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<blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7630490" data-attributes="member: 143"><p>That would actually have been a cool twist! Wish I'd thought of it! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>* * * </p><p></p><p>Chapter 316</p><p></p><p>Bredan’s awareness returned within a sea of blackness.</p><p></p><p>He had no sense of his body, or anything else; he was just a disembodied presence within the black. He felt a momentary surge of panic, but without arms or legs to move or a heart to pound in his chest the sensation quickly faded.</p><p></p><p>After an interminable time he became aware of something, a tiny, distant point of light within the utter darkness. It wasn’t much, just a pinprick, but being the only thing that was different, it drew his entire focus. He had no idea how to move in this strange place, but as he continued to concentrate on the dot it began to grow bigger. It became first a sphere, then as he got closer it began to differentiate until he could see that it was a web, a complex matrix of glowing points and connecting lines that formed a bright bubble in the dark.</p><p></p><p>He continued to draw nearer, and the web grew increasingly complex until he could not even begin to count the nodes that were connected to it. His attention focused on one of those brighter points of light and it began to swell, until he could see that it too was made up of hundreds if not thousands of interconnected loci. It all quickly became overwhelming, and as the pressure on his awareness intensified, he drew back until he could once more perceive the whole from a safe distance.</p><p></p><p>He studied it for an interval. Time seemed to have no meaning here, or at least he lacked any point of reference to mark its passage. He gradually became aware of something else. There were other connections to the web, but these were coming from outside it. There were tiny threads, many of them, some bright, and some dark. He could not see where they originated; they all simply faded beyond his perceptions at some undefined distance from the web. But the connections on the other end were more distinct. He closed in again as he studied them, until he could how the threads split off into thousands of tiny tendrils that burrowed into the individual nodes, the tiny distinct points of light that he now knew were themselves additional webs that continued to subdivide in added complexity. Wary of being caught once more, he carefully studied the outside connections. They seemed to pulse with activity, minute beats that passed through them, sometimes going in, more often going out.</p><p></p><p>Bredan suddenly realized what he was seeing. This was a depiction of what the book had tried to tell him. The nodes were the lives that populated his world, and the threads and their root-like connectors were the presence of the outside entities that the Elderlore Libram wanted him to sever.</p><p></p><p>“Is this just an illusion, or the reality?” he asked. He could not speak, of course, but he pulsed the question out as a thought. But there was no response.</p><p></p><p>He found his attention drawn to another of the nodes. It wasn’t through any active effort on his part; that one looked much like the others from the outside, with nothing special to draw his focus. But he did not resist the subtle guidance that pushed him in that direction.</p><p></p><p>As he got closer, he could see that this node <em>was</em> different. It was dimmer than the others, lacking the layers within layers that he’d seen from the others that he’d examined. But it was connected to the web with a particularly dense network of links, and the outside connections were so thick that they almost obscured it entirely once he got close enough to see the almost-invisible threads. The node appeared to be inactive, with almost none of the pulses that he’d seen elsewhere.</p><p></p><p>“This is you, isn’t it?” he asked. Again there was no response.</p><p></p><p>“So what is it you want me to do?”</p><p></p><p>There was a slight tremor of power. As the sensation passed through him Bredan looked and saw that he now held a blazing sword of light in his hand. His own form was still indistinct—the hand and the arm it was attached to was just a vague outline against the darkness—but the sword was almost painfully distinct, glowing with such intensity that he could only focus upon it briefly.</p><p></p><p>Knowledge came to him with the surety of instinct, and he knew the choice he had before him. The sword could cut through the node here, and destroy the book in the process. But he could do it with the precision of a surgeon or the violence of a warrior. The former would separate the book’s node from the network but leave the rest of the connections intact. The second would not harm the other nodes—the sword lacked the power to harm them—but would unravel the tendrils that connected to it from outside. Somehow he knew that using the sword was the only way out of this place.