Personal Log
The moment passed and I was back to dealing with the real world, or what passes for the real world in the Labyrinth. At the moment that was kudzu. I had heard about invasive plant species on some of the gossamer worlds, but I never expected to find it on the Grand Stair itself. Of course we were in the Labyrinth now, a place where I had always been warned to expect the unexpected. At least if we had to run from it it didn’t look like we’d need to sprint.
Being curious if all the worlds in the Labyrinth were as strange as the one we traversed to get here I checked out a nearby Door. Basta was the name which formed in my head, along with an image of what could have been a large plant. I didn’t think it was carnivorous, but I wasn’t going to rule the possibility out. I convened my impressions to the rest of the group and learned Jane had gotten a similar impression from another Door. The could have been two Doors to the same world but my first thought was of an invasive plant invading worlds along the Grand Stair. At least the temperate regions of them. I possible cause for concern if it continued unchecked but nothing particularly different from what a number of more ambulatory species had managed.
Calais said this was all new to him.
While we were all contemplating the wondrous variety of life to be found along the Grand Stair we noticed several approaching forms. Basta, it seemed, was indeed in the Labyrinth itself, as I identified the forms to the others as that which I had seen on the other side of the Door. I opened my senses to feel for any psychic presence, unsure if a plant would even have an identifiable psychic presence, and was somewhat gratified to find that it did, although of the several apparently independent creatures we could see only one registered any psychic presence at all, and that one (and they all looked perfectly alike to me) was powerful; stronger than Cyra in my estimation, but probably less so than the Dwimmerlaik Cyber-Lady we had so recently tussled with. Calais noted that, in his experience, only Dale and Vala were stronger.
The entities, creature being perhaps an inappropriate term, halted their approach at a respectful distance, acting deferential towards those chosen by the Grand Stair, those Wardens and Masters of the Grand Stair among us. Their mode of travel was not as ours. Instead of having limbs dedicated to movement was we use our legs (and sometimes arms) they were carried along top of the carpet of kudzu as a human crowd might lift an individual and propel them along above their heads passing them hand to hand. I had a momentary vision of a crowd of kudzu waving in unison at a death metal concert, but the vision quickly passed. Disturbing.
Fumbling attempts and inter-species (phylum? kingdom? do we even have an appropriate term?) communication failed miserably. I don’t know if they could even appreciate that sound could be used to communication. For it’s part, a portion of the kudzu plant withdrew leaving a thin layer of soil behind (and where have the cleaning people been lately to let this much dirt accumulate?) in which was inscribed shapes we neither recognized nor understood the meaning of.
This was a basic problem in communication, and, I reasoned, the Grand Stair, through it’s Doors, was a master at facilitating communication. The problem here was that we were on the Grand Stair itself, not on a world linked through a Door. But Basta was on the other side of the nearby Doors, and the Doors can have palpable effects in the near vicinity. Hoping it could extend some of it’s magic on this side of the Door as well, I touched a nearby Door and tried to understand what Basta had written in the dirt.
“Mind Blowing” was the phrase which came to mind after we had left and I could spare the brain power for casual thought, and not in the wild visions brought on by significant doses of hallucinogens. This was more in the synapses fused and brain hopefully not dribbling out my ears sense. It was hard, and I had to work at it far harder than any normal Door assisted communication (which was effortless for those the Grand Stair had accepted). It was exhausting. But it worked.
The message was a greeting, and an apology for disturbing us. It was also an inquiry for, as best as I could make out, if our “fertilizer was for sale”. I passed this message on to the rest of the team, and in a gesture of friendship Mena made some alterations to the soil to make it more perfect for kudzu to grow and propagate on. For my part I drew an inquiry as to the whereabouts of the Minotaur. In response a direction was indicated, and possibly a timeframe as well but lacking a common referent this last was not particularly useful to us. We offered thanks and a path was made clear for us as we made our way in quest of the Minotaur.
A spiral stairway down took us past walls of boiling bronze (liquid to the touch, but requiring armor with outstanding thermal protection to prevent loss of finger) to a single door at the bottom bearing the number 626. We were clearly still in the Labyrinth as wayfinding was non-functional still.
Mentally wincing at engaging in still more mental activity I touched the door with a thought to seeing what was on the far side, and making sure it wasn’t illusionary. Glitzy. Overbuilt. High tech. Propaganda hinting at threats for disobedience. Stepping through to a building rooftop we could also see a docile looking populace with armed spacesuited aliens patrolling the streets. William and Jane identified the architecture as a blend of Hong Kong and Tokyo, although Jane was a bit distracted by a sudden blinding headache and nosebleed as were Cyra and Calais.
