Crawling Chaos 41

Taking cue from the calmness of his intuition and reassurances of Wendy, Orison forced down the irrational desire to flee and watched the current play unfold. Nicolas, still a teen, held the book with repulsed fascination for a moment before the curator took it and handed it to a vaguely Jewish looking man in his mid thirties. The steel in Mr Rothschild's eyes slightly softened into a look of of pity for the poor soul used to cover the book's case, muttering a prayer under his breath before quickly passing it back.

When it was Smiley's turn, Orison's breath unintentionally hitched. The powers behind the event were smug in their self assurance that everything was under control. Wendy had psychologically braced herself into a study of neutrality. As soon as the book passed into his hands, Smiley's eyes danced with a desire to see the world burn that was so palpable, the young mage had to wonder why no one was trying to get the book from him.

Wendy held him back from rushing past the rope as Smiley softly intoned a soundless word and said "I have called you by your True Name, Old One, and I command you to do my bidding..."

Nothing happened. A few individuals in the know started subtly mocking Smiley with their eyes. When all present saw the curator approach the confused and angry man to take the book, Smiley stepped back and tried to open it. That didn't succeed either and several people started approaching him, already bored of the amusement.

Next, something happened that baffled them all. Looking as if he was leaning in for a quick snatch, the curator whispered something to the frantic Mr. Ashland and stood back. Wendy's eyes widened for a moment before she started laughing.

Filling her companions in, she said, "He corrected Mr. Ashland's pronunciation of the true name he was trying to use. I see what they're doing now... He's said the name correctly this time. Jen, is there something on the bottom of my shoe?"

Wendy distracted Jen to look down as she locked smiling eyes with Orison. A vague dimming of light occurred where Smiley was standing. The young mage was about to see what caused it when Wendy tilted her head slightly and leaned in as if she was asking for a kiss. When he leaned in to oblige, she playfully leaned backwards just out of reach, pretending to knock into Jen before pulling them to the floor.

Indecently sprawled on Wendy, Orison made to stand up when Wendy wrapped her arms around his neck. Their display garnered quite a bit of attention from the occult melodrama surrounding Smiley. A large image of a chthonic horror silently roared overhead with nearly no witnesses close enough to be affected by it's alien presence before it disappeared and only the gifted were fully capable of seeing it.

Over to the side, Jen landed in a slightly painful and awkward way in front of Nicolas and Mr. Rothschild. Being the refined gentleman that he was, Mr Rothschild lent his aid to help Jen up while Nicolas had gawked for a second before he had moved to do the same a little too late. As he helped Wendy back up, Orison absentmindedly noted that the hint of embarrassment and watery eyes from a smarting backside presented Jen in the most romantic light possible to the gentleman who had lifted her back to her feet.

The young mage was about to compliment Wendy's situational manipulation abilities when a woman's shriek drew everyone's attention. A middle aged patron of the museum had saw Smiley turn into a leathery mummy and collapse to the ground. Nearly no one witnessed the ancient book open its clasps and draw in a palm sized black book with an inverted pentagram on it, seeming to have 'eaten' the small book.

Orison had seen it because his eyes had laser focused on the small book that blazed like a soot clogged sun in his spirit vision.

In a display of dramatic concern, the curator 'accidentally' kicked the unclasped book in an effort to reach the fallen Mr. Ashland. The cold metal clasps of the forever silently wailing book allowed it to slide effortlessly across the smooth marble floor to rest at the feet of a young man with a dark aura on the other side of the velvet roped area. As the man bent to pick it up, Wendy sighed.

She leaned in and whispered to Orison, "Reach back with your right hand and pinch what it touches."

Rather than goose the woman behind him as Wendy suggested, Orison more proactively strode forward and snatched the book out of the young man's hand, closing it and snapping the latches shut without looking at it.

He walked it over to the curator and said, "I understand your concern for another person's well being but the Britannia Museum would be quite disappointed to know the person they had entrusted their precious piece of history to, callously kicked it across the floor like a playground ball. Absolutely shameful!"

The curator's electric blue eyes stared murder at Orison for a split second before he laughed absurdly. A doctor who was checking on Mr. Ashland's status, glanced at the curator with a grave frown.

Seeing whatever fun he had planned was ruined, the curator turned to everyone and said, "A young man has chastised and reminded me of my duties. Please continue to enjoy the exhibits while I insure the 'precious piece of history' is undamaged by my callousness."

Quite a few of the patrons looked at the curator like the man was unhinged. There were a total of three people who had suddenly became mummies. Most were already heading out. Orison was ready to leave as well but Wendy asked him to stay for just a little while longer.

While the curator slipped into the back, Orison noted that the book hadn't stayed in his hand for more than two seconds before it had been left to sit on a chair. The young man who had been too stunned to stop the young mage from snatching it earlier but whose eyes never left it, sprinted to and ran off with it. Once again, Wendy stopped Orison from running after.

