A Brief Moment of Insanity Ch. 07

All characters are 18 years or older. The chapters alternate between Warren and Shu for the first half. I don't want to confuse you the reader. It was suggested that I mention sources for cross over characters. I will do this from now on for readers that haven't read other stories and want to be able to learn about those other characters. I hope you enjoy this latest installment. As always please vote and comment.

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Wherever I May Roam:

The plane smelled like sex. I sat in my seat drained of every last drop while Shu, formerly Jeannie and the twins slept it off. My thoughts weren't on the sleeping trio but on the black pawn and all the deaths surrounding him. The numbers didn't lie plus the way the women died were all too similar. Was he directly or indirectly involved? Did the Black Player have an agenda and use him for reasons I couldn't even begin to understand? I got up to take a piss and wash up.

I had just finished drying off from my cat bath when everything went wrong. I was naked one moment and in the Circle Mage's uniform the next. I raced out and looked around. The twins were huddled together at the far end of the cabin and Shu was just a few feet away. I had to choose and it was logic that guided my actions. I raced over to the sleeping Shu and took her into my arms. I had barely formed the shield around us when the plane disintegrated around us. We fell from over thirty thousand feet.

While I was quite skilled with basic spells I had never tried to maintain two spells at the same time. So while we quickly reached terminal velocity I tried to alter the shield spell to slow us down. Failing that I did the only thing I knew I could, I reinforced it as much as possible. We were over the Pacific Ocean but our exact location I would have to determine later. I focused on the task at hand and tried not to think about the deaths of the twins. Someone was going to pay for this. I promised myself that.

The ocean was rushing up to meet us. I had no idea if the spell would hold but it was our best hope of survival. I closed my eyes to focus my concentration on the spell. The shield struck the surface of the ocean. The psychic backlash rendered me unconscious. How long I was out cold I didn't know. But I will never forget the first images that I saw when I opened my eyes. I had washed up on a beach. I got to my feet slowly and looked towards the interior of the island and instantly wished I hadn't.

"What the holy hell," I cried out. "This can't be real, I must be dreaming... having a fucking nightmare."

But I could smell the sea, feel the heat of the sunlight and sense the overwhelming menace of the ruins before me. I looked around and saw no sign of Shu/Jeannie. I tried to access her via the neural link and still nothing. Maybe I was dreaming? There was nothing in my mind that could possibly generate the nightmare geometry before me. I remembered the black pieces on the chessboard. I could see them in my mind's eye and the way some of them defied the laws of nature and physics. This abhorrent city had to belong to them. It literally screamed death and damnation. But if Shu was there I had to find her no matter the cost. I readied a combat spell in one hand and a defensive one in the other.

I took a deep breath and headed inland. I had read my fair share of horror stories in my time and they often use words like indescribable, unfathomable and impossible. I used to think of it as a cop out but there towering above the primordial jungle were things that could only be described with those same useless words. The very geometry of the place was poisoning the normal space around it. The contamination was evident in the way the flora and fauna closest to the city was far more warped than those near the beach. How long until this venom spread from this island?

I discovered the remnant of a road. I bent down and examined one of the stones that some unknown people laid down in ancient times. The brick was flat, hexagonal and crafted of some dull blue material. The honeycomb path ended where the earth had been thrown up severing two ends of the road. I examined the irregular surface of the cliff and saw enough handholds to make it scalable. I dropped the spells and began climbing. It was nice to see my gentleman thief skills being used again.

I topped the cliff in no time at all. It was a small accomplishment but it meant the world to me. The further I went the worse the landscape became. The very air seemed to warp as I reached the outskirts of the city. Here another road appeared but this one stank of epochs of time that belonged to the gulfs of space not here on earth. I centered myself and stepped onto the dark path. The energy seemed to well up from the ground and I tried to keep it at bay, but for how long? It was part of the environment as much as the air I breathed. It took me the better part of the day to get to the closest building.

