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Save Point: Kkhulsethragaunt

Near the Great Library

Sethkill explains that we must travel to the main library across the streets of the city. A story or a dream? It seems likely that he is searching for one or either, but given his present state of mind it is difficult to tell.

Chanting the invocation to outdistance pursuers, he insists, looking about as though watching for something unseen in the unfocussed distance. Must avoid the chasers, they are searching for us even though they are not real.

This presumably would make more sense, regardless of content, were it not in highly abstract translation. As it is, it seems that we must trust in him knowing what he's talking about, despite the strangeness of the circumstances.

In a warm water pool, with a blanket like skin wrapped round me, he elaborates, obviously trying to explain. To prevent the loss of heat, even though my blood is warmer.

This is not really helpful.

The library of the great city is in fact only a few empty streets away, but before we get there, his disconcerted haste is proven justified. A group of several different creatures suddenly pulls itself together out of the shadows, as though they were somehow not actually there in the first place and have just assembled from essence of architecture and a collective thematic ideal.

There are five of them in total, four of which are apparently minor servitors and similar in their general appearance, mechanical constructs of metal, thick black grease and synthetic membranes. They are informed by the design of living things but were never flesh.

The fifth is different, but although it appears to be the leader, it is not possible to tell exactly what it is. It is wrapped entirely in brilliantly white pressure bandages that cover its entire body, but the strips and bindings seem to be alive in a way that it is clearly not. Loose ends of wrappings trail out into the air and snake upright, rippling about under their own internal motions without respect to gravity or the movements of the air.

It has only a few articles of clothing in its own right, bracers and greaves, an armored loin-guard and collar, all purely functional and designed to protect its tightly woven body. It looks like it should move slowly, but it doesn't. The stretching and contraction of the mimetic bandages seems to allow it to move very fast indeed.

Despite his apparently ongoing mental problems, Sethkill leaps immediately into battle like a whirling dervish, much faster than any of the rest of us can come to his assistance. On the first spring he kicks out longly, trailing leg snapping back and forth to kick over two of the lesser servitors with precisely articulated kicks to the head. A third servitor is taken down when his descending elbow is utilized against its left-side collar articulation as a convenient means to slow his fall. All this and he hasn't even drawn his sword-spear yet.

Two graceful sidesteps and he somersaults into the air again, only this time backwards and right over the out-stretching claw of the fourth servitor as it lashes out. As he unfolds from his tumble somewhere behind its head he kicks out again, another long-sweeping kick that smashes its head sideways and sends it stumbling.

It is at this moment that the lead creature finally decides to make its move, and it is fast, so fast that when it finally does it seems to flicker out of view for a moment until it decelerates at the end of its dash. It has seen where Sethkill is going to land and is aiming for him, but the sheer velocity of its attack precludes the motion being any more sophisticated than a shoulder-driven lunge, designed primarily to take him off-balance.

Sethkill actually manages to get both feet down fractionally before the impact takes place, and so even though the creature does manage to connect, things do not go according to plan. The clash is far more solid than intended, and instead of hurting him substantially the creature ends up colliding with him bodily, throwing him backwards through the air. This is all the edge he needs, and he manages to land with one hand down first, tumbling over sideways, and come up into a respectable fighting crouch.

Although two of the servitors seem to feel that this is the correct moment to attack him en masse while he's down, they are swiftly disabused of their errors by having their lower limbs kicked out from under them. The leader tries to dash up and attack him from the side as he is taking them out, but Sethkill turns his second low kick into a full circular sweep that connects with it as well, only slightly slowed by the intervening impact.

With everything in arms reach temporarily disabled or knocked down, Sethkill takes advantage of the brief interim to spring abruptly to his feet, drawing his sword-spear swiftly as he does so. Pulling the weapon into an evidently much-practiced pose, held vertically upright and straight-bladed in front of him, he swings it devastatingly twice around his head, spins about once himself to garner the maximum possible speed and final impact, and then drives the blade out backward into the empty space behind him.