Frowning, the young mage said, "I know I said I wouldn't ask. But what the hell, Wendy?"

Looking a little like she'd been slapped, she said, "There's rules. I'm trying to protect you from getting ensnared into them. That man had been marked to carry it. I nearly had a heart attack when you grabbed it but you handed it right to the only 'person' in the room whose touch could sever your connection with it. It passed back to the one who had that connection before you... Please don't leave yet. This really is the safest place to be right now."

Looking over to see Jen having an engaging conversation with Mr. Rothschild, he relented and let Wendy lead him over to a secluded bench.

He said, "If this is the safest place to be, should I be worried for my friends out there?"

Wendy replied, "That's a very difficult question to answer for many reasons. The danger is more for people like us than regular folks... If you were curious, Mr. Ashland invoked the image of a great old one. It was meant to incapacitate the gifted in this place after having collected the most powerful ones together. They didn't interfere because some of them must have set up some kind of temporary truce as they sometimes do for events such as these."

Orison nodded. "And due to your staged antics, there were only two victims. From what I can gather, they hadn't been important ones either. Whoever Ms. Chantilly is, they must not have briefed Smiley, er, Harlequin very well for things to turn out this way."

Wendy said, "No, he was probably briefed well. Nyar, ahem, the curator must have interfered or been indirectly involved with him in some way. It doesn't really matter now... It should be safe to leave in another half hour, probably sooner but I want to make sure."

The young mage said, "What's happening out there, now?"

Wendy sighed. "What is chrism to you?"

Unabashedly, Orison shared what he knew about what he personally called miasma without saying a word about his own use of it.

Wendy nodded and said, "Over ninety-nine percent of the supernatural community at one point or another has either taken some in or used it to create or temper something intimately connected to them if they are tier four or higher. Almost all of the chrism used or in circulation didn't come from outsiders. It came from climbers who succumb to the after effects of chrism. They take too much and transform or they are influenced by entities that have the ability to use the lingering ties left behind by it to force that transformation.

"Chrism from a true outsider is still somewhat alive and has the ability to consume and convert certain essences into much more of a slightly lesser version of itself. This cycle can repeat many times before the result is too weak to repeat it. What is happening out there is related to that, a ripening before the harvest."

To distract himself from the horror of that revelation, Orison thought back to his own dealings with chrism. There was no doubt that his first encounter was from a pure source. The will of Amoril was powerless to do anything about it but shove it towards the only person in its realm that could take it in and neutralize it into something usable. There was more than a subtle intent to 'harvest' it after the fact as well.

The second time he encountered it on Osomo, most of its bulk had already been claimed. Orison noted that it was stronger, much larger in amount, having the ability to warp surroundings as well. It didn't seem like it was converting much of anything to be more of itself, however. It was only contaminating and transforming things.

Wendy pulled a small, round and smoothly polished crystal pendulum on a delicate chain. "This is a gift from my patron. Going from infrared to ultraviolet, it can test how unstable, and therefore vulnerable, a person is to forceful transformation. It can also test for how much of something is made up of chrism which is more useful for objects. If you like, I could use it to give you an idea of how vulnerable you are.

"I won't use it without your permission, of course. Don't expect it to give you good news if you've used some chrism in the past. Are you interested?"

Orison nodded. "Forewarned is forearmed."

As she activated the crystal while touching it to the young mage's skin, she joked lamely, "Four armed, you don't even have three... Probably not the best joke to make after talking about forceful transformations. I have bad comedic timing if you couldn't tell."

As the crystal turned a deep red before starting to mellow out to a deep orange, Orison said, "What you lack for in that department is made up for in your nearly flawless execution of situational manipulation."

Wendy smiled. "I can set up the dominoes pretty well but I can't seem to talk with them very well. I find them quite wooden or boneheaded... I'm working on delivery, alright. How can I get better if I don't practice?... I-it's not moving past orange!? Just the casual contact you had with the book and Nya- the curator tonight would have nearly made the most supernaturally insensitive mundane, yellow!"

Orison said, "I'm taking that as good news."

Before he had even finished his statement, the crystal went clear for a moment before instantly jumping to yellow and steadily climbing to green. It slowed down after that but slowly creeped forward until it was fairly between green and blue. It was almost the color he perceived pure soul essence as.

Frowning, Orison said, "Oh. It looks like I celebrated too early."

Wendy looked at him with sheer disbelief.

They sat silently for awhile, wrapped up in their own thoughts before she finally said, "That second time was the other kind of test. You best know yourself. I-I don't think it's safe for me to say anything more. There's too much of a chance to endanger you or myself... For many reasons."

Orison tried to at least explain that he wasn't a conduit with a soul or anything like that but Wendy put a finger to his lips before squeezing his hand. "It doesn't matter WHAT you are. WHO you are is pretty likable. I just hope you can keep that. Keep that and stay alive until you reach Nexus. After that, it won't matter as much anymore."