</p><p></p><p>“I didn’t want this choice,” he said. Again only silence answered, though the sword seemed to pulse slightly in his hand. He wondered what would happen if he threw it into the void. Would it form again in his hand, or would he be cursed to wander this null-space for an eternity?</p><p></p><p>“Bredan.”</p><p></p><p>The voice was soft, nothing more than a whisper, but the sound of it was so jarring here that at first Bredan thought he’d imagined it. But then it came again, insistent in its intrusion into this otherwise silent space.</p><p></p><p>“Bredan? Damn it, can you hear me?”</p><p></p><p>Bredan searched out the source of the voice. At first it seemed an impossible task, but then he found himself drawn to a node situated quite close to the one that he’d identified as holding the book. He zoomed in on it, shooting past the outermost layers until he was staring at a small globe of light. The voice was coming from it. Bredan recognized it.</p><p></p><p>“Rodan?”</p><p></p><p>“Bredan! Where are you?”</p><p></p><p>“I’m here. Inside the book, or someplace…”</p><p></p><p>“Damn it! Snap out of it, we need you…”</p><p></p><p>Bredan realized that the tiefling could not hear him. Through an effort of will he pressed further, until the node took on definition. He came upon an invisible barrier at its boundary, keeping him from getting any closer, but from that vantage he could just make out a shimmering globe within the light. Figures moved within that globe, and as he continued to focus, they took on definition.</p><p></p><p>He was looking at the vault, staring down at it from some point above the floor. He could see the platform that held the book, and in a jarring shift of perspective see saw himself, standing motionless in front of it. Both he and the book were surrounded by a pale blue glow, a sphere of light that formed a discrete bubble in the center of the room.</p><p></p><p>Rodan was on the edge of that circle. He was clearly trying to get closer, but was being repelled by a field similar to the boundary that held Bredan’s consciousness at bay. He could see the frustration on the tiefling’s face as he called out Bredan’s name again.</p><p></p><p>“I’m here,” Bredan said again, but there was no flicker of recognition to suggest the other man could hear him. But after a moment Rodan seemed to gather himself.</p><p></p><p>“Bredan, I hope you can hear me,” he said. “We made it here… most of us, anyway. Quellan, Glori, and Xeeta are just outside. The women are hurt, but Quellan says they’ll recover. Kosk… Kosk died, Bredan. He and the rest of Sond’s sailors. Quellan brought him back once, but there’s nothing more that he can do for him now. There were guardians… and Kavek. Kavek attacked us. He’s a spellcaster of some sort.”</p><p></p><p>Bredan felt a momentary surge of anger, but like all other emotions in this place it quickly faded. He focused on Rodan’s words once more.</p><p></p><p>“Bredan, the book reached out to us. It told us to tell you to sever the link. It said that it could bring Kosk back if you did. Maybe it was lying… I don’t know. But we wanted to tell you, let you know that we trust you. Gods, I hope you can hear me, that there’s a part of you in there that can hear me. Do what you have to do, and come back to us, Bredan.”</p><p></p><p>Bredan allowed himself to drift back from the node. He could still hear Rodan talking, but the voice faded as he returned to the outside perspective he’d had when he’d initially approached the glowing matrix. He circled around it, circumnavigating the outer perimeter of the web. He looked at the nodes, which he now understood represented all of the life of the world, his world. Or maybe ‘represented’ was the wrong word. Somehow, in this place that the book had taken him, he was literally watching life at it happened. He could see flickers, individually faint, but taken as a whole an ongoing reinvention of the web. Some of the nodes faded, while others slowly grew brighter as new points of light erupted within them. It was a complex, ever-changing mosaic. He knew he could spend his entire life studying it and would never be able to grasp more than its barest outline.</p><p></p><p>He focused again on the threads that connected to the network from outside. He could see that they too were changing. Growing, for the most part; probing deeper into the web, extending fresh tendrils that burrowed into the nodes, taking root until they could begin siphoning off the tiny flickers of energy that flowed out into the outer threads before they disappeared with them into someplace else.