Hyperpunk Virgo 1: Dreams of Oblivion

The Phantasmal Labyrinth was not a place of something so fragile and limited in imagination as ‘sense’ but likewise it seemed to make too much sense in too small a space to be anything other than paradoxical.

The halls of concrete spiralled before the Gealt’s wake, their blood becoming the markers they used to keep track of their steps even as the corridors rotated before and behind them.

Gravity obeyed the environment and became whatever it needed it to be... or perhaps whatever the Gealt needed it to be to keep moving, reaching dead-ends where the only way to continue was to walk up a wall or down a hole, only to find sure footing as gravity shifted and grounded them in place.

Once or twice they walked up a hole only to arrive at a dead end, to then walk back down to where they entered to find that where once may have been a corridor that ran for a kilometre east, there was now one that ran west- the chamber from whence they first came seemingly no longer there despite the blood trail indicating otherwise.

In that regard having a sense of direction became vestigial. Any ability to orientate themselves as redundant as the fear of death itself.

As the Gealt knew, there were many more rational things to fear.

At some point thereafter the Gealt began to believe that it was only by being lost could they find a path forward, as soon their aimless wanderings lead them from the concrete corridors into a vast hall with endless rows of featureless monoliths no more than a foot in length, their own body in width and a skyscraper in height; only to find one such monolith miles in that had a narrow opening leading on into another corridor, when a cautionary glance upon the opposite side of the monolith suggested the contrary.

It was less painful to keep moving and take the path that was presented to them than to think about it with a mind plagued by brainfog. A mental haze borne of their exhaustion or some malevolent effect of the local Arch-Devil influence?- they didn’t know. Or perhaps they did, it just became too hard to resolve the knowledge with certainty when certainty made blood run to the spot between their nose and their eyes in a place that had much in common with a forest that had gone dead silent.

Venturing deeper into the depths into another maze of corridors that on first glance seemed more similar to that of an office space in the real- not that the Gealt could recall if they have ever stepped foot in such places- in time they came to realise the walls were more like ossifying bone stained by the miasma carried in the foul air, the carpeted beige floors more like fur, with every fall of their flayed boots becoming less like a step upon solid rock and more like a step upon wet flesh.

The air had been humid and thick with a dusty musk but now there was movement in it. A back and forth blow, like an inhale and an exhale.

The Gealt remained undaunted.

The Abyss was a place where everything you were had to serve as fuel for fury, and their anxiety burned colourlessly within them as they kept moving with a sense of calm in spite of the shadowy presence lingering around them; the Lost and Damned claimed by the Labyrinth, darted behind corners and whispering words that were at once just within reach of coherence and completely beyond comprehension.

Anger simmered within them as they began to run, momentarily aiming down sights and almost firing at the darting shadows, holding only because the shell would never strike its target and instead crack the bonelike walls, angering some yet unseen beast.

The Gealt’s bloodthirst flowed into their actions. A desire to kill, to feel like they were going in the right direction. But that too burned as a fuel within them as they broke into a sprint, invading deeper into the illuminated subliminal halls until it threatened to burnout, leaving them numb.

In the corner of their eyes, on the other side of a long corridor they saw a dark presence unlike the darting shadows.

A warrior clad in black power armour. Lit by diodes across their form that glowed red against the shadows, indicating anything from a potential for violence to the protection of the wearer. At their hip was a glowing tank of bioluminescent fluid that seemed to run down a tube to their boots- creating a glowing green footprint. A literal means of tracing their steps.

In their hands they carried against their waist with the support of a mechanical arm a charged plasma autocannon, which they propped up and aimed at the Gealt.

The Gealt aimed down the sight, lining the dual lasers upon the warriors helmeted head, their face a dome visor of blackened plastic giving no hint to what they were beyond the holographic visage of a skull. But that alone was enough to make something click in their mind.

