The Magi's Society

Mevi doesn’t know what happened, or how she got to where she was, but she opened her eyes in a dark place lying on a cold metallic floor. Her mind was blurry, and she remained confused for a few moments as she adjusted to the darkness. It didn’t take long for her eyes to readjust to the dimness coating the area around her. Her people’s natural inclination towards the dark allowed her to see some idea of what was around her, but she strained her eyes to see more than dark shapes and vague objects. Still confused, Mevi tried to recall her last memory. She remembered using her tools to fix things, and that she was fixing a crumbling support strut. Yet more than that her mind was fuzzy and cryptic. Regardless of how she got immersed in this darkness, Mevi had a hard time figuring out where she even was.

The area around Mevi was cold, and she felt wet, the area around her had no real source of light. Yet there seemed enough ambient light that she could still sense some things around her. She seemed to be in a decently sized open area. She was sitting in an extremely shallow pool of something sticky and wet. She felt around in the dark, disregarding the sticky substance, and pricked her hand on something sharp in her fumbling. Grasping it, the sharp tool was long like a pipe with a jagged edge, the object was light in her hands. Suddenly Mevi remembered her tools, checking her robe she searched herself for the pouch where her items were kept. Putting the sharp object down, she began to pat herself furiously. Her robe seemed terribly torn, tattered, and with fraying all over and yet mostly intact. To her dismay the pouch she created was shredded and none of her devices were on her person. Mevi was stumped, while she could make out things extremely close to her she still couldn’t see, and without sight she might as well be lost and blind. Actually, she probably was lost and nearly blind.

Mevi wasn’t sure what to do, so she resolved herself to do anything at all and began to lift herself up. A sudden shooting pain shot through her right leg and left arm as she tried to push herself standing. Collapsing into the unknown ichor, Mevi winced in great pain. She used her right hand to clutch at her bad arm, feeling from the shoulder and slowly down to identify the weakness of her body. Once she reached her forearm, and especially wrist, the pain twanged into recognition. Her wrist was probably broken, or badly sprained, she wasn’t sure if she cracked something in her forearm but it throbbed with additional pain. Content to leave it be, she investigated her right leg. As she reached down to her knee, confirming it was in the right place, she gently caressed her calves. She felt a sharp pain at the slightest of touch, and a great swelling that pulsed with irritation. Her ankle seemed to be twisted in the incorrect direction. She seemed badly hurt, and in great pain, but was strangely calm. Her adrenaline was pumping, either that or since she couldn’t see the injury she could assume she was mostly intact.

Mevi couldn’t begin to guess what to do, or if anyone would even know where she was, but knew she couldn’t leave her arm and leg as they were. She began slowly crawling around to look for any clues to her belongings. If she only had a hint of light she could assess her situation and potentially bandage herself with excess cloth. She found a long stick of some kind, longer than she was tall it seemed. It felt sturdy enough to use like a staff, she could use it to prop herself up for now. She held tight to the staff, wincing as she accidentally used her left arm, and heaved herself to a hunched stance. At least for now she was upright, and able to traverse without essentially swimming in the strange liquid she resided in.

Mevi could barely make out her surroundings. She could tell she was in a large room of some kind, the ceiling several meters above her and walls out of sight. She strained her eyes against the pitch black. She felt she saw a few gaps in the dark where it seemed thicker and further expanding. The deepest pits of dark could potentially be holes or passages against the large room’s walls. She wasn’t sure how she arrived in this place, but possibly there was a way out through one of the passages. She could partially identify only a handful of potential escape routes. Choosing the closest to her, Mevi began limping through the strange flooded room to a potential escape. Her leg was dragging against the ground as she didn’t seem entirely capable of moving the lower half. The agonizing trek was likely only a few meters, five at most, but the pain and discomfort made the travel seem as if it were leagues.

Making it to a wall, if it could be called such as it was jagged, rough, and seemed badly dented, she followed it to her target darkness. As she predicted, the wall turned into some kind of new opening. She could partially see both walls, so it must have been some kind of hallway or other type of passage. Regardless, she felt no other choice than to progress somewhere other than where she was. Mevi began her stumbling through the dark path before her.

As Mevi shuffled through the hallway, she limped slowly with very little progress. As she continued the sound of her foot splashing in the puddle of wet slowly faded. Whatever wet pool she was in before had tapered off and disappeared after the short trek into the hallway. Then as she made her way she felt her leg kick something during her hopping movement. Stumbling to the side and using the rough wall to balance herself, she used her staff to hit blindly at the terrain before her, and behind her. She connected with something as it skipped slightly through the air, a metallic sound clanging against the opposite wall. Hoping for something, anything, that might be one of her belongings she slumped once again against her staff and stumbled towards the other wall. Leaning her bad shoulder painfully against the wall, and brushing the rugged floor with her fingers as she attempted to locate the metallic object. Her hand grasped something cylindrical and thin. It felt familiar in some way, she grappled the item with her only good hand and found a sort of interface. Pressing against one of the device’s buttons, in some hope it was working and could be useful, the strange device’s end lit up slightly. The device’s end lit with a dull glow, enough to illuminate Mevi’s direct surroundings. It was the welding stick, the device she used to melt metal and stone. Her surroundings were illuminated in a short area with the glowing heat, and as it was she wished to have kept the illusion of normalcy.