He looked at her to feel out if she could answer more on what the Nexus was but she only shook her head and let him know as best she could, without saying more, that she had shared what she could. As he was about to break the tension with a more pleasant topic, a shimmer of spacial disturbance ran through the air like a ripple spreading from a stone thrown into a pond. Wendy stood up staring daggers at nothing in particular.

"You'd compromise your own plans to endanger us!? You insane Greater Old Fart!" Wendy muttered, enraged.

Turning to Orison, she said, "The situation has changed. Because I stopped you from chasing down the man who grabbed the book, I may have saved you from something bad but I may have also endangered people who you might care for so I'll have to move us somewhere. Please don't fight it. I'll try to reach as far as I can through you so if you fight it, I'll fail and we might die or worse."

A spectrum of light flowed around her and then through Orison. He felt it reach through him to touch others and then the idea of others from his illusion. It happened too fast for him to warn her and he couldn't fight for fear of making her fail.

He felt a mighty yanking sensation and was temporarily blinded by a cascade of prismatic light. As it cleared, he saw Wendy gawking behind him. When the young mage turned to look, he saw a small army of spectral entities that winked out one by one, reabsorbed by the dark ground of the gray waste they were in but there were some exceptions. Two separate Neils coalesced together and dragged the 'real' Neil into wherever they were before merging together. Two separate teenage forms merged with James, knocking a devil out before it was consumed by the ground. Jacob's joined with him directly since his real form was already here.

The strangest of all the weirdness that took place was the dredging up of a stripped soul core that merged with the adult and child forms of Jimmy from Orison's illusion. That was followed by a six inch spectral Jammers drawing out the dormant and waiting potential of the Jammers in the white hole ring of his space, merging together and tethering to the spectral Jimmy with a soul core. Without a formed physical body, the potential of Jammers had to make up the difference from his own substance and merge their dual sides together. What came into being could only be called Jimmers by the dumbstruck Orison.

Distracted by that craziness, he was taken off guard when a ghoulish woman tapped him on the shoulder in time to see her merge with the specter of Flora she had captured. "Now the two sides of myself are better balanced, father. The conversation between us was real. Do not call upon the abyssal will or you will harm us and all we have striven to avenge and save."

Unable to see or hear the abyssal projection that Orison experienced, Wendy looked at him in worried confusion. She was confused for different reasons when she saw the well formed visage of 'Jimmers' disappear along with James and a few others even Orison hadn't registered as being there and no longer would know had been. For whatever reason they had been chosen, Orison WAS aware that the scary woman who was a combination of Flora and one of his other 'children', had spirited full and semi real people away.

By the time that Orison shook himself out of the slightly paralyzed state that he had been in, of his people, there was; Neil, Jacob, Nicolas and a bulldog of a fifty or so year old lady that was sawing logs loudly. From a vague recollection of a picture he'd seen only once, he pieced together that the rough looking older woman was Zeke's aunt. She wasn't the only one who was asleep. All of his people were but she was the only one who looked peaceful. The other three were writhing and moaning as two or more different versions of the same person sought equilibrium.

Wendy shook her head and said to him, "Only in the lower dimensions can such a nonsense thing happen from just being drawn into a 'bridge'. I hate the lower dimensions... Once you reach the mid dimensions, things are a little less 'subjective'. Reality there is quite a bit more firm and you only have to worry about things getting all topsy-turvy and twisted when there's Outer Gods and Old Ones mucking around."

Orison asked, "What exactly did happen?"

Wendy said, "Out in the dying world, someone sicked the visage of a Great Old One on us. Since the guy who grabbed that book couldn't have possibly opened it yet, it was probably the same one that was used the first time, Ghatanothoa. Turns people into mummies that are still aware but unable to do anything... Um, what do you see around you? The space around you, what does it look like?"

Orison slowly blinked once due to the whiplash change of topic.

He looked around and said, "Dark ground, gray sky and hazy gray mounds dotting the distance here and there."

Wendy looked sad and closed her eyes for a moment. "Juk-Shabb, my patron, must not be able to reach you for some reason... I've done everything I need to do here and my patron's called me to another world. If you make it to the Nexus, do you think you might try to contact me? I'd like to meet you again."

He nodded and said, "It would help if I knew what the Nexus was and how to get there."

She said, "Keep climbing once you get to the mid dimensions and it's almost a guarantee that you'll get there. You'll know it once you've been... No one can stay here long or they'll get lost and since you can't see the gates, you'll get stuck here too. I need to send you back."

Seeing how forlorn she looked, the young mage pulled her in for a hug. Stiff for a moment, she relaxed into it for all of two seconds before giving him a peck on the cheek which he tried to turn into something more substantial. He didn't get a chance as he found himself standing back in the museum. There were a few more 'living' mummies present and Orison realized it probably wasn't a good idea to stick around.