It is at this point that the pressure-bandaged creature catches up with the fact that it has just driven itself point-first into the blade, killed by its own lethal speed. Despite the massive force of the collision, the bandages somehow resist the forward progress of the weapon, and by the time it slides out the creatures back it is barely moving. At which point vast amounts of discolored fluids and solvents spray out in all directions from both ends of the wound, and something thicker spills out of the creatures mouth, stretching all the way down to the pavement before it finally snaps.

The bandages suddenly lose their grip, and the creature slides off the blade, staggers, and falls down. It's almost certainly not dead, but the vast over-pressure and general haemorrhage it just simultaneously experienced will have put it out of commission for some time. It's unlikely to be a threat again before the end of the day.

While all this excitement has been going on, the rest of us have rushed to help by finishing off the lesser servitors. They break apart and fall into heaps of disconnected components when dead, the black grease and synthetic tissues used to put them together just-in-time in the field now melting and spilling away as any semblance of integrated function is lost. It seems servitors are cheap, but without majority cohesion they're just so many spare parts.

We leave the leader where it is, a mark of respect. When it wakes it will regret messing with us.

Continuing hastily on our way, we finally reach the library. As a building it is unashamedly huge, decorated within a general theme of green and gold, the colors more those of naturally occurring stone than of plaster or paint, apparently grown in-situ to fulfill the decorators requirements. The interior spaces are vast. How we are ever supposed to find whatever it is we are looking for will become a significant question shortly.

Sethkill points out what appears to be some sort of personal transport system, amidst sunlit motes of dust in the empty public spaces. It seems to be driven from under the floors somehow, rather than under its own power, and follows the line of the walls in a narrow recess that that keeps it out of the way of passers-by. The sole physical expression of the system consists of a row of abstractly shaped saddles, contoured like the topographic ridge between two hills, which rest unsupported a short distance above the floor. Someone has laid down a guide line to indicate their path, presumably for collision safety.

Or maybe this is not quite the case. A closer inspection, as we approach, suggests that the saddles may in fact be an illusion of sorts, a convenient guide to the underlying location of some sort of torsion field designed to translate whatever is in it forward along a fixed line. The shape of the saddles seems to be designed to suggest some sort of tensor in a generic manner.

Sethkill yips, barks and howls graciously to several of the saddle interfaces in his own language, seemingly providing instructions as to where he wants to go and how to get there. Riding on, careful to balance, he explains, apparently concerned. Sliding sideways will fall off, much chasing to run after.

Since this is the most coherent thing he has said in some time, it must be quite important.

After trying to climb up onto the saddles, or at least where they appear to be, it seems that they are indeed some sort of kinetic interaction which it is possible to balance on, or at least over and around in a general sense. The effect seems to be proportional to the square of the distance from the unseen line, so you have to wrap your legs around it and lean forward onto your elbows.

When the saddles start moving, at a verbal command from Sethkill, an additional twist kicks in to propel them forward along the line. It's almost like surfing on an unseen, continuous wave whilst remaining seated on the board.

The original design appears to be most versatile for sethura use, allowing them to fold their legs into a variety of convenient positions around the beam, or even ride side-saddle at a comfortable lean with one knee over and one knee under. The system is less accommodating to our variant physiques, for which it was never designed. Cleo finds her tail problematic because it sticks out at a considerable distance from the center of the effect, causing it to whip about like an antenna due to being incompletely entrained. She ends up looking like an actual cat riding a dog, butt raised up above the saddle to help smooth out the effect. It is to her credit that she manages to make this look quite graceful, mounted calmly over nothing with her arms hunched up under her, nail-claws hooked around the front of an imaginary seat, looking interestedly about.

The rest of us do our respective best to copy Sethkills pose, with a little more difficulty as we've never had to do this before. Despite the occasional worrying lurch sideways, no-one actually falls off, which makes it a considerable win.