They kept their finger off the trigger as they tried to reach into the haze. There was something familiar about the dark warrior before them. Something important. But they couldn’t remember what.

For some silent seconds the Gealt stood their ground. So too did the dark warrior, who cocked their head to the side in curiosity before with what seemed to be a loud and long sigh, they lowered the autocannon and reached for their helmet. Lifting up the visor to reveal a battle-scared masculine face with a trimmed beard, orange eyes with rings of yellow and slitted pupils like the Gealt’s own- made more striking by the purple warpaint intricately marked over their forehead and cheeks.

A Faerie, the Gealt realised. Lowering the Cannon, they approached with caution one who they now knew to be their kin.

“Are you friend or foe?”; the Warrior asked in Twilit Speech. The language of the Free Folk.

The Gealt pushed through the haze in the mind to get a grip on their mothertongue once more, unable to meet the warriors gaze until they finally found the right words.

“A friend?”; the Gealt spoke with a hoarse voice, “I hope”.

“In this realm, hope is enough, especially when friends are rare enough things at the best of times”; the warrior spoke in understanding, seemingly relaxing even though their eyes darted to check corridors and corners.

The Stranger considered the Gealt’s form for a moment then placed their left hand upon their chest in the place between their hearts, in a gesture of greeting.

“I am Hector O’Kraig. He/Him. I am an Astral Diver of the Wild Hunt”; he said politely with what the Gealt realised was the calm of one who had spent way too long living in chaos.

The Gealt was truly anything but. In their twin hearts they felt contrasting degrees of fear and relief on hearing that name.

The Wild Hunt. Warriors who had endured eons of conflict fighting alongside the Overlord herself across the universe until they no longer fought to live like so many soldiers before them; or lived to fight like the warriors that raised them. Living and Fighting had become one and the same to them.

Either way, the Gealt didn’t feel afraid of what lurked in the dark any longer.

Now they feared saying the wrong thing… though they couldn’t remember why. All they had was an instinct.

“And you are? I don’t care if that’s a Roanoker in your hands, you don’t look to be of Muspel’hel nor a Diver”; Hector stated bluntly, gesturing the Assault Cannon. A nickname for it, the Gealt realised. There was a story there, “… and you have Fomorian blood in you. The Fomóri may have long since completed their exodus from Helheim but I would remember that kind of winning smile anywhere”.

“I’m not a Diver. I’m Astral Projecting”; the Gealt half-lied, reluctant to acknowledge Hector’s joviality but eager to exploit his assumptions.

It was technically true in a morbid way. They ‘were’ Astral Projecting. Just not through meditation. They were…

…sitting naked in a bathtub. An endotracheal tube down their throat pumping drug-laced air into their lungs and a medical plug jacked through their chest to a point below their sternum where the rot within had taken root.

The last thing they remember seeing before it all went black being the sight of red blood diffusing from where they had cut deep into their wrist into the cloudy, icy water.

No... No, the water was warm. Sublimely so. Smelling of silica and sea salt.

It was them that was cold.

Cold as the dead.

The Gealt felt sick on remembering what they did to themselves, but steeled their hearts and as memories rushed like blood to their head, like sewage pushing through a clogged pipe until various incomplete waves of information flowed forth. Enough to give them context at least.

“My name…”; the Gealt began, pressing their left hand to the centre of their chest and speaking out loud to themselves more than to Hector, “My name is Aodhán… of the Aphothians”.

Hector’s eyes widened at the statement and with terrible anxiety Aodhán realised they had made a mistake.

“Wait you’re...!? You’re of Aphothia!? The Zxenjentan Realm of Tir na Dorchadais endures?”; Hector questioned, his eyes widening in shock. Then becoming overwhelmed with joy, “That’s… fantastic! When the Cataclysm overwhelmed that world we believed both Arcadia and Aphothia was as lost to us as Aelgia”

Arcadia. The name stung at Aodhán like an audible splinter. They knew it as a place that was destroyed long before they were born, but the weight of its memory still rested heavily upon them.

