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 Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2015 12:01 am
Quote: MISSION LEDGERParticipants: -- Overseer: Amalie M. Raine Location: 31.2089° N, 29.9092° E Mission Overview: Much is known about the destruction of the Library of Alexandria; namely that it was destroyed and infinite amounts of knowledge were lost. Investigations have brought to light the possibility of an underground facility of some kind, and S.P.E.C.T.R.E. analysis reveals evidence of such a facility existing. The only clues to the facility's whereabouts seem to be cryptically hidden in strange demonic symbols littered around Alexandria, Egypt. Objective: Investigate the strange symbols and find the facility. Objective variables will change upon finding the facility as the Overseer deems fit. Mission Duration: Indefinite: until results are achieved.
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Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 6:28 pm
Move
One step in front of the other. If she kept moving, she couldn't cease moving. Once an object was put in motion-
Who was she kidding? Who was she trying to fool?
She hadn't picked up her journal in weeks. Her hand couldn't curl around a pen. She had no thoughts to fill the page.
Empty.
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Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 8:41 pm
How to Build a Barrier
One room, poignantly picked for its pristine location in the center of Alexandria, a few streets down from the main library. The only lead she had was "demonic symbols near the Library of Alexandria." It wasn't much. She would need to do a comprehensive radius outwards, beginning from a single point and creating systematically stratified ground plots to establish if the demonic markings were evenly distributed, and if so how were they correlated with distance to the library or meaning ...
There was a lot to do.
It was easy enough to pretend that was the purpose of this trip. That she wasn't somehow running away.
She melted into the covers of the bed in the center of the room. A small bed and breakfast with stagnant lace and appropriate fixations. It made her want to vomit. Fleeing to a hotel like a rat, as though she was the one who had caused harm. Like she had somehow caused her heart to rip in two.
But it wasn't two anymore was it? Was it six now? Seven? How did one quantify the weight of a heart?
Whatever was left of hers had shriveled. If there wasn't a source, function couldn't continue and apoptosis began.
Resurrection- that was a beautiful and naive image. She had been mistaken to think that one person- or any one function could restore hers. Like thread stitching the pieces together (even stitched together cloth is still, ultimately, broken under stress). But then, resurrection had only been performed by one man thus far in history.
(For the record; Ami was an Atheist).
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Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2015 10:31 am
How to Build a Barrier
What am I doing this for?
The resonating thought as she scraped dust and crusted paint off of a sign with glowing symbols hidden beneath a layer of fear camoflauging. It looked arcane in base; clever, if not disgusting.
But really- why? There was no small idyllic cottage to set as a goal (Stupid, stupid- hunters don't get dreams, you moron). Dr. H was certainly out of the question because as much as she respected the man "relationship" wasn't a word she'd apply to him. The threat of Marcus lingered over his shoulder, but she thought they both knew he held no water, there was no bite that she didn't already want inflicted on herself. Herself- you were suppose to exist for yourself firstly, but she hadn't done that for a long time.
Problems came with solutions.
Solution: suicide.
Solution: distance.
Solution: work.
Solution: self-hatred.
Solution:
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Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 11:16 pm
Incapable
She has a book open on her lap as she painstakingly translates scratch marks barely visible as letters. She doesn't need to, actually. She already know where the passage is and has even decoded one of the walls on the tunnel leading into the literary catacomb.
All in the name of thorough, meticulous investigation. She doesn't need to do this. But she's dragging it out. Dragging her time away from the island out, keeping herself distanced ...
No, that's not right either. She had never once wanted to be away from him. She's dragging out her time here with the expectation that the longer she stays out here, the more likely it is something will pick up her trail and she can die in battle appropriately. But nothing ever comes and she can't help but be bitter that even monsters don't like her stench anymore.
She likes to pretend she's incapable of emotional capacity, but that's not true at all. She had loved him. Not always in the best way, and not always appropriate (quite often callously and incorrectly) but she had done it after all. Didn't trying at all merit ... something in her miserable existence? Did broken love not deserve its rewards as well, or was affection and complimentarion only granted to those that poisoned themselves to receive it.
You are impossible to love is what she concludes. Maybe in small doses-
(She has pretty hair and a sharp wit and sometimes when engrossed in a book she is downright emphatic and the way she babbles on like a brook is adorable)
-but never in full image. He has recognized that, that he was settling for parts and pieces, and she has internalized the details to where it is impossible to fault him. Seeking broken love results in broken people. Seeking emotional support is natural and fulfilling.