I looked up at the dark stone obelisk and stared at its archaic symbols. I was half expecting to see one particular design but it was absent. I was looking for the same design that had been branded on Bian's flesh. It wasn't here but it could be on one of the other structures. I had to look away from the damned thing because it appeared to shift subtly as I stood there. The path ahead was shadow strewn even though the sun was in a position to cast shadows in another direction. This place spat in the face of normal and I wanted to leave but I couldn't until I found Shu.

If she was here I had to get her out of this god forsaken city. I steeled my nerves and strode deeper into the city. The shadows shifted, warped and even changed their shape as I passed the other buildings. They no longer represented the things casting them any longer but bestial shapes of monstrous size and dimension. The necropolis stretched out like some endless graveyard until I reached the largest and most impressive structure in the entire city. I must have arrived at the center and this monument was dedicated to whatever foul deity ruled here.

I was staring at the building and I tried to estimate its height. I accessed Shu's hardware and sent out a pulse to measure the structure. The software did the rest and its final calculation put the thing at over four thousand feet tall. How the hell was that even possible? As I walked around the base of the building I caught sight of movement. We saw each other at the same moment. He was wearing vintage clothing that looked like something out of the roaring twenties. The more I looked at his clothes the more I believed they were originals and not reproductions. He was looking at me with the same incredulous expression.

"Nice clothes," I said and he smiled.

"I was about to say the same thing. Where is your boat?"

"I washed up on shore. My plane broke up midair." I said and his eyes widened in shock.

"How high up were you?"

"I don't know for sure but at least thirty thousand feet," I replied and he made that face again.

"They don't make a plane that can fly that high," he replied.

"It was a jet. You know pressurized cabin, GPS navigation and all that."

He looked stumped as if my words didn't register. Yet another impossible thought crossed my mind. Maybe his clothing was vintage because he bought it only a short time ago. He was from the 1920's and even time was warped on this fucking island. He was looking at me and stroking his heavily stubbled chin.

"I hate this island and I just got here," I said and he touched his nose. "Warren Harrower..."

"Mark Donovan," he said and grinned. "...Parapsychologist and Professor of Psychology and Linguistics at Miskatonic University."

"My great uncle studied at Miskatonic," I replied and then there was that awkward silence. "I am looking for a friend of mine. I think she may be lost on this hell hole."

"I hope not for her sake. The natives offer up women to one of their more active deities here, Dagon. It is not a pleasant experience and if she is lucky she will perish."

"I take it surviving is worse," I said and he made a face. "So what brings you here?"

"I am here to stop something from waking up. There were thirty of us that landed on the Miskatonic. I am the only survivor. Whatever it is, I suspect it sleeps in there." He said pointing to the structure before us. "According to the Mal Contentis today is the day and the hour is nearly upon us."

"Do you have a game plan?" I asked and he smiled holding up a piece of green soap stone. "What the hell is that?"

"It is called an elder sign," Mark said determinedly. "This one was created by the First Ones to seal away fuckers like this. The bad part is I have to physically attach it to the damned thing after it wakes up."

"Can I see it?" I asked and he nodded as he handed it to me. I scanned the design, the composition and most importantly the power signature it was emitting. "This thing is giving off a real particular frequency. If I could duplicate it I might help amp up the power on this thing or create my own."

"You can do that," he asked as he took the stone back.

"Theoretically," I said as I let the hardware run the simulation.

As the neural link percolated the building began to change. The once blank side of the structure was slowly morphing into a twenty story high, five story wide door. Are you fucking kidding me? The door began to open from the inside.

Shu Fly:

I opened my eyes and looked around. The sensation of the water lapping against my lower torso woke me up. Where is the plane? Where the hell am I? I instinctively tried to tap into a satellite feed and failed. I reached out for my other half and again the connection had been severed. Was this sensation fear? I sat up and got to my feet. I was still naked, why hadn't Warren dressed me? My environment was quite disturbing and depressing. The sand was black and the air stunk of death and decay. I turned around and felt my jaw drop open. Jutting from beyond the jungle were hundreds of titanic obelisks, towers and temples.