After a bit of experimentation we were informed that the problem revolved around the fact that sorcery in this world was psionic in nature and racked spells were anathema to this world. A brief period of acclimation cause the headaches to diminish but their racked spells remained out of reach. Crisis resolved and back to business.
I now attempted wayfinding the Minotaur. Until we knew for sure the Minotaur was in this world further exploration seemed pointless. I was rewarded with the sense that he was to the north and west of us. I was then further rewarded with unconsciousness, later determined to be a backlash from my using wayfinding in this world. We would later be told that the aliens enslaving this world, in attempting to make a Door from one world directly to another, had made a ‘broken’ Door out in the vicinity of Saturn which brought about the backlash we had all experienced. One more wave of invasion flooding through the worlds of the Grand Stair. If we ever run across the Guardians of the Grand Stair, if they really exist, maybe we’ll remember to tell them about this. In the meantime we needed to focus on getting the artifact to the Minotaur and convincing him to destroy it for us.
Cyra had by now discovered, to her delight, an extensive computer network into which she had readily gained access. No mention of a Minotaur, but the quite unusual visit of an enormous battleship to the rooftop on which we stood. As the battleship was normally based in Siberia (not surprisingly north and west of our current location) Cyra turned her attention there. In the meantime, I stepped into the building (the Door was linked to a roof access doorway) and utilized the services of Falmorath to create a quite ordinary door, to which I could link should we need to get to the Door quickly. Then, feeling somewhat dissatisfied with the idea of a door leading to a blank wall and still experiencing a dull throbbing at the back of my head, created a large medicine cabinet behind it stocked with as extensive a variety of pain killers as I could think of, all of them being legal on one world or another.
By now our presence on this world had been detected. Cyra announced that her net access had been cut off. Hover tanks we now visible and rapidly closing on our location. Without further preamble, Cyra proceeded to teleport the lot of us to Siberia.
We emerged from the teleport atop a hydroelectric dam. Apparently the aliens had a use for hydro power as the dam sported some non-human upgrades. Equally apparent was their lack of use for human cities, as the battleship now hovered above one, dilapidated and being rebuilt in an alien style. There was also some sort of military activity taking place in a part of the city, and signs that it had been happening fairly regularly for a long time.
Being careful to avoid the backlash from my previous efforts I again sought to use wayfinding on the Minotaur. It pointed me toward the battleship. Cyra announced that her spells could not penetrate it’s shielding. This shielding did not, however, prevent me from linking an access door leading down into the dam to one of the airlock doors visible on the outside of the battleship (and then taking another handful of aspirin).
After a brief tussle with some security types we made our way to the Minotaur. It is a measure of how tired I was that it wasn’t until we were on our way out of the Labyrinth that I realized I could have simply netted the security troops and left them trapped behind us rather than have Calais shoot them all in the head as the others debated what to do with them. Of course he might have gone ahead and killed them anyway, just to make sure they wouldn’t escape and come after us even if they had been netted, but we won’t know that now. I’m not sure why I was bothered by the incident. It’s not like they had been planning on showing any mercy to us. I suppose it’s more a karma thing; hoping we’ll find the universe balancing mercy shown by us with mercy shown to us. Or maybe it’s just another side effect of having my brain run thorough a meat grinder.
The Minotaur was dining by himself in a large hall as the elevator doors opened on his floor. Seeing no threats I quickly stepped to the side, holding my shotgun at ready but pointed safely away from the Minotaur and his meal. Once the way was clear Pasiphae quickly ran to her beloved and began a conversation in Ancient Greek which I could follow barely a word of. The Minotaur then spoke with Calais in a different language, which I could follow not at all. Then he spoke to us, asking us what we would ask of him. Mena said we had an item which we wanted to destroy, and which while it was beyond us to destroy it we head heard than he could. Rather than simply doing what we wanted he wanted to know why we wanted it destroyed. I don’t know if he really cared why he wanted it destroyed or if he was messing with our heads. In any case I started an explanation, touching on the Dwimmerlaik and the enslaving of eight billion people and using them as an army to invade the Grand Stair. At this point he went ahead and destroyed the artifact, although it was because he was convinced or simply to shut me up I don’t know and don’t care.
Further conversation revealed that the Minotaur was not a prisoner here, as had been our initial assumption, but the Incursion (presumably the name for the alien invaders of this earth) were attempting to negotiate with him for safe passage through the Labyrinth, and that the broken Door was a failed experiment of theirs. They did not understand magic and had no appreciation for things which could not be mass produced.
When asked if there was anything else he could do for us, William asked how we might get out of the Labyrinth. Another indicator of my fatigue; I hadn’t even considered that. The Minotaur offered to lead us out, and at our request led us to to a multi-colored crystal door he said led to Shatterlight.
Written by Dave Nebiker