But it doesn't mean that impossible to love doesn't still hurt sometimes. That as she walks down the dusty cave stairs she doesn't think about her errors on repeat. I should have been kinder, I need to stop doing that, I will be kinder (you can't be kinder, you don't know how).
All she can do now is descend.
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Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 10:47 pm
Delusion
It's laughable how easy the illusions are for her to dissect. It's time consuming no doubt, and by no means efficient as she'd like, but it's easy enough provided she has the patience to essentially perform trial and error rearranging symbols on the wall, moving totems into place, pressing switches hidden under textiles.
The deeper she goes the more complex the runes become. It takes longer for her to sort through them. She's alone with her thoughts more.
Eventually she sits down. It's been sixteen hours straight (she hasn't eaten, barely sips of water only when Junpei reminds her) but the time passes through her hands as she concentrates. Junpei reminds her of the importance of self-care. Ami, as usual, ignores him.
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Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 10:52 pm
Symbolic
The door to the archive is gorgeous. The cave wall has been clay, muddy, damp. Impossible to enjoy, because she was consistently worrying about the cloth on her boots and the batteries on her lamp.
(Without sight she is useless).
So it is strange to see the door emerge in roccoco splendor (odd, a style anachronistic to the legends; something to investigate later perhaps, if there is time) especially when compared to the muddy walls it is embedded in. She takes the necessary precautions investigating the door (how many traps had she triggered as a trainee, how many times had she run minesweeper and learned the painful lesson of avoidance?). A few minor traps, but nothing remarkable.
One of the edges of the door has grown sharp through weathering over time and her hand runs red as she feathers fingers over it. She stares at the red line flowing down her finger (eventually her palm, her wrist), and ignores it, wiping it on her jacket.
The golden door handle is stained red as she pries it open.
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 1:43 pm
Inside the library it was quiet, but not silent as she would have expected. Ami summoned her her glaive immediately at the sound of intrusion; it could have been anything. Monsters, other hunters, horsemen-
She didn't actually see anything at first. She heard the small shuffle of steps, the sound of a book being stacked. Maybe unidentifiable by others, but Ami spent 90% of her time in a library. She knew what it sounded like.
It didn't put her at ease. Instead she walked the library with heightened caution. They could have been invisible, perhaps cloaked by an ancient magic-
A small golem sat at the base of one of the shelves. No more than a handful of feet tall, it was taking a scroll from one shelf and moving it to another. She saw another one in the back performing a similar function. Moving scrolls back and forth, somewhat innocently it seemed, no creator in sight.
She stabbed her glaive through it. Her policy with Halloween was guilty until proven innocent. If it was magically created, it wasn't to be trusted.
The golem looked up at her, down to the stab wound and back up. It seemed unaffected (at least, Ami didn't see the usual signs of pain, bleeding- arcane or organic- from any orifice, no noises ...) by the stab wound, and merely reformed outside of her glaive. She attempted to stab it again, proving the same reaction.
Upon being interrupted, it created small wings for itself and thrust upwards out of her reach, moving on to sort another shelf apart from her. She was frustrated by this reaction, naturally, but also insatiably curious. They had no security function, so what was their purpose then? More research was needed.
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 1:52 pm
For now, she set up a small supply site in the corner of the entrance. Not a campsite, mind you, because she knew better than to stay overnight in a dangerous place. Yes, it was going to be annoying walking up and down the stairs into the cave and into the library before and after a long day of work, but no she was not going to be caught unawares, not again.
The supply table had nearly everything she could think of. All analytical tools in one bin. Food in another (locked with runic locks, naturally). A small microscope (the lightweight, portable kind) that she didn't think she would need but had brought anyways just in case. A small lamp, for when and if it got dark (Junpei was already proving useful in that regard; she would need to set up some kind of runic grid for lighting in the future).
It was going to be work, and it was work she was interested in ... and yet she was still dragging her feet to do it.
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 1:57 pm
The first step was actually creating a small runic barrier around the two-doored entrance. It would keep humans out with a small illusion that made it seem like the door was merely another cave wall, and if neccessary it would keep monsters out. Should her pendant fail, she could retreat to the entrance, and hold them at bay long enough to call for a portal. Ami was nothing if not meticulous.