Mevi’s entire form, illuminated by the small light, was covered in red ichor. The sticky substance coating her once white robe. She was soaked in some crimson substance, and yet it was thankfully thick. Her leg seemed swollen, and she avoided looking too closely at her ankle. The thick red painted her body, covering her injuries to a degree that was strong enough to keep her from thinking about the devastating wounds. Yet as she realized the color of the sticky liquid, she noticed the thick smell of rust that was blood. Her senses having been overwhelmed by pain, and so fully immersed in the liquid, she hadn’t realized that the area around her smelt of filth and gore.

Looking back, Mevi saw the imprints of her steps against the jagged and rough floor that seemed similar to the concrete roads she traveled to the Education Forum. Her mind suddenly raced back to where she was before this calamity. The Forum! She was meant to meet with Nessia and eventually see Kalesi again! It was a small hope, but if they noticed she didn’t come back, and when they met with their own mentor, maybe they could find what pit she fell through and search for her? The idea of rescue was appealing, but after returning to the present she didn’t expect a hastened escape. As Mevi was addressing her situation she stole a look at her trusty staff, the whiteness of smooth bone shone against the hot light. Her staff was a jagged strut of carcass. Mevi held a dreadful thought that made her wonder why she was brought to a place where blood and bone was stored. She wrestled with her own conclusion, yet still whatever had coated an entire room in crimson lifeblood was not something that would be likely to leave her alone. Mevi couldn’t rely on the hope of rescue. In a strange possession of clarity and logic, Mevi realized she must find some way to either make herself safe or escape in some way. Her current goal was to follow the hallway into the darkness that had held one of her tools. Possibly it was where she had come from, or was taken from, or maybe it led to some monster that thought her items were shiny treasures. Her choices were limited, and her time was unknown.

Mevi began limping through the corridor, noticing the color of the walls were black scorch with occasional dried splatters. She eventually stopped dripping, and instead was encrusted with foul smelling gore. Thankful she didn’t seem to be leaving a trail, but still racing against an unknown predator regardless. As she began dreading what might be within this deep darkness, she heard an echoing rumble from where she had escaped. A deep and bone-shaking tone of anger and fury. A guttural cry that no human could possibly create or attempt to mimic, like the sound of large machines railing against each other in anger. Mevi only hastened at the call, putting as much distance as she could manage between her and the unknown terror.

Mevi eventually found herself stumbling out of the corridor and almost falling at a suddenly declined ground, a slanted ramp leading into a vast open area. Jagged stone and metal forcing themselves out of the earth-like hull around her. The declination leading further into the open space, but a star-blessed light shining dimly from the top of the wide chasm. Mevi hadn’t noticed the hints of light in her panic, but the dim illumination from the softly glowing blue lamp that shone like a quiet moon was enough to allow her eyes some vantage of her surroundings. The chasm opened into a section of metal and ship, or at least it seemed like it might have been part of a hull at one point. There was a large missing section of structure, as if hewn from its origin leaving a crater of jagged remains scattering an unnatural cave. The light seemed to be some kind of ancient device, still clinging to life, and lightly sputtered some old memory of illumination.

A second clamor of rage billowed behind Mevi, still far but gaining in fury. Mevi had no time to debate her situation, and quickly began a sliding descent down the rough rock. The slide was slow, and she was caught on a few pointed edges causing cuts and small bruises, yet she made her way to the flat ground at the bottom. The wide crater open and cleared of most things. A few ruins of strange devices and metal husks remained in the center, only a few larger than Mevi herself. As she investigated the center, hoping to find some hint of where she came from or a place to hide, she could see a faint glint.

Moving towards the glint against the light, Mevi found another of her devices. The hammer-shaped tool that allowed for various functions of breaking or otherwise heating and shaping of an object. Limping to her belonging, Mevi fell next to its location. Without a way to properly carry the device with her only good hand full of her staff and newly acquired light, Mevi lamented what to do. Fearing for time, she removed her robes, leaving her under cloak and blouse as her remaining protection. She tied off the holes of her robe, and did her best to form some type of fraying and ripped baggage. While not perfect, it was easier to carry additional things with the idea of a bag than nothing at all. She fastened it to her chest, and tied off the ends to secure it. If anything, it could act as a pillow for her front if she were to fall over. Regardless of form, Mevi stored her device and thrust herself up again. She felt fear, and knew the creature hunting her was approaching. Without any real inclination of where to go, she scanned the area around her.