“Wait… Forgive the assumption but you are of Fomori heritage? The Fomóri certainly lingered on Tir na Dorchadais for far longer than they did within Helheim. But they left after the end of the War of the Javeline 20 thousand years ago throughout Mortalis”; Hector spoke, piecing together a deduction from so little information it would have been an assumption were it not correct, “So… you’re either descended from the exception… or...”

Aodhán looked away as Hector trailed off, unable to meet his gaze as he realised the unspoken. Their hearts beginning to ache with a mixture of shame and hatred. But Hector took it to mean he was correct.

“You’re a Flamdwyn!?“; Hector spoke, the meaning dawning within their mind, “By the Skéll. You’re a descendant of the Dagda!”

“And the Morrigan!”; Aodhán snarled, and with venom they answered, “Yes… but what grace they had is not mine to bare”.

“The fact you are here makes me doubtful of that. Your Spirit is aged but your body must still know its youth. Besides, the Helreign felt the awakening of the Warrior of Starlight from within the Hault. The reverse echo of their awakening backwards through time. She had triangulated it to the Sol System but after Arcadia fell we believed it to be a phantom sound. The scar of a future that may have been but never would be. The news that the Flamdwyn Bloodline endures, that it has borne one who can Astral Project, shall relieve her greatly. Feck, it may even dare her to hope”; Hector sighed, like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders… or more accurately, like the new information renewed his spirits, “It ameliorates our worst fears. The Primordial Flames are not yet extinct from this realm”.

The only thing it did for Aodhán was make them feel more tired of everything.

“But I must ask. Why are you here Youngblood? You look worse for wear. Surely whatever it is you seek is no longer worth the wounds upon your Spirit?”; Hector spoke, gesturing to the collection of wounds that Aodhán had acquired, “Especially one as important as yours”.

Not really able to meet the Berserker Lord’s eyes, Aodhán chose their words carefully; “What I seek is for the benefit of a great many people. That alone is reason enough to endure. To close my hearts to my own suffering”.

“…Okay”; Hector said gingerly, and then carried on, “I am part of a Expeditionary Fireteam. We’ve established a haven nearby and we have a Riftgate active. If I recall correctly, the 3rd law of Necromancy dictates that a Spirit will return to its body so long as the body is able to receive it regardless of how it gets there?”.

Aodhán almost smiled at that… almost: “That’s the 2nd law. The 3rd law of Necromancy dictates that anything that has died cannot return unchanged”

“Whatever. It’s a means for your spirit to return to Mortalis safely, if you-“

“HSELF RIEHT DNER TSUM EW!”; screeched a violent voice, “TCETORP SREPOLRETNI EHT EOFEB MEHT GNIRB DNA EHT! SREGNUH HCIHW TAHT RUTIGILE!!!”.

Aodhán shouldered the Assault Cannon again as the voice ripped through the Labyrinth from all sides like a griphook through their eardrums.

The Berserker on the other hand cocked their head, listening to something being spoken through an earpiece and with a vicious smile held his autocannon at the ready, and with a brisk nod snapped their skull helmet shut.

“The Haven is being assaulted. We must go!”; Hector declared, breaking into a run as he retraced his green bootsteps, “Follow me!”

Aodhán huffed at the audacity but their bloodthirst had them following close behind Hector’s cumbersome form away.

Racing along through the twisting corridors, a form emerged on Hector’s left flank from one of the many diverged tunnels. One of the Damned, Lost to the Labyrinth. They retained skin and anything that could be compared to hair unlike their scorched kin, but their forms looked to be enormously bruised, their skin puffy against their rail thin forms and stretched across limbs that were bent and twisted in unnatural ways.

Hector barely acknowledged its presence as he barrelled past it. But Aodhán did, greeting it with a running sucker punch to the face. Cracking its head off the sharp corner of the junction as they charged on.