After several minutes, somewhere out in what must be the furthest and most dispersed stacks of the library, the saddles finally slide to a halt and allow us to slither off, which is far more complex and clumsy than disengaging from an actual solid object, at least for us. Sethkill slips off sideways with a certain grace, like dismounting from a polished metal balustrade, a move which is unkindly difficult to copy in the same way any simple-looking physical feat always turns out to be. The used saddles wait a short interval and then vanish when it becomes apparent we will not be needing them again immediately.

A short walk between shelves that hold all manner of media brings us to the location Sethkill is looking for, at which we find ourselves surrounded by illegibly titled books, the spines gilded in various metals with stylised sethura letters. The sethura have not used actual printed documents for an unaccountable number of years, and the two distinct typefaces are probably the old low script and high script, which would make this a subject area sorted by its originating era.

Upper left on the upper shelf, Sethkill suggests, making gestures. The undisturbed ride seems to have benefited his clarity of mind enormously.

Cleo pulls out her free-climbing skills and goes to work, scurrying directly up the shelves like a cat, overhand and almost without using her feet, and quicker than a flash has retrieved the codex in question. It has a distinctive appearance even though none of us can read a word on it, and it's just lucky for the collection that it doesn't occur to her to carry it down clasped in her sharp, catty little lioness teeth. Even so, she has it down long before anyone could have gone and found one of the lift platforms that are scattered about to access the higher contents.

You aren't dead so I must still be dreaming, says Sethkill in appreciation. It seems to be intended as some sort of compliment to her skill. He runs a three-fingered hand through her hair, and then caresses the side of her muzzle, allowing one thumb to trail across the corner of her lips. Three pieces of cat, he adds happily.

Cleo is a little confused by this latest assertion until she remembers the very first time they ever met, and how he woke her up from her little cat nap. Considered in that light, it seems like a very clever way to put it, and she smiles her devastating lioness smile at him.

Just call me your powerful one, she replies, a play on the name she had a long time ago.

Now possessed of the book, Sethkill calls up the saddles again, seemingly intending to consult it at some later date or read it on the way. The instructions he vocalizes this time are different, and it soon becomes apparent that the line network is not confined to the library or its public spaces. This is not too surprising as a discovery, given the ease with which such a system could be used to deliver consignments of media and supplies to various locations, but it is intriguing that Sethkill would know all about it and have access.

We pass rapidly out of the library proper, down a series of corridors and back rooms apparently intended for the use of the library's staff and conservators, and then out along an external path in which the drive line becomes the central feature, rather than being recessed off to one side. At the end of this final passageway is a narrow slit-like door through which the drive line emerges out suddenly into the sunlight, leaving the building completely.

The feeling is now one of an industrial conveyor belt, and the line continues outside, inset into a shallow trough in the ground to help keep it straight and level. The trough is edged with simple beams of the ubiquitous wood-like silva used for construction by the sethura, in much the same economical manner as railway sleepers, but overhead and around a faint distortion of the air seems to indicate a concentric extension of the drive line at a higher energy level, acting as an almost unseen corridor to keep out wind, rain and the elements. On a clear, bright, really strange day like this it doesn't seem to be a problem, but the absence of wind shear is welcome.

After several minutes of increasing acceleration, the line drive begins to run parallel to a small river that has to be a minor tributary of the Srenen. Brush and parklands abound to either side of the trackway, so it seems we must be passing through an intentional green belt of the great city, although none of the colors are exactly green and the light is vicious. It's like the old waterview extension before they tore it down, exclaims Cleo, linking all the spillways and waterways through the city as part of a series of parks. Although I never saw anything like that when we were out kayaking, she adds, pointing to something that resembles an archaeopteryx as it flies briefly past from cover to cover, lifted by skin-spanned wings.

Sethkill, who is in the lead saddle, turns around long enough to favor all of us with a wolfish grin. Phoenix bird, he says. There will be beautiful fires tonight.