Ignoring the way she came, there was only one obviously viable exit to this cavern. On the other side of the crater, and up the slippery ledges, a new hallway opened. Her choice was clear, there was no room for doubt or debate. She didn’t see a space or area large enough to shelter her, and doubted anything that made such a terrible cry could be stopped in its hunt. Mevi darted away, regretting the abandonment of her new light, and even dared to use her bad leg to propel her faster despite the immense pain. When she reached the bottom of the slanted ledge, she began to scramble up the side. As her ascent began, an echoing war was fighting its way out of the corridor she had previously exited. Metal, claw, and hard scale was writhing against the ground and walls of where she had come. As if it intended to tear apart the entire Barge to reach Mevi. The girl’s legs hadn’t worked faster or harder in her life, she scrambled to escape up the side of the crater.

As Mevi reached halfway to the top of her escape route, the deafening noise of rage exited where Mevi had been only a few minutes ago. Mevi could not risk looking back, for fear of freezing in terror at whatever she might have seen. Focusing on climbing to her potential freedom. The monstrosity stopped in the corridor’s archway, a deep echoing breath that could be heard across the chasm. Like metal and gears scraping together in an attempt to replicate life. Whatever was there seemed to stop its movements and sound, as silence consumed the area apart from Mevi’s own struggling. A foul snarl escaped the beast that pursued Mevi, as she was almost to the top of her struggle. The shattering stone and clattering scales deafened Mevi as the unknown beast raged against the ground to reach her. A tumble and crash as the creature must have slipped going down the slope.

The beast gathered itself, and refocused its rage to its prey. Mevi was nearly at the top, if she could jump she might’ve reached the next ledge that would be her savior. As she climbed against the slope, and made a slow method of her escape, the sound of the writhing beast was below her. The creature was ascending the side after her, writhing against the slanted ground to reach her. Mevi just barely grasped the edge of the stable ground above her, and with her only eligible arm Mevi pulled with what little strength her body still carried. She saved herself as if escaping hell, and flailed to the top of her goal. A quick glance as she stumbled was all she took to understand she should never have fathomed such an eldritch horror.

The writhing mass of meat, flesh, and muscle raged against life itself. A metallic face and teeth, with sharpened claws to match. The beast’s only coherent form were those meant for killing and slaughter. The mass of unholy mixture seemed to fight against what laws of nature should have kept it as primordial ooze. Reaching, grasping, tendrils of flesh and hanging tendon flailed in Mevi’s direction, being only a breath away from finding a target. The monstrosity had no eyes to speak of, and seemed to wail against reality for its failed life. The blind monster’s limbs flailed in confusion against the side of the ledge, only reaching higher by pure chance and mass. The horror couldn't see Mevi, but seemed to hear and sense her in some way. Any small movement, rustling of clothes, and clattering of pebbles alerted the creature to her location almost instantly. The full scope of the monster couldn’t be seen, as Mevi only took a flash of vision to behold the abomination.

Mevi scrambled to her feet, seeing no other option than to run into the darkness. At least with its lack of vision she might spare a light, but didn’t know if the welding stick could be sensed by the heat it gave off. At this point she didn’t care. How could she hide from such a monstrously large being? Its flailing appendages would accidentally find her if its jaws didn’t reach her first. Flushed pale and while losing whatever bile could escape, Mevi scattered into the new escape route. Hoping the ledge would stall the monster long enough to allow her to put distance between the entity.

As Mevi rushed through the hallway, the adrenaline and fear allowed her to forget her own injuries to a degree. While her foot was still mostly unusable, her left hand balled into a tight fist, and she raced against time. While illuminated by the heat of her welding stick, Mevi passed by what looked like collapsed doors. Most were blocked by rubble, wreckage, or otherwise impassable. She found one door that seemed intact, and pulled furiously against the weight of the blocker, but it was shut tight and likely locked from some long abandoned key. She didn’t spend more than a moment to test the door and continued to race, hearing the monstrosity fight harder and harder to reach the top. The hopeful sound of a shrill wail and clamor promised mistakes and tumbling. But it wouldn’t be long until the embodiment of Mevi’s terror found a way to ascend the crater’s edge.

Mevi passed by several other blocked entryways, some with holes or gaps big enough that Mevi might’ve passed through. But she couldn't take any chances with ‘maybe’, sprinting as fast as one leg could carry. As the corridor became blocked to go forward, a passage to the right was opened enough to walk through without trouble. The screaming amalgamation might take some time to breach the gap, and Mevi favored any idea that could stall such a creature. She ducked into the new passage that opened quickly into another hall. This one had a dim light in the distance, and Mevi raced against her pain to reach it.