</p><p></p><p>Bredan had no idea how long he remained there, watching. The sword remained steady in his grasp. It did not grow heavy the way a mundane weapon would, but he never forgot that it was there.</p><p></p><p>“I can only be what I am,” he said.</p><p></p><p>He lifted the sword, and made his decision.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lazybones, post: 7630490, member: 143"] That would actually have been a cool twist! Wish I'd thought of it! :) * * * Chapter 316 Bredan’s awareness returned within a sea of blackness. He had no sense of his body, or anything else; he was just a disembodied presence within the black. He felt a momentary surge of panic, but without arms or legs to move or a heart to pound in his chest the sensation quickly faded. After an interminable time he became aware of something, a tiny, distant point of light within the utter darkness. It wasn’t much, just a pinprick, but being the only thing that was different, it drew his entire focus. He had no idea how to move in this strange place, but as he continued to concentrate on the dot it began to grow bigger. It became first a sphere, then as he got closer it began to differentiate until he could see that it was a web, a complex matrix of glowing points and connecting lines that formed a bright bubble in the dark. He continued to draw nearer, and the web grew increasingly complex until he could not even begin to count the nodes that were connected to it. His attention focused on one of those brighter points of light and it began to swell, until he could see that it too was made up of hundreds if not thousands of interconnected loci. It all quickly became overwhelming, and as the pressure on his awareness intensified, he drew back until he could once more perceive the whole from a safe distance. He studied it for an interval. Time seemed to have no meaning here, or at least he lacked any point of reference to mark its passage. He gradually became aware of something else. There were other connections to the web, but these were coming from outside it. There were tiny threads, many of them, some bright, and some dark. He could not see where they originated; they all simply faded beyond his perceptions at some undefined distance from the web. But the connections on the other end were more distinct. He closed in again as he studied them, until he could how the threads split off into thousands of tiny tendrils that burrowed into the individual nodes, the tiny distinct points of light that he now knew were themselves additional webs that continued to subdivide in added complexity. Wary of being caught once more, he carefully studied the outside connections. They seemed to pulse with activity, minute beats that passed through them, sometimes going in, more often going out. Bredan suddenly realized what he was seeing. This was a depiction of what the book had tried to tell him. The nodes were the lives that populated his world, and the threads and their root-like connectors were the presence of the outside entities that the Elderlore Libram wanted him to sever. “Is this just an illusion, or the reality?” he asked. He could not speak, of course, but he pulsed the question out as a thought. But there was no response. He found his attention drawn to another of the nodes. It wasn’t through any active effort on his part; that one looked much like the others from the outside, with nothing special to draw his focus. But he did not resist the subtle guidance that pushed him in that direction. As he got closer, he could see that this node [i]was[/i] different. It was dimmer than the others, lacking the layers within layers that he’d seen from the others that he’d examined. But it was connected to the web with a particularly dense network of links, and the outside connections were so thick that they almost obscured it entirely once he got close enough to see the almost-invisible threads. The node appeared to be inactive, with almost none of the pulses that he’d seen elsewhere. “This is you, isn’t it?” he asked. Again there was no response. “So what is it you want me to do?” There was a slight tremor of power. As the sensation passed through him Bredan looked and saw that he now held a blazing sword of light in his hand. His own form was still indistinct—the hand and the arm it was attached to was just a vague outline against the darkness—but the sword was almost painfully distinct, glowing with such intensity that he could only focus upon it briefly. Knowledge came to him with the surety of instinct, and he knew the choice he had before him. The sword could cut through the node here, and destroy the book in the process. But he could do it with the precision of a surgeon or the violence of a warrior. The former would separate the book’s node from the network but leave the rest of the connections intact. The second would not harm the other nodes—the sword lacked the