves to regard each other as. Aside from myself, at the time at which I departed, there were only three other actual prisoners left. Two of these were mere beasts, thrown into the infinite nothingness with their masters. The third is too dangerous to even describe, as simply passing on the knowledge of its power and nature give it greater strength.
Aside from those three that yet remain, there are seven others whom Gabriel decided where truly innocent. These seven were given the first and most noble of the remaining pieces of Gabriel's heart, but cannot escape his body until the last of the patient ones departs. I doubt Gabriel shall survive to see them departing from his broken body, but I am sure they will remember him fondly. Regardless of his own survival, we intend to keep the two beasts here in the lab, as they are quite devoted to their new masters and quite useful to keep around. The "scuzzer" should be able to carve out a habitat area for them, lest they get rambunctious and knock down a wall or two by accident.
My own body is almost fully formed, this suit merely a last-stage incubator while my bones harden and my skin solidifies, thus making my rebirth nearly literal. Though I may not discard this suit so quickly once I am fully matured. Bulky and awkward as an obsidian golem it may be, yet the astounding number and variety of instruments and enhancements that we managed to fold into it make it nearly indispensable. And as the optics tap directly into the central nervous system, rather than displaying into the optical organs, I may even be able to modify this suit to assist Miss Thrais.
At the moment, she's laying on the examining table. That is, the one NOT meant for vivisection. I am in the process of a full scan of her central nervous system. In the past, I can recall having studied humanoids of avian physique before, though not quite so pleasantly as this. I make neither excuse nor apology for this. I have paid my debt to the cosmos for my crimes, whatever they were. So many millions of years have passed since the point at which I realized I had forgotten what I had done to deserve imprisonment. The only knowledge I have managed to save through that long, maddening solitude, is the product of a long lifetime of study and experimentation, for good and evil purpose alike. I think I have had my fill of evil. True, the initial outlay is always promising, the liberty from law and lore quite satisfying, but it dulls very quickly and the retirement plan for villains is exceedingly unpleasant in every possible way. I think I shall take a more respectable course this time around, though I doubt I shall ever fully be considered "one of the good guys." Sometimes you need a good and noble genius to save the day, but sometimes you need a ruthless, unflinching madman who can get you results instead.
~J
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Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 9:23 pm
I don't know whether to smack you or thank you, Jonamryn. You know how much I prize secrecy. But, then again, I was just thinking it was time to make some things clear to our new...friends. Yes, friends. The Southern Oracle spoke the truth when she told us to look for an act of genuine charity, no matter how small. I can finally face the end with a sense of purpose, thanks to them. Maki, Thrais, Zife, even that hotshot Prinz...
Should any of you read this, I just want to say thanks, before it's too late to say anything. Even though we worked together only a short time, you've helped me regain a faint respect for humankind. I know I'm not coming back from this one, no matter what goes down. My time is well and truly up, but thanks to all of you, I can face this end with my head held high.
What Jon said about giving power to our nemesis was true- to name a thing is to give it power. But what even he doesn't know, and what I didn't know until I reached within myself to try and negotiate with it, is that what it really is is more terrible than I could have ever imagined.
It's me.
I hate to leave you with a riddle like that, but I can say no more without jeopardizing our final mission together. And so I must say farewell now. You have all been better friends than I could ever have wished for, and I pray that victory is ours in the end, though I know I will not be there to see it for myself.
Zife, no matter what the truth is, be kind to Sophia always. Love of any kind is more precious and burns brighter than any other light you will find.
Prinz, that goes double for you and Thrais. She is powerful, but she is still delicate, and her strength comes from having you in her heart.
Athrais, I envy that you have wings of your own. Do not let anyone try to dictate your destiny. Nothing is fated to happen until it has already come to pass, never forget that.
Syric, be careful. Revenge may be sweet, but it is a road that never ends. Don't devote your life to a fleeting moment of triumph. And don't be afraid to let go.
Tau, never forget who you are. You have a history to be proud of, and a legacy to uphold. But don't take that as an excuse not to have fun.
Rix, you, out of all our friends, may understand what's about to happen. You're not a Nobody if you know who you are and who you want to be. You can choose to be real, to have feelings, all you have to do is want it.
Dorinda, don't let Rix forget that. Ever. And don't let your own darkness make you forget your light. But don't forget that your darkness can still protect your light.
Maki, I'm counting on you to keep the team running smoothly. Keep Zife's head on straight, don't let Prinz show off too much, keep your wings level and have a bowl of ramen for me now and then.
Jonamryn...of all the voices in my head, I think I'll miss yours, whatever becomes of me. Take care of the disc and the gug, and keep an eye on all our friends, for me.
A last bit of advice. It's more important to do the right thing than to be loved for playing by the rules. Don't be afraid to meddle for the sake of a good cause, because even if you don't meddle, the enemy will.
Goodbye.
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