If Warren had survived he would head in that direction. The clearest path was a stream that led inland. Well onward and upward, I stepped into the stream and shivered. After barely twenty steps my feet hurt terribly. The rocks below the water's surface were pointed and quite sharp. A simple solution came to mind. I stopped, closed my eyes and accessed the crystal nanites coursing through my system. I tapped into their basic programming and heightened my bodies healing factor. I raised the factor by twenty and waited for them to confirm my instructions. After taking another twenty or so steps the pain in my feet faded to nothing.

The stream had a strong salty smell and by dipping my hand into it I confirmed my suspicions. The source of what should have been a fresh water supply was contaminated. Warren would have said something like, why am I not surprised. I accepted this strange fact and continued inland. After a quarter of a mile in I heard voices. My hearing was in the same category as Warren's. Much of my physiology was patterned off of his Althan anatomy since Shu's own DNA, like Warren's, had strong ties to that ancient blood line. I suspected that is why he did what he did. He read something in her memories that told him she was related to the Family. Perhaps that is why she tried to murder Tsun?

I had few of her memories left intact. I looked at my hands and decided to call on the nanites one last time. I would honor Warren's heritage and reproduce the six digits on my hands and feet. That way he wouldn't feel so alone. I know that it bothered him even if he never spoke of it. The sounds of the voices forced me to stop and crouch. I didn't know if they were friendly or not. I assumed they were hostile until I was proven otherwise. I knelt and listened and quickly determined the language was not human. There was that feeling again, fear. I tapped into my memories of the time Warren had spent with Oswald Kane. I moved silently and remained hidden until I topped a rise and looked at the small lake. I examined the creatures as well as the strange devices that rose from the surface of the lake.

The beings averaged about six feet in height. They were roughly humanoid in shape, possessing a head, two arms and two legs. There the similarity ended between humanity and this species. They were Piscivores, fish folk and were gathered around the odd apparatus in a large number. They shared certain common characteristics like the large unblinking watery blue eyes, webbed fingers and toes and the shimmering scales of their aquatic ancestors. Most shared the same alternating blue-green pattern that was darker on their backs and lighter on their bellies and inner arms and legs. A few had navy blue backs and white bellies while still others had a green and silver pattern. I did notice that all of them possessed members of prodigious size and were either semi-erect or fully erect.

At least thirty of them were armed with what appeared to be stylized golden tridents. A closer look revealed that the tridents possessed wickedly sharp blades. The art style possessed many aquatic themes depicting fish, octopi and nets. These must be the Deep Ones mentioned in the Keystone. There wasn't much material but they were the enemies of humans and Nephilim alike.

I was going to have to circumnavigate the lake and head towards the city proper so I could find Warren. I began to do just that when the situation changed. I heard the cries from the three women as they were dragged into view. A new feeling took hold, hopelessness. I didn't like these emotions. The women were human and all of them known to me. Two were nearly identical and were Warren's cousins Ting and Ling. The third was our pilot Amanda Payne. They had been stripped down and the Deep Ones were excited as they separated Amanda from the group.

She struggled uselessly against the far more powerful fish creatures. A new figure appeared from beneath the surface of the lake. He was taller and larger than the other Deep Ones. He wore an elegant golden crown and had in his grasp a staff of ebony and silver. The crown and staff were wrought with the same craftsmanship and style as the tridents. The pilot was taken to a spot between the two devices. With a shout the furthest device began to move and a length of chain was pulled upward. Something seemed to be moving up from the floor of the lake. The Deep Ones began chanting as a great black stone broke the surface. I saw the shackles attached to the stone and realized they meant to sacrifice her. I had to stop them, but how?

There was only one of me and so many of them. I sat down and the hopelessness nearly overwhelmed me. How could I let these women be sacrificed to some foul water deity? I couldn't and I would find a way. I watched as they shackled the pilot face down on the stone. That was an odd way to position her unless, oh no they wouldn't! I hugged myself as I figured out what was likely to befall all three of them. Suddenly four letters appeared in my field of vision from my optical display, WWWD. I puzzled over why the letters had appeared and what they meant. A moment later I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. It was obvious now what they stood for, What Would Warren Do.

