Hyperpunk Virgo 1: Dreams of Oblivion

“We do not die once Youngblood. This you know too well. We die many times, long before we are ever truly and with finality, dead. We die once when the trinity of body, mind and soul is severed; twice when the body is returned to earth, sea, air or flame. We die thrice more when the spirit fractures, quadrice when the echo of the mind forgets itself, quince when the soul loses its own. We die hexence when our actions in life no longer influence the world, and septence when we are forgotten. Only when the essence of our being passes through the gates of Oblivion do we die octence. This is the Journey of the Eightfold Death, Youngblood. And so fortunate should we all be to endure this journey with grace”

-

Those word ruminated through the mind of the Gealt, though who said this to them and in what context they no longer recalled. It was the ghost of a memory and little was born of it but frustration at the fogginess of their own fatigued mind. But as the feeling of falling lost its unnerving appeal, the Gealt could do nothing but think in their freefall.

Or perhaps the better word to use was ‘sank’, or maybe pulled? It didn’t feel like they were passing through air. More like a transient vapour so light it was neither liquid or air. Though the force pulling them downward didn’t feel quite like gravity either.

Like before, they didn’t mark the passing of time. Unlike before they made no attempt to change their predicament.

In their broken mind, falling meant moving and moving meant survival. It also meant they could rest, at least until they would be met by the sudden stop that was a floating mass of meta-physical rock.

A part of them wondered if that’d kill them again, but after what felt like hours of falling it felt much like wishful thinking. The likes of which was always destined for interruption.

The Gealt slowly grew into awareness of a bubbling crackle that grew in volume. Straightening out their body, spreading their arms and legs out to control their fall and look below, an exclaim of shock escaped them as they witnessed the miraculous.

They were falling towards a Dreadnought. Its miles long hull of dark crimson metal, made craggy if only by the numerous structures that arose from its hull contrasted subtly against the overcast surroundings while cones of neon green plumes of plasma burned from its stern sparking lightning into the grey as it powered onward like a unstoppable leviathan.

A leviathan that would reduce them to giblets if the Gealt didn’t do something!

Willing fire to blast from their hands and feet, the Gealt tried desperately to slow down their fall and match their relative speed to that of the gargantuan voidship. But to no avail. While they certainly had slowed down, they could not generate the lift needed to avoid crashing into the ship.

But just before they impacted the hull, they felt themselves slow as a transparent field of energy radiated off the hull catching their body only to slap them off of it, sending them bouncing to its portside, then towards its stern, then towards the bow again. Somewhere along the way they had been thrown towards the barrels of Plasma Cannons that lined the surface of the hull. 4 rows and 3 columns the Gealt counted as their body pinballed between barrels until a particular nasty slap of force launched them towards a towering structure they might have thought was navigation deck or even the bridge had they even the wherewithal to think.

Had the Gealt had the mobility otherwise instead of the focus needed to control their flight and prevent landing on their head for fear of having their neck snapped or their skull cracked, they would have realized the Dreadnought had Cyclonic Barriers. Projected Kinetic Shields oscillating unpredictably over the hull, to deflect incoming weapons and debris rather than merely scatter or diffuse them against the barrier.

The Gealt, retrieving information from the distant past and nothing more, may have remarked at the impossibility of such a thing with a Dreadnought. As the amount of energy needed to cover the surface area of a miles long by miles wide ship would likely surpass that of a sun.

Sadly they were too busy roleplaying as a sentient rugby ball to remark upon the significance of this, until eventually the Gealts shaken, battered and bruised body finally was thrown over the portside of the ship and they resumed their falling, passing rows upon rows of Macroguns and Railguns until they passed the underbelly of the ship- to find that they had it the wrong way round. Relative to the Gealt the Dreadnought was upside down, and vice versa.

Beholding the foredeck they could do little but awe at the gargantuan main gain. A cannon the size of a skyscraper made for cracking planets wide open, flanked on both sides by lines and levels of runway catapults.

From one such catapult launched a vessel. A black and gold fighter-craft, jets burning with the same neon green as the Dreadnought. For a moment the Gealt feared that they were being targeted by what they assumed was a tactical laser system, resting between the rudders of the jet to form a crude box-wing. But to the Gealt’s unease, the Jet seemed to be hard-burning towards them.

That was the last sight the Gealt could make out before passing through a cloud of mist.

When they passed into a clearing again however, the Fighter Jet was not far behind. Fighting against the imposed gravity of the Saobhadh to reach the Gealt.

Eventually it got close enough that its flaps needed to spread to create drag and match the velocity of the Gealt’s terminal velocity.