The light wasn’t her savior, but it provided enough hope to keep her moving. It, like the illumination in the chasm, was a flickering orb on the high ceiling. Several others lined this hallway, leaving only spots of darkness from the faint illumination. As Mevi continued the wrestle against her fate to be killed by that monster behind her, she could hear its cry of success and the shattering of wall and tile roared to life again. Her time was again limited, the caved in passage likely not holding the creature back for long before it destroyed what prevented its progress or found a way to dive through the space provided.

Mevi’s heart raced, and she could not hear the monster as clearly due to the pounding in her ears. The pain in her arm and leg was intensifying, adrenaline and fear unable to hold it back forever. As Mevi continued to run through the dimly lit hallway, passing out of light into darkness then back into light again, she spotted a potential hideaway. One of the side archways, that might’ve once been doors to new rooms or paths, had a mostly functional door that was open. Mevi pushed through, the door being held firm by something behind it but a gap open large enough she could pass in mostly unimpeded. She struggled against the pressure of the door, and fell to the other side losing grasp of her staff. As she fell she could hear the explosion of rage from the horror as it likely met the collapsed tunnel Mevi hoped would slow it down.

Darting her eyes across the room, which was dark save for the light leaking in from outside, Mevi addressed her options. The massive door was held in place by collapsing wall and rubble, only partially propped open due to its own immense strength. Half of the room seemed to be filled with wreckage and rubble. Yet this could be to Mevi’s advantage. The creature could only lift, move, and dig so much. No creature could excavate the amount of debris required to fit such a massive body into the room. The digging of terrain would only result in more falling where was excavated. The chances of the room filling entirely with stone, metal, and material was probably low. Mevi hoped to herself the chances of cave-in were low. She was exhausted, and the creature would easily catch up if she could only run in a straight line. Then Mevi had a thought. Her robes were drenched in gore and blood, but her under clothes were mostly left unmolested save for her blue cloak. She could not fathom how the creature sensed its environment, only that it seemed to be blind. It would not be a total loss if she used her robes and cloak to throw the monster off her scent. If it could smell at all.

Mevi darted her head into the hallway, the sound of enraged digging could be heard echoing down the passage. Mevi didn’t want to leave the clothes directly out the door, but couldn’t risk running too far from her discovered safety. She steeled herself and removed her blue cloak, and dropped her two recovered tools onto the floor. Balling her bundle, and clenching the hood and hem between her teeth, Mevi made her way out of her sanctuary. She limped back down as far as she would dare, the sound of digging becoming more shallow as if about to break free at any moment. Making it only a few meters, Mevi threw her bundled clothes while staggering on one leg. The throw allowed for a few extra meters of insurance, and she wouldn’t risk trying a second time. Rushing back to her discovered safety, Mevi fell into the room as she heard the eruption of the creature’s exit from the rubble.

Mevi crawled as far as she could in a few moments, but after hearing the heavy scratch of claws coming closer she froze still and lay on her back. Refusing to move, and taking in a deep breath, Mevi held back what pain she felt and focused all of her willpower on becoming quiet and silent. The creature clamored against the walls and floor and skidded to a stop near Mevi’s hideaway. The pounding of blood and rushing pain coursing through Mevi’s ears and limbs, she held as firm and still as she could manage. The sudden quiet from the monstrosity allowed Mevi to begin to feel all of her pain at once. Keeping herself quiet, despite whatever she might feel, she struggled against her own instincts to scream. The muffled clacking of talon against stone echoed into the chamber Mevi hid in, barely able to hear it over the sound of her own enraged body. Whatever the monster was doing felt as if it took an eternity, Mevi’s lungs were moments from collapse. She held only dust in her lungs, no air or oxygen remained for her body’s sustenance and it screamed for her to gasp. Despite her body fighting against her will to stay silent, she remained still and quiet. Mevi heard some clattering of metallic scraping, the monster was doing something. Then she could hear the bounding of its steps as it slowly made its way away from where she hid. Had her plan worked? Could she possibly be safe here?

Mevi let out as slow a breath as she could manage, and took in air as calmly as possible despite her body screaming for her to take more. As quietly as she could muster she began breathing again, her heart pounding louder than she could ever recall. Mevi lay there, in the dark with only a faint beam of light from outside, and suddenly longed for the Magi’s terror to replace this one. At least when she escaped the Magi, Kalesi was there to carry her away. Mevi’s thoughts drew inevitably back to her, and she wished against logic that the woman would stride into the room and slay the beast that had hunted her. Mevi couldn’t allow herself to think such longing thoughts, regardless of the creature’s departure she needed to find a way out. This began with investigating the room around her.