What would he do? That was easy; he would rain hell fire down upon them and wipe them all out. But he was a Circle Mage now while I was... I paused and thought about it for a moment. I shared much of his genetic heritage. Was it possible I could access the Althan spell book? Even if I could was it possible to channel a spell terrible enough to wipe out the Deep Ones? I had to try. Despite the danger I worked as quickly as possible. I isolated the spells I would require and began the first one.

The clouds began to gather above the island. It was thin cumulonimbus at first but the low lying clouds began to thicken and darken quickly. My concentration broke from the effort and energy required. I did it was my first thought but my second was there was much more to do. Would I have enough power to enact my plan? Twice more I drew on the weather spell and soon the island was darkened by the thunderheads. I was panting and gasping for breath without ever sparking a single lightning bolt. I didn't have the power. My head touched the ground and that's when I felt it. Lurking below me, buried in the earth was a source of unimaginable power. If I could tap into that I could wipe out the Deep Ones. The danger of course was harming the hostages at the same time.

I managed to sit up and something had changed. I peered through the underbrush and saw the high priest speaking to the surrounding Deep Ones. While I couldn't understand the words I did get the mood of his speech. The signs were unfavorable for a sacrifice. The pilot was unchained and taken to the edge of the lake. The twins joined her shortly and clung to each other. The high priest wasn't being idle though. He and a few select others began to chant a counter spell.

"Oh hell no," I snarled as I lay my hand upon the earth and drew on the energy below me.

My fatigued vanished and I felt like I had imbibed one of Warren's caffeine drinks. I raised my other hand to the heavens and called down the wrath of god. Thunder echoed across the land and the clouds lit up as the lightning was birthed above our heads. The high priest cried out and there was a surge of movement towards the second device. Frantically they activated it and a second chain was yanked upward. I could feel the storm, my storm. When there was enough power I drove my right fist to the ground. Twin bolts of day bright lightning fell from the sky and struck the two devices. The powered burned out the mechanisms and fused the moving parts into a one solid piece of metal.

The remaining electrical charge entered the water and then entered the Deep Ones. Those closest to the devices were killed instantly and those closer to the shore were stunned and fell unconscious. The girls looked around and I cried out to them.

"This way, run this way," I screamed.

The trio raced along the shoreline as I gathered up a second bolt to hurl at the fish things. Suddenly and without any warning I felt him, I felt my connection to Warren restored. He was in grave danger and I could see through his eyes. White hot fear and anger blazed in my breast and I unleashed the bolt to save the man I loved. Even if I fell he would survive.

Life Long Warren-ty:

I closed my eyes as I prepared to mimic the spell that had created the Elder Sign. I saw flashes of brilliant scarlet light from behind my eye lids. Mark Donovan cried out as he struck out at the thing escaping its crypt. I had to reboot the neural link to be able to perform the task I required. It took precious seconds for the wet ware to shut down and restart. I opened my eyes and looked over at Professor Donovan. He had a ring on his left hand. It was this ring that was the source of the scarlet light. It was a silver ring set with thirteen stones.

He would touch one of the faceted gems and aim his hand skyward. The bloody light would lash out and smite the monstrosity that was emerging into our world. I didn't want to look at it but that proved impossible. Nothing alive should be that huge, it stood as tall as a modern day skyscraper. The sunlight painted monstrous details upon the newly awoken god. It was a mass of tentacles, eyes and gibbering mouths. But then things began to change, clouds gathered out of nowhere. As the sky darkened the scarlet blasts of mystical energy seemed far brighter now.

The neural interface was ready now. I pulled data from my scan of the Elder Sign and linked the holographic network to project the image onto the unholy terror. Maybe it would be enough to drive it back into its vault. I was about ready to do just that when the sky behind us lit up like a nuke had just been dropped. The forward movement of the ever changing mass halted at the exposure of such brilliant illumination. What the hell was going on?