power to harm them—but would unravel the tendrils that connected to it from outside. Somehow he knew that using the sword was the only way out of this place. “I didn’t want this choice,” he said. Again only silence answered, though the sword seemed to pulse slightly in his hand. He wondered what would happen if he threw it into the void. Would it form again in his hand, or would he be cursed to wander this null-space for an eternity? “Bredan.” The voice was soft, nothing more than a whisper, but the sound of it was so jarring here that at first Bredan thought he’d imagined it. But then it came again, insistent in its intrusion into this otherwise silent space. “Bredan? Damn it, can you hear me?” Bredan searched out the source of the voice. At first it seemed an impossible task, but then he found himself drawn to a node situated quite close to the one that he’d identified as holding the book. He zoomed in on it, shooting past the outermost layers until he was staring at a small globe of light. The voice was coming from it. Bredan recognized it. “Rodan?” “Bredan! Where are you?” “I’m here. Inside the book, or someplace…” “Damn it! Snap out of it, we need you…” Bredan realized that the tiefling could not hear him. Through an effort of will he pressed further, until the node took on definition. He came upon an invisible barrier at its boundary, keeping him from getting any closer, but from that vantage he could just make out a shimmering globe within the light. Figures moved within that globe, and as he continued to focus, they took on definition. He was looking at the vault, staring down at it from some point above the floor. He could see the platform that held the book, and in a jarring shift of perspective see saw himself, standing motionless in front of it. Both he and the book were surrounded by a pale blue glow, a sphere of light that formed a discrete bubble in the center of the room. Rodan was on the edge of that circle. He was clearly trying to get closer, but was being repelled by a field similar to the boundary that held Bredan’s consciousness at bay. He could see the frustration on the tiefling’s face as he called out Bredan’s name again. “I’m here,” Bredan said again, but there was no flicker of recognition to suggest the other man could hear him. But after a moment Rodan seemed to gather himself. “Bredan, I hope you can hear me,” he said. “We made it here… most of us, anyway. Quellan, Glori, and Xeeta are just outside. The women are hurt, but Quellan says they’ll recover. Kosk… Kosk died, Bredan. He and the rest of Sond’s sailors. Quellan brought him back once, but there’s nothing more that he can do for him now. There were guardians… and Kavek. Kavek attacked us. He’s a spellcaster of some sort.” Bredan felt a momentary surge of anger, but like all other emotions in this place it quickly faded. He focused on Rodan’s words once more. “Bredan, the book reached out to us. It told us to tell you to sever the link. It said that it could bring Kosk back if you did. Maybe it was lying… I don’t know. But we wanted to tell you, let you know that we trust you. Gods, I hope you can hear me, that there’s a part of you in there that can hear me. Do what you have to do, and come back to us, Bredan.” Bredan allowed himself to drift back from the node. He could still hear Rodan talking, but the voice faded as he returned to the outside perspective he’d had when he’d initially approached the glowing matrix. He circled around it, circumnavigating the outer perimeter of the web. He looked at the nodes, which he now understood represented all of the life of the world, his world. Or maybe ‘represented’ was the wrong word. Somehow, in this place that the book had taken him, he was literally watching life at it happened. He could see flickers, individually faint, but taken as a whole an ongoing reinvention of the web. Some of the nodes faded, while others slowly grew brighter as new points of light erupted within them. It was a complex, ever-changing mosaic. He knew he could spend his entire life studying it and would never be able to grasp more than its barest outline. He focused again on the threads that connected to the network from outside. He could see that they too were changing. Growing, for the most part; probing deeper into the web, extending fresh tendrils that burrowed into the nodes, taking root until they could begin siphoning off the tiny flickers of energy that flowed out into the outer threads before they disappeared with them into someplace else. Bredan had no idea how long he remained there, watching. The sword remained steady in his grasp. It did not grow heavy the way a mundane weapon would, but he never forgot that it was there. “I can only be what I am,” he said. He lifted the sword, and made his decision. [/QUOTE]
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