From beneath a canopy of dematerializing hexagonal plates emerged an anthropoid figure, garbed in a flight-helmet, a combat harness and a bodysuit matching the palette of the jet; and of a tight enough fit for the Gealt to identify them as a woman.

Climbing out of the cockpit, a carabineer latched onto their harness and tethering them to the fighter, they slowly climbed their way up towards the nose of the jet as it inched closer and closer to the Gealt.

Upon her left arm the Gealt spotted an insignia, beneath 2 glowing green chevrons. A black hexagon accented with gold along its outline, an inner hexagon containing a eye light prism in its centre- within a red orb suspended within 3 golden jagged crescents and upon a red sceptre.

‘Her’ Mark. The Mark of Virnagoth.

The Gealt, not certain of what would await them, spread their body out to create drag, reaching out and trying to reach for the gloved hand of the voidgoer.

Inch by inch and getting closer until they could barely touch and the Gealt could see the reflection of themselves in the voidgoers helmet.

And the giant landmass rapidly approaching them.

Instinct took over, the Gealt knew they’d never pull up in time if they kept trying to save them.

“BREAK OFF!”; roar-barked the Gealt, their voice tearing through their throat for what felt like the first time in eons to speak an ancient tongue their would-be saviours probably didn’t even know, “SAVE YOURSELVES!”.

The voidgoer reaching for them, whether in stubbornness or just courage, kept reaching for them. It was the Pilot that reacted instead, reaching up from the cockpit to pull them by the tether out of the way as the tactical laser began charging with an eerie green glow from the pods optical sight.

The Gealt shielded their head, more so by reflex than anything else in the face of oncoming and unavoidable death, only for the tactical laser to fire past them. A high-frequency screech piercing through the void to strike the land-mass above them and below the Gealt. The grey rock glowing orange before blowing apart and leaving behind a molten tunnel that the Gealt immediately realized was for them as grey subdued light infiltrated through the hole.

Twisting their body around and diving towards the tunnel, they dared a glance back at the fighter jet in time to hear something being yelled at them in a tongue they didn’t recognize.

They’d heard and learned Abyssal Creole, Neo-Fell Tongue and Angelic speech just through exposure. But nowhere in the Astral Realm nor in Mortalis had they heard a tongue such as this.

In a flash of cyan light the Voidgoer had summoned into existence what looked to be a weapon, a black and grey firearm. As the jet did a 180° roll to turn and burn away from the landmass, the voidgoer gripped the wing and threw the weapon after the Gealt into the molten tunnel.

They caught the weapon and held onto it as they passed through and through. Beyond the sight of the Crimson Dreadnought and their would be rescuers, not that they believed their life to be worth rescuing.

They were not worth saving. Not worth anyone effort. Not here nor anywhere. The idea that they could encounter a physical being in the astral realm was absurd in itself given how vast and finitely infinite the Saobhadh was. The fact they had encountered the Dominion of Muspel’hel was miraculous and the mere notion that the warriors chosen by the Forgelady Prime herself would actually try to aid them was heart-aching in itself, when it was truly their destiny to be doomed.

As they continued to fall, they felt the foreshock of a heartbeat; and with an bitter ache in their soul they curled their arms around the weapon knowing that it would be lost to them in mere moments.

They would be gone, through once more into the churn between; and the only proof of any goodwill they had known in so long would be lost to the Saobhadh.

The spins came and they felt themselves be pulled into the churn before they were spat right out again. The parody of gravity replaced by its illusion as the Gealt hit the ground hard, and tumbled for several metres over musky concrete floors.

When they finally came to a stop, their arms, neck and back raw and red with blood. Their left elbow numb and tingling, and - on inspection - very much dislocated.

But as they turned themselves around to stare at a concrete ceiling lit only by openings from which fiery light leaked through, in the corner of their vision having skidding across the floor out of their hands lay the weapon they were given.

Rolling onto their side and pushing themselves to their feet with their one good arm, then using it to reduce their elbow back into place, gritting their teeth as they growled out their pain; the Gealt stalked towards and lifted up the heavy metallic weapon, poignant at its continued presence.

On inspection the weapon appeared to be an Assault Cannon, judging by the ammo being a 15mm slug on checking the drum magazine and how heavy the thing was.

The barrel was no longer than their arm in length, an under-barrel grenade launcher chambered in 60mm doubling as a fore-grip beneath it and a holographic sight upon a picatinny rail atop it.

Taking a deep breath, the Gealt loaded the drum back into the Cannon mag well and shouldered the fixed stock, their veins pulsing volcanically into their left arm as they kept a hold on the fire within.

With that, the Gealt continued onwards. Stalking their way through the concrete corridors of the Phantasmal Labyrinth.