(Would you actually call for a portal?)
(...)
As a preliminary examination, she began wandering the book, scroll, paper-bin lined walls of the archive. All she did was set up a small scouting grid, with small lighted markers to mark where she'd already been (glowsticks were fantastic, thank you Kat).
She couldn't help but be amazed. It was remarkable, and she would have sent Dr. H a fast e-mail had there been service down in the depths of the cave. She had heard estimates that had the library not burned, human technology would have advanced 2000 years ahead of it's present day status. What it could do for hunters now...
Though the urge to read one of the books was great, she ignored it for now. First the perimeter had to be secured.
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Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 8:38 pm
There was a dripping noise behind Ami, and if she turned her flashlight behind her, there would be something written in white, glowing letters against the highest of the in-tact, cavernous pillars.
Ti Sisre Fmor Het Sae.
There were twelve pillars in total, numbered at the base in the game glowing white, though it was too difficult to make out what text the others read. chiickadee Go ahead and pick three pillars to visit (select a number), after that the letters oddly disappear!
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Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 8:48 pm
It was when Ami was particularly deep within the library that she heard a dripping noise. Not unusual since they were so far down and she'd been in plenty of caves with little drips of water, but anomalous enough in this archive that she turned to investigate it. She already had Junpei summoned lest any part of the exploration went wrong.
(But so what if it did? Who would care?)
Ti Sisre Fmor Het Sae.
An odd marking on the wall, but again, not unusual enough to raise suspicion. She had, in fact, been studying demon marks all around the city for the past week. One more to the bunch (even if it was unusual in pallor and dialect) was not going to kill her.
Another of the pillars alighted, and then another and another. She was already a highly suspicious person, but these kind of synchronized events usually meant something like the cave walls were going to collapse in or another giant monster was going to appear. Such would be her luck.
But things were surprisingly quiet within the cavern, hollow even. Her notebook was brought out first and foremost, and she wrote down the text that was present as she had all the other texts she'd dissected this week. Demon script was awfully fond of disappearing mid-sentence, so she knew better than to leave this be.
After she had written down the Ti Sisre Fmor Het Sae she approached the three pillars nearest to her (pillars 2, 3 and 4) to investigate further. At the very least she could glean a tiny morsel more before the rocks fell and death consumed her.
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Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2015 4:29 pm
The the texts, read consecutively, pieced together something like this. The lettering of each line was difficult to read, shaking and shifting continuously between spaces.
Tsi skin adpthce of fuor etbssa
Eht godran seivg it porew
Ti iesrevce a ldeday owdun.
As Chel reached the last of the pillars, the strange, claustrophobic atmosphere began to shift, turning grey, and then lighter still, until it was simply a white space with six pillars. All the text had faded and as she turned around, in front of her was a faded, grey table with nothing on it except a simple, thin knife, and a bowl. Everything seemed surreal, blurred, impossible to focus on.
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Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2015 5:04 pm
The words shifted so quickly that Ami didn't have the time to decode them, but she did notice the pattern. She was more concerned with getting as much information down as possible; solving could come later.
The space began to shift, began to bleed into a white that warred with the coat she was cloaked in. Junpei still cracked at her side, still bled ambient FEAR into her shield to let her silently know: I'm with you. The normal reaction would have been panicking or attempting to escape; Ami welcomed the oblivion. It was a much needed rest, blurred and impossible to keep moving forward.
A small table, simple instruments. "Remarkably humble," Ami commented. Most of the encounters she'd had with great evils had been terribly grandeur in their displays. It seemed this one had other plans.
She looked down to her book, writing in small words she recognized. Sae - sea. Fuor - four. Not enough to decode it, but enough to get her head straight.
Seeing as her only other option was inaction she approached the table intent on examining it's contents. Each step was blurry, each moment slower. Perhaps this was truly death. She welcomed the embrace.
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Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2015 5:26 pm
As the table slid into focus everything else simply faded away. There was a sharp ringing, it started off as light buzzing that simply persisted, growing louder and louder-
- For a brief second everything was simply a moment of deafening white sound and it felt as if Ami had ceased to exist-
- Until she felt a strange warmth in her ears. If she pressed her fingers against them she would feel blood and then the buildup of a pain that made her unmistakably still alive.
The ringing continued for a brief moment and then a voice.
"If you understand my words, sacrifice to me and